by Chris Carter
‘Hold on a second,’ Agent Williams said. ‘When you say “all of the victim’s blood”, how much blood are we talking about here?’
‘Judging by the victim’s size,’ Hunter commented, ‘somewhere between five and six liters.’
‘I’d say that that’s a pretty good assessment,’ Dr. Morgan agreed before addressing Agent Williams. ‘You see, the estimated volume of blood in a human body is approximately seven to nine percent of its weight. In life, our victim would’ve weighed around one hundred and sixty pounds, give or take.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Agent Fisher interrupted the discussion. ‘But I don’t think that the volume of blood extracted, or how much the victim weighed when alive, is of any real relevance to us. What I want to understand is – how is this possible? You said so yourself, Doc – the blood could not have been extracted through his veins.’ She faced the body on the table one more time. ‘There are no cuts to his body. His throat hasn’t been slit open. His wrists haven’t been touched. How did the killer drain him of all his blood?’
‘Well, there are two problems with your statement, Special Agent Fisher,’ Dr. Morgan countered, his tone of voice tenacious.
She half-glared at him.
‘One,’ the doctor began. ‘The volume of blood extracted is of extreme relevance to us because that was the cause of death, not asphyxiation. Once a body loses over forty percent of its blood volume,’ he explained, ‘which in medical terms is known as a class four hemorrhage, it’s pretty much game over. The strain on the body’s circulatory system becomes too great to survive. The heart will no longer be able to maintain blood pressure and circulation. Major organs will fail and the victim will slip into a comatose state, preceding death. That condition is known as hypovolemic shock.’
‘No suffering,’ Hunter said.
‘Indeed,’ Dr. Morgan agreed. ‘The worst the victim would’ve felt would’ve been a discomfort in his chest as the loss of blood triggered his heart to work overtime to try to get oxygen to tissues. With that, his blood pressure would’ve dropped very quickly, taking him into the comatose state I mentioned.’
Dr. Morgan filled his lungs with air before re-addressing Agent Fisher.
‘And the second problem with your statement is – I didn’t say that the blood could not have been extracted through his veins. What I said was that I don’t believe that this pinprick wound to the victim’s left arm was the killer’s extraction point, which leads us to the only other injury the body has sustained.’ He indicated the puncture-like wound on Timothy Davis’s left thigh.
‘What?’ Agent Fisher looked even more puzzled, but this time she wasn’t alone. Garcia also looked a little lost.
‘Your confusion is completely understandable,’ Dr. Morgan said in a tone that carried no arrogance, no deprecation. ‘I was quite lost myself, but I had to deal with the facts – the victim’s body showed only two injuries – the pinprick to his arm and the puncture to his leg, nothing else. I just couldn’t see a way where whoever did this, whoever drained the victim of his entire volume of blood, could’ve done it by inserting a sixteen-gauge needle into his arm. That left me with one option – the wound to his leg.’
‘OK, but how?’ Agent Williams this time. His attention had gone back to the injury on Timothy Davis’s leg. ‘How could the killer have sucked all the blood out of the victim’s body through a small incision in his leg?’
‘That’s what got me as well,’ the doctor admitted. ‘In all my years as a pathologist, I’ve never seen anything quite like this. If the victim had been decapitated and left upside down, his body still wouldn’t be this drained of blood.’
‘So what’s the answer?’ Agent Fisher queried. ‘How did the killer manage to do this through a hole in his leg?’
‘Very cleverly, and that’s the reason I’ve taken so long with this autopsy. I’ve been racking my brain to understand how this could be possible. I had to dig through his leg wound and inside his body for some sort of clue . . . something to point me in the right direction.’
‘And did you find anything?’
‘I did.’ Dr. Morgan readjusted his glasses on his nose and gestured for everyone to follow him to the other side of the autopsy theater, where a human-body diagram hung from the wall. ‘But I need you to understand that this isn’t a certainty, by any means. What this is, is an educated guess taking into account the wound we have here and what I found during the post-mortem examination. So please stay with me here a moment, OK?’
Everyone’s eyes settled on the diagram. It depicted the main veins and arteries in the human body.
‘We’ll have to wait for toxicology to identify the agent,’ Dr. Morgan began. ‘But for the killer to be able to work without the victim putting up a fight, he would’ve had to have sedated him. Toxicology will tell us what was used.’
Everyone nodded.
‘Now for what I’ve found,’ the doctor continued. ‘The puncture in his leg was very carefully and expertly made to tap directly into the victim’s left external iliac vein.’ He indicated the vein on the diagram. ‘Now here comes the very clever and equally difficult part, but if I’ve got this right the killer inserted something like a four-and-a-half catheter through the leg puncture and into the victim’s external iliac vein. That is essentially a large connecting vein that connects the femoral veins to the common iliac veins. At the level of the fifth lumbar vertebra the left and right common iliac veins come together and become the abdominal vena cava. As the vein approaches the heart it becomes the inferior vena cava.’
On the diagram that hung from the wall, it all looked like one long vein, traveling from halfway down the leg all the way up to the heart.
‘To put it simply,’ Dr. Morgan clarified, ‘this is basically a massive vein that travels to and from the heart. It’s similar to a major city road that crosses several neighborhoods. Though the road remains the same, as it crosses from neighborhood to neighborhood, it acquires different names, that’s all.’ Dr. Morgan’s hands moved away from the diagram. ‘Are you all familiar with the system of inferior vena cava?’
Hunter nodded once; everyone else shook their heads.
Dr. Morgan looked back at him curiously.
‘I read a lot, Doc.’
‘OK,’ the doctor replied, before addressing the rest of the group. ‘The inferior vena cava brings de-oxygenated blood from the lower body regions – legs, back, abdomen and pelvis – to the right atrium of the heart, and that’s why the killer would’ve had to use a long catheter. He very slowly and carefully guided the catheter through the victim’s vein – or veins, as it changes name like I explained – and into the victim’s heart.’
As the doctor explained his theory, Garcia and Agent Fisher began to slowly cringe.
‘At first,’ Dr. Morgan carried on, ‘I thought that the killer would’ve needed some sort of pump to pump the blood out of the victim’s body.’
‘Didn’t he?’ Agent Fisher asked.
‘Well yes, and that’s the real clever thing about all this.’
‘He used the most natural pump of them all,’ Hunter said. ‘He used the victim’s own heart.’
‘What?’
Dr. Morgan nodded, looking impressed.
‘Without a doubt a very clever, think-out-of-the-box idea,’ he said. ‘As I’ve explained, as the victim’s volume of blood decreased, the heart would’ve begun pumping faster, sending more and more blood into the catheter.’
‘But as soon as the blood volume dropped to under sixty per cent,’ Garcia said, ‘as you’ve also explained, game over. The heart would stop pumping. So how did he get the rest of the blood out of the body?’
‘Great question, and the only way I can think of is by doing it manually.’ He directed the group back to the autopsy table and used gestures to explain. ‘First aid. As if he was trying to resuscitate the body. Both hands on the chest, over the heart, and then you pump. One, two, three, four . . . To get the blood from the victim’s arms, I guess
that the killer would’ve had to lift them up one by one and just squeeze the blood out of them and back into the heart. A few more pumps and voilà – one completely dried-of-blood victim.’
‘That’s absolutely insane,’ Agent Fisher said, shaking her head.
‘Perhaps,’ the doctor agreed. ‘But nevertheless effective and seriously clever.’
Sixty-One
‘The markings to his back,’ Agent Fisher asked Hunter as soon as they stepped outside the main building. ‘You deciphered them, didn’t you? You did it in there.’
Hunter paused at the top of the first flight of stairs and looked back at her with fatigued eyes. ‘I think I did, yes.’
‘You think?’
‘It’s been a long day,’ Hunter clarified. ‘I’m tired, my brain is tired, my eyes are tired.’
‘Nevertheless, while in there, you did make out the Latin phrase that the killer carved into the victim’s back, right?’
Hunter’s silence was a resounding ‘Yes’.
‘Do you think you might’ve gotten it wrong? Made a mistake?’
This time his silence meant the opposite of his first. Agent Fisher heard them both loud and clear.
‘OK, so what was it? What was the Latin phrase the killer used this time?’
Hunter looked around. Despite them being alone, he didn’t think that the top of the stairs at the Pima County’s Office of Medical Examiner in Tucson was the best place for them to have that conversation.
‘Shall we maybe talk in the car?’ he suggested.
‘Yes, I think that would be best,’ Agent Williams agreed.
As they all got back into the SUV, Agent Brandon looked like he was about to tell the group something, but he never got the chance.
‘Could I have a quick look at that?’ Hunter asked Agent Williams, referring to the large envelope Dr. Morgan had handed him inside Autopsy Theater One. From it, Hunter retrieved one of the Polaroid photographs that showed the carvings to Timothy Davis’s back.
Agent Fisher scooted over toward Hunter to study the image, but gave up within seconds. If Hunter had already connected the lines and letters to create the new Latin phrase the killer had carved into the back of his fourth victim, what was the point in racking her brain to put that sick puzzle together? She certainly could do without the stress, especially considering the nuclear headache she’d been carrying around with her since she stepped out of that private jet.
‘So what does this one say, Robert?’ This time the question came from Garcia, who was sitting to Hunter’s left.
Hunter scratched his chin before looking at Agent Fisher. As he pronounced the Latin words, he indicated on the Polaroid with his index finger, as if asking her to double-check he hadn’t made a mistake.
‘Pulchritudo habitantem in interius.’
Agent Fisher’s eyes followed Hunter’s finger like a duckling following its mother. The lines connected perfectly to form the letters. The letters connected perfectly to form each of the four words.
Once he showed it to her, it seemed so easy.
‘That seems to be correct, yes,’ she finally agreed.
‘And in English that means what?’ Garcia asked. ‘Beauty . . . where this time?’
‘Resides on the inside?’ Agent Fisher phrased her reply as a question while her gaze settled on Hunter. This time, she was the one asking for confirmation.
He nodded. ‘Pulchritudo habitantem in interius translates as “beauty resides – or beauty lives, or beauty is – on the inside”. The exact wording may vary, but I guess the meaning is pretty much the same.’
‘Beauty lives on the inside?’ Agent Williams repeated the phrase, adding to it a bucket of doubt.
Hunter faced Agent Brandon, who was sitting in the driver’s seat. ‘How are we doing on that film we retrieved from Owen Henderson’s camera? Anything?’
‘Yeah,’ Agent Brandon replied, handing Hunter a new envelope. ‘It’s all done. I went to pick it up while you guys were in there. I just haven’t had the time to hand it over.’
Hunter tore open the envelope and pulled out a thick bunch of colored eight-by ten-inch photographs.
Everyone leaned toward him as he began flipping through the photos.
The first fourteen images were all full-body shots of Timothy Davis lying on the hospital-style bed in the basement of his house. The pictures were taken from a variety of angles and distances. Hunter didn’t linger on any of them for too long.
The next eleven photos were close-up shots of the victim’s face and the odd wound to his left leg. Again, Hunter flipped through those seemingly without too much concern, until he got to the last five photographs.
The impression that everyone got with the final five shots was that Owen Henderson had started going through the motions of documenting the room where the body had been found. He had taken a photo of each of the four walls.
It looked like Timothy Davis had made his basement room into a shrine to his late wife, Ronda.
The first photo was of the wall to the left of the entrance door. Pushed up against it was an antique-looking, white dressing table with a matching tri-fold vanity mirror on it. Hanging from the corners of the mirror were a couple of gold necklaces. Both of them had crucifixes as pendants. Fixed to the leftmost corner of the mirror was a four-by five-inch colored photograph of Timothy and his wife on their wedding day. He was standing behind her with his arms around her waist. Their smiles seemed brighter than the sun up in the sky above them. At the opposite end of the mirror was another photograph of the couple, this time showing Timothy and Ronda as they cut their wedding cake. Their faces were the definition of happiness.
On the dressing table, a few items had been meticulously arranged, almost to the point of OCD. There was a hairbrush, a comb, a small jewelry box, a chrome eyelash curler, two nail files and two clear glass jars. The first one held a multitude of makeup pencils in several different colors and shades. The second one was overflowing with makeup brushes of all different shapes and sizes. At the center of the dressing table, pushed up against the base of the mirror, were three half-full perfume bottles.
Hunter flipped to the next photograph. It showed the basement room’s far wall. Four female garments hung from hooks that had been fixed to it. A thin, see-through protective plastic cover kept all four items from getting dusty. The first garment, on the far left, was Ronda’s wedding dress. The second and third items were two very elegant long evening gowns. The last item was a severely worn blue jeans jacket with two small rips on the right sleeve and a missing front pocket. Next to each of those items was a framed photograph of Ronda Davis wearing them.
Hunter moved on to the next photo. It showed the wall to the right of the entrance door. It was covered from floor to ceiling in more framed photographs of Timothy and Ronda at various locations – the beach, the mountains, dinner parties, their home . . . everywhere. Some of them were from a long time ago, when the two of them were still in college. A few individual ones showed them as kids.
The next photo was of the fourth and last wall, the one with the entrance door. Pushed up against it, to the right of the door, was a wooden console table. On it, a single portrait photograph of Ronda, a blue vase with a bouquet of red roses and a small open jewelry box with just one item inside it – her wedding ring.
The last photograph in the whole set showed the ceiling. It was painted white, just like the walls. At the center of it, a flat chrome lamp with three spotlights supplied the small room with more than enough light. A few water infiltration spots could be seen against two of the corners, which had caused some mold to grow around them.
‘Is this it?’ Agent Fisher asked Agent Brandon.
‘That’s all we’ve got, yes. The film in the camera was a thirty-six-exposure roll. The last six frames were blank.’
Hunter flipped through those last five photographs one more time, his brain working overtime to try to piece things together.
‘Beauty lives on the inside,’ Gar
cia said. ‘So how does that link to the crime scene as a canvas or work of art? Beauty lives inside of what? Inside that room? Is the killer now trying to be philosophical, saying that beauty lives inside us all, we just need to find it, so we can understand his work? Does he consider blood a beautiful thing? What . . . ?’
‘Maybe the killer is talking about the room,’ Agent Fisher said, nodding at the photos. ‘He could be talking about what the room symbolizes.’
‘What the room symbolizes?’ Garcia asked.
‘The undying love between the victim and his late wife.’ Agent Fisher’s tone was calm, totally lacking annoyance. ‘Just look at these pictures. Once you’re inside that room, you’re surrounded by that love. There’s no way you can escape it. Love and sadness reside side by side in there. It practically drips from those walls. Now think about it for a moment – not only murdering Mr. Davis inside that room, but also leaving his body there, surrounded by this “shrine” he created for his wife . . . the shrine he created for their love – that is probably what the killer considers a work of art. Once again, I think his Latin phrase is talking about the entire composition here, like a tribute to love – a love that after Mr. Davis’s wife passed away, lived only on the inside: on the inside of that room – on the inside of him. Like the blood that ran through his veins. That’s why he killed him by draining his blood. It’s all, just like before, symbolism. And you might also be correct about what you suggested – “beauty lives inside us all”.’
Garcia’s eyebrows lifted.
‘If the killer is using this murder to symbolize love,’ Agent Fisher explained, ‘then it’s true that love lives inside us all, just like the blood that runs through our veins.’
‘What about the victim selection?’ Hunter asked.
Both agents looked back at him curiously.
‘Why did the killer pick these four people as his victims?’
Agents Fisher and Williams were back at the same question they had been asking themselves in their new office.
‘There has to have been a reason why the killer knocked on those four doors,’ Hunter concluded.
