Rankin was breathing so heavily his windscreen had fogged up. He turned on the defroster but couldn’t find MacNeice again in the downpour. He took the napkin from his muffin and wiped a clear spot in the fog; MacNeice was now standing on the side of the road, staring directly at a house across the street from him. Without looking either way, he walked across the road and stood staring down at the driveway. “He may be God, but he’s totally nuts,” Rankin muttered. MacNeice was squatting now, the rain coming down so hard it was zipping up all around him, but Rankin could see him touching the ground and then smelling his fingers.
He stood up, looked about and turned to stare back across the road. Rankin rubbed a larger hole in the fog. Again without looking for traffic, MacNeice made his way back down the hill. The water was running in streams along the side of the road, but he splashed through the puddles as if they weren’t there. As he approached the cruiser on the driver’s side, Rankin rolled down the window. “Find what you wanted, sir?” MacNeice was soaked, his hair shining black and stuck to his forehead. He had a big smile on his face.
“I did, Officer—”
“Rankin, sir. Stephen Rankin.”
“Rankin, this was local talent.”
“Sir?”
“Homegrown.” He tapped the roof of the cruiser, smiled down at Rankin and added, “You take care now.”
Rankin looked in his rear-view mirror, trying to spot where this crazy man had gone, but the back window was so fogged up he couldn’t see anything. He lowered his window to check the side mirror and, sure enough, as MacNeice began his U-turn, Rankin could see he was still smiling.
Rankin’s radio burped into life. “Rankin, Vittelli here. He still on the road? Over.”
“Ah, nope, he’s just turning down the hill. Happy as a loon. Wet as one too. Over.”
“You just met a genius. Over.”
“Scared the shit outta me. Over.” The radio rattled with Vittelli’s laughter.
15.
AS HE SWUNG the metal door open and entered the lab, MacNeice stopped in his tracks. Junior was slamming what looked like a kitchen knife into a doubled-over foam mattress while Mary Richardson leaned against the autopsy table on which a white plastic sheet covered, he assumed, the remains of Taaraa Ghosh. Richardson was wearing a dark grey suit and a pale blue blouse under her white lab coat, and she appeared amused by whatever her young assistant was doing.
Glancing MacNeice’s way, she said, “Ah, Detective. I was expecting you earlier.”
“I’m sorry. I got caught in the rain up at the mountain and had to go home and change.”
With a wry smile she looked down at the clipboard she held. “Ah, the ‘mountain,’ yes. I prefer the term escarpment, but then, I’ve seen real mountains.” She pushed herself away from the table, causing the body beneath the sheet to shake slightly. “Well, this young woman may have been unique for someone her age, someone so pretty …”
The violent thumping and grunting from the assistant in the corner distracted them both. Junior appeared, at least to MacNeice, as if he was coming unstuck. The foam innards of the mattress flew up and around him.
“Unique in what respect?” He asked, looking back at her.
“She was a virgin.”
Thump, thump, grunt, thump, thump.
“Does he have to do that, whatever it is?” MacNeice asked.
“He’s testing a theory. But not to worry, he’s almost exhausted. Are you surprised by her virginity, Detective?”
“She seems to have been a singularly focused young woman. No, I’m not surprised.”
Thump, grunt, thump, thump, thump.
Richardson decided to explain. “Junior’s fascinated by the wounds to her abdomen. He believes they’re not random, and he’s been trying to recreate them with the mattress—so far unsuccessfully.”
“There were four in a square.”
“More of a diamond, the centre of which was—fairly precisely—her navel, though there isn’t any indication that he knew that. Judging by the blood pattern, her dress remained in place throughout the attack.”
“Can I see them?” MacNeice asked. Richardson stood away from the table and was about to pull back the sheet when he quickly corrected himself. “I mean, have you a photograph of them?”
“Junior, come here and show Detective MacNeice the printout.”
Sweating, Junior came over with the photo and handed it to MacNeice. “The hard part is that you’ve got two cuts going one way and two the other,” he said. “Doing it quickly is almost impossible. I’ve come close but I haven’t nailed it.” He demonstrated with the knife to show that the assailant would have to change his arm direction to match the angles of the entry points.
“The question is, why bother? She’s already dead,” Richardson said. “If this is a final coup de grâce, why worry about precision? His escape should have been of paramount concern at that point.”
MacNeice looked down at the photo in his hand and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. “Can I borrow your pen, Doctor, and your clipboard?”
Richardson handed them over. “We’ve been studying these wounds for more than two hours, MacNeice, so if you see something we’ve not seen, I’ll be very disappointed.”
MacNeice clipped the print in place and put the pen on one of the entry points. He swiftly connected the four wounds, then handed it to Richardson. She said softly, “My Lord.”
Richardson handed the clipboard to Junior, who looked at MacNeice and said, “No way!” After studying it again, he handed back the near-perfect drawing of a swastika.
“It’s open to another interpretation, but I can’t think of one,” MacNeice said, retrieving the print.
“But what about the precision, and the opposing directions?” Junior asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s ambidextrous and switched hands or shifted his body to get the angle right.”
Turning to Richardson, he said, “Tell me about the neck wound. I’m interested in the angle of the cut—I’m trying to establish the killer’s height.”
MacNeice winced as Richardson folded back the plastic sheet to reveal Taaraa Ghosh’s face, neck and upper chest. Her eyes had been closed, mercifully, but her neck, absent of blood, looked even more horrific than it had on the hill. Her mouth was open slightly, as if she were about to say something.
Richardson reached for her scalpel and, leaning over, opened the wound a little. “You see the slightly downward angle? It’s so deep that you can make it out clearly. Assuming they were both standing on level ground—” She looked over her glasses at MacNeice.
“Yes, they were more or less level.”
“Then you’ve got a man roughly six feet tall, perhaps slightly taller. He’s right-handed and used a slicing uppercut.”
Junior mimicked the swing with his kitchen knife, smiling at MacNeice. As if practising his stroke, he did it again.
“Enough, Junior.”
Richardson pulled the sheet over the dead girl’s head and put her scalpel in a shallow tray alongside several other instruments. She looked directly at MacNeice, her greying hair cut stylishly short, accenting her long, narrow face and aristocratic nose. Her skin had lost none of its peaches-and-cream colour. MacNeice wondered if his own had gone suddenly pale, because she appeared to be looking at him with concern.
As Junior walked away, still practising his backhand, Richardson raised an eyebrow at MacNeice. “One last thing, Mac, the arc of that cut, the precision of those wounds to her abdomen—the man you’re looking for is very comfortable with that blade. There’s no hesitation whatsoever in any of these wounds. If you get close to apprehending him, I would give him a wide berth.”
“Can you describe the blade?”
“It’s a hunting or military type. The blade is three-sixteenths of an inch thick and at its widest, judging by those wounds to her abdomen, it’s one and three-quarters. As for the length, I can’t say precisely, but since two of the thrusts exited her back, I’d
guess somewhere between five and six inches. In other words, extremely nasty.”
“Are you going to do a full autopsy?”
“I think not. We know exactly what killed this young woman. There’s no need to put the family through any more anguish.”
Richardson touched the plastic-covered shoulder and held it for a moment.
MacNeice had one last question. “Were there any bruises or marks that would indicate he held her or struck her with something other than the knife?”
“No. There was faint bruising around the abdominal entry wounds, but that would have been caused by the impact of the hilt. He didn’t touch her except to wipe the blade on her dress when he’d finished.”
MacNeice thanked Richardson and nodded to Junior, who was wrestling the foam mattress into a roll. He looked about the large, bright room. It took a clean efficiency to study death—all fluorescent lighting, white tile and stainless steel, except for the red-tiled floor. Even the smell spoke to the purpose of the place—a slightly acrid mix of several chemicals masking the rancid smell of human decay. Richardson’s office, with its oriental carpet and low incandescent lighting, appeared to be a refuge from the clinical brightness her business demanded.
In the tiled corridor he felt the rage boiling up again, and practised deep breathing until he got behind the wheel of his car. Looking at his sketch of the swastika, MacNeice tried to imagine what else it might be. “What the hell are we into here?”
Driving uptown along King Street, he thought about the killer. If he was right about him, he was certain it wouldn’t end with one death. But he couldn’t shake the notion that the four punctures were more about graphic design than fascism.
16.
BEFORE HE’D MADE it back to Division, MacNeice received two phone calls, one from the mayor and the other from DC Wallace. Wallace had just finished a press conference about the violent death of a young woman at the foot of the mountain stairs, and the task force, under the leadership of Detective Superintendent MacNeice, that was hard at work finding her killer. The call was to find out if indeed that was true, and, if so, how quickly MacNeice thought he’d have some good news.
Bob Maybank was calling because the unions were getting overheated about not having access to the eastern wharf. They had begun pushing about when their crews could resume the work they had been hired to do. In the senior ranks of the trade unions there was currently a high degree of cooperation with and respect for the mayor. But this was tethered by piano wire to Maybank’s ability to find the funds for the waterfront project. Should anything jeopardize that initiative, they would shut the city down.
MacNeice told them both in turn that the investigations had entered a quiet but productive phase, and the length of time they’d take couldn’t as yet be determined. He didn’t mention to either his suspicion that Taaraa Ghosh’s killing was just the first, nor did he refer to the cryptic rendering of a swastika punched deep into her abdomen by a knife that was almost two inches wide. To ease union pressure, he told Maybank that the mayor could send everyone back to work once the dock had been cleared of evidence. Neither caller was satisfied with his answers.
Ryan was at his computer, scanning the DVDs from Dundurn General. “You’ve got two messages, sir, from Sue-Ellen Hughes. She asked that you call her back as soon as possible and said she’ll call back again if you don’t.”
“Thank you. How are you doing?”
“I developed a crude PRA so I can scan faster.” Seeing the questioning look on MacNeice’s face, he clarified. “It’s a pattern-recognition application that picks up her details—height, skin colour, hair, even the way she walks—and flags them so I can fly through the footage and not miss anything.”
“Does it work?”
“I’ve got about thirty sequences from the fractures clinic. I went through them a second time without the app, and yes, sir, it works. I’m almost finished Fractures. I’ve got Family Practice, Maternity, the ICU, cafeteria, Emergency and parking left to do.”
“Go to the emergency ward next, and then the parking lot—but show me what you’ve found.”
“No problem. It’ll come up on that screen.” He pointed to the left monitor.
While he was waiting for the videos to appear, MacNeice looked more closely at Ryan’s setup. The monitor he was watching had a pale blue frame with fake blood splatters near the top. The far right monitor was beige, or whatever computer companies before the Apple revolution called beige. The largest of the monitors was in the middle. It had a wide black frame with a round sticker on it, like something you’d see in a shop full of pot paraphernalia. In the middle of the sticker was MFS in black block letters; above it was BEWARE in yellow, and below, SYNDROME, also in yellow. The background was a swirl of purple and green, as if someone had put a Mixmaster into a bucket of grape and lime ice cream. Strip the colour away, however, and it could have been produced by the FBI.
“What’s MFS?” MacNeice asked.
“Millennium Falcon Syndrome. It’s when you stick with legacy technology because you believe nothing’s faster, more powerful or cooler. Even when it means you’re keeping it together with gum and string and cannibalized parts from dead falcons, you won’t give up. That’s MFS. Your judgment is clouded by emotion and affection—puppy love.” He stood up, reached behind the centre monitor and moved a wire to the monitor on the left. “If afflicted with this disorder, you can die—tech-wise—but if you survive, you may be declared the best tech pilot around.” He smiled, sat down and said, “I’m ready, sir. Ghosh was in the fracture clinic for only four days before she died. Here’s all of it.”
As MacNeice watched the sequences unfold, the impact her death would have on the hospital was very clear. She engaged people easily, and those she spoke to were more often than not smiling at her. Ghosh was a young woman in the thick of things, immersed in the activities of a nursing practicum. Interactions with the staff—doctors, nurses and orderlies—appeared to be cordial. Her exchanges, however brief, with patients young and old revealed a woman blessed with good humour and compassion.
“Keep going. Incidentally, the search for pattern is the basis of all scientific, psychiatric and homicide investigations.”
“I didn’t know that. Thanks, sir.”
MacNeice went back to his desk, where an insistent red light flashed on his telephone. He had recognized in his conversation with Sue-Ellen Hughes that she was quick-minded and intelligent. Had he thought about it further, he would have known she’d start putting together the pieces of their conversation and call him if he hadn’t called her. He swivelled in his chair to look at the whiteboard and the photo of Master Sergeant Hughes.
The sergeant’s eyes were focused on MacNeice—he had become that distant hill. There’s probably a name for the phenomena, thought MacNeice. He recalled touring London’s National Portrait Gallery with Kate, and that several paintings there had produced the same effect. He would walk back and forth, fixed on the eyes in the painting, and no matter how far he went to the left or right, the eyes appeared to be following him. He had no doubt the same would be true of Hughes, and wondered if the young man was aware of the effect when he showed up for the photo session.
He picked up the phone and called Vertesi’s cell. It rang several times before he answered.
“Yes, boss, what’s up?”
“Give me a topline on the interviews.”
“Well, to quote the head nurse in ICU”—MacNeice could hear him flipping the pages of his notebook—“Taaraa Ghosh was the finest nurse she’d seen in thirty years. That pretty much sums it up—she was a star, hard-working, resourceful … Here’s another quote: ‘a perfect nurse, with the sunniest disposition.’ Doctors loved her too. One of the maternity ward docs told me he’d spoken to her about entering med school once she’d graduated from nursing. He said she would have made a terrific pediatrician. When I asked him how she responded, he said she was willing to consider it.”
“Can Williams handle the r
emaining interviews on his own?”
“Phew … well, I’d say that with this shift and the people who were willing to come in to be interviewed, we’re about halfway. Why? What do you need?”
“I want you to drive down to Tonawanda to tell the sergeant’s wife what happened to him.”
“Jesus, Mac. You mean literally?”
“She’s smart, and she isn’t likely to accept even a well-meaning obfuscation. You’ll tell her that her husband was murdered and that his body was mutilated before being encased in a concrete column and dropped in the bay.”
“Oh man!”
“But you’ll tell her that only if necessary. Start with ‘Your husband was murdered’ and that he was traced by identifying the tattoo on the back of his head. She may not want to hear more.” Though MacNeice didn’t believe that would be the case.
“Anything else?”
“Ask her about the small-calibre bullet wound to his lower back, but other than that, no. Bring back the most recent photos of him, but don’t leave until you know she has someone nearby for support. If there isn’t anyone, call me and I’ll ask the local police to send someone over. I don’t want to tell her over the phone that he’s dead.”
“If she’s so sharp, do you think I can keep the truth from her?”
“Keep the details from her at least. Just say you’re not authorized to discuss them.”
“Good, that helps. Anything else?”
“Visit Old Soldiers. Don’t engage in anything that will put you at risk—is that clear?”
“Yes, sir. When do I go?”
“Right now. I’ll call Mrs. Hughes and tell her to expect you within the next two hours. Let Montile know you’re heading out. Lock up your weapon at home before you leave.” He gave Vertesi Sue-Ellen’s address and phone number and told him not to declare that he was a cop when he crossed the border—he was simply going down to visit old friends for the day.
MacNeice listened to Sue-Ellen’s messages before dialling her number. When they spoke, she wanted an explanation for Vertesi’s visit. When he said there were updates that were better communicated in person, her voice faltered as she asked, “What kind of updates?” He responded by saying that Vertesi would be there within two hours; following his visit, if she wanted to speak further, MacNeice would be available. He was certain it wasn’t the death of her husband she feared. After two years she would have assumed the worst, even if she denied it to friends, family and herself. But the manner of his death was so grotesque there was no easy way to tell her about it. Sending Vertesi was a long-shot attempt to get her to accept the truth without hearing it.
The Ambitious City Page 9
