“The neck?” The look I got from him made me add, “I haven't approached the body yet; just did a long look at the room.”
“Big, open slash on the right neck. Deep. Really deep. Got the jugular, at least.”
“Oh.” I was about as noncommittal as I could be. Neck? Two neck wounds in forty-eight hours, within ten miles of each other, in a basically rural area?
“The knife's down by the right leg,” he said. He thought he was rubbing it in. “We didn't touch it.”
“Saw it,” I said. “Glad you left it alone.” Well, at least it wasn't a fencing pliers. I had to take a moment to regain my focus. I wanted very badly to rush in and check that neck wound. But first things had to come first.
I hung both the camera bag and the camera around my neck with their straps, and straightened up, looking around the room. Neat room. As in tidy. Even the bunch of little jars and bottles on the vanity looked organized and orderly. To one side of the vanity top was a large, transparent blue plastic box, with seven rows of four doors. The rows were labeled for the days of the week, and the little doors were labeled for times of day. It was a pillbox, for somebody taking prescriptions. I made a mental note to point that out to the ME, and to get a photo.
Some photos, of mostly youngish people, adorned the vanity mirror. Very neat, in organized rows. One of those large, preconfigured frames with about a half dozen oval cutouts, filled with photos of a little kid, hung above the mirror. Maroon velvet or velour jewelry box. Queen-size bed, with what was now just about an obligatory brass frame. The bed was made, with a paisley bedspread. A nightstand, with a brass lamp. What I guessed to be a door to a closet was closed. Tidy, again. There were a couple of stuffed animals on the top of the bookshelf: a teddy bear, a little stuffed vampire with blue skin and a black cape, and one of those little troll dolls with the vertical red hair, like Don King. Boom box, stack of CDs, about a dozen books on the shelves. There was a small table and a chair against the hallway wall, with an older PC on top. Clunky, with no printer, just a keyboard and mouse pad. On the wall at the head of the bed, between the two windows, was a wood-framed embroidered sign, proclaiming in a homey way that “Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder.” That one made me smile. A nice, normal room, with nothing unusual to catch the eye. Absolutely nothing. The bedroom of a neat, organized person.
The unusual part was what wasn't there. As far as I could see, there was no clothing laid out on the bed, nor on the back of a chair, nor on the chest of drawers. And no sign of the little pile of clothes you might expect to find in the wake of someone on her way to the bath. No underwear, no bra, no shoes or socks. Nothing.
“I'd appreciate it,” I said, “if you two would go out into the hall, and not let anybody in unless it's Lamar or the ME.”
“You do know who this dead girl is, don't you, Carl?” asked Herb.
“Hadn't got to see her face, Herb, so, no. Just that she's been called 'Edie.' Do you know who she is?”
“Edith Younger.” I must have given him a blank look, because he added, “You know. Lamar's sister's kid. She's Lamar's niece.”
FIVE
Saturday, October 7, 2000
08:36
I thought, Son ofa bitch. I said, “Damn.” Sure it was. I'd always known her as Edith. I looked at Borman. “Does Lamar know who it is yet?”
Borman gave me a blank look. “How do I know?”
I sighed. “Go get on the phone, call Dispatch, and see if they know if he knows. If he does, fine, but if he doesn't, when he gets here, tell him I want to talk to him before he gets in here, and then come get me. Got it?”
“Sure,” said Borman, heading for the hallway.
“And NO RADIO TRAFFIC, got that?”
“Yes sir.” He did a phony pout. “You old guys are so sensitive.”
I flipped him off, in a friendly sort of way. “It's not nice to irritate your elders.”
“Tell me about it… ” was delivered as he left the room. The whole exchange was flat, forced, but you had to try. It was really getting oppressive in there. I wanted to open all the windows, but we didn't need any flies.
I motioned Herb back toward the hallway. “Stop anybody out there from coming in, will you? Until Borman gets back.”
Alone again, I took some quick photos of the interior of the bedroom with both cameras, rotating myself clockwise, and making certain I overlapped the photos. Then I stepped back almost into the hall, and took three more shots, to establish the scene. I found I had to reload the camera. The Board of Supervisors had recommended we use twelve-exposure rolls, to “save money.” Lamar had bought twenty-four of those rolls, just to give it a try. As it turned out, I had one thirty-six-exposure roll of ISA 400 left in my bag. I loaded it into the camera, and manually forwarded the film to “1.” We'd saved money by deleting the auto-wind option, as well. Thus armed, I ventured back into the bathroom.
Between working twelve-hour shifts, and getting very little sleep before getting called out four hours early today, and the semi-stunned feeling that usually accompanies having to absorb a tremendous amount of evidence and data in a very short time, I was beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed. I stood for about ten seconds, taking a couple of deep breaths, and just sort of clearing my head. What I used to accomplish by having a cigarette. Then I started back to work.
I took four shots from the door frame, just to establish the scene. Then I took a bunch of shots of the body, as I moved alongside the tub. Each from a slightly different angle, they'd give about as complete coverage as possible without moving the corpse. I made a very conscious effort to get as much of the bloodstain patterns as I could. About halfway along, I reached into the bag at my chest, and changed from the 50mm to a 70/210mm zoom. I was getting my first good look at the huge cut in the neck, and I wanted close-ups without having to lean over the body. I kept using both cameras, but the zoom on the digital just wasn't in the same league with the single lens reflex.
I've seen lots of cuts, and this was one of the meaner ones. Only about four inches long, but length, as they say, isn't everything. It appeared to be very, very deep, because there seemed to be a bulge of muscle protruding. Muscle will do that sometimes. Especially if there's a lot of tension on it at the time it's cut. But it has to go deep. It was more of a stab wound than I'd expected. Most suicides use a sawing motion. It was not, though, a tearing wound like the one on the Baumhagen boy. For whatever that was worth.
There was a very dark spot, visible through the bloodstain, on the upper portion of the right breast. My first thought was a contact gunshot wound, but as I leaned a little closer I could see it was some sort of tattoo. That was a relief. The neck cut was certainly enough. There was lots of evidence of blood, but it didn't seem like all that much, considering the wound. The spatter marks on the inside walls of the tub made it look like there'd been more blood than there actually had been. I thought about that for a second, and decided that, sitting upright, if she'd lost enough blood to stop all brain functions, maybe that would stop the heart. Right, Dr. Carl. That's why we have medical examiners.
It then occurred to me that the open drain in the tub could explain that, but it just didn't quite fit, somehow. Something wasn't right.
I knelt down, and got some lower level shots of the wound. To get as much of the cut in frame as possible, I took a pen from my pocket, reached out, and pushed some of her hair back out of the way. As I did so, I saw her face fairly clearly. And her eyes. Big, hazel eyes, wide open, and staring right directly at me.
“Holy shit!” I stood straight up, snagging her hair with the pen clip as I drew my hand back. I reached out to retrieve it, fumbled, and watched my pen drop into the tub. Great.
Those eyes had looked so vital; I'd thought she was still alive. That really startled me. I hadn't been expecting them to look so, I don't know, lifelike, I guess. I took a deep breath, and forced myself to squat back down. I took a shot of the pen in the tub, then gingerly fished it out of the little puddle of re
ddish muck near the drain. Naturally, it had rolled downhill. I took a second shot, depicting the little depression the pen had made in the drying blood.
Only then did I hold it out, push the hair back again, and take the shot. I didn't look at her eyes. I did, though, make a mental note. With her head lolling forward, her eyes must be in a rolled-up position. That might eventually mean nothing, but I sure as hell wasn't ever going to forget it.
I also got some good shots of the knife. It was a new-looking kitchen knife, with a strong, serrated blade. Black polycarbonate handle. Brass rivets. I shook my head. Brass rivets. Hell, even the knife went with the room.
I did a few shots from as nearly directly above her as I could get. I noticed that she seemed to have several colors of nail polish, both on her fingers and on her toes. Black thumb nails, it looked like, with red on the index finger, dark green on the middle finger, dark blue on the ring finger, and white on the little finger. The same sequence was repeated on her toes. I wondered if it meant anything.
I finished photographing the rest of the bathroom, having to reload the camera again. I started to talk to myself, and to her, about that time.
“Sorry, kiddo, but I gotta reload.” There was, of course, no answer. “A few more shots to go. I'll be done in a second, and then we can leave you to yourself until the doc gets here.”
You do that. Well, I do that. When I'm alone with a freshly dead person. Nerves, I guess. Spooked, or getting that way. That, and it always seems such an intrusion, especially when they're in such a vulnerable position. I always get self-conscious and kind of embarrassed. I have to look at parts of them they'd never let me see if they were alive. And I take photos, to boot. So I try to verbally reassure them.
“I don't know, but I think you maybe might have done this to yourself. No clothes to get into when you get out of the tub, you know? Nothing laid out in the bedroom. Like you had no intention of ever leaving that tub.” It was possible. There were absolutely no signs of a struggle, as they say. None but those bruises, and they might not be contemporaneous with her death. The plastic curtain didn't even seem to be much disturbed, hanging properly inside the rim of the tub. It was awfully difficult to imagine someone creeping up behind her, stabbing her in the neck, and having her bleed to death. I'd seen a couple of very determined suicides before, including one woman who'd stabbed herself eleven times in the abdomen with a hunting knife. That had to have taken a while. You could do a lot of damage to yourself if you were in the right frame of mind.
But it still looked… well, wrong. Especially the bruises. But maybe she'd had a fight with her boyfriend earlier in the day. That was possible.
I remembered that Edith had overdosed on pills, at least once for sure. Only once, as far as I knew, because I'd been a night-shift officer then, and had been assigned to that case. That had been a few years back. Not evidence in and of itself, but a prior attempt was at least an indication that she'd achieved a suicidal frame of mind on at least one occasion. But would that even bear on the fact that we had a knife used this time?
Hmm. I could almost hear the endless discussions generated by that, late at night in the dispatch center. That, and the discussion about the position of the knife. Would she have dropped it on that side? Wouldn't it have landed (insert choice) blade forward, rear, up, down, more to the left, more right?… I almost felt I owed it to the night shift to resolve this one quickly.
There was a voice behind me, out in the bedroom.
“Carl, you in there?”
Lamar.
“Yeah, Lamar. You might want to stay out there… ”
I was too late, because as I turned to go to the bedroom, Lamar came to the doorway of the bathroom. His limp was more pronounced than usual, like it got when he was really tired. Don't ever let somebody tell you that gunshot wounds go away, even after years have gone by.
He stopped, more from habit of not disturbing the scene than out of any kind of surprise or shock. We'd both been to these things before, many times. For me to try to intercept his gaze, or to usher him back into the bedroom, would have been an insult. So I just stepped aside and let him look. He took about a full minute, and then cleared his throat.
“Suicide, ya think?”
“Not sure yet, Lamar.”
“Probably, though?”
“Probably, yes. The ME hasn't gotten here yet. I have some questions about those bruises.”
He looked directly at me for the first time since I'd heard his voice. “I know we hear this all the time… but she just wasn't the type, Carl.”
“She did try it before.”
“That was before she had the kid,” he said. “That little girl of hers means too much to her. She'd never leave her this way.”
I didn't say anything.
“The kid's been with my sister most of the time,” said Lamar. “Edie, here, hates that, and hates her mom, too.” He paused, and corrected himself. “Hated. Anyway, she's been trying to get back on her feet, get the kid back. She'd never give up like this.”
Some things are really hard to say, particularly to a friend. But you just have to, sometimes. “That could be, boss,” I said. “That could be. But we better wait for the toxicology report, you know.”
“Yeah. But I don't think she does dope anymore.”
“Okay.”
“But you're right.”
We both looked at Edie for a few moments.
“The neck, they said?”
“Yeah, and that bothers me a little, too. At least for now.”
He made no move to advance, to see the wound himself. “Oh?”
“I can't get a real good look until we move her, but… ”
He looked at me, eyebrows raised. I didn't want to promote any ideas, but he was also my boss.
“You know how self-inflicted wounds like this tend to look like the subject was trying to saw wood? Back and forth, angle changes, and lots of small cuts and scratches where they're off, and where they hesitate?”
He nodded.
“This looks like a one-shot deal to me. So far, anyway. Sure no hesitation marks.” I shrugged. “We don't want to read too much into that, but that's what it looks like.”
“Yeah?” Lamar looked at me expectantly.
“And the bruises, like I said. On the other hand,” I went on, “there's no sign of a struggle in the vicinity of the tub, or in the next room. You can see that. There's no clothes or anything. Either that she took off or that were laid out for her to put on. Like she was never going to get out of the tub, and knew that.” I took a breath. “The clothes bit bothers me, Lamar. I have to admit… ”
We were both quiet for a while.
“You gonna need help on this? At least for a while?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I said. Another officer never hurt. There always seemed something for them to do. “Borman will be okay.”
“You sure?” asked Lamar. “He's takin' those social worker classes… ”
“Yeah, that's okay,” I said. “He needs the experience, and he's already halfway familiar with the case.”
“You got him, then. Did I tell you that Doc Zimmer's doing the workup?”
“Okay. That's good.” Dr. Henry Zimmer, a local MD. Acting as a Deputy County Medical Examiner, being closest physician to the scene. At this point, we didn't require a forensic pathologist; we needed someone to pronounce Edie dead. We couldn't do that, and it was considered bad manners to just drop an obviously deceased at the nearest ER.
“And DCI, maybe?” Lamar asked.
DCI was the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. As a state agency, if we called for one of their agents, if we needed a forensic pathologist, he'd be charged to them. Along with the crime scene processing team, if needed. Tempting. But the state was busy, too, and we always hate to call DCI unless we really need them.
“Probably not yet, Lamar,” I said. As I looked at him, though, I began to realize that this had been more of an order than a question. “Although, if
this were to be a murder… ”
“They really hate to get called in late,” finished Lamar.
We looked at each other.
“It's always best to be sure,” I said.
“True.”
We were both silent in our thoughts for a moment.
“Lamar, tell me the truth. Would you feel better if we called DCI?”
“Yep.”
I reached out and patted him on the shoulder. I'd never done that, but it seemed the right thing to do at the time. “Let's go make the call.” I certainly didn't want to leave him alone with the body.
As we were about halfway through the bedroom, Lamar said, “Hey, Carl?”
I stopped, and turned toward him. “Yeah?” I thought he'd found something.
“Get Hester. Request her by name, okay?” He paused, embarrassed. “I mean, I know Edie's dead… but I'd just like a female DCI agent on this one.”
“Sure.”
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a rolled newspaper. He handed it to me. “You might want to check out the article here, when you get a chance.”
“Okay.”
“I'm glad you're gonna get Hester.”
He meant Hester Gorse, Special Agent, Iowa DCI. Hester and our department went back a long way. She was one of the very best, without a doubt. And what he was trying to say was that he didn't feel too comfortable with male officers examining Edie's body, or going through her personal effects. He'd have to go with me, of course, but Hester would ease his mind just by her presence. The problem was, DCI almost never sent a specific agent on request. They had a rotational assignment procedure, generally based on agent availability, but also designed in part to provide a wide base of experience for their general crim agents. It also served to prevent any hint of collusion between the local requesting department and any specific DCI agent, defense attorneys occasionally being known to grasp at straws. We'd just have to see.
Borman directed me to the phone downstairs. I quietly told him to stick with Lamar. He nodded.
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