Code 61 ch-4

by Donald Harstad

  “Don't feel bad,” I said. “There are some people who live in this county who don't know of the place.” I saw the two occupants of the older car heading toward the house. “ 'Scuse me a sec, Doc,” I said.

  I quickly introduced myself to the male and female who were headed up the steps into the house.

  “Excuse me,” I said. They stopped at the foot of the steps. They were both rather pale complected, and wore their gaming boat uniforms: white frilled shirts, black slacks, black bow ties, black suspenders, black shoes. They were carrying their black jackets. They looked like a mime act. “I'm Deputy Houseman, and I have to talk with you for a few seconds, before you go in.”

  The male was about six feet, slender, with black hair. He had a hole in his earlobe and one in his nostril. Took the jewelry off for work, apparently. The female was about five feet eight, and thin. Dark brown hair pulled back tightly, with ears pierced on the upper curve as well as the lobe. Her jewelry was in place. She, too, had large, dark eyes. Her high cheekbones both had some sort of tattoo, in an exceptionally delicate swirling pattern. I suspected they were temporaries, because they didn't look thick enough to be real.

  “Do you have some identification?” the male asked. For some reason, lots of people seem to think that asking you to produce some form of ID is going to put you on the defensive.

  I opened my badge case, and held it wide for them to see, as if the gun on my hip hadn't told them everything they'd wanted to know. “Sure, here. There's an ongoing investigation inside right now. I'm afraid there's one room that's been closed off for the time being.”

  “Edie's, I assume,” he said.

  “Yep.”

  “Well, I wasn't going up there, anyway.”

  “And,” I added, before they could move, “we're going to have some routine questions for you, as well.”

  “About?” The female. Abrupt. It was time to break the ice.

  “You're Holly Finn, aren't you? The one they call 'Huck'?”

  That seemed to surprise her. Using nicknames will do that when people haven't told you what they are. It implies you know more about them than you really do.

  “Holly's right,” she said. “But you might as well call me Huck. Everybody else does.”

  “Sure,” I said. Then I looked at him. “Stemmer, isn't it? Kevin Stemmer?” Just as if I'd actually recognized him.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You're both aware, I take it, of the, ah, event this morning?” I had to ask, because I certainly didn't want either of them just walking in, maybe thinking Edie was sick or something, and finding out that she was dead. Just to be sure.

  “We know,” she said. “Terrible, but not unexpected. At least,” she added, “not by those of us who knew her best.”

  Knew her best? Didn't go too far in explaining why they hadn't just rushed home, but I was willing to bet that she didn't have any idea that Toby and Hanna had been so talkative.

  “A bad thing,” added Kevin. “But death comes to us all.”

  Well, sure. But it was the second time I'd heard that kind of sentiment that day, and both times it seemed to be designed to minimize Edie's death, not to deal with it. Not so much of a philosophy, but more like a dodge, really. It irritated me just a bit.

  “It's the ones death sneaks up on that I feel for,” I said. “I hate surprises, myself.”

  Hester and Dr. Peters passed by, going on into the house. “Join us as soon as you can?” I saw that Hester had retrieved her laptop from her car. She and Dr. Peters were both carrying black cases as they entered the house.

  “You bet.” I looked back at the two gaming boat employees. “If you two will just check in with Deputy Borman in the parlor… he'll need some information from you, just as soon as you're ready… ”

  “I'd really like,” said Huck, “to use the bathroom, upstairs. If that's all right.” A little sarcasm crept in there. I really couldn't blame her. She did live here, after all.

  “Oh, that's just fine,” I said, advancing past them up the steps, and holding open the door for them. “Just don't go into Edie's room until we're ffnished, okay?”

  “Of course,” said Kevin. Sarcasm again. “Like I said, it's not the first place I'd normally go.”

  “So,” I continued, “just check in with Deputy Borman, and be available in a while.”

  They turned off into the parlor. I watched the reactions of the other residents. Kevin and Huck got sort of deferential treatment. Toby, especially, seemed not so much glad as relieved to see them back.

  I went on upstairs, to Edie's room. I thought we'd just pretty well established the pecking order in the Mansion.

  Dr. Peters and Hester were talking in low tones as I got to Edie's room. Dr. Peters gestured toward the bathroom. “My.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I really wasn't looking forward to another complete tour of that place.

  “I told him about our little discovery of blood under her butt,” said Hester. “And the Conception County incident.”

  Dr. Peters nodded. “Not conclusive in and of itself. I really think we might need the lab team to give us a thorough workup here,” he said. “And I'll talk to my opposite number in Wisconsin as soon as I finish up with the autopsy.”

  “Agreed,” said Hester.

  “So Carl,” said Dr. Peters, “you have some prelim stuff on a digital camera?”

  I did. Hester opened her laptop case. “JPEGs?”

  “Yep,” I replied. “Standard format. You got a USB port?”

  She did, and I produced a USB cable. Plugged one end into the digital camera, the other into her laptop, and in a few seconds, we had photos of Edie in the tub.

  The three of us peered at the laptop LCD screen for a few minutes, moving back and forth between the establishing shots and the close-ups of the wound. Not the resolution I'd get either at home or at the office, but good enough for our purposes. Very good, if you considered the fact that we usually had to wait three days to get film developed.

  Dr. Peters stepped back from the laptop. “And you have the weapon?”

  Hester snapped on a pair of latex gloves, retrieved the knife, and showed it to him by holding it up by the very tip of the blade. He stared at it for several seconds, and she slowly turned it, letting him see all aspects of it.

  “Thanks, Hester,” he said. She put it back in the paper bag. You always use paper bags on anything that has biological material on it. Allows it to breathe, to dry out, as opposed to decomposing and rotting in the airtight seal of plastic. “Can you enlarge the shots of the cut?”

  Hester removed her gloves, and went to her laptop. “You have a bunch of gloves, Carl? I've got maybe one pair left.”

  I indicated my camera bag. “Oh, yeah.”

  She smiled, and began fiddling with the laptop. “I can enlarge it a hundred and fifty percent,” she said, “but then we start to lose so much detail… ”

  Dr. Peters bent down, peering at the screen again. “That's fine,” he said, straightening up. He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Then silence. “And the shots of her backside, please?”

  No problem. He looked at them, and the shots of the bottom of the tub. Silence again.

  Hester and I exchanged glances. We waited a few more seconds, but Dr. Peters said nothing. Then, just as I was about to ask, he spoke.

  “I'm not sure, and I want you to take what I say with a precautionary grain of salt,” he said. “But I want to be on the safe side on this.” He let his eye roam about the room, and he noticed the “Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder” embroidery on the wall. A smile flickered over his face.

  He got quiet on us again. Then, after what seemed an interminable time, he said, “We want the area gone over very thoroughly.” He looked back toward the bathroom. “Very thoroughly. I don't think we have a suicide here. The postmortem will tell me what I really need, but I don't think she died from a self-inflicted wound.”

  Ah. It was out.

  “And,” he went
on, “judging from the photos of the wound, I don't believe you have the right knife there.”

  “It was stuck to her leg,” I said, speaking just a half second before the real meaning dawned on me.

  “I have no doubt of that,” said Dr. Peters, smiling, “but I don't think it was the one used on her neck. From the protruding muscle, I would expect it to be shaped more like a gutting knife, with a hooked point. The muscle in her neck was pulled from the wound, I should think, not forced out from the inside.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “And, I should expect to find some arterial damage,” he said. “The external carotid, or a branch. Largish artery, at any rate.”

  I should know by now never to question Dr. Peters, even obliquely. Not that he has ever shown the slightest resentment. On the contrary, he's more often amused than anything else, and always very comfortable with explaining things.

  “Ah,” I said, sagely, “I wonder, I mean, ah, there's no indication of any arterial spurts in there. Anywhere in there.” I even pointed toward the bathroom. Well, like they say, every village needs an idiot.

  He grinned. “I noticed that, too. Like I say, let me post her, but at this point I really doubt she died in the bathroom,” said Dr. Peters. “I'd like to get a good blood-spatter expert lined up.” He addressed Hester. “Who are you people using these days? Still Barnes?”

  “Last time I checked,” she said.

  “Good,” he said. “We have a classic hair-swipe pattern on the left tub wall… really shouldn't be there, since her head should never have been down there… unless she was thrashing around a lot, and then we should have more than one… ”

  It had officially become a homicide investigation.

  I drew the autopsy assignment, because I was “just so damned good with a camera,” according to Hester, who was at least as good with a camera, but who didn't want to go. She got the interviews with Kevin and Huck, and the reinterviews with Hanna and Melissa and Toby. I'm not sure I got such a bad deal.

  NINE

  Saturday, October 7, 2000

  19:35

  Supper right after an autopsy can be an interesting experience. Not for Dr. Peters, because it was what he did every day, but I was avoiding beef and pork at the buffet. And pasta.

  The lab team had arrived, and was processing the scene. Lamar was sending up two reserve officers, relief for Borman and me, although I'd be going back after we ate. Borman was staying at the residence until the other deputies arrived. I hoped he didn't start a war.

  Hester, Dr. Peters, and I had decided to dine at Warren's, a halfway decent place that wasn't too expensive. It was also fairly quiet, and we could talk a bit without being overheard by anybody but the waitress.

  Hester told us that the interviews hadn't produced much of anything. The suggestion that the death might not have been suicide produced strong denials but nothing more. She also observed that Kevin and Huck were the strong personalities, with Melissa a close second.

  “The difference,” said Hester, “is that Melissa has no followers, while Kevin and Huck do.”

  She also thought that Toby was a real easy pick. “That kid,” she said, “will do almost anything to get your attention. Talks much more than anybody else up there.”

  I could only agree.

  Hester also said that she'd also been told that Edie had apparently been the “housemother” of the establishment, and seemed to pretty well have been the most stable and solid. “She was the one who talked most with this Jessica Hunley, the owner. Seems to have known her the longest, anyway.” She shrugged. “I think she was also sort of counselor-in-residence, so to speak. That's the impression I got. Mostly from Toby, Melissa, and Hanna, though. Not the other two.”

  The autopsy had been very interesting. First of all, Dr. Peters had established conclusively that the wound in Edie's neck had, indeed, damaged the external carotid artery. Not to mention the jugular vein, numerous muscles, and sliced into the posterior wall of the trachea, and left a cut in the fourth cervical vertebra to boot. The fascinating part was that there were multiple cuts inside the neck wound. I'd asked. It meant that the knife had “probably been thrust into the neck, Carl, and then worked back and forth as well as part way in and out, until it was pulled out, carrying some muscle with it.”

  We'd just shared that with Hester.

  “Ah. Then…?”

  “Then,” said Dr. Peters, “I would expect that a self-inflicted wound of that type would have the sawing motion we all know, but there wasn't conspicuous evidence of the sawing motion; more like short, strong thrusts without actually pulling the blade all the way out. Inside, like that, would require too much strength, because the angle is wrong for a self-inflicted wound. I'd bet strongly on a second party wielding the knife.”

  “But could it possibly be a suicide?”

  “Probably wouldn't have pulled it out after all that,” said Dr. Peters. “The self-inflicted neck wounds I've seen, if there is deep penetration, tend to expire without pulling the knife out.” He took a bite of his roast beef.

  “The pain would be excruciating, I should think. Even in a highly agitated mental state.”

  “Not conclusive,” I said, “but narrows the parameters?”

  “Exactly. The conclusive part, Carl, is the absolute lack of arterial spurts in the bathroom area. The carotid cut itself would have produced splashes on a wall several feet from the wound. Several pulses, and with obvious trajectories.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And, I'm bothered by the nick in the trachea. There should have been aspirated blood. There wasn't. I would say,” said Dr. Peters, “at least some of the physical evidence suggests her throat had been cut elsewhere, and she was transported from that location to where she was discovered in her tub.”

  Well, well.

  I took a drink of coffee while he continued to explain the autopsy to Hester.

  “When we washed the blood off the exterior,” he said, “there was some considerable early bruising around her hips and shoulders, as well as her upper arms and thighs and calves.”

  “Blows?” asked Hester.

  “No, I think not. When we cut into them, some were deep, some were more surface bruises, but there was no obvious tissue damage. I'd expect to find she was, indeed, on a course of Coumadin, and we have the commensurate easy bruising involved. But, of course, with a large blood loss, they may not have presented as well as you'd expect.” He thought for a second. “The ones we're interested in, as far as being inflicted near the time of death, though, were broad, with considerable pressure, but no well-defined edges. I'd say some sort of restraint… handgrip marks. But, it occurs to me that, perhaps, something nontraditional was used, too. Something that wouldn't leave striations like cloth or rope. Look for something in that line. Or, maybe not, and it's just that she was in contact with a very uneven and unyielding surface. If so, it was while she was bleeding to death, so there should be significant blood wherever it was.” He took a sip of water. “But there was no bruising on the right breast, or on the rib cage adjacent. That pressure was post mortem.”

  “We're looking for lots of blood evidence, then?” Hester was jotting down notes.

  “Somewhere,” said Dr. Peters. “All things being equal, and the lab work not being back yet, the evidence suggests she was killed somewhere else, and then placed in her tub, and that her throat was cut in an attempt to make it look self-inflicted.” He nodded. “And you're absolutely right. Lots of blood. There was a large blood loss, somewhere. But don't let me mislead you. There are things I have to do yet.”

  “Homicide?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  Cool. Now all we had to do was find the location. Well, find a location, place somebody else there, and figure out why. But a location would be a good start.

  “That much blood,” he said, “even with determined cleanup, there will be trace evidence.” “I'd better call Lamar, and then the county attorney,” I said. “They'll both need to
know.”

  I used the phone in the manager's little closet of an office. As I dialed, it occurred to me that, at least this far, we'd managed the media in a pretty cagey way. Anybody listening on a scanner would have heard only the page for the ambulance, Borman simply being told to go there, and him arriving. I never said where I was. Hester had been notified at home, and had called in to State Radio via her cell phone. Dr. Peters had been notified by phone, as had the lab team. Code sixty-one procedure seemed to be working.

  Good security, plus the media hardly ever paid attention to suicides, anyway, unless they were either prominent people, or could embarrass prominent people. Edie was pretty much a nobody, bless her. She and her Uncle Lamar didn't even have the same last name.

  Homicide had never been mentioned. Well, not till now.

  I called Lamar first, both because he was my boss, and because I thought he just should know before anybody else.

  He answered the phone. “Ridgeway.”

  I liked that. “Hey, Lamar, it's Houseman.”

  “It's not a suicide, is it?”

  “Jesus, Lamar, are you psychic?”

  There was what I can only describe as a moment of satisfied silence at the other end. “Just hoped, I guess,” he said. “I didn't want to think I might have let her down… ”

  Yeah. With suicides, there's always that aspect. “No, not according to Dr. Peters. He wants to wait for the final lab tests, but he says he's sure enough that it wasn't self-inflicted and that we should start treating it as a murder investigation.”

  “Okay,” said Lamar. “You do what you need to.”

  “Right.”

  “Want me to keep it quiet with my sister?”

  “Maybe for a while, Lamar. Let the lab stuff come back. Or, at least hedge.”

  “Do what I can.” There was a slight pause. “Any suspects?”

  “Not really, Lamar. None so far.”

  “I'll see what I can do, too, but I can't be directly involved. You understand?”

  I sure did. A defense attorney would love to have the head of the investigation be the grieving uncle. Absolutely guaranteed a change of venue, too.