The Dead Detective

by William Heffernan

  Rourke rattled off six names, the last of which was Jim Morgan, the deputy who had done such a good job at the Brooker Creek crime scene. Rourke noticed Harry nodding approval at the mention of Morgan’s name.

  “I picked Morgan based on what you put down in your report,” Rourke said. “You wrote that he’d done an excellent job. He also pushed hard for the assignment and I thought you could use an eager beaver on the team.”

  “Meaning that the rest of us aren’t?” Vicky teased.

  Rourke leveled a finger at her. “Don’t start with me. I get enough from your partner.” He turned back to Harry. “I just sent word out on their new assignments about an hour ago, so they should be learning about it as we speak. They’re all due in here at three on a ‘forthwith’ to get their specific assignments from you, so you’ve got an hour to figure out who you want doing what. Your team can work out of the conference room next to my office.”

  At three o’clock Harry stood before the team and began handing out assignments. It was basically grunt work for now, much of it going over ground already covered in the initial investigation, looking for anything that might have been missed. Nick Benevuto and John Weathers were sent to interview Darlene’s parents and Clint Walker’s friends and family. Uniforms were assigned to verify the husband’s and boyfriend’s alibis. Others were sent out to interview the men whose cars were parked in Darlene’s driveway in the months leading up to her death. Jim Morgan was told to do another canvass of Darlene’s neighbors. The Tarpon Springs detectives, the two D’s, were sent to canvass the residences around Frank Howard Park, where the “cowboy’s” body had been found. Vicky, because of her background in sex crimes, was told to dig up whatever information she could about the boy Darlene had molested, his family, his friends, along with any psychological treatment he may have received. Harry would take on the unpleasant task of Darlene’s autopsy, as well as reviewing all forensic evidence that had been collected. The following day he was scheduled to meet with Jasmine, the dancer from the Peek-a-Boo Lounge, to view driver’s license photos of men who had visited Darlene’s apartment. It was a massive amount of work, but Harry was convinced he had the manpower to get it done quickly and efficiently. It was now a question of finding that one key piece of evidence that would break the case open.

  Darlene’s autopsy was scheduled for four p.m. It was originally planned for early that morning, but had been delayed when Mort Janlow, the assistant M.E. assigned to the case, was sent out to the Tarpon Springs crime scene. Now Janlow stood before the body, snapping on a pair of latex gloves. Harry stood across from him, watching a grin spread across the medical examiner’s face.

  “Still don’t like these slice-’em-and-dice-’em jobs, eh, Harry?”

  Harry gave Janlow a flat stare and held it until the assistant M.E. was forced to look away. “Not my favorite part of the day,” he finally said. What he didn’t say was that it made him think of his six-year-old brother Jimmy lying on a similar autopsy table twenty years ago. He had never seen his brother then, of course, but that had been the overriding image he’d had as a young deputy witnessing his first autopsy, and it was one that rushed back at him each succeeding time. He believed then, as he believed now, that no one who had ever witnessed an autopsy would want one performed on someone they loved.

  He stared into Darlene Beckett’s dead face, the slightly opened eyes, the parted lips. But most of all he stared at the single word that someone had carved into her forehead, denouncing her as evil. Was she? Or was she a woman fighting her own inner demons. He wondered if he’d ever know the answer, or any part of it.

  “Let’s get to it,” Janlow said, picking up a scalpel for the initial cut. Then he paused and looked at the body. “She was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, wasn’t she?” The question wasn’t directed at Harry, even though he was the only other person in the room. Now Janlow looked at Harry as if embarrassed by the comment. “Most people, even the ones who are extremely attractive in life, don’t carry their looks to this table. The muscle tone is gone; the clear, glowing complexions have turned pale and gray, the eyes are clouded. It makes you realize that it’s not the superficial exterior that we all work so hard at getting right, it’s that spark of life that makes people truly appealing.” He paused. “But every so often there’s one who’s beautiful even in death.”

  “Maybe it’s because that’s all they ever had,” Harry said.

  Janlow inclined his head to one side. “Never thought of it that way. Maybe you’re right, Harry. Maybe you’re right.”

  Janlow reached up and turned on the overhead microphone that would record his observations. He gave the date and time, followed by routine statements. “We are about to begin the postmortem examination of Darlene Beckett, a twenty-six-year-old white female. The body is well developed, and shows no identifying scars or tattoos. There is bruising about the arms and shoulders indicating that she struggled before death. There is only one exterior wound, a deep cut across the throat that severed the thyroid cartilage, the trachea, and the right carotid artery, causing a massive loss of blood, which would have continued until the heart stopped beating. The wound appears to have been administered from behind in a right-to-left motion, indicating the killer used his left hand.”

  Harry noted Janlow’s caution. He had avoided stating flatly that the killer was left-handed. Several years earlier Janlow had performed an autopsy on another of Harry’s cases. It involved a young woman who was beaten to death with a metal softball bat owned by her husband. The blows had come from left to right, and Janlow had declared during the autopsy that the direction of the blows indicated that the killer was left-handed. At trial the defense ripped into Janlow’s report, demonstrating beyond doubt that the husband—the man Harry had arrested—was right-handed. The case seemed certain to fail, until Harry went back into the field and came up with several softball teammates of the accused, each of whom testified on redirect that the husband, though signing his name and throwing a ball with his right hand, always batted left.

  “The wound goes back to the spine and caused a nick in the third vertebrae, indicating a heavy-bladed knife, possibly a hunting knife,” Janlow continued. He paused again, thought over what he had said and then nodded to himself. “Okay, let’s open her up,” Janlow said, bringing himself and Harry back as he began the Y-shaped incision that went from each shoulder to the sternum, then ran in a straight line to the pubis.

  Harry always handled the early stages of an autopsy well. The opening of the body cavity never bothered him. There was Vicks to dab under the nostrils to keep the odor of putrefaction at bay, and the inner organs, when explored and removed, never seemed quite real to him. His difficulties came later when the craniotomy was performed. It began with the sound of the scalp being ripped away from the skull; then pulled down over the face, followed by the buzz of the small electric saw as it cut around the skull; then the popping sound as the skull cap was pulled away, exposing the brain. It was at this point that Harry was always forced to think about what he had just witnessed. And he always came away with the same conclusion: it was the final indignity one human being could force upon another, not much more than a cruel joke, a stripping away of the last vestige of humanity, even if it’s done with a noble intention, a search for the final truth of that person’s life.

  Darlene Beckett’s autopsy took an hour and a half to complete. There would still be microscopic analyses of various organs, and subsequent toxicology reports, but the initial evidence was fairly clear. She had died because someone slit her throat.

  As he prepared to leave the autopsy suite, Harry paused and looked back at the body. It was the last time he would see Darlene Beckett. He would see her in photographs, of course. They would fill his office until the case was solved. But this was the last time he would see her. He stared at her face. The look of surprise and terror were gone now, as if washed away by the autopsy, and Harry again realized how little sympathy he felt for this woman; how much he truly
disliked her, even in death. But as he stared at her profile he offered an unspoken promise, just as he had to all those who had come before her: to find her killer and bring that person to trial. It’s what I do, he thought. It’s what I am, what I was made to be. He continued to stare at Darlene Beckett for several drawn-out moments until he realized that Mort Janlow was watching him. Then he turned and briskly walked away.

  Harry returned to headquarters and went immediately to the CSI lab. He found Sergeant Marty LeBaron in his office, and dropped into a chair facing his desk.

  “So …” Harry began.

  LeBaron grinned at him. “Believe it or not, Harry, I was going to call you.”

  “No need. I’m here.”

  “I was trying for sarcasm,” LeBaron said.

  “Yeah, I know. Sarcasm accepted. So what have you got?”

  “On the cross?”

  “Especially the cross.”

  “The engraving is barely readable, but we were able to bring it up a bit with an acid bath. It’s a line from the Lord’s Prayer. It says: And deliver us from evil …”

  “For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever,” Harry finished.

  “Harry, I didn’t know you were religious.”

  “I’m not.” Harry stared at him across the desk. “Anything else?”

  “Just confirmation of what we already knew. Tire tracks were all standard over-the-counter all-season tires. One set of Firestone; couple of sets of Bridgestone just like the ones we use on our police vehicles. Nothing that was special order, nothing that’s going to help us identify a particular car, just common treads. In Tarpon Springs that software salesman parked his car off the road and carried the blanket and booze onto the beach. But the killer drove around the gate and in to where they were—like he knew he was going to need the car to load up the body.”

  “Or he parked on the road, followed them in, killed them, and then drove in to pick up Darlene’s body,” Harry said.

  “Yeah, that makes sense. Oh, one thing more. The killer, we think, wears a size eleven shoe.”

  “Just like I do,” Harry said. “And half the people who were at the crime scene,” he added as an afterthought.

  LeBaron lifted one foot and placed it on the edge of his desk. “Join the club,” he said.

  At seven o’clock the team was gathered in the conference room. Harry knew that cops were quick to feel slighted if they thought their work was being pushed aside for someone else’s. So to keep everyone happy he advised the group that he’d be taking reports by order of seniority. That put Nick Benevuto first up. He and his partner, John Weathers, had checked out the alibis of Darlene’s ex-husband, Jordan Beckett, and her high school boyfriend, Billy Smithers.

  “The ex was out on his sailboat with his new girlfriend,” Benevuto began. “The marina where he keeps the boat said he filled it up with diesel in the late afternoon on the day of the murder, and told the guy who filled it that he was heading south in the gulf for a few days. The girlfriend confirms that she was with him every minute right up to the time he got the call that Darlene was dead. His office also confirms that he took the time off from work.” He gave Harry a shrug. “Of course, there’s no way of being certain he didn’t have a car stashed somewhere along the route, where he could get back, do his ex-wife, and return to the boat. So I checked for any traffic citations or parking tickets he might have gotten between here and Venice, along with the area north of the marina in case he lied about where he took the boat. I also checked car rentals for him and his girlfriend. Nada. If it went down that way the girlfriend would have to be in on it, and she honestly doesn’t seem the type. She comes across as pretty much of a straight arrow.”

  “What did you find out about her?” Harry asked.

  “She’s an emergency room nurse at Tampa General. They’ve got nothing but good things to say about her—dedicated, caring, all the usual bullshit. I thought I was listening to a goddamn commercial.”

  “Did you have time to check his credit cards to see if he made any gasoline purchases on land at the same time he was supposed to be on the boat?”

  “Not yet, but I planned to do that in the morning.”

  Benevuto said it a bit sheepishly and Harry knew he had caught him out. “Okay, let’s leave Jordan Beckett for now. What about the old boyfriend, Billy Smithers?”

  “Same story,” John Weathers chimed in. “He’s got three buddies who say he was at a Rays game at Tropicana Field the night of the murder. All of them said they stayed to the end then went to a bar for a few beers before heading home. It was at least one a.m. before they left St. Petersburg, so that puts him about thirty miles from the crime scene until well after Darlene was iced. Oh, and Smithers also has his ticket stub from the game. It was still in his wallet.”

  “Why would he keep the ticket stub?” Harry asked.

  “These guys buy reserved seats near the Rays’ dugout. The attendants check tickets every time you go out and try to come back in. So he just stuck the stub in his wallet. It was still there.”

  “Okay, we’ll cross Mr. Smithers off the list for now. When you get a chance check out the bar they were at. Take a driver’s license picture with you and see if the bartender can confirm their story.” Harry turned to the Tarpon Springs detectives, the two D’s, Bob Davis and Jerry Deaver. “What did you guys come up with at the murder sight?”

  Davis and Deaver looked like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. They were the same height, about five-ten; both had the same blocky builds, with thick necks and square faces, and each had out-of-date crew cuts. If they had worn fedoras they would have fit into a 1940s detective flick, Harry thought.

  Davis took the lead: “Our canvass of the neighbors around the park pretty much drew a blank. One guy,” he paused to consult his notebook and rattle off a name and address, “he was out walking his pooch a little before midnight and he remembers two cars being parked near the entrance to the park. He didn’t pay a lot of attention to them because kids park there sometimes and walk into the park to fool around. The work crews claim they pick up a lotta used condoms around the picnic areas, especially on weekends.”

  “At least your local kids are practicing safe sex,” Vicky offered.

  “Yeah, there’s that,” Davis said. “But it doesn’t make me want to eat my lunch on one of those picnic tables.”

  “Did this neighbor remember the make and model of either of the cars?” Harry asked.

  “No. He’s so used to seeing cars there, he didn’t pay much attention. He just noticed they were there. He did remember that both of them looked pretty new for kid’s cars. But other than our dog walker nobody saw anything or heard anything unusual. It’s a pretty quiet neighborhood. On work nights most people are in bed by the time our murder went down. One thing that’s curious is that a car did drive around the gate. CSI has casts of the tires, but there doesn’t seem to be anything special about them. And we can’t be certain it happened around the time of the murder. Could have been earlier, or later. All we know for certain is that they’re Bridgestone tires. Same tread as the car that drove into Brooker Creek.”

  “Yeah,” Harry said. “I already got a report from Marty LeBaron on that. I think we can lean toward the idea that this was the killer’s car. That he drove it in to pick up Darlene’s body. So I’d like you to stay on it. If the cars are new they probably have factory tires on them. So check and see what makes and models came out of the factory with those treads, or better yet what dealers might offer those tires as options.”

  “You got it,” Davis said.

  Harry turned to Vicky. “What did you come up with on the abuse victim and his family?”

  Vicky opened her notebook. “The kid’s name is Billy Hall, but that’s something we can’t let out to the media. His identity is still protected as a juvenile. He’s fifteen years old—he was barely fourteen when Darlene abused him.”

  Nick Benevuto let out a snort. “I wish somebody like Darlene had abused me
when I was fourteen.”

  Soft laughter filled the room.

  Vicky inhaled and let out a long breath. “Alright, guys, let’s get something straight. It is abuse whether it’s done to a male or female. And it does cause harm. Trust me. I saw enough of it in sex crimes.” She could tell she wasn’t getting through to most of them. “Look, I know it’s hard for all you macho guys not to think that what Darlene did wasn’t all that terrible. I’ve heard the Who did she hurt? argument over and over in cases like hers. But try to think of it as a male teacher doing what she did to a fourteen-year-old girl. Trust me, it’s the same power trip and it’s just as damaging. This kid is shell-shocked from all the notoriety. He just wants it to go away and he wants a hole to hide in until it does. His parents are two hardworking, blue-collar types, and they just want the same thing. They’ve got friends and neighbors who have turned their backs on them because they refused to let the kid testify. And it doesn’t matter that they did that based on a psychologist’s recommendation. The friends and neighbors are salt-of-earth types themselves, and they all wanted Darlene hung out to dry. When she was allowed to cop a plea, so the kid wouldn’t have to testify, they took it out on the parents. The parents told me that even the people in the church they attended turned their backs on them.”

  “So there had to be a lot of resentment toward Darlene,” Harry suggested.

  “A ton of it,” Vicky said. “The boy’s mother flat out said she was glad Darlene was dead—that she’d like to thank whoever killed her.”

  “They have alibis for the night of the murder?” Harry asked.

  “Just each other,” Vicky said. “They all claim they were home that night, that they watched a little television, then went to bed around eleven. But even if that’s true, it doesn’t rule out that another member of their family, a neighbor or friend, or somebody from their church, won’t qualify as a suspect. There’s a lot more checking to do there.”