Violence

by Timothy McDougall

  Spotlights were on in the house. Anderson, face haunted, could see through now to the family room where Karen’s naked body was visible on the floor, blood splattered everywhere.

  A reflection off the now dormant display of the big screen TV allowed Anderson a further glimpse of the pool deck beyond where a bunny-suited tech placed a floodlight by the edge of the water and where it appeared Tristan’s lifeless body was laying by the pool.

  Another pair of techs, also in bunny suits, methodically took photographs in each space.

  Flash!

  Flash!

  Flash!

  Every photograph was emblazoned like a snapshot on Anderson’s soul.

  Yet another group of evidence techs were donning their protective gear in preparation to go inside the house. They already knew the answer as to whether or not the Medical Examiner was going to give them the go ahead to begin to collect evidence. Search warrants had already been issued and were fairly automatic in these matters after a homicide scene was rendered secure. There would be no “crime scene exception.” The Supreme Court had already ruled that once the threat to life and limb had passed at a location, a warrantless search of a crime scene is unconstitutional. Get a warrant. Anyway, apparent victims turn into suspects all the time so save yourself the headache of a judge throwing out the evidence later.

  “You’re up on this one, Wayne?” The pallid M.E. investigator asked, referring to the possibility Crotty was assigned as Lead Investigator for this case.

  “Looks like it.” Crotty answered for both himself and Peterson. They had been hopeful about going off duty at 11 p.m. but that wasn’t going to happen now.

  “I’m officially pronouncing both victims dead at scene as of 10:37 p.m. Central Standard Time.” The M.E. investigator continued emotionless to Crotty who scribbled down the determination on his notepad while keeping a watchful eye on Anderson. It was always tricky dealing with distraught family members.

  The area outside the front door had become the forward command post of sorts, a deemed safe area where investigators could prepare and trade information without worrying about destroying potential evidence. Once the initial responding police officers and EMTs had arrived on the scene, it had been determined after a search that no dangerous suspects were about the premises and the apparent victims were beyond hope. A preliminary “walk-through,” to establish the crime scene and its boundaries, also narrowed it down to the sliding glass doors in the family room as being the likely point of entry and exit of any possible suspects since the front door was dead-bolted. They didn’t know Derek had carefully closed the master bedroom bathroom window behind him.

  “There were no life-saving measures attempted by initial responders upon arrival at the scene…” The M.E. investigator continued to Crotty. “…because it was clear there were no vitals and the decedents had passed sometime earlier. I am now turning this death investigation over to you and I would recommend treating it as a possible homicide at this point. Your investigative team can begin their work.“

  The waiting techs methodically finished putting on their gear and started grabbing cases with other equipment for the painstaking process of collecting physical evidence and providing detailed inventory for chain of custody purposes.

  “You’re going to need a couple of rape kits.” The M.E. investigator plainly added as an afterthought.

  Two techs nodded in understanding, and held up their respective “Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kits.” These techs were also specifically the ones responsible for doing extra close-in photography and logging in evidence while the others literally bagged it.

  Another plainclothes detective with pockmarked skin, holding a large pad of gridded paper and using a template, was finishing a crime scene sketch of the premises. He tore off the sketch and handed it to another tech who led the team into the house where they quickly set about their business, joining the others like ants at a picnic.

  Anderson stared after them with complete desolation. It was a miracle he was still on his feet. He felt like he had left this Earth. He didn’t know what was holding him upright. Must be shock. His whole body was buzzing. His heart was pumping wildly.

  “Both victims are Caucasian…” The M.E. investigator said as he stepped out of his paper jumpsuit and concluded his on-site responsibilities with Crotty. “…both female, approximately 35 to 40, and 12 to 15 years of-”

  “She’s fourteen. My daughter.” Anderson interrupted him, saying it simply but reverently, jarring them all from their routine. “My wife is thirty-seven.”

  “I’m very sorry.” The M.E. investigator flatly expressed his condolences as he peeled off his hair-net, and continued again to Crotty. “A preliminary cursory exam shows the proximate cause of death appears to be a blunt force trauma to the head followed by a drowning for the fourteen-year-old female and a close-range gunshot wound to the head for the older female.”

  “Thank you.” Crotty answered.

  The M.E. investigator removed his shoe-coverings, balled them up with the jump-suit, gloves and hair-net, and dropped them into a red plastic bio-hazard garbage bag another officer was pinning open for him in a holder before finally moving away.

  Anderson stood stone still. He continued to stare into the interior of the house where techs knelt before Karen and Tristan’s bodies collecting evidence. It took all the self-control he had ever mustered to keep from running in there, but he knew the police wanted any reason to put him in a squad car and take him away from the scene. He wanted to be invisible. Even his blinking he measured as grief pushed tears across his tortured gaze.

  The tech that was crouched between Karen’s legs placed butcher paper under her buttocks and began to brush her pubic hair for samples.

  Anderson’s blurred gaze shifted. He could not see Karen’s face. There was something strange about it. He didn’t want to think about what that could be.

  The assisting tech went carefully around Karen’s body and placed her feet and hands in paper bags to keep them untainted for the eventual transportation of her remains to the Medical Examiner. This way they could check for skin or other matter that might be under Karen’s nails which might show she struggled or defended herself against whoever attacked her.

  “Set up a canvassing of the neighborhood.” Crotty ordered the detective with the bad skin condition, wanting to take care of some details before he turned his attention fully back on Anderson. “And talk to those people out there.” Crotty pointed to the growing crowd out beyond the police tape. “Find out if anybody else saw anything.”

  The detective nodded and moved away.

  “Can you guys give us some elimination prints and put some marker boots on.” Crotty asked the uniformed officers in attendance and gestured in the direction of their uncovered shoes. Marker boots were vinyl shoe-coverings that had a “Police” indentation on the sole which would leave a repeating imprint for identification purposes. The elimination prints Crotty wanted were shoe impressions that could be made by stepping on chemically-sensitized sheets where likenesses appear instantly as if recorded with black ink but leave no residue.

  “Sure.” The officers mumbled and nodded mostly in unison, setting off to comply with his request.

  “Thanks.” Crotty said and added to Peterson, indicating the elderly neighbor. “And get a set from him, too.”

  Peterson led the elderly neighbor to a table being set-up where he could get a basic information card filled out before making the requisite shoe prints on a pad being chemically coated by one of the orange-vested detectives.

  Crotty at last turned his focus back on Anderson.

  Flash!

  But there were more photographs. Close. Cervix swabs of Karen’s bruised vagina for DNA typing.

  Flash!

  A snapshot at a ninety-degree angle of a buccal swab in the oral cavity of Tristan’s mouth.

  Flash!

  Flash!

  Flash!

  Even more pictures taken using a
telescoping pole for overhead angles of Karen, her body carefully lifted on its side for a rectal swab.

  Anderson’s eyes was locked on these gruesome procedures being carried out in what seemed like a netherworld that only this afternoon was paradise. Seeing the bodies was at once horrifying but also some strange extraordinary comfort, as if by his witnessing this he could will them to be lifted by angels somehow away from this place forever.

  “Sir?”

  Crotty’s voice clawed into Anderson’s consciousness.

  “Sir?”

  Anderson finally turned to face him.

  “Sir, when was the last time you saw your wife and daughter alive?” Crotty asked Anderson as he held his pen ready to jot down notes on his pad.

  “This afternoon.” Anderson answered him unembellished.

  “Where were you since that time?”

  “At work, then at a private club.”

  “Are you separated or divorced?”

  “No.” Anderson replied after a moment. He wasn’t offended by the question. It just surprised him.

  “Your wife, was she separated or divorced?”

  “No.”

  “Do either of you have any other children?”

  “No.”

  “I apologize for having to ask you these questions at this time…”

  “I understand.”

  “If you prefer I could ask you these questions in one of our vehicles.” Crotty said this with some sensitivity, mindful of a person’s possible wish for privacy.

  “No. It’s all right.”

  “There’s a gun on the floor next to the, uh…” Crotty was going to say “body,” but caught himself. “…next to your wife. Did you have a gun in your house, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it registered?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you the registered owner?”

  “Yes.”

  “And where do you normally keep your gun?”

  “In our bedroom closet. On a shelf. Under some clothes.”

  Flash!

  Flash!

  Flash!

  Anderson wanted to look back into the house. Out of the corner of his eye, he could make out the techs placing yellow photo alphabet evidence markers and cutting blood samples out of the carpet.

  “Did anything unusual happen recently that would cause something of this nature?” Crotty continued mechanically.

  Anderson had to think but only for a moment, then he replied, “There were several men here today doing some landscaping that had to be asked to leave.”

  “Why were they asked to leave?”

  Anderson didn’t have time to answer.

  A uniformed policeman had stepped up to Detective Peterson and given him a verbal report. Peterson then quickly relayed the information to Crotty.

  “Area Four picked up three guys who fit the neighbor’s description in an LTD.” Peterson notified Crotty, out loud, clearly, not at all minding that Anderson could hear, too. It was good to let the apparent victim know justice may be served.

  “That’s what I told you! I saw three men!” The elderly neighbor chimed in excitedly, overhearing the news.

  “Sir, can I ask you to step over here…” An orange-vested detective commanded the elderly neighbor as he ushered him to an area out of earshot of Crotty and the others. This was partly done for reasons of compassion towards Anderson but it was more important to keep witnesses apart and not risk cross-contamination of what will eventually be their personal recollections of the events.

  “There was blood on one of the suspects and in the car.” Peterson continued. “And apparently there were some pills and alcohol found, too.”

  Anderson, while despondent to the extreme, still reacted expectantly to this news.

  CHAPTER 6

  “They’ve all been Mirandized and they all want a lawyer.” Crotty informed Anderson. “They want to see a doctor, too, but that’s not going to happen right now. They know the drill. They’ve been around. They cooperate when they know they have to and clam up when it’s not going to do them any good.”

  Crotty was referring to Derek, Gabriel and Ruben’s refusal to take part in a custodial interrogation where suspects have been informed of their right to not make self-incriminatory statements along with having the right to legal counsel, but choose to waive those rights and be officially questioned.

  “It’d be a problem anyway, anything they say…” Crotty continued. “…considering how juiced-up and strung-out they are. We’re letting them sleep their buzz off.” Crotty thought this was important, too, letting Anderson know, if only in a cursory way, the difficulty it would be admitting into evidence any confession where the suspect is under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol and the likelihood in the future of defense attorneys asking for and winning a motion to suppress such a confession.

  Crotty was saying all this as he met Anderson who had just been processed through the police station’s Sally Port which is the area where officers can load and unload prisoners safely.

  Anderson had submitted to a “pat down,” a simple body search designed to search only for weapons. This occurred in the middle space between the exterior and interior doors before Anderson was allowed by a controller in Dispatch to pass through into the “Secure” area.

  Anderson, escorted by a patrol car to the stationhouse, had driven himself over in his Mercedes and parked it just outside the attached police garage. He couldn’t remember getting behind the wheel, or driving over for that matter but he didn’t want to be driven over in a patrol car and have to arrange later for his return. Anderson was on auto-pilot. But he was going to get through this. For Karen and Tristan. Period. Part of his military training had taught him to put his mind elsewhere in stressful situations, push away all other pedestrian concerns, and focus on the job at hand. That schooling was all that kept him from collapsing now.

  He and Crotty were heading now past the adjacent Dispatch Area towards the temporary holding cells in the detention section of the stationhouse. It smelled like chlorine disinfectant and wine vomit. A pasty and pimply teenager hauled in for a DUI was in a crumpled heap on a bench inside a steel mesh cage that was not considered part of the actual detention sector.

  Crotty probably hated this part of his job more than any other aspect, the having to deal directly with victims in the aftermath of a horrific crime, but years on the force helped him hide that fact from people.

  Dispatch was the de facto nerve center of the station house. It was an area that could literally “stand alone” within specially secured walls and glass. It monitored and controlled every other section of the facility, including the Sally Port, prisoner monitoring, deliveries, as well as handling all 911 communications.

  Anderson could hear a woman’s voice inside Dispatch mentioning his home address just before he was able to see the side of her face as he passed an interior window. He couldn’t make out any other specifics as she was seated in one of those high-back ergonomically designed chairs before an array of consoles. It looked like there was another woman with a headset on duty in there, too, but the static bursts of radio-dispatch and interior ventilation fans in the Sally Port made it hard to hear anything else they were saying.

  Crotty had to check his sidearm before they could enter the Detention Area which was segregated from the rest of the building and weapon free for obvious reasons. A patrolman posted in a reinforced enclosure logged the weapon in and took both of their keys which Anderson and Crotty placed in the stainless-steel recessed metal dish under the window.

  “I appreciate your coming down here and I know I asked you before…” Crotty continued thoughtfully to Anderson. “…but are you sure you’re up to making an identification of these men? It can be quite overwhelming, seeing the ones who might’ve-.”

  “It’s fine.” Anderson answered abruptly, not making Crotty finish the sentence.

  “Thank you. It’s an immense help. If we can be reasonably certain these are the
men…“ Crotty let that thought trail off but kept talking to keep Anderson engaged and keep the silences to a minimum. “Anyway, it’s a public safety issue as well. I also want to inform you we are being recorded right now, and will be inside the holding area. This is for your protection and ours. It’s important in major felony investigations that everything be documented so defendant’s lawyers cannot give differing versions of what occurred behind closed doors and say their client’s rights were violated.“

  The interior door buzzed and the lock disengaged. Crotty pulled it open and lead the way into the Detention section.

  Anderson followed him through the door and immediately came to a stop once he was on the other side. Crotty had paused to announce more instructions and give a lay of the land, but Anderson’s halting was more reflexive. It was almost as if Anderson could smell “them.” Animal-like, his nostrils flared. He was infused with a quiet burst of extra adrenaline. Anderson warily scanned the space as if he had crossed one of the rivers of the underworld and now stood firmly in Hell.

  “We have them in separate holding cells, isolated by sight and sound as required by law.” Crotty said pointing to the inner cellblock where half a dozen distinct chambers were visible via one-way glass. “We’ll bring them out one by one and you can take a good look at them. This is not an official line-up which many times later in court is deemed unnecessarily suggestive of criminality, no matter how they are performed. But we would like to know if you’re reasonably certain these are the men you believe were at your house earlier doing the landscaping you spoke about. There were what looked to be bloodstains on the clothing of one of the suspect’s, which we have impounded as evidence, but we can’t even be sure it is blood until a preliminary test is done. All in all, they have been cooperative to this point.”

  And Crotty was right about that. Even the camera in the patrol car that picked them up recorded Derek and the others as very compliant. They did everything they were asked. They didn’t fight at the traffic stop or in lock-up which was appreciated by the arresting officers and Crotty who all have had their individual experiences of being spat at, kicked and bitten by resisting suspects. Crotty, in his days starting out as a patrolman, was pricked early on by a dirty hypodermic needle searching the pockets of an unruly vagrant who was found to be HIV and Hepatitis C positive. That incident alone was good for a year’s worth of taking a variety of drugs and sweating out blood tests in the event he had been infected. Crotty wasn’t.