[Lady Justice 06] - Lady Justice and Dr. Death

by Robert Thornhill

  “Your opponents might say that this religious point of view is a conflict of church and state and that the individual has the right to choose. Are there grounds other than from a religious perspective, to oppose euthanasia?”

  “Once the practice becomes accepted,” she replied, “it will be difficult to control.

  “Abortion is a case in point. Thirty years ago, abortion was permitted only to save the life and health of the mother. But now, the ‘right-to-choose’ advocates have twisted it into abortion on demand.

  “I know it might be unthinkable in today’s world, but Adolph Hitler murdered seventy thousand disabled people, labeling them 'useless eaters.'

  “It’s not difficult to see how ‘right-to-die’ could be transformed into 'duty-to-die.' "

  “Why are you here today?”

  “There is a serial killer in our city, murdering people under the guise of humanitarianism. The morning paper told how this cold-blooded killer slipped through the fingers of the police.

  “We’re here to let this murderer know that we are enraged by his actions and to demand that the police use whatever resources are necessary to bring this criminal to justice.”

  The captain switched off the TV.

  “See what I mean?”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “First, try to find the leak. I’m going to talk to the reporter at the Star, but I’m betting he won’t reveal his source.

  “Then, try to contain the fallout from our aborted sting and come up with another plan to bring Dr. Death to justice, while keeping these two groups from tearing one another apart.”

  “Well, good luck with all of that,” I said with disgust. “I’m outta here!”

  When I returned home, my old friend, Willie was just getting home, himself.

  He had a package under his arm.

  “Hey, Willie. Been shopping?”

  “Well, not ‘zactly. I been to see Miss Larue.”

  “Another one of your paramours?”

  “My para what?”

  “Never mind. What’s in the package?”

  “Got me a wee-gee board.”

  “Oh, you mean a Ouija board!”

  “Dat’s what I said, a wee-gee board. Got it from Miss Larue.”

  “And what, exactly, are you planning to do with it?”

  “Talk to my dead folks. Miss Larue showed me how.

  “Since I learned about ‘em, I been wantin’ to know more, so I figgered de bes’ way was to talk to ‘em direct.”

  Willie was raised by an old maid aunt and had been on the streets by himself since he was a teenager.

  He knew a little about his mom, but he never met his dad who was killed in WWII.

  He knew nothing at all about his grandparents or any of his distant relatives until a few months ago.

  His last living relative had died and Willie was the beneficiary of her estate, such as it was.

  Included was an old family Bible that held a history of Willie’s ancestors.

  They turned out to be quite a colorful bunch, in more ways than one.

  Willie had been fascinated by their story and often talked about them to anyone who would listen.

  “So where did you come up with this Miss Larue?” I asked.

  “Louie de Lip tole me ‘bout her. She got a place down on Prospect where she reads palms an’ shit like dat.”

  “Oh, well, if Louie the Lip recommended her, she must be legit.”

  “Dat’s wot I was thinkin.”

  “Willie, I’m kidding! You know Louie is a con artist. He’s probably in cahoots with Miss What’s Her Name. How much did she charge you for that thing?”

  “Fifty bucks.”

  “You can get them at Buy Mart for twenty.”

  “Damn! I gotta have me a talk wif Louie!

  “So you don’ think this wee-gee stuff works?”

  “I’m quite sure it doesn’t. It’s a parlor game.”

  “Well, I know’d you was involved wif all dis death stuff and it kinda got me thinking about my kin ----.”

  “How did you know what I was doing?”

  “Yo pappy tole me. Den I axed Maggie an she tole me de same ting.”

  “So I’m guessing that everybody in the building knows what I’ve been doing?”

  “Well sho. You don’t tink you can be gone a whole week and nobody miss you.”

  So much for undercover.

  “Tell you what, Willie. I’ve got a day off. If you really want to know more about your family, I’ll take you to the genealogy center and we can do some research.”

  “Oh, dat’s jus’ great! You makin’ fun of my wee-gee an’ now you want me to go an’ talk to your genie.”

  “That’s not --- oh, never mind --- let’s just go --- I’ll explain it on the way.”

  On the way back to the apartment, my cell phone came to life.

  Ox had showed me how to add custom ring tones and I had chosen the theme from Dragnet.

  I thought that was appropriate for an old cop with a fifties mentality.

  Willie was startled when the phone boomed,

  “Dunn - de - dunn - dunn. Dunn - de - dunn - dunn. Dunnnnnnnn!”

  “Wot de hell is dat?”

  I picked up the phone. “Walt Williams here.”

  “Walt. This is Officer Fowler. Isn’t the Three Trails one of yours?”

  “Yes. I’m afraid it is. Why?”

  “We had a report of a shot fired --- thought you might want to know.”

  “I’m on the way.”

  When we arrived, Fowler's black and white was parked at the curb.

  Mary and a half-dozen residents were milling around in the yard.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “One of the tenants heard what sounded like a shot coming from old man Friedman’s room,” Mary said. “So he called 911.”

  “When I arrived,” Fowler said, “the door was locked. I knew you were on the way so I figured I’d wait rather than bust the door.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said. “Willie, do you have your picks?”

  “Don’t go nowhere without ‘em.”

  Fowler, Willie and I trudged upstairs to Mort Friedman’s room.

  I knocked but there was no answer, so I gave Willie the nod.

  He did his magic and when we pushed the door open, my worst fears were realized.

  Friedman lay sprawled on the old mattress in a pool of red that had soaked through and was dripping into a grisly puddle on the floor.

  Brain matter, bits of scull and blood were spattered on the wall behind the bed.

  A snub-nosed .38 lay beside his limp hand.

  This wasn’t my first suicide. In three years, I had seen deaths by carbon monoxide, poison, and hanging, but gunshots are always the worst.

  This was the first I had seen that involved someone I knew.

  I heard the door open across the hall and old man Feeney peered out.

  “Old Mort offed hisself, didn’t he? I knowed he was gonna do it.”

  “How did you know that?” Fowler asked. “Did he actually tell you?”

  “Nope. But I knew he had been feelin’ poorly and that he took hisself to the free clinic.

  “They told him that he was all eat up inside and there warn’t nothing they could do.

  “He didn’t have no kin around here and I guess he figured there warn’t much left to look forward to.

  “I knew he got his Social Security check the other day. Musta used it to buy the gun.

  “I liked old Mort. We used to play checkers.”

  “I’ll send for the meat wagon,” Fowler said.

  I looked at Friedman’s tortured body missing the top of its scull.

  Just another old man ending his existence in the tiny room of a sleazy boarding house.

  I’d be willing to bet that it wouldn’t get even a line of print in the Star.

  Then I thought of the bodies of Beckham and Manning that had been found in peaceful repose, a
nd the papers were screaming for the capture of the terrible villain who had assisted these men in their final act.

  I wondered if those who were condemning Dr. Death were to see the body of Mort Friedman, would they still feel the same way.

  All three were just as dead, but the means to that end were a world apart.

  Willie hadn’t stirred since we made our grisly discovery.

  Finally, he spoke.

  “Mr. Walt. Do I has to clean dis up? I’se willin’ to do mos’ anything, but I don’t know if’n I can do dis.”

  “No, Willie. I wouldn’t ask you to do that. There are companies that specialize in this sort of thing.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Walt. Mort was my frien’ too.”

  The next morning, Ox and I were on our regular patrol.

  “I missed you, buddy,” he said. “Sorry to hear about your tenant.”

  “With you gone, I had to ride with a young greenhorn all week.”

  I guess he’d forgotten that just three years ago, I was an old greenhorn.

  “Yeah, it’s good to be back. I missed you too. Playing a dead guy wasn’t my idea of fun and games.”

  “Too bad that the guy skipped,” he said. “Any idea why?”

  “No, we’ve been over the tapes and everything was going according to plan ---.”

  Just then the radio crackled.

  “Car 54. Are you close to the Waldo neighborhood?”

  I picked up the mike. “About five minutes away.”

  “Proceed to the seventy-three hundred block of Madison. Another DOA. Looks like your Dr. Death has struck again.”

  When we arrived, the EMT’s and the coroner were already on the scene.

  The same EMT that we had seen at the Beckham and Manning homes met us at the door.

  “Another old guy,” he said. “A neighbor who checks in on him every morning found him just sitting in his recliner --- just like the other guys.

  “Too bad that creep got away the other night. If you had caught him, this old man might still be alive.”

  Well thanks, Mr. Sensitive, I thought. That’s just what I needed to brighten my day.

  The coroner was completing his examination when we entered the room.

  I looked at the body. At first glance, it did indeed appear to be just like the two previous deaths.

  “Hi Doc,” I said. “Can you determine cause of death?”

  “Not until I can get him on the table. I did find a syringe mark in his arm that would be consistent with what we found on Arthur Manning.”

  I noticed a black liquid on the wood floor under the victim’s feet.

  “What’s that black stuff,” I asked.

  “Most likely, urine. Sometimes the bowels or bladder release upon death.”

  “But why is it black? In my experience, urine is yellow --- you know the old saying --- don’t eat the yellow snow.”

  “Again, Mr. Funny Man, I won’t know until I have it analyzed, but I’ll be sure to note your comment for the lab boys.”

  Something else about the body didn’t seem quite right.

  It was the face.

  I had seen the faces of Beckham and Manning and I remembered thinking how peaceful they looked.

  This guy looked anything but peaceful --- in fact --- his expression was that of a man who had died of fright.

  “If you’re through with your examination, do you mind if I take a look at the body?”

  “Help yourself, Officer.”

  I snapped a photo with my new camera phone and then I had Ox help me move the body forward far enough to pull his wallet from his back pocket.

  “Driver’s license says he’s Jack Fredricks. Seventy-five years old --- here’s his AARP card --- ahhh, and here’s a card with a doctor Millikan’s number.”

  “Yeah,” Ox said, “but do you see what’s missing?”

  I looked again. “No cash and no credit cards!”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Ox said, “but it’s worth looking into.”

  “How about you taking a look around the house while I call the doctor,” I said.

  Dr. Millikan was not one of the doctor’s we had profiled in our investigation, but it was possible that we could have missed one.

  When Milliken came on the line, I identified myself.

  “Is Jack Fredricks one of your patients?”

  “Yes, I’ve known Jack for years.”

  “By any chance was he dying?”

  “We’re all dying, Officer, but if you’re asking if he had a terminal disease, the answer is 'no.' He had angina but we were keeping it under control with medication.”

  By the time I hung up, I was convinced that Jack Fredricks would not have been an acceptable candidate for Thanatos.

  Ox returned from making the rounds of the house.

  “Couldn’t find a thing,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I couldn’t find anything of value --- no watches, no jewelry --- it’s like the guy had absolutely nothing. But there was also no sign of forced entry and nothing was disturbed or damaged.”

  We returned to the living room just as the EMT’s were loading the body onto the gurney.

  I noticed a slip of paper protruding from a pants pocket.

  “Hang on a minute,” I said, retrieving the paper.

  It was a cash register receipt for a caramel frappuccino from Starbucks at the Ward Parkway shopping center.

  The time stamp on the receipt was the night before at seven twenty.

  “Doc,” I said, “have you established a time of death?”

  “My best guess at this point would be between nine and midnight last night.”

  I pulled Ox aside.

  “This isn’t the work of Dr. Death. We’ve got a copycat!”

  CHAPTER 10

  After the EMT’s were gone and the body was on the way to the morgue, I called the captain and told him that we needed to talk.

  He told us to come on in.

  “So what did you find?” he asked.

  “It’s not Thanatos,” I said. “It’s a copycat.

  “Somebody either got an idea from the newspaper or, even worse, had inside information about the other euthanasias, killed this old guy and made it look like the work of Dr. Death --- only it wasn’t! It was a robbery, pure and simple.”

  “Just what are you basing all this on?” he asked.

  “Well, first, his wallet was empty of any money or credit cards and Ox found no valuables around the house.”

  “There could be a reasonable explanation for that,” the captain said. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the old saying, “You can’t take it with you.” Maybe knowing he was going to die, he just gave everything away --- maybe to charity.”

  “Yes, but there’s more. I talked to his doctor and he wasn’t terminally ill. I know what I had to go through just to get Thanatos to consider me. He just didn’t fit their criteria.

  “I’d be willing to bet that the autopsy will show that potassium chloride was not the cause of death.”

  “You could be right,” the captain said. “Finish your patrol and I’ll let you know when the coroner’s report is in.”

  We finished our shift without further incident and were just clocking out when the captain appeared.

  “Walt, Ox, I need a minute.”

  When we were in his office he turned and grinned.

  “Looks like I may have to transfer you to the CSI unit as a forensics expert. You were right.”

  “So the coroner’s report is in?”

  “Yes, and the cause of death, as you predicted, was not potassium chloride. Fredricks died of asphyxia. He was smothered.”

  “No wonder he looked scared to death,” I said. “What a horrible way to die.”

  “Then what about the needle mark in his arm,” Ox asked.

  “And the black liquid on the floor,” I added.

  “Fredricks had been injected with something called methocarbamol. I
t’s a muscle relaxant. He had been given a large enough dose to render him nearly unconscious and certainly unable to offer any resistance.

  “The black liquid was indeed urine. That’s one of the side effects of methocarbamol. It temporarily turns urine a black or brown color.”

  “So are you on board with the copycat idea?” I asked.

  “Right now, that’s the theory.”

  After we left the captain’s office, I pulled Ox aside.

  “Do you have any plans for the evening?”

  “I’m a single guy with no current girlfriend. What do you think?”

  “Let’s take a trip out to the Ward Parkway Center Shopping Mall. Do you remember that slip of paper I pulled from Fredrick’s pocket?”

  “Yeah, didn’t you turn that in?”

  “Not yet. I want to check out a theory.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  I called Maggie on the way out and told her that I would be running late.

  She sounded a bit peeved, but said that she would save a plate for me in the oven.

  The Ward Parkway Mall runs from State Line Road on the west to Ward Parkway on the east. It’s a two-story structure, but most of the shops are on the second level, which is accessed from the State Line side.

  There is also an entrance on the lower level of the Ward Parkway side. A long corridor leads to an escalator that transports shoppers to the upper level.

  We entered from the Ward Parkway side. The long corridor was virtually empty.

  The escalator took us to the second floor. I checked a directory and saw that Starbucks was at the far end of the Mall.

  The Mall was busy, but not overcrowded. I noticed that there were a lot of seniors, walking and peering into the shops.

  Starbucks was busy, as usual, and patrons were lined up three deep to pay five bucks for a cup of coffee.

  We waited in line and when it was our turn, a pleasant young man greeted us.

  I showed him my badge and told him we’d like to ask him a few questions.

  “Sure,” he said. “How can I help?”

  “Were you working last night?”

  “Yep. I go to school during the day and work the night shift here.”

  I pulled out my cell phone to show him Fredrick’s photo that I had taken at the crime scene.