The Question of the Missing Head

by E. J. Copperman

  “Yeah.” This was getting to be a habit with him. “Did you smell anything in the chamber when you were in there?”

  We reached the breakroom, which was simply an area that held a small table, three molded plastic chairs, a microwave oven, and small refrigerator. “Smell something? We were in protective suits with hoods, detective. It was not possible for us to smell anything.”

  I opened the refrigerator. It contained a single apple, three cans of soda (all diet), and a brown paper bag marked JS. I looked at Ms. Washburn. “There are no water bottles,” I told her.

  “No, but there is a water cooler in that corner.” She pointed. A half-full five-gallon bottle sat on top of the cooler, which was humming. “You can have a drink from that.”

  “I won’t know for certain the amount I’m drinking,” I said. “I always have sixteen ounces of water at a time.”

  “I guess you’ll have to estimate,” Ms. Washburn answered.

  “I don’t like to estimate. It’s not exact.” I started to feel anxious, a clenching sensation in my stomach. I learned during childhood what that feeling meant, but even now, it wasn’t always possible to control it completely. I began by trying to play “Here Comes the Sun” in my head. But Lapides interrupted George Harrison’s lovely introduction, the acoustic guitar holding a capo on the seventh fret.

  “Don’t worry about the water,” he said, reminding me of the matter that was causing my anxiety. “Think about the storage chamber. Was there any blood on the floor when you were in there?”

  “Of course not,” I said a little too loudly (I could tell because Ms. Washburn’s eyes narrowed in concern). I walked with great purpose toward the water cooler and picked up one of the paper cups stacked next to it. “There is no indication of the capacity of this cup,” I told Ms. Washburn.

  “It’s a four-ounce cup,” she said. “Drink four of them, and that will be sixteen ounces.”

  The unease in my stomach was causing a slight sweat on the back of my neck. “How do you know it’s a four-ounce cup?” I asked.

  “Will you stop worrying about the cup?” Lapides said. “Just drink some water until you’re not thirsty, and that’ll be enough.”

  “No, it won’t!” I shouted, unable to contain myself any longer. I turned back toward Ms. Washburn. “How do you know this is a four-ounce cup?”

  She walked around Lapides to look me in the face, because I was trying to avoid eye contact. “I know because that’s the same size and brand I use at home, and I use four-ounce cups.”

  I heard myself breathe out, heavily. “You’re sure?” I asked her, and I watched her eyes. Her gaze was steady.

  “Sure,” Ms. Washburn said.

  My stomach stopped churning. I walked to the water cooler, took a cup and filled it. When I drank, I noticed the water was cold but had a slightly different flavor than the bottled water I get from the machine in my office. Still, it was a relief to drink that cup and the one I filled after it.

  “Blood,” Lapides said, trying to remind me of something I had not forgotten. “On the floor. Of the chamber.”

  “Just a moment,” I told him. “Two more cups.” I filled the third and emptied it as Lapides, seeming impatient, watched. After I’d completed the sixteen ounces of water I’d set out to drink, I turned to him.

  “Dr. Springer had not been shot,” I said. “The empty containment vessel had been shot. There was no head inside, and even if there had been, there would have been no blood in it. Fluids are drained before the freezing process is initiated.”

  “But liquid nitrogen had been released into the room,” the detective countered. “Wouldn’t the air have been freezing? Why wasn’t there more of a wound to her head when she hit the floor?”

  Clearly, Detective Lapides was a person whose idea of science was formed by watching a good deal of television. “First of all, the liquid nitrogen released into the room would immediately have boiled, because it was no longer being kept at a temperature that could sustain it in a frozen state,” I said. “But even if the room had been that cold, a person’s head doesn’t simply shatter because it sustains an impact in cold weather. There was no blood on the floor because Dr. Springer’s head did not receive a severe blow; it was the lack of oxygen in the room that killed her.”

  Lapides, who had been taking notes while I spoke, kept scribbling, but he managed to ask, “Did you notice anything unusual in the chamber?”

  “Besides the woman’s body on the floor?” Ms. Washburn asked.

  Lapides looked up sharply at her, and I decided I didn’t care much for the way the detective was interrogating us. He was doing his job, but not well. I wondered if his superiors would have sent him to the scene if it had been known from the outset that this was a case of homicide.

  “I had never been in the chamber, or any other such area, before in my life,” I told him, deflecting his attention from Ms. Washburn. “So I have no basis of comparison to judge what is unusual and what is not.”

  I believe Detective Lapides sighed. “You know what I mean,” he said.

  “I assumed you meant what you said. Was I in error?” I looked at Ms. Washburn for concurrence, but her hand was at her mouth—perhaps suppressing a smile—so it was difficult for me to determine whether I’d said something inappropriate. Sometimes I do take conversation more literally than it is intended, because many expressions do not really mean what they appear to mean. When was the last time, for example, that someone actually pulled your leg?

  Now that I’d taken in sixteen ounces of water, it would not be terribly long before I would need to find a restroom, and I had not noticed where the facilities were in this building. It would be awkward to ask Ms. Washburn if she’d noticed, because she was a woman, and pointless to ask Lapides, since I did not believe he would have observed the area closely enough to know. I would have to ask a GSCI employee, and the prospect was not pleasant; I am not always comfortable asking strangers for information.

  “Let me … rephrase my question,” Lapides said. “Did anything you saw in the storage chamber—with the exception of Dr. Springer’s body—seem worth noting? Is there anything you think that I should know?”

  There were a great many things I believed Detective Lapides should know, but I knew enough about conversation after many hours of social skills training to realize that he meant something else by his question. “It seemed odd that Dr. Springer was in the room with Ms. Masters-Powell’s receptacle the only one out of place,” I said. “The administration of the facility and its security team already knew the remains were missing. Why would she be going in to examine an empty vessel?”

  Lapides mumbled “empty vessel” as he scribbled, then asked, “What else did you see?”

  I closed my eyes to better picture the room. “There were full-body receptacles at the far end of the chamber, and the partial remains—the crania—were kept nearer the door that could open, I presume to better accommodate any slight changes in temperature created by the inner door opening and closing as staff entered or left the room. The chamber had a relatively low ceiling, not terribly so, but certainly not high; I would estimate it at eight feet. The walls were painted a pale blue. The floor was a nondescript linoleum pattern, but not tiles; it was rolled out. The receptacle lay on the floor behind Dr. Springer, was clearly damaged, and had the patient’s initials engraved on it. The lighting was from the ceiling, and recessed. And there was still some nitrogen in the air when we entered.”

  When I opened my eyes, I added, “And now you must excuse me.” I walked briskly into the hall to make an attempt at locating a bathroom without having to ask anyone for its location.

  “Mr. Hoenig,” I heard Ms. Washburn say behind me, “there is a restroom just around this corner; I noticed it as we walked from the elevator.” Ms. Washburn was proving to be invaluable.

  “Wait a second!” Lapides shouted at me as I reached the door. I turned. “I’m still questioning you.”

  “And you may continue to
do so when I come out, but I sincerely believe this takes precedence, detective.” I did not wait to hear his response.

  Suffice it to say, it is not normally my first choice to use a public restroom. Such a situation, in which I am unable to rely on my mother’s impeccable cleanliness, is at best distasteful, and more often borders on horrifying. But there simply wasn’t time now to leave the building, drive to my mother’s house, use the bathroom, and then drive back to GSCI. Luckily, the facilities here seemed well cared for, no doubt because the institute required certain baseline standards of germ containment. Still, I spent no more time there than was necessary and was careful to wash my hands carefully before exiting.

  I presume Lapides had taken it upon himself to ask Ms. Washburn about the chamber, because when I emerged from the bathroom four minutes after entering, she was saying, “The suit made it hard to see in great detail anything but what was right in front of me. I had very little peripheral vision.”

  It was one thing when he was questioning me, but his hectoring Ms. Washburn again seemed unfair. “Come now, detective,” I said to Lapides. “You’ve asked us all this before, and you’ve gotten our answers. Tell me: What is it you really want to know?”

  The detective looked either confused or insulted. “I’m conducting a murder investigation,” he said with a great sense of pomposity in his voice, enough that I could recognize the inflection. “I don’t have to explain my methods to you.”

  It was true; he had no obligation to me at all—I am not a resident of his jurisdiction. Still, I felt it was important to press on. “I am not asking you to explain your methods, since they are quite obvious,” I said. “I am asking you to get to the point, as I also have questions to answer, and a much stricter deadline than yours. What is it you want to ask me?”

  “I’m trying to gather any information you and Ms. Washburn might have from your time inside the storage chamber,” he reiterated. But his hairline was already dark with sweat.

  “Detective,” I admonished. Ms. Washburn gave me a look that indicated she was appreciative but did not really see which direction I was taking.

  “Oh, all right,” Lapides said, curling his lip.

  I looked at him, all attention.

  “Mr. Hoenig,” he began, “I’ve been a detective on the force here for six years, and a cop for fourteen.”

  I didn’t see how this professional biography was relevant, but I let him talk without interruption.

  “In all that time,” Lapides continued, “I’ve never worked on a homicide investigation before.”

  “Never?” I asked.

  “We have two murders here every decade,” the detective lamented. “And most of those are obvious—family members taking a knife to each other, that kind of thing. It’s never fallen on me before.”

  “I don’t see how this has anything to do with us,” Ms. Washburn said. “Mr. Hoenig and I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “I don’t think you did,” Lapides answered. “But I do have a question for you.” He turned to face me directly, and I fought the urge to look away.

  “Yes?” I asked, my voice sounding steadier than my eyes felt.

  “What do you think I should do next?” Lapides asked.

  TWELVE

  MS. WASHBURN INSISTED ON our leaving the building before I could answer Lapides’s question. She argued that it was possible the entire facility was wired for surveillance—which Ackerman had indicated was the case—and that our conversation could not be confidential if we remained inside.

  She also mentioned that she wanted to make a cellular phone call to her husband, and that she was unable to receive a proper signal inside GSCI. In what I thought was a friendly gesture, I did not mention that any electronic surveillance inside the facility was probably being done on the outside grounds as well.

  I believed that any conversation I could have with Lapides would be uninteresting to anyone listening in, anyway.

  Ms. Washburn stood to one side, talking to her husband. I did not attempt to hear her side of the conversation, as it was not relevant to my business, but I was surprised at how quickly I had started to think of her as an associate in Questions Answered. I realized we had agreed that she would work with me only for this day, but perhaps it would make sense to make the arrangement indefinite. I would talk to her about that later, assuming I could consult with my mother at some point. Mother is very good at noticing when I am acting impulsively or misjudging the intentions of another person I have met.

  Lapides, his shoes sinking slightly into the mud in this desolate field behind the facility, looked at me for some time before I met his eye and saw his expression was an expectant one. He was waiting for an answer to his question.

  “You realize that my business is answering questions for other people,” I began.

  Lapides started to reach into his inside jacket pocket. “How much do you charge?”

  I held my hands up, palms out. “I was saying that only because I want to emphasize that I am not a criminal investigator,” I said. “I am not trying to charge you for the question you asked.”

  “You notice things,” Lapides answered. “You seem to understand things. If there’s something you’ve seen that can help me figure out what to do, I need to know about it.”

  I did not take the opportunity to explain about Asperger’s Syndrome, nor to suggest that my knowledge of human behavior was academic, not instinctive. I made sure to look the detective in the eye and told him, “Very well, then; I will tell you what I think you should do, but I do not guarantee success.”

  A few moments went by as I awaited a response, but I got none, other than Lapides taking a reporter’s notebook out of his back pocket and digging a pen out of his jacket to take notes.

  “First, find out how many storage chambers like the one we saw are on the premises. I counted three, but I have not seen the entire facility. Then, call in a security expert other than Commander Johnson or anyone on the GSCI payroll, and have that person check the wiring on all the video and audio surveillance used on the level where the murder took place. Find out from employee records if Dr. Springer was married or had family nearby, if you haven’t done so already.”

  “She was divorced, no children,” Lapides said. “The ex-husband lives in Missouri, and is there now. He’s not a suspect at the moment.”

  “Good,” I continued. Lapides looked pleased with himself, like a pupil who has unexpectedly given the teacher a correct answer on a difficult arithmetic equation. “Concentrate on interpersonal relationships among the employees here. Were there any romances going on? Is there some jealousy that might have been a motive? Or is this strictly tied to the disappearance of Ms. Masters-Powell’s remains? Talk to Commander Johnson’s wife. It’s a coincidence that she was present today, and any coincidence, especially when her husband was called in early to deal with an extraordinary situation, is suspect.”

  Lapides was rapidly scribbling down as much as he could remember. “Am I talking too fast?” I asked him. He shook his head violently as he scribbled more.

  “Then I would look into the possibility that Ms. Masters-Powell’s family might be upset with the kind of service her remains have been given here, and therefore might have taken out their aggression on Dr. Springer,” I continued. “Summon her family here and question them separately, so they can’t coordinate their responses.”

  “Wouldn’t they be able to do that on the way over here?” Lapides asked without looking up from his pad.

  “You’re assuming they all live together and will come here in one vehicle,” I answered. It was becoming difficult to imagine how Lapides had been promoted to detective to begin with. “I doubt that is the case.”

  Lapides stopped scribbling long enough to reach into his jacket pocket and pull out a pack of cigarettes. I felt my eyes widen.

  “Please don’t smoke,” I said. “I won’t be able to think of anything except your lungs filling up with tar.”

  The cigarette pa
cket disappeared into Lapides’s coat. He stared at me. “What’s wrong with you?” he said.

  “Nothing is wrong with me,” I responded. “I have what you would call a disorder, but I consider it merely a facet of my personality.”

  I wasn’t sure Lapides would ever close his half-open mouth. “Uh-huh,” he said.

  But there wasn’t time to respond before I heard Ms. Washburn raise her voice into her cell phone. “There’s no reason to yell at me!” she said, and both Lapides and I turned our heads in her direction. “I’ll call you when I can!” She closed the phone and was putting it back into her purse when she realized we were looking in her direction.

  Ms. Washburn walked to where the detective and I were standing. I could not read her expression, but given the context (as I have been taught to do), I believe she looked a bit embarrassed. “My husband is a little excitable,” she said.

  “I guess,” Lapides said. He turned to face me again. “What else do you recommend, Mr. Hoenig?”

  “That’s all for now,” I answered. “If you feel you’ve run into trouble again, let me know and I will do what I can.”

  “What are you going to be doing?” the detective asked.

  “I have to answer the question about the missing remains,” I told him. “I will be here questioning witnesses, as you will, but about the other issue.”

  Lapides nodded with an air of resolution and began walking back toward the building. When I did not make a move to follow him, Ms. Washburn put a hand on her hip and studied my face.

  “Why aren’t we heading back?” she asked.

  “Why is your husband concerned about your working with me?” I countered.

  “How …”

  I think I grinned at her. Sometimes I can be immodest. It comes from people having lowered their expectations of me because of my Asperger’s Syndrome. “During your conversation with your husband, you glanced in my direction nine times. Each time, your expression was either anxious or angry, in my judgment. I hadn’t given you any reason to be angry with me, so I determined you were angry with your husband, and it had something to do with me. And since I have never met your husband, it’s logical to conclude that he was concerned about your working with me. Just because I don’t always make eye contact, Ms. Washburn, does not mean I’m not observing.”