Blood Money

Chapter Twenty

The medical examiner’s office is in the Joseph H. Davis Center for Forensic Pathology, a three-building complex on the perimeter of the University of Miami Medical Center campus and Jackson Memorial Hospital. Typical for midafternoon, the campus was bustling with activity, people headed to the spine institute, the eye institute, and other world-class specialists. Theo nearly flattened a line of them as his car sped through the crosswalk and into the parking lot, only to lose a race with an SUV for what seemed like the last remaining parking spot in Miami-Dade County. Theo jumped out of his car and threatened to pick up and physically remove the two-thousand-pound intruder that had taken the parking space that was rightfully his. Jack didn’t have time to mediate the argument. He jumped out and ran to the main entrance. The guard buzzed him in, and Jack hurried across the lobby to reception.

“I’m here to meet Agent Andie Henning,” he said, winded from the run. “Jack Swyteck’s my name.”

“Wait here, please. I’ll let the doctor know.”

Jack was tempted to burst through the locked door to find Andie himself, but he didn’t need B amp;E charges added to his list of troubles. There was a couch in the waiting room, but he was too wired to sit. He dug his cell phone from his pocket. He’d been trying to reach Ben Laramore since leaving the coffee shop. He dialed again. Same result. No answer. It probably didn’t help that the phone number flashing on Laramore’s display screen was Jack’s new number, as yet unknown to Ben. Jack had told him not to answer any calls from strange numbers, as it might be the media-or worse.

Jack took a seat and caught his breath. A trip to the medical examiner’s office wasn’t exactly a daily occurrence for a criminal defense lawyer, not even for one who defended death row inmates. It had nonetheless been only a matter of weeks since Jack’s most recent visit; it was on the eve of Sydney Bennett’s trial.

Jack had vehemently opposed the disinterment of Emma Bennett’s remains, but the prosecution had convinced the judge to overrule his objection. It was “regrettable but necessary,” the judge had stated in his ruling. As of that pretrial stage of the case, the defense had offered nothing in the way of scientific evidence to counter the prosecution’s theory: that Emma Bennett’s late-night crying was simply too much for a party-minded mother who didn’t get home from the clubs until after one A.M.; that Emma’s grandmother had refused to babysit past two A.M.; and that in a drunken fit of rage, Sydney Bennett had snapped sometime before dawn, yanked her crying two-year-old child out of bed, and slapped or suffocated her into a state of unconsciousness, only to wake the next morning and find Emma not breathing. In the judge’s view, the state had demonstrated a “compelling need” to reexamine the body in order to counter the defendant’s eleventh-hour change of position-Sydney’s newly minted claim as to the “real” cause and manner of Emma’s death.

Jack’s ensuing visit to the medical examiner’s office was one that he would never forget.

Torrents of icy air gushed from the air-conditioning vents in the ceiling, making the autopsy room so cold that Jack almost had to remind himself that he was still in Florida. Bright lights glistened off the white sterile walls and buffed tile floors. Jack watched through the discerning eyes of a criminal defense lawyer as an assistant medical examiner led him to the small mound beneath a white sheet on a stainless steel table. Dr. Hugo Flynn, a pathologist, was waiting beside the table. Flynn was the expert witness for the defense.

“I think you’ll find this very interesting,” said Dr. Flynn.

The assistant stepped aside to observe from a distance, far enough away so that Jack and Dr. Flynn could talk without being overheard by a government employee. Flynn adjusted the spotlight and took hold of the corner of the sheet.

“Now, be forewarned,” he told Jack. “As you know, the body was hidden in the Everglades before it was discovered and given a proper burial. According to the autopsy report, there were no internal organs, very little of the shell of the torso remaining. Much of that was lost to predators. We are now adding to that the natural effects of almost three years of decomposition in the grave.”

“So. . what remains?”

“Bones. Hair. Teeth.”

He pulled back the lower corner of the sheet. Dr. Flynn’s powers of concentration were such that his bushy gray eyebrows had pinched together and formed one continuous caterpillar that stretched across his brow. Whatever he was examining did not even resemble a human body part to Jack, which made him uneasy. The fact that these remains were those of a child made it that much worse.

“What do you see?” asked Jack.

The doctor took a step back and sighed deeply. “The first thing you have to understand,” said Dr. Flynn, “is that even when the corpse is fresh, drowning cannot be proven by autopsy. It is a diagnosis of exclusion, based on the circumstances of death.”

“Emma Bennett’s death has some pretty vague circumstances.”

“Yes, it does. And her remains are indeed minimal.”

“So in your process of diagnosis by exclusion, what does that tell you, Doctor?”

“Not much. There is really not enough for me to rule out every other possible cause of death. But we do have something to hang our hat on.”

The doctor laid his iPad on the table and motioned Jack toward him. The image on the screen was right next to the actual remains-to what appeared to be the bones of a small foot.

“This photograph is from the autopsy report,” said Flynn. “It’s the right foot, the remains of which you see here on the table. Do you see this?” asked Flynn, adjusting the size of the image on the screen.

“I see it, but I don’t really know what I’m looking at.”

“As I mentioned, the lungs and internal organs decomposed or were eaten by scavengers while the body lay in the weeds. But as of the time of this photograph, the bottom of one foot was relatively well preserved. The extremities are away from the internal organs, slower decomposition.”

“I still don’t know what I’m supposed to see.”

“This photograph shows a rough patch of skin on the bottom of her right foot. And I believe that those striations,” Flynn said as he zoomed the image, “are abrasions.”

“Caused by what?”

“That’s where my professional opinion comes in. To me, that’s a sign of drowning.”

“I’m not following you,” said Jack.

“Abrasions of this sort can be a critically important fact if you think about what happens when you drown. Your normal reaction when the head goes underwater is to hold your breath. Eventually, you can’t do it any longer, and your body is forced to gasp for air. That presents a major problem if you can’t reach the surface.”

“Or if you panic.”

“Exactly. The victim starts gulping water into the mouth and throat, literally inhaling water into the lungs. This, of course, sends the victim into an even more frenzied panic, and the struggle becomes more desperate. If she doesn’t break the surface, her lungs continue to fill, struggling and gasping in a vicious cycle that can last several minutes, until breathing stops.”

“And these abrasions tell you what?”

“Again, the final moments of a drowning are utter terror and panic. The victim may sink and propel herself up from the bottom in the struggle. Her legs may be churning. The feet come in contact with whatever surface is below. If the surface is rough, her feet will show abrasions.”

“But Sydney’s version of events is that Emma drowned in the family swimming pool. That’s a smooth surface.”

“No, it’s not. You’re thinking of the standard white or colored plaster surfacing, which is smooth, almost slippery. The Bennett family pool has a textured, nonslip surface. My neighbors have the same thing. My kids come home with raw feet every time they swim over there. Multiply that by a factor of a thousand when a child is struggling for her life, not merely playing around in the pool.”

Jack focused his gaze on the remains, then on the photograph.

Dr. Flynn asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” said Jack. “I’m fine.”

What he wanted to say was that he was embarrassed for a moment, put off by the way his job made him stand beside the remains of a child, put all emotion aside, and slap on a label like “death by drowning.”

“That’s where your examination leads? Death by drowning?”

The doctor nodded once, but firmly. “It would be nice if we had lungs or some other body tissue to examine for traces of chlorine from the pool water, but we don’t. The medical examiner didn’t even have that three years ago, when the body was recovered. So, yes: Based on what remains, it is my expert opinion that the abrasions on the bottom of her feet as shown in the autopsy photos are consistent with death by drowning. Nothing I see in these remains contradicts that opinion.”

“Abrasions. That’s really all you got?”

“That’s more than you got now.”

The doctor had him there. “How soon can you get a written report for us?” asked Jack.

“A week. The cost of that is included in my retainer. But you should know that I charge four hundred dollars an hour if I have to testify at trial.”

“You realize that my client is indigent, right? The law allows me to submit a formal request to the Justice Administrative Commission to pay more than the guidelines specify, but even in a capital case, realistically we’re looking at about half that amount. I may end up asking you to cut your fee.”

“I don’t cut anything. My rate is four hundred dollars an hour. Period.”

Jack considered it. The battle of experts had always seemed like a game, but as his gaze drifted back to the sheet that was draped over Emma’s remains, the game seemed hardly worth playing.

“You know,” said Jack, “based on the way the state attorney has prosecuted this case, I might actually get you four hundred bucks an hour. On a net-net basis, it seems only fair.”

“How do you mean?”

“I’m beyond confident that the state of Florida will hire two whores to call my one whore a quack.”

“Jack, come on back.”

He looked up and saw Andie standing in the open doorway.

“Have you spoken to Celeste’s parents?” he asked, rising from the couch.

“It’s not Celeste,” said Andie.

Jack felt a wave of relief. . then trepidation. “Who is it?”

“We don’t know. We were hoping you could tell us.”

Chills ran the length of his spine. Jack followed her down the hallway. She walked quickly, as if eager to be done with this, and he had to hurry to keep up.

“You think it’s. . somebody I know?”

“Possibly,” said Andie. “About my age. Female. Blond. Pretty.”

Jack continued to follow, his heart in his throat, fearing the worst.

“She had no identification,” said Andie. “A landscaper found her body, naked, next to the canal along Tamiami Trail.”

Rene would have crossed the Tamiami Trail to get from the hospital to the coffee shop in Little Havana. It took all his effort, but finally Jack managed to get a few words out. “How did it happen?”

Andie opened the door to the morgue. “Strangled,” she said.

Jack followed her inside. A wall of stainless steel drawers was before him. One to the right, three drawers from the bottom, was open. Andie led him to it. An assistant medical examiner pulled the drawer farther from the wall, drawing the sheet-covered body into the room. Jack held his breath. With a nod from Andie, the examiner lifted the white sheet.

Jack’s knees nearly buckled. Her hair was mussed, her color was flat and lifeless, but there was no mistaking that classically beautiful face.

“Her name is Rene,” said Jack.

“Then you do know her?”

“Yes. Rene Fenning. She’s a doctor at Jackson.” He paused, then added, “We used to date.”

The assistant draped the white sheet back over her face.

Jack was suddenly puzzled. “If she had no identification, no clothes, how did you know to call me to make the ID?”

On Andie’s cue, the assistant lifted the sheet again, this time from the middle, exposing Rene’s torso.

Jack froze. Below the navel, about two inches above her pubic hair, was a handwritten message in black marker:

SOMEONE YOU LOVE.

It chilled Jack, and he could almost hear the voice of his attacker as he read those three words to himself.

“That’s the reason I called you,” said Andie.

The examiner replaced the sheet. Jack was still trying to comprehend that Rene was dead, and it hit him that much harder to think that it could have been Andie under that sheet. He looked at her, speechless.

Andie seemed to be staring right through him. “When is the last time you saw her, Jack?”

“Last night,” he said, and he immediately felt Andie do a double take. “At the hospital,” he added. “Andie, this is not what you think it-”

She raised a hand, which silenced him.

“Let’s go outside, Jack. Sounds like you and I need to talk.”