Blood Vines

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Tuesday, March 9

9:10 A.M.

The Sonoma County Coroner’s Office was located in Santa Rosa, not far from the Barn. Reed entered the building, called out a hello to the receptionist, then headed to the autopsy viewing room. In addition to the Coroner’s detective, both the lead VCI and the CSI detectives were required to attend the autopsy of every homicide case they worked.

Because of Schwann’s position in the community, the pathologist had pushed him to the front of the line. Reed glanced at his watch. And he was late.

He stepped into the room. It was narrow, joined to the autopsy room by a door and a window that spanned the rest of the wall. In front of the window, a counter and stools. Like a bar.

Step right up, folks. Get yourself some.

His counterparts had already arrived; the autopsy had begun. Bob Ware, the Coroner’s detective, sat on one of the stools, his McDonald’s breakfast on the counter before him. Tanner sat on the adjacent stool, eyeing the McMuffin meal.

She glanced his way. “Can you believe he eats that garbage? If I ate that, I’d be in a grease coma within thirty minutes.”

“You’re just jealous,” Bob responded. “I’m the picture of health.”

“He’s got a point,” Reed said, crossing to the coffeepot.

“On the outside. I bet his arteries are a fright.”

Bob didn’t argue with that.

Reed poured himself a cup of the hot beverage, then held out the pot. “Anybody else?”

Not surprisingly, the two detectives held out their cups. It was cold in the viewing room, though nothing compared to the chill in the actual examination room. Ditto for the smell, a sort of antiseptic laced with death.

He refilled them, then crossed to the counter and sat. “What’d I miss?”

Like all seasoned cops, they were desensitized to the process. The body on the stainless steel table had ceased being a human being and had become, simply, evidence. The most important piece of evidence they had. No body, no murder.

Bob looked over at him. “External examination of the body,” he said around a mouthful of hash browns. “Other than the neck, no outward signs of trauma. Nails were clean. Nothing unusual.”

“Except for the tattoo,” Tanner corrected.

“Tom had a tatt? That surprises me.”

“On the bottom of his foot.”

Reed crossed to the door that separated the room from the autopsy suite. He opened it and stuck his head in. “Kath, did you get a picture of that tattoo?”

She sent him an irritated glance. “This isn’t my first dance, Detective. In the future, maybe you should try a little harder to be on time?”

Tanner and Bob snickered. Unfazed, Reed grinned. “Anything else you want to share with me?”

“Yeah. Sit down and shut up so I can get this done.”

“Love you, too, Kath.”

An autopsy always followed the same procedure: top to bottom, outside to in, head last. Since Kath had already finished the external examination, she was preparing to open the vic up. She made a series of incisions that formed a Y and opened him from breastbone to groin. Next, she cut through ribs and cartilage to reveal the heart and lungs, which she removed. All organs would be measured and weighed, then sliced into sections to evaluate damage.

Reed glanced at his watch, anxious to move on. The autopsy process took two hours, give or take, and was as tedious as it was exacting. Some were more enlightening than others, but for the most part Reed found them a major time drain.

He stifled a yawn, his mind wandering to the previous night, to the things Alex had said about the altar. A kitchen sink approach, she had called it. He recalled her exact words: “Look… if I get the idea I’m the living God, or His chosen prophet, all I have to do is convince one other person it’s true and I have a following. I’m legitimized.”

Power grew out of the act of being legitimized. That newly crowned wacko could decide God was telling him to commit murder. Or that he must “save” his flock through death. The Jonestown massacre came to mind. As did the Manson Family’s killing spree.

A dead lamb left in Alex’s rental. Who had done it? And why?

Her connection to the past, he thought. Other than it having been completely random, what other reason could there be?

She remembered more than she was letting on.

His cell vibrated; he saw it was HQ. He answered to the buzz of the bone saw cutting open Schwann’s skull. “Reed here.”

“Detective, Officer Trenton, front desk. There are two gentlemen here to speak with you. A Harlan and Treven Sommer. They say it’s about Baby Doe.”

An interesting twist. “It’s going to be about another hour here.”

“They said they would wait as long as necessary. I just wanted to alert you.”

Reed thanked her and hung up. He found Tanner looking at him. “The Sommer brothers want to talk to me about Baby Doe.”

“Sweet. Any idea what’s up?”

“None.”

“How did the altar visit go last night?”

“Productive.” He looked back at the autopsy in progress. The pathologist was weighing Schwann’s brain. He returned his gaze to Tanner’s. “She couldn’t attribute it to a particular group. Called it a kitchen sink approach.” He went on, describing what that meant, then added, “Apparently anybody can start their own religion, all you need is a belief system and somebody who buys into it.”

“Rogue worshippers.”

He smiled at that, gaze on the autopsy. “I asked; she found it nonthreatening and pretty routine.”

“Why am I not surprised by that?” He glanced at her in question and she went on, “She seemed pretty calm when I arrived last night. How was she when she called you?”

He thought back. “Not panicked or crying. Voice wasn’t shaking. Told me what had happened, asked if I could come over.”

“Why you?”

“I’m a cop. She knows me. That’s human nature.”

“Maybe.”

He drained the last of his coffee, though it had grown cold. “I found her composure odd, as well. I asked her about it. She told me that whoever had done this wanted her to be afraid and she refused to give them what they wanted.”

“Good for her,” she said. “That takes some iron-clad cojones.”

It did. Reed knew how Tanner’s mind worked and where it was going. “You think she killed the lamb, stuck it under her bathroom sink to marinate a few days, then called me?”

“It’s possible.”

Anything was possible. They’d both been cops long enough to know that. “Why do it?”

“Attention. Yours. The Sommer family’s. Maybe even police attention.” She turned to meet his eyes. “Maybe she knows more than she’s let on.”

His thought from earlier. But why the charade? Why the Byzantine scenario?

“Or maybe she’s a total whack job?” Bob offered, as if he had heard Reed’s unspoken questions and answered them.

They both looked at him. He shrugged. “Just can’t ignore the obvious.”

Tanner leaned toward Reed. “Has it occurred to you that since she arrived, there’s been some severely weird shit going on? Weird shit she’s well versed in.”

“Yeah, it has.”

“And with this animal, the happenings physically connect to her.”

“Suggestions?”

“Stay close. Be suspicious. If she’s responsible she might be crazy enough to be dangerous, and not just to small animals. And if she’s a target-”

“She may be in danger,” he finished.

They both turned their full attention back to the autopsy, and for the next thirty minutes, Reed struggled to keep focus. The secateur had sliced open Schwann’s throat and the carotid artery and he bled out. It would’ve happened fast: with that injury in that location, about two to three minutes.

“No surprises with this,” Tanner said a short while later as they crossed the parking area. “Poor bastard.”

They reached her vehicle. She unlocked the door and climbed in. “Let me know what the Sommer brothers have to say.”

“Will do. See you back at the Barn.”

Reed crossed to his own vehicle, slid inside and started it up. But instead of heading out, he sat, turning his and Tanner’s conversation over in his head.

Could Alex have killed the lamb and left it for him to find? If she had, she was one seriously twisted chick. One for whom the lines between reality and fantasy had become blurred.

He didn’t peg her that way. She seemed relatively grounded. Like she was rolling with the punches pretty well, considering.

Still, she’d lived through an awful trauma. A brother disappearing. Her life upended. The bizarre excision of that brother from her memory. Her mother’s suicide.

Enough to psychologically tweak even the most stable individual.

His cell phone sounded. “Reed,” he answered.

“Investigator Hwang, SFME. I’ve been meaning to call, about the Owens autopsy. The findings were consistent with suicide. Seroquel in her system. No outward signs of a struggle.”

“Thanks for letting me know.”

“No problem. There was one odd thing, though.”

Reed shifted into drive and eased out of the parking spot. “What’s that?”

“Her right pinkie finger was broken.”

“I’m sorry, did you say her pinkie finger was broken?”

“I did.”

“Could it have happened when she was being transported?”

“Pathologist didn’t think so because of bruising to the area.” He cleared his throat. “From the chaotic state of her home and paintings, she experienced a violent manic state prior to ingesting the Seroquel. Our theory is she broke it then.”

Reed nodded, shifted into drive and headed out of the lot. “Nothing else that might indicate a struggle with an assailant?”

“Nothing.”

Reed thanked the man, hung up and turned his thoughts to Harlan and Treven Sommer waiting for him at HQ.