Chaos

CHAPTER 16

HE WAITS TO SEE if I’ll engage in small talk and banter, but I’m not interested. My attention keeps going back to Marino talking to the twins some distance away, angling his phone flashlight in a way that won’t illuminate much to anyone who might be watching with binoculars or a telescopic lens.

But I recognize what he’s doing. He wants to see the expression on the sisters’ faces as he questions them, and I can tell that the girls find him reassuring. I intuit it by the way they gaze up at him. I sense it by how they cluster close to him beneath the dark canopy of a spreading oak tree as if they’re passing through an evil forest and Marino is their guide.

“Anyway,” Barclay says, pointing toward rhododendron bushes about twenty feet ahead of where we are, and to the left of the body. “You might want to be careful where you’re walking around here and I don’t mean because of any evidence we’ve not collected yet. But one of the girls got sick over there.”

“When was that?”

“When I first got here, right as I was walking up. She was coming out of the bushes, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand and kind of glassy-eyed. I don’t know which one or if she threw up or what. Trust me, that’s one thing I decided not to investigate too closely.”

“Do you know if either of them touched the body?” I get to the most important question. “What exactly did they tell you they did?” I glance at the time on my phone, and the glow from its display is bright like a TV screen in the dark.

It’s 8:22 P.M., and I make a note of it.

“When I got here there was no one else around, and they weren’t close, were at least twenty feet from her,” Barclay says. “They were real shook up, and they said they didn’t touch it. I must have asked them half a dozen times, and they said no. The closest they got to it was maybe a yard,” he adds, holding his hands about three feet apart as if I can’t envision what he’s describing.

“It?” I ask.

“The dead lady.”

He continues to regard the victim as an object while he treats me like a lesser mortal who has no right to be here. I’ll take it a little longer. Then I’m going to share a few of my thoughts with him. I’m going to give him some free advice.

“They wandered close to check it out, and then retreated, were probably scared shitless,” Barclay says. “They stayed back and called the police.”

The girls have matching backpacks, and I have no idea what might be inside them. But at a glance I don’t see that either of them has a phone.

“How did they call for help?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Nine-one-one.” It’s his way of flipping me off.

“I’m aware that nine-one-one was called. My point is at least one of them must have a phone.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t search them,” he says. “But tell you what. When I get them in the daisy room and can distract them, I’ll go through their backpacks. I guarantee their phones and who knows what else is in there.”

I return him to the subject of the body being found, and he tosses out the same details I’ve already heard. The girls were walking home and noticed something ahead on the path.

“They got closer,” Barclay says, “and at first they thought it was someone who’d been in a bad bike accident. Like it was getting dark and she ran into a lamppost or something, hitting her head so hard it knocked her helmet off. They could see blood and that she wasn’t moving.”

“What do you mean at first?” Before I talk to the twins I want an idea of how much he may have tainted them. “At first they thought she’d had a bike accident? That’s what they said?”

“Well I doubt they think that now. They think somebody did something bad to her.”

“How did they get a good enough look to notice blood and decide she was dead?” I ask, and if the girls suspect foul play it’s probably because Barclay has his mind made up about what type of case this is.

He hasn’t hesitated saying it’s a homicide-a sexual one at that.

“It’s extremely dark, and the shadows are especially thick where she is,” I point out. “Do they have a flashlight? Because I don’t know how they could have seen very much otherwise.”

“Maybe in one of the backpacks. I don’t know. They told me they were pretty sure she was dead. They said she smelled dead.”

“That’s interesting. Meaning what?”

“And they also said she smelled like a hair dryer.” He smirks.

“I’m wondering what they meant by that,” I reply, and he laughs.

“Who the hell knows? They’re retarded, right?”

“It’s not my job to test their IQs and I doubt it’s yours either, and that’s not a good word to use.” I look on as Marino takes photographs and sets down a numbered cone, and it’s all I can do not to blast Barclay but good. “The girls meant something by what they said,” I add in my most reasonable tone. “It would be smart to figure out what it was instead of assuming they’re talking nonsense.”

“Probably what they were noticing was the blood. Blood plus heat equals an odor. Kind of a metallic smell? Like a hair dryer maybe? And her blood’s going to be decomposing for sure in no time at all because of how hot it is.”

“Unless you want to swap jobs with me, Investigator Barclay, that’s another detail you really shouldn’t be discussing.” I glance back at the sound of footsteps and wheels rolling slowly along the gritty path.

“Another detail? As in more than one?” He might be flirting now. “But hell yeah. I’ll swap jobs anytime. I’ve always thought I’d be a good doctor.”

I DETECT LOW VOICES, and Rusty and Harold with all their gear and equipment are two floating lights and a shadowy caravan. I can just make them out as they enter the woods that lead to the clearing.

They wear hands-free headlamps like miners to light their way as they steer two trolleys. I don’t have to see them to know they’re loaded with a mountain of scene cases, boxes, sandbags, and the privacy barrier, which is disassembled and packed inside what looks like a stack of long black body bags. Tied down with bungee cords, the bulky dark shapes of the advancing cargo bring to mind a morbid Santa’s sleigh as it lumbers closer. I send Harold a text:

Once inside the tape, begin to unload. Will check with you in a few.

“It should take no more than twenty minutes to get all this set up,” I say to Barclay. “While this is going on Marino and I will do a walk-through, taking photos, getting an idea what we need to identify, protect and preserve before we assemble the barrier in place over the body. Once that’s done we’ll turn on the lights and I’ll examine her inside an enclosure that affords us privacy.”

“How big an area can it cover?” Barclay stares back at my transport team.

“Big enough to enclose the bike and the body,” I explain. “What we’re putting together is basically a tent. And if you’ve never been through this before, we have to take steps in a well-thought-out logical order so one procedure doesn’t mess up another.”

I watch the twins talking to Marino, and I look at the bicycle some twenty feet ahead of where I’m standing, and then the body a good ten feet beyond that. Usually when I conduct a high recon or preliminary walk-through I get the lay of the land and a good idea of what I’m dealing with. But what I’m seeing out here is a contradiction. It’s haphazard, almost quirky, as if someone staged the scene but didn’t have a clue what it should look like.

Had the victim fallen from her bicycle, her body wouldn’t be ten feet from it. A bicycle can’t throw you like a horse, and even if it could, what I’m seeing doesn’t add up. Why is her helmet so far from where the bicycle went down? Even if her chin strap wasn’t fastened, that still wouldn’t explain it. How did she hit her head so hard as to be killed almost instantly, it seems. I also can’t imagine that she died in the position she’s in with her arms up, her legs wide, her knees and elbows barely bent as if she’s in the middle of a jumping jack.

“You ready to take a look at her?” Barclay asks, and what I’d really like is for the overbearing new investigator to leave me alone with my thoughts for a moment.

“And it goes without saying that you didn’t disturb the body. You didn’t move it.” I click my pen closed and ask in the way of a coda.

“I said I didn’t. I checked her vitals, and it sure seems like she’s been dead for a while.”

“Her vitals? Where?”

“Her wrist. I’m pretty sure it was her right one. I picked it up to check for a pulse, and her arm was stiff. That was it. That was all I did. Like I keep telling everybody I didn’t move her,” he says, and I wonder who everybody is.

I suppose Marino could constitute a crowd all by himself when he’s after someone.

“When the squad got here did you tell them you were sure she’d been dead for a while?”

“I gave them my opinion. I said she was already stiff, and yeah she was warm because you could fry a freakin’ egg out here.”

“One thing you really should keep in mind, Investigator Barclay, is it’s important not to be the origin of unsubstantiated opinions.” As a parting gesture I offer him a piece of my mind, a free moment of mentoring that he’s certain not to appreciate.

“No matter how well intended your opinions may be,” I add in a quiet voice that means business, “be very careful before you speak. I don’t care what you’re told or what you see. I don’t care what you’re absolutely certain you believe. Think twice. Think three or four times.”

“I have a right to my opinion-” he starts in, and I cut him off.

“Not if it has to do with science, medicine or some other area that’s not your expertise. I advise that you report your observations but don’t interpret or make decisions based on them.” I don’t take my eyes off him. “Because loose talk and misinformation are fodder for lawyers.”

“I’m just telling you she’s stiff and therefore been dead awhile…”

“Paralysis can make someone stiff. That doesn’t mean the person’s dead. Again, please don’t interpret or offer your opinions-especially not medical or forensic ones.”

“Since I’m the one who witnessed it, that makes what I’m saying a fact, not an opinion,” he fires like a loaded bowstring. “And maybe there’s an odor. I might have smelled rotting blood.” After a hostile pause he takes the next shot. “And now I’m getting what all the chatter was about. All the shit that was on the radio earlier.”

I don’t ask him what he means. I have a feeling I know as I’m unpleasantly reminded of the 911 complaint about my supposedly fighting with Bryce and disturbing the peace. Maybe Barclay knows all about it. Maybe everyone in his department does. I conclude my business with him by asking that he wait over there, and by that I mean a healthy distance from me.

He stalks off toward Marino and the twins, and the dashing investigator whose name isn’t Clay doesn’t like me. It couldn’t be more apparent. Not that I particularly care. Marino walks in my direction. He crouches by the big black plastic Pelican case he rolled from his SUV.

“You need to keep your eye on him.” I say it under my breath. “Because he’s brand-new and already he doesn’t think he answers to anyone. An attitude like that will get only worse.”

“I got his number more than you know.” Marino moves around the case unsnapping clasps. “He’s got a weird thing with older women, some fucked-up mother complex. I’m just giving you fair warning.”

“I remind him of his mother?”

“An aunt, a mother. Because you’re older than him.”

“That doesn’t mean I remind him of his mother or aunt or anyone else for that matter.”

“I’m just telling you he thinks he’s a gift to women but unlike yours truly here he doesn’t like them. Not really.” He opens the lid of the case.

Inside is a supply closet of forensic necessities perfectly organized and neatly packed. He finds a camera and a large flashlight with a detachable shoulder strap. Then he pulls disposable booties over his shoes, and he works a pair of gloves over his huge hands.

“I know these will swallow you, Doc.” He hands me a pair of booties and gloves.

I ask him for two rubber bands to adjust the booties, making them half the size so I don’t walk out of them or step on my own feet. I pull on the extra-large gloves and have inches of room to spare in the floppy purple nitrile fingers.

“Let’s go,” he says, and we move on to the second stage, the inner perimeter, not bothering with other protective clothing, not yet.

There’s no risk of contamination if we’re careful not to step on or disturb anything. With rare exceptions we won’t collect evidence until the inner scene is protected and the lights are on. We start in the clearing, using our flashlights to sweep the gritty swath in front of us, and the trees and grass on either side.

With each step Marino stops as if he sees something. He leans closer, grunts softly, indicating it’s nothing, and he takes photographs. I hear the constant whir of the shutter. The blinding bursts of the flashgun are disorienting as we continue our well-practiced synchronized approach. It’s a deeply ingrained procedure, like the proper way to hit a tennis stroke, and we rarely need to coach each other anymore.

“Stop,” I say to him as the silhouette of an unlit lamppost materializes in the dark up ahead, close to the overturned bicycle at the outer rim of the clearing, just before the woods begin again.

The lantern on top of the black iron pole is out, and we shine our lights at it, discovering a glass pane is wide open, the bulbs inside shattered. Bits of broken glass flash and flare as we probe the grass, and splinters sparkle all around the bike.

“From this perspective, it almost seems it might have crashed into the lamppost,” I comment. “Maybe what Barclay suggested is right.”

“He’s never right,” Marino snipes.

Perhaps the person riding couldn’t see and had an accident. But that wouldn’t explain the destroyed lightbulbs inside a lantern some ten feet off the ground. It wouldn’t explain why the body isn’t nearby.

“Got no idea.” Marino stares up at the dark metal frame of the lantern at the top of the lamppost. “Maybe somebody opened the access pane and smashed the bulbs.”

“It’s weird that the glass is blown all over the place. How would that happen if you opened the pane and smashed the bulbs? And unless you’re a giant I don’t think you could reach the lantern to unlatch it.”

“I’m thinking the same thing. How come the glass is blown everywhere? The bulbs couldn’t have been shot out or the outer glass panes would be broken, and I don’t see how a rock could do it unless you were up on a ladder and used it to smash the bulbs.” He shines his light around, looking for one anyway. “But to be honest, we don’t know for sure when the damage happened.”

“I wouldn’t expect the park to leave a broken light out here for very long,” I reply.

“Well it sure as hell makes it darker in this immediate area where she went down on her bike when she got attacked,” he says as we probe nonstop with our lights. “So maybe some psycho smashed out the lamp. Maybe he shimmied up the lamppost, who the hell knows, and then waited for her or some other victim. That’s exactly what it’s looking like, meaning this was premeditated.”

“Or maybe the light was already out and she had an accident.” Not that I think this at all, but I’m reminding him to be cautious about locking one idea or another into his mind. “We don’t know for a fact that she was assaulted,” and I’ve said this multiple times but nobody seems to be listening.

Another step, and another, then one more until we’re about four feet from the bicycle on its side. The body is some ten feet from it, and already I can see the drag marks.

“Dammit!” I mutter, and regardless of what Barclay claimed, I had a feeling this was what I’d find. “She’s been moved.”