Code 61

TWENTY-SIX

Tuesday, October 10, 2000

12:09

Hester and I had a fast chat.

“Toby admitted to conspiracy to commit murder,” she said. “If I heard him correctly.”

“Yeah,” I answered. “I think you did. Not any evidence but his statement, yet, though.” It was not nearly enough, even if he'd been completely rational and had provided it in writing.

“True. But it opens the doors wider and wider.”

“Damn, Hester, we really gotta find out where Edie was killed. There has to be evidence all over the place, wherever it is.”

“We also have to find Peale. Any ideas?”

“I'd like to talk to Jessica Hunley about him,” I said.

“Me, too. You think Toby was on meth? Or ecstasy?”

“I'd say both of them, plus a little home grown psychosis. Too bad, he's sort of a bright guy.”

“When he talked to Peale, and from what he just told us I think we can safely assume it was by telephone, he really must have been convinced. He even thought he was stronger,” she said.

“Yeah.” It obviously hadn't occurred to Toby that, since the autopsy, Edie's internal organs weren't all in the same place, or in the same condition, that they had been when she was alive. Not to mention that the chest had already been opened, to enable her heart and lungs to be removed for examination. It was no wonder the stake had gone in so easily. He probably could have just leaned on it, and it would have penetrated into what had once been her mediastinum, and gone all the way to the spinal column.

“You know,” I said, “he mentioned something about striking the stake. We didn't find anything. I wonder what he used, and where he put it?” Evidence.

“If he was as wired then as he is now,” said Hester, “he probably used his forehead.”

I checked my “to do” box at the dispatch counter. There were three notes in it, from the dispatcher who had gotten off duty at 09:00. The first said she'd received a phone call from the DCI crime lab. The blood in the white body bag we'd found in the trash had been human, as expected, and the lab had confirmed the blood type with our pathologist, Dr. Peters. It was the same as Edie's. Type B negative. Not a lot, but one more little piece of the puzzle. We'd have to wait quite a while for DNA matching.

The second note was hand written on a teletype page. It was confirmation from the London Metropolitan Police, and indicated that there was no such person as Daniel Peale in the London Directory. The third said that Dr. Peters had called, and wanted to talk to me as soon as I came in.

I called, and his secretary said he was on his way to Davenport to do an autopsy, and patched me through to his cell phone.

“Peters, here.”

“Doc, it's Deputy Houseman, up in Nation County.”

“Carl! I called earlier.”

“Yeah, we got a little busy with the case. Did you know that somebody snuck into the funeral home and drove a stake through Edie's chest?”

There was a long pause, and I thought something had gone wrong with the phone.

“You've absolutely got to be kidding me,” he said, at last.

“No, 'fraid not. Our local ME took a look at it this morning. So did I.”

“My God. Who did it?”

“Toby. You remember? The squirrelly one. And we've pretty well established that he was probably there when she was killed, too.”

Another silence. Then, “Right. Well, then, you might like to know this when you talk with him.” And he went on to explain what he'd done.

He had, as a routine precaution, examined each section, piece and fragment of the tissues from the wound in Edie's neck under magnification, primarily to make certain that the edges of the pieces were consistent with the use of a sharp edge, and not inflicted in a contrary manner. For court purposes. But, while looking at the three main segments of her right jugular vein, he'd come across a puncture mark. It was small, with a cut running right above it. But a puncture mark, nonetheless.

“Really?” What else to say?

“Remarkably like the puncture you'd expect to find from, say, a syringe. Or an IV stick.”

“Really?”

“And, I've found an amount of a substance called warfarin in the blood samples. It prevents clotting; you can find it in Coumadin. Not naturally present in the body, of course. It has to be administered.”

“Really?”

“You know how I hate to speculate,” he said. “I don't want you going off on the wrong track because I've misled you.”

“You bet.”

“But I'm virtually certain that the massive wound in her neck was inflicted post mortem.”

I was quiet.

“And that the wound was inflicted to cover up the needle mark,” he said. “There doesn't seem to be a corresponding mark in the skin. We're not completely finished with the examination yet, but I'd be willing to bet that the cut was made directly on the external puncture, to cover it up.”

Wow.

“With the warfarin, the puncture… She could bleed to death very easily. Not really quickly, but fast enough.” He paused again, and I heard him mutter something about “idiots,” that sounded traffic related.

“Where was I?” he asked, and then answered his own question. “Oh yes. Do you remember when I said that the cut in the trachea bothered me at the autopsy, that there was no significant amount of aspirated blood?” he said. “If the trachea had been cut while she was alive, she would have aspirated blood.”

“Okay.”

“So, just another item on the report, but all this says she died, then her throat was cut post mortem, and the minimal stains on the floor in various places indicate that she then was moved into the tub post mortem.” There were more road noises, and then he said, “She bled to death. There just isn't any other evidence of any injury or trauma other than the puncture wound in the jugular. No blood chemistry consistent with asphyxiation, for example. But massive blood loss prior to death is indicated, and there's no other evidence of any hemorrhaging other than via that puncture. There were abnormally constricted vasoconstrictors in the surface vessels, the kidneys, and the GI tract. The vessels were shutting down due to loss of blood volume. There was a remarkable lack of fluid in the interstitial spaces. There was an elevated amount of epinephrine and norepinephrine in the tissue samples. All consistent with a reducing blood volume. She had to lose at least forty percent of her blood volume, more likely fifty percent. Judging from what we found, I'd say at least that much, but some probably post mortem. I'm not in any doubt about that.”

“Right, then.”

“Carl?”

“Yeah?”

“Carl, with the use of the IV stick, that's the only point where the circulatory system was breached, you know. So, it very likely took her a while to die, and she was conscious almost to the end.”

“Okay… ”

“When people bleed to death, they become feisty after a bit, agitated. They tend to get aggressive on you. You might not be looking for conspicuous blood spurts after all, but I'll bet there was some sort of thrashing about going on, at a later stage.”

“How later?”

“I expect that she passed through the agitated stages a good forty-five minutes before she died. She would just have been sleepy after that. Subdued state, going to a shocky one. You know.”

That I did. Accident victims will do that, for example. But forty-five minutes?

“Doc, you said forty-five minutes, is that right?”

“That's right. It took her some time, I think.”

“Okay. So, maybe not any indentations, from ligatures, at least.”

“Right. Oh, and Carl?”

“Yeah?”

“She'd maybe tend to get whiny, you know? Like some drunks. Mumbling, too, maybe. If you need anything like that to confirm an account. From a suspect.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate this.”

“Just get whoever it was, Carl.”

“Yeah. We will.”

Afterward, I briefed Hester on the conversation.

“So, now we know at least one more piece of the thing,” she said.

“Yep. Jesus, Hester. Forty-five minutes, at least. I get this image of her knowing what's going on, at least at some point. That she was going to die that night.” I took a deep breath.

“I wonder how long it really took,” she said. “For her to die, I mean.”

“I got the impression of an hour or so,” I said. “At least.” I shrugged. “Gets us right back to 'where' doesn't it? Where could you have that level of isolation and privacy for a good hour?”

We stood in the kitchen, and drank our coffee.

“We gotta talk to Jessica Hunley,” said Hester, running a little cold water in her cup at the sink. The coffee was too hot and too old. “We just have to do that.” She took a sip and poured the rest of the cup into the sink. “Think you'd be able to come along?”

That was a good question. First, our budget was a bit thin. Second, we were short of help due to the damned flu. Third, there was the awkward complication of Hester and me not being able to share a room.

“Let me check with Lamar,” I said.

“Don't go paying for it out of your own pocket,” she said. “I'm serious.”

“Okay.” I sat at the table. “I won't.”

“Remember when Toby said 'When we killed her the first time.' That one gave me the willies, Carl, and I'm not kidding.”

“Me, too. And she asked for help.” I shook my head.

“The little shit was there, all right. She asked for help. She had to know, then, didn't she? That she was going to die.”

Hester nodded her head. “Yeah.”

“Makes you wonder just who else was there, doesn't it?”

“Of those we know, Hanna, Melissa, and Kevin come to mind.” Hester grabbed a paper towel, and wiped up a small coffee spill on the table, from the previous occupant. Busywork.

I hated to ask, but, “How about Huck? Think she was there?”

Hester shook her head. “At the murder scene? No. But she knows who was, I'd bet my life on it.”

I called Lamar, and got him thinking about my trip to Lake Geneva. I could tell on the phone he'd approve it, but it would take him a little while.

I called Harry over in Conception County. I wanted to have him connect me with the local cops in Lake Geneva, but he went one better. He said he'd just come along, since he thought we were pursuing the same suspect. Great news.

Hester and I decided against calling Jessica Hunley to make an appointment. We both agreed the element of surprise, or at least unexpectedness, was going to be the key when we came calling on her. We'd just have Harry contact the locals and make sure she was in town.

On the other hand, we wanted to be expected, if not downright anticipated, at the Mansion.

We left instructions with Dispatch that we would give them a “ten-twenty-one” over the radio, at which point they would telephone the Mansion. We told them exactly what to say when they called to tell the group we were coming.

“Just handle it all as code sixty-one traffic,” I said. “Everything to an absolute minimum.”

About thirty minutes later, we'd driven all the way up the Mansion lane, until we could just see the door of the house over the crest of the hill. We stopped. It placed us about a hundred yards out, with just the edge of the car roof and about two thirds of the windshield visible to anyone looking our way from the house.

I picked up the mike. “Comm, Three… ”

“Three?”

“Ten-twenty-one.” She knew what I meant.

“Ten-four. Stand by One… ”

A few moments later, after having informed whoever answered that Hester and I would be there in a while to bring them up to date on the situation with Toby, she came back on the radio.

“Three, ten-sixty-nine, they said 'Fine.' ” A ten-sixty-nine is the code for message received.

“Ten-four.”

It was that simple. Then we waited; to see if anybody did anything unusual, like try to leave. Although we weren't able to see the rear of the house, the relative lack of success of people leaving via the back door should have been having some effect. Well, with the mere mortals, anyway.

We waited two minutes, by the dash clock. Nothing.

“They're still pretty confident, aren't they?” Hester shifted in her seat.

“They sure seem to be.”

“Well, let's go see what we can do about that.”