Code 61

EIGHT

Saturday, October 7, 2000

14:50

I could see, through the glazed entrance, three vehicles pulling up to the front of the house. One of our marked squads, being followed closely by a dark blue SUV that just had to belong to my favorite forensic pathologist, Dr. Steven Peters. Third in line was an older, silver-gray Plymouth Voyager. That one I didn't recognize.

Since it was officially my crime scene, I went to the door with Hester, while Borman stayed with the three residents in the parlor. Although they were far from suspects at this point, it was always a good idea to have somebody about to gauge reactions, and to prevent any lengthy conversations. Just in case.

Our squad had turned around, and the driver, Deputy Norm Jones, lowered his window and stuck out his head. “These guys live here.” He indicated the Voyager.

“Right!” I looked at Hester. “Must be our residents who work on the boat.”

“Good.”

“Thanks, Norm,” I said. He waved, and headed back down the lane. That was one thing about this location: It was nice and easy to seal the place off and keep anybody but the invited out.

I turned back toward the SUV, as Dr. Peters emerged. He shook hands with Hester and myself. “Two of my favorite officers,” he said, “who always manage to throw a challenge my way.”

“This one,” I said, “may take the cake.”

He glanced around. “Marvelous place here. I never knew it even existed.” Dr. Peters was from Iowa City, about a hundred miles south of us.

“Don't feel bad,” I said. “There are some people who live in this county who don't know of the place.” I saw the two occupants of the older car heading toward the house. “ 'Scuse me a sec, Doc,” I said.

I quickly introduced myself to the male and female who were headed up the steps into the house.

“Excuse me,” I said. They stopped at the foot of the steps. They were both rather pale complected, and wore their gaming boat uniforms: white frilled shirts, black slacks, black bow ties, black suspenders, black shoes. They were carrying their black jackets. They looked like a mime act. “I'm Deputy Houseman, and I have to talk with you for a few seconds, before you go in.”

The male was about six feet, slender, with black hair. He had a hole in his earlobe and one in his nostril. Took the jewelry off for work, apparently. The female was about five feet eight, and thin. Dark brown hair pulled back tightly, with ears pierced on the upper curve as well as the lobe. Her jewelry was in place. She, too, had large, dark eyes. Her high cheekbones both had some sort of tattoo, in an exceptionally delicate swirling pattern. I suspected they were temporaries, because they didn't look thick enough to be real.

“Do you have some identification?” the male asked. For some reason, lots of people seem to think that asking you to produce some form of ID is going to put you on the defensive.

I opened my badge case, and held it wide for them to see, as if the gun on my hip hadn't told them everything they'd wanted to know. “Sure, here. There's an ongoing investigation inside right now. I'm afraid there's one room that's been closed off for the time being.”

“Edie's, I assume,” he said.

“Yep.”

“Well, I wasn't going up there, anyway.”

“And,” I added, before they could move, “we're going to have some routine questions for you, as well.”

“About?” The female. Abrupt. It was time to break the ice.

“You're Holly Finn, aren't you? The one they call 'Huck'?”

That seemed to surprise her. Using nicknames will do that when people haven't told you what they are. It implies you know more about them than you really do.

“Holly's right,” she said. “But you might as well call me Huck. Everybody else does.”

“Sure,” I said. Then I looked at him. “Stemmer, isn't it? Kevin Stemmer?” Just as if I'd actually recognized him.

“Yes,” he said.

“You're both aware, I take it, of the, ah, event this morning?” I had to ask, because I certainly didn't want either of them just walking in, maybe thinking Edie was sick or something, and finding out that she was dead. Just to be sure.

“We know,” she said. “Terrible, but not unexpected. At least,” she added, “not by those of us who knew her best.”

Knew her best? Didn't go too far in explaining why they hadn't just rushed home, but I was willing to bet that she didn't have any idea that Toby and Hanna had been so talkative.

“A bad thing,” added Kevin. “But death comes to us all.”

Well, sure. But it was the second time I'd heard that kind of sentiment that day, and both times it seemed to be designed to minimize Edie's death, not to deal with it. Not so much of a philosophy, but more like a dodge, really. It irritated me just a bit.

“It's the ones death sneaks up on that I feel for,” I said. “I hate surprises, myself.”

Hester and Dr. Peters passed by, going on into the house. “Join us as soon as you can?” I saw that Hester had retrieved her laptop from her car. She and Dr. Peters were both carrying black cases as they entered the house.

“You bet.” I looked back at the two gaming boat employees. “If you two will just check in with Deputy Borman in the parlor… he'll need some information from you, just as soon as you're ready… ”

“I'd really like,” said Huck, “to use the bathroom, upstairs. If that's all right.” A little sarcasm crept in there. I really couldn't blame her. She did live here, after all.

“Oh, that's just fine,” I said, advancing past them up the steps, and holding open the door for them. “Just don't go into Edie's room until we're ffnished, okay?”

“Of course,” said Kevin. Sarcasm again. “Like I said, it's not the first place I'd normally go.”

“So,” I continued, “just check in with Deputy Borman, and be available in a while.”

They turned off into the parlor. I watched the reactions of the other residents. Kevin and Huck got sort of deferential treatment. Toby, especially, seemed not so much glad as relieved to see them back.

I went on upstairs, to Edie's room. I thought we'd just pretty well established the pecking order in the Mansion.

Dr. Peters and Hester were talking in low tones as I got to Edie's room. Dr. Peters gestured toward the bathroom. “My.”

“Yeah,” I said. I really wasn't looking forward to another complete tour of that place.

“I told him about our little discovery of blood under her butt,” said Hester. “And the Conception County incident.”

Dr. Peters nodded. “Not conclusive in and of itself. I really think we might need the lab team to give us a thorough workup here,” he said. “And I'll talk to my opposite number in Wisconsin as soon as I finish up with the autopsy.”

“Agreed,” said Hester.

“So Carl,” said Dr. Peters, “you have some prelim stuff on a digital camera?”

I did. Hester opened her laptop case. “JPEGs?”

“Yep,” I replied. “Standard format. You got a USB port?”

She did, and I produced a USB cable. Plugged one end into the digital camera, the other into her laptop, and in a few seconds, we had photos of Edie in the tub.

The three of us peered at the laptop LCD screen for a few minutes, moving back and forth between the establishing shots and the close-ups of the wound. Not the resolution I'd get either at home or at the office, but good enough for our purposes. Very good, if you considered the fact that we usually had to wait three days to get film developed.

Dr. Peters stepped back from the laptop. “And you have the weapon?”

Hester snapped on a pair of latex gloves, retrieved the knife, and showed it to him by holding it up by the very tip of the blade. He stared at it for several seconds, and she slowly turned it, letting him see all aspects of it.

“Thanks, Hester,” he said. She put it back in the paper bag. You always use paper bags on anything that has biological material on it. Allows it to breathe, to dry out, as opposed to decomposing and rotting in the airtight seal of plastic. “Can you enlarge the shots of the cut?”

Hester removed her gloves, and went to her laptop. “You have a bunch of gloves, Carl? I've got maybe one pair left.”

I indicated my camera bag. “Oh, yeah.”

She smiled, and began fiddling with the laptop. “I can enlarge it a hundred and fifty percent,” she said, “but then we start to lose so much detail… ”

Dr. Peters bent down, peering at the screen again. “That's fine,” he said, straightening up. He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Then silence. “And the shots of her backside, please?”

No problem. He looked at them, and the shots of the bottom of the tub. Silence again.

Hester and I exchanged glances. We waited a few more seconds, but Dr. Peters said nothing. Then, just as I was about to ask, he spoke.

“I'm not sure, and I want you to take what I say with a precautionary grain of salt,” he said. “But I want to be on the safe side on this.” He let his eye roam about the room, and he noticed the “Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder” embroidery on the wall. A smile flickered over his face.

He got quiet on us again. Then, after what seemed an interminable time, he said, “We want the area gone over very thoroughly.” He looked back toward the bathroom. “Very thoroughly. I don't think we have a suicide here. The postmortem will tell me what I really need, but I don't think she died from a self-inflicted wound.”

Ah. It was out.

“And,” he went on, “judging from the photos of the wound, I don't believe you have the right knife there.”

“It was stuck to her leg,” I said, speaking just a half second before the real meaning dawned on me.

“I have no doubt of that,” said Dr. Peters, smiling, “but I don't think it was the one used on her neck. From the protruding muscle, I would expect it to be shaped more like a gutting knife, with a hooked point. The muscle in her neck was pulled from the wound, I should think, not forced out from the inside.”

“Okay,” I said.

“And, I should expect to find some arterial damage,” he said. “The external carotid, or a branch. Largish artery, at any rate.”

I should know by now never to question Dr. Peters, even obliquely. Not that he has ever shown the slightest resentment. On the contrary, he's more often amused than anything else, and always very comfortable with explaining things.

“Ah,” I said, sagely, “I wonder, I mean, ah, there's no indication of any arterial spurts in there. Anywhere in there.” I even pointed toward the bathroom. Well, like they say, every village needs an idiot.

He grinned. “I noticed that, too. Like I say, let me post her, but at this point I really doubt she died in the bathroom,” said Dr. Peters. “I'd like to get a good blood-spatter expert lined up.” He addressed Hester. “Who are you people using these days? Still Barnes?”

“Last time I checked,” she said.

“Good,” he said. “We have a classic hair-swipe pattern on the left tub wall… really shouldn't be there, since her head should never have been down there… unless she was thrashing around a lot, and then we should have more than one… ”

It had officially become a homicide investigation.

I drew the autopsy assignment, because I was “just so damned good with a camera,” according to Hester, who was at least as good with a camera, but who didn't want to go. She got the interviews with Kevin and Huck, and the reinterviews with Hanna and Melissa and Toby. I'm not sure I got such a bad deal.