I Know a Secret

Fourteen

They now knew the dead man’s name. Stretched out on the autopsy table was Timothy McDougal, age twenty-five, an unmarried accountant who lived in Boston’s North End. The tips of the three arrows were still embedded in his chest, but Yoshima had cut off the fletch ends with bolt cutters, leaving only metal stubs protruding from the flesh. Even so, cutting the Y incision was a challenge, and Maura’s scalpel sketched a crooked line down the chest as she avoided cutting into the puncture wounds. The angle of each arrow’s penetration had already been captured on X-ray, where it was obvious that one of the arrows had penetrated the descending aorta. It certainly would have qualified as a mortal wound.

Except for the fact this man was already dead when that arrow pierced his chest.

The morgue door opened and Jane walked in, tying on her face mask. “Frost won’t be coming. He’s visiting the victim’s sister again. She’s taking this pretty hard. Worst Christmas ever.”

Maura looked down at the corpse of Timothy McDougal, who was last seen alive on the afternoon of December 24, when he’d cheerfully waved to his neighbor as he walked out of his apartment building. The next morning, he was expected at his younger sister’s house in Brookline for Christmas brunch. He never appeared. By then the report of a young man’s body on Jeffries Point was already on the news, and, fearing the worst, the sister called the police.

“Their parents are both dead, and he was her only sibling,” said Jane. “Imagine being only twenty-two and having no family left in the world.”

Maura put down the scalpel and picked up pruning shears. “What did you learn from the sister? Any leads?”

“She insists Tim had no enemies and he’s never been in trouble. Best big brother ever. Everybody loved him.”

“Except for whoever shot him with these arrows,” Yoshima said.

Maura finished snapping apart the ribs, and she lifted the sternal shield. Frowning into the exposed cavity, she asked, “Any history of drug use?”

“Sister says absolutely not. He was a health-food nut.”

“Any drugs turn up in his residence?”

“Frost and I went through his apartment inch by inch. It’s just a studio, so there wasn’t much to search. We found no drugs, no paraphernalia, not even a baggie of weed. Just some wine in the fridge and a bottle of tequila in the cabinet. This guy was so clean he would’ve squeaked.”

“Or so everyone believes.”

“Yeah.” Jane shrugged. “You never know what the truth is.”

Every human being had secrets, and too often it was Maura who uncovered them: The upstanding citizen found dead with child porn clutched in his lifeless hand. Or the perfect society wife with the syringe of heroin and a needle still embedded in her arm. Timothy McDougal almost certainly had secrets as well, and now Maura had to uncover the most baffling secret of all.

What killed you?

Staring into the open thorax, she could not yet discern the answer, although the cause of death had seemed apparent judging by the X-rays. Now that the chest was open, she could see the arrow itself, could feel the steel tip poking through the aorta wall. The descending aorta was the major highway through which all blood bound for the lower body flowed. Rupture it and blood will pulse out like a cannon, propelled by every heartbeat. If this man had died of internal exsanguination, she should be looking at a cavity filled with blood, but there was not enough pooled in here. Which told her that by the time the arrow penetrated his aorta, his heart had already stopped beating.

“I can see by your face that there’s some kind of problem,” said Jane.

Maura’s answer was to reach for the scalpel. She did not like uncertainty, and she began to cut with new urgency. Out came a healthy young man’s heart and lungs. She saw no coronary disease, no emphysema, no evidence that he had ever abused cigarettes. The liver and spleen were disease-free, and the pancreas should have provided him with a lifetime’s worth of insulin.

She placed the stomach on the dissection tray and slit it open. Out spilled brown liquid with the strong stench of alcohol. She paused, scalpel hovering above the tray, suddenly struck by the memory of another incised stomach. Another whiff of alcohol. “Whiskey,” she said.

“So he was drinking before he died.”

Maura looked at Jane. “Does that remind you of another victim?”

“You’re thinking of Cassandra Coyle.”

“She had wine in her stomach. I couldn’t find the cause of her death either. Is alcohol a common denominator here? Something delivered in a drink?”

“We canvassed all the bars in Cassandra’s neighborhood. Every place within walking distance.”

“And no one remembered seeing her?”

“One waitress said Cassandra’s photo looked familiar, but she said the woman she thought was Cassandra was drinking with another woman. She didn’t remember any man with her.”

“Did these two victims know each other? Have the same circle of friends?”

Jane considered this. “I’m not aware of any connection. They lived in different neighborhoods, worked in completely different jobs.” She pulled out her cell phone. “Frost should still be with Tim’s sister. Let’s find out if she knew Cassandra.”

As Jane spoke with Frost, Maura spread open the stomach, revealing no trace of undigested food. When the victim was last seen, it was a holiday afternoon, when a single young man might meet friends for a drink before dinner. Cassandra Coyle’s stomach had been preprandial as well, containing only traces of wine. Was drinks with friends the common factor?

She looked at Yoshima. “Do we have the tox screen back yet for Cassandra Coyle?”

“It hasn’t been two weeks, but I marked it expedite. Let me check,” he said, and crossed to the computer.

Jane hung up her phone. “Timothy’s sister says she’s never heard the name Cassandra Coyle. And I can’t really think of any connection between these two victims, except for the fact they were both young, healthy, and drank booze before they died.”

“And they were both mutilated postmortem.”

Jane paused. “Well, yeah. There’s that.”

“Got it,” called out Yoshima. “Cassandra Coyle’s tox screen came back positive for alcohol. And for ketamine.”

“Ketamine?” Maura crossed to the computer and stared at the report. “Blood alcohol’s point zero four. Ketamine level is two milligrams per liter.”

“Isn’t that a date-rape drug?” said Jane.

“Actually, it’s an anesthetic, sometimes used for date rape. But I found no evidence that Cassandra was raped.”

“So now we know what killed her,” said Jane.

“No, we don’t.” Maura looked up from the computer. “She didn’t die from ketamine. This blood level is in the therapeutic range for anesthesia. It’s enough to incapacitate but not high enough to kill a healthy young woman.”

“Maybe she was given a drug you didn’t screen for.”

“I screened for everything I could think of.”

“Then what killed her, Maura?”

“I don’t know.” Maura returned to the table and stared at Timothy McDougal. “I don’t know what killed this man either. We now have two young victims with no apparent cause of death.” Maura shook her head. “I’m missing something.”

“You never miss anything.”

“If our killer uses alcohol and ketamine to incapacitate his victims, what does he do next? They’re unconscious and vulnerable. How does he kill them, without leaving any trace of—” Abruptly she turned to Yoshima. “Let’s get out the CrimeScope. Before I do any more dissection, I want to examine his face.”

“What do you think you’re going to see?” said Jane.

“Put on the goggles and let’s find out.”

Details hidden to the naked eye under normal light could sometimes magically become visible under wavelengths from a forensic light source. Fibers and body fluids will fluoresce, and against a background of pale skin, otherwise invisible residues and inks will show up as dark patches. This search would not be entirely random; Maura already knew what she was looking for.

And where she would find it.

“Lights off,” she said to Yoshima, and he flipped the switch.

The room went dark. Under the glow of the CrimeScope, a host of new details suddenly became visible as Maura tuned the instrument, altering the wavelength. Strands of hair glowed on the floor, the detritus shed by multiple cops and ME staff. Gloves, gowns, and shoe covers were not 100 percent effective in preventing the shedding of hairs and fibers, and here was the evidence.

Maura focused the beam on Timothy McDougal’s face.

“CSRU already searched him for trace evidence at the scene,” said Jane.

“I know, but I’m looking for something else. Something I’m not even sure will turn up.” She couldn’t see it yet on the face, so she lowered the beam to the neck and once again tuned through different wavelengths, ignoring the dark pinpoints of blood spatter that she’d disseminated during her Y incision. She was looking for something less random. Something geometric.

And there, just above the level of the thyroid cartilage, she saw it. A faint band that encircled the throat and extended toward the back of the neck, where it vanished from sight.

“What the hell’s that?” asked Jane. “A ligature mark?”

“No. I’ve already examined the neck and there’s no bruising, no impressions on the skin itself. And his hyoid bone is intact on the X-ray.”

“Then what made that pattern?”

“I think it’s residue. Adhesive manufacturers sometimes add materials like titanium dioxide or iron oxide to their products. I was hoping this would show up under the CrimeScope, and here it is.”

“Adhesive? You mean like duct tape?”

“Possibly, but this tape wasn’t used to restrain him. See how the pattern extends only around the front of the neck? The tape was used to hold something in place, but it wasn’t tight enough to leave bruises. If this man’s tox screen also comes back positive for ketamine, then I have a pretty good idea what happened to him. And to Cassandra Coyle. Yoshima, lights.”

Jane pulled off her goggles and frowned at Maura. “You think they were killed by the same perp?”

Maura nodded. “And I know how he did it.”