Likely To Die

9

MERCER WORKED HIS DEPARTMENT CAR around the yellow bobcats and backhoes at the construction site on First Avenue, a block south of the entrance to the blue and gray building that housed the office of the medical examiner. He parked at a meter after letting me out to climb over a curbside mound of frozen ice to get onto the sidewalk.

“Look at that fool,” Mercer said, pointing across the street at Chapman. “Man’s never owned a winter coat.”

Mike was coming from the deli across the street, seemingly oblivious to the bitter cold in his blazer and open-collared denim shirt.

I waved in his direction and he hoisted a large shopping bag, pointing to it as he called out to us, “Lunch.” Mercer looked at me and shook his head. Neither one of us was as at home in the morgue as Chapman. It was commonplace for members of his squad to be present for the autopsy procedure, while those of us who worked on sexual assault cases were fortunate enough to deal with survivors-wounded but living and breathing.

“Forget the front door,” Chapman shouted, as I started up the stairs to the building’s entrance. “C’mon. Kirschner’s still in the basement.”

I had never entered on the Thirtieth Street side so I followed Mike and Mercer around the corner and down the block to the parking bay where ambulance and emergency service trucks disgorged their bodies. A police officer checked our identification as he admitted us through the wide doors and we started down the sloping ramp toward the autopsy rooms.

Mike saw my eyes fix on the painted green walls as we walked; they were pockmarked at about waist level where large chips were missing. It was especially noticeable when we reached the bend at the bottom of the incline and turned to the right to go down another twenty feet.

“I know, I know. You’re ready to give the place a paint job and redecorate. Forget it. That’s the way it’s always gonna be, Blondie. They unload the body onto a gurney at the top, then somebody gives it a shove down the ramp. It bounces off the side a few times, hits the corner, and caroms around and down to the bottom. Believe me, the patient doesn’t feel a thing. You don’t need a candy striper to walk the stretcher down the hall.”

“Sensitive motherfucker, isn’t he?” Wallace murmured.

Mike led us into a small conference room at the far end of the corridor. It held an eight-foot-long table, a dozen chairs, a chalkboard, and wall-mounted clips all around the circumference to display X rays and photographs.

Before Mercer and I could take off our coats and sit down, Dr. Chet Kirschner joined us in the room.

We had worked together on a number of occasions throughout the five years since he had been appointed to the post of Chief Medical Examiner by the Mayor and I always welcomed his calm and dignified mien as much as I valued his professional judgment. Chet was tall and razor thin, with dark hair, a quiet voice, and an engaging smile that was rarely exercised during the discussions of his daily procedures.

We exchanged greetings and placed ourselves around the table while Mike went on unpacking his bag full of sandwiches and sodas.

“What I’m going to tell you is very preliminary, Alexandra. It will take some time to get lab results on the toxicology and the serological samples, so let’s just start-off the record-with the general picture.”

“Of course.”

“I got all four turkeys on rye, Russian dressing, okay?”

“Not right now, Mike,” I answered. The sterile surroundings, the faint aroma of formaldehyde, and the grim task ahead of us combined to suppress all thoughts of food or hunger.

Mercer and Chet also passed. Mike unwrapped his overstuffed sandwich and popped the top on his root beer while Dr. Kirschner took out a set of Polaroid photos of Gemma Dogen’s blood-soaked body and spread them on the table.

He looked up at Mike, who was crunching potato chips between bites of the sandwich, and grinned wryly as he said, “bon appétit.”

“There is no mystery abouthow the doctor died. As you’re all aware, there were multiple stab wounds-seventeen, to be exact. Several hit vital organs, including the wound that was probably the fatal one, which collapsed one of her lungs completely. The other lung was punctured as well.

“The repeated blows, most of which were quite deep, caused massive internal bleeding. It was intraabdominal and intrathoracic. There were a few superficial cuts on the anterior surface of the body, but most were thrusts that didn’t miss.

“She was stabbed in the back as well as the front. Clearly a frenzied attack-far more strikes than were necessary to cause her death. Any one of a number of these would have done the job handily.”

“Defensive wounds?” Mercer asked.

I picked up a handful of the Polaroids to follow Kirschner’s commentary. I had seen Gemma Dogen’s face responding to camera flashes at the celebratory events caught in the photographs on her office shelves. Now I studied the same features-colorless, expressionless, lifeless-as they rested on the head support atop the autopsy table.

“None at all. But if you look closely at the Polaroids of her wrists, you’ll see some faint markings. They’ll show up much more clearly on the actual photographs we took.”

I found the two close-ups of Dogen’s lower arms and noticed the linear red discolorations.

“She was obviously restrained at some point, and I would presume that happened-along with the gag, which was left in place-beforethe stabbing began. I would doubt that she had any opportunity to resist the knife attack.

“The restraints might have been the same kind of material as the cloth the killer used to gag her. Twisted into narrow strips and wound around her wrists, they would have caused the marks that you see here but not have broken the skin.”

Chapman swigged a mouthful from his soda can. “D’you have a chance to look over that strip from the gag, Doc?”

“It’s in the lab now for analysis, but I saw it when they brought the body in. You’ll get a definitive answer later, but it looked to me like ordinary hospital-issue bed linen, cut into long pieces. Could have come from any patient room, supply closet, delivery service, or even the laundry.”

“Make a note for me please, Mercer. I assume the lieutenant has someone checking the laundry staff on the list with all the other employees, but I never even thought of all the types of deliverymen who are in and out of there every day.”

“They’re on it, Coop. Laundry, food, medical supplies, flowers, gift baskets, balloons-it’s endless. We’re talking at least several thousand transients.”

Chapman had wiped his hands and was standing over my shoulder, pointing out puncture wounds as I continued to sort through the snapshots. He asked Kirschner, “So if you had to reconstruct the events with what you know now, how do you figure it happened?”

“I can only speculate at this point, Mike. You know that. I assume whoever did this, whether it started as a burglary, or a prowler looking for a victim, came prepared. He had the weapon, he had the strips of cloth, and he probably had a purpose.

“I’d have to guess that Dogen was surprised by the attacker and overcome immediately. That woman was in fantastic condition. The muscles in her thighs and calves could have been from someone half her age. The fact that there aren’t any defensive wounds on her hands suggests she never had the opportunity to struggle.”

“Any idea about what time the assault could have taken place?”

“Tougher than usual. Obviously, we know exactly what time she died, since it was after she was found by the watchman. Any doctor would tell you that she couldn’t have survived these wounds. I’m sure she was unconscious while the killer was still striking at her, and I’d also bet that when he left herhe had assumed she was dead. It’s one of those medical oddities that she hung on for as long as she did, whether it was thirty minutes or thirty hours.

“The collapsed lung gave out quickly and completely. The other one must have acted like a slow leak. Mike told me that you all thought at the scene that she may have come to for a brief moment and used up the remaining oxygen supply in an effort to move herself. It’s possible.”

“With enough energy to drag her body across the room to the door?”

“My clinical answer to that would have to be no. But every day we see impossible things happen when the body is in extremis. Yes, Gemma Dogen might have summoned the strength for one last shot at saving herself. There’s no medical explanation for it. Absolutely none.”

“Chet, did Mike tell you about the, well, sort of squiggle on the floor where the body was found? I mean, in the blood.”

Mike was still behind me as I spoke and tousled my hair to indicate his dismissal of my idea.

“Cooper thinks the deceased was trying to talk to us.”

Kirschner’s eyes met mine as he nodded slightly, willing to consider the prospect. “I assume you’ve got crime scene photos to show what you’re thinking about, right?”

“Yeah. We should have a couple of sets by this evening, Doc. I’ll shoot ‘em down to you.”

“May I?” Kirschner reached across to pick up some of the autopsy Polaroids. He held them up close to his face looking for the detail he needed to refresh his memory. “Obviously, I’ll be able to show you this better when our own body shots are printed later today, but the blood pattern on her right index finger is consistent with your theory.

“Keep in mind, there was an awful lot of blood here, even on her hands and arms. I’ll get to that in a minute, when we talk about why she was untied. But thereis a different sort of coating on that finger, either from dragging herself through some of the pooled blood or-I guess it just never occurred to me-by intentionally putting her finger in the blood, like to draw something. I’d like to see your pictures before I jump to any conclusions that suggest she was writing.

“I’m surprised you’re such a doubter, Chapman. Wasn’t it you who had the case with me a couple of months ago? The guy who was shot six times in the back on a subway platform, but ran up two flights of stairs and onto the street ‘til he found a phone booth to make a call. Then he collapsed and died.”

“Yeah, ‘Lucky Louie’ Barsky, the loan shark. Last gasp for a phoner to his mother, to tell her she could live off whatever she could find in the shoe box marked ‘12D Black Croco Loafer’ on the third shelf of his bedroom closet. Lucky for him he survived to make the call. Unlucky for Mom, I was there with a search warrant before she could find a stepladder. His ex-girlfriend had ratted on him and knew where the dough was stashed. I guess miracles do happen, Doc.”

Mercer brought us back to Dogen’s killing. “So you think she was untiedafter the stabbing?”

“No bindings were found at the scene, isn’t that right? Only the gag. So after she was disabled-whether that was with the first couple of thrusts or after all of them-it would seem that he untied her then and moved her to the floor.”

Mike was seated at the table again, shaking his head back and forth. “So he rapes her while she’s unconscious and bleeding like a stuck pig from some, if not all, of these wounds?” He leaned back in his chair, then it dropped forward with a crashing noise under his weight as he pounded both of his fists on the table. “Can you believe that some perverted sicko gets sexually aroused by the sight of a bloody corpse? I’ll never understand your end of this business, Mercer, I swear it. How does a guy get it up after he’s mutilated and savaged a woman’s body? I swear, there should be a death penalty all its own for this kind of crime, and I’d be the executioner. Dammit.”

Kirschner’s even voice picked up the narrative. “What I’m about to say doesn’t make this crime any better, Mike, but perhaps your killer wasn’t as stimulated as he thought he might be. It’s pretty clear to me, the way Mike described the position of Dogen’s body, the removal of her underwear, and the lifting of her skirt to expose her genitals, that some kind of sexual assault was contemplated or attempted.

“But it wasn’t completed. No sign of seminal fluid, neither on the body nor within the vaginal vault. No sperm. I did swabbings of the vaginal and anal orifices, and you’ll get lab results on those, but I think we’ll come up with a negative.”

Mercer grimaced. “You thinking like I am?” he directed the question to me.

I was crestfallen, too. For the past few years, Mercer and I had come to rely on DNA evidence and its stunning genetic fingerprinting techniques to resolve a growing number of rape cases. Even when the victim survived the attack, as most do, and picked out her assailant in photo arrays and lineups, the reliability of DNA testing to confirm her identification had dramatically increased the success rate of prosecutions all over the country.

“I guess I was counting on evidence we’re not going to have,” I said, the dejection apparent in my tone. “I just assumed that we’d get seminal fluid and develop a print ready for comparison when we find our suspect.”

“That’s a luxury I don’t think we’re going to have in this case, Alex.”

“Any chance the guy used a condom, Doc? That’s why you’re not finding any semen?”

“Unlikely, Mike. I mean, it’s entirely possible. But most of the time condoms leave substances in the victim’s body that we would detect at autopsy or in the lab. Whether it’s the lubricant or the spermicides, there’s-”

“Well, I mean, can you tell if she was even penetrated?”

“There’s no trauma, either vaginally or anally. Now, that doesn’t tell us much in and of itself about vaginal penetration.”

Mike didn’t have the experience with sexual assault cases that Mercer and I did, so I went on with the facts to which Kirschner had alluded. “More than two-thirds of adult women who are raped don’t sustain any kind of physical injury or trauma, Mike. Someone who’s sexually active isn’t likely to exhibit internal damage. The vaginal vault is pretty elastic, and if she was unconscious when the rapist penetrated, there’d be even less likelihood of meeting resistance.”

Kirschner was a step ahead of me. “What I find even more unusual, though, is that there was not a shred of any other trace evidence suggesting an attempt at a sexual encounter. If he had actually tried to penetrate, I would have expected to find some ofhis pubic hair in our combing of hers.”

A standard part of evidence collection in rape cases, as well as at autopsies, is a combing of the victim’s pubic hair. Frequently, the rapist’s own hair becomes entangled and left on the victim, and becomes another means of forensically linking a perpetrator to his prey.

“When you’ve got a rape, the crime sceneis the victim’s body. It’s the only crime for which that’s true. I’m convinced there is too little evidence here to believe our attacker committed a sexual assault.”

“So now all we gotta figure is what stopped him,” Mercer said. “Anything from getting scared off by noise in the hallway to losing his erection. Maybe Mike’s right in this case. If his intention was to rape Dogen, but he had to use more force than he had planned to subdue her, he might have been disgusted or simply unable to maintain an erection.”

“Don’t forget,” I added, “with a lot of the psychiatric types living in and under the medical center, you’re starting out with some candidates who are sexually dysfunctional even though their intention may have been to complete an assault. Are we back at square one, guys?”

“I hate to disappoint you, Alexandra, but I don’t think the solution to this crime is going to come frommy work ormy laboratory. Chapman knew as much about how Gemma Dogen died before he got here this morning as he does now. He just didn’t know where each of those knife wounds landed, internally, until we opened her up. I’m sorry I can’t give you any more help right now but your killer didn’t leave the kind of incriminating evidence we had all hoped for.

“If you find him before too much time goes by,” Kirschner said, turning to the two detectives, “his body and his clothing are likely to tell more of the story than Dogen’s. Whether or not she was able to scratch or bite or hit him, I have no idea. But he certainly must have left that room looking like he’d come from an abattoir. He’d have had more blood on him than anyone except a surgeon leaving the operating theater.”

Chet reminded us to forward the crime scene photos to him as soon as we had them, collected his Polaroids, and excused himself, noting that he had half an hour until he began his next procedure at three o’clock.

Mike, Mercer, and I gathered our belongings and walked out of the room. “I’m taking a pass on those sandwiches, Cooper. Want a cup of coffee across the street before we go on?” Mercer asked.

I had absolutely no appetite, either. “Sure, maybe it’ll take the chill off.” We walked back up the ramp and out onto the sidewalk.

“You taking Coop over to see Dogen’s apartment?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be at Mid-Manhattan doing interviews. Coming by the station house later, kid?”

“What can I do to be useful? I’m still stunned by Chet’s findings. I was just counting on something that the lab could give us to move forward with by the weekend. I’ve got to give a speech at Julia Richman High School tonight.”

Mercer stepped off the curb to cross First Avenue. I turned back and flashed a grin at Chapman. “Why’d you ask? Do you need me, Mikey?”

“In your dreams, Blondie. In your dreams.”