Seven ways to die

12

In the autopsy lab, Wolfsheim and Annie Rothschild had completed their work and replaced the parts of Handley’s body they had removed for analysis. Annie Rothschild, who had some medical experience before becoming a police officer, had been working as Wolfsheim’s denier, his assistant, when he performed autopsies.

A petite brunette in her early thirties, Rothschild had all the rigid criteria for a spot on the squad but it was Wolfsheim who had recommended her after watching her at trial during a difficult cross examination by a high profile defense attorney. She had lured the lawyer with simple “yes” and “no” answers on some details of a particularly brutal homicide. Thinking he could make a fool of her on the stand, he had thrown some intricate pathology questions at her.

To his chagrin, she not only had acquitted herself admirably with her keen knowledge of forensics but had led the lawyer into uncharted waters. Watching her dismantle the lawyer’s defense, Wolfsheim realized that Rothschild had carefully orchestrated her performance as a witness to make the lawyer look like a fool. His client was convicted and Annie had become a prime candidate for the TAZ.

While they were completing their work they had both listened through earphones to the initial debriefing Cody was conducting in the HQ so both of them knew what had been accomplished thus far. They washed up and crossed the hallway.

Wolf entered the room rumpled and enervated like a sigh waiting to be uttered, his eyes temporarily atrophic from the demands of minute scrutiny, his fingers gnarled by restless and constant exploration, his shoulders bowed by the relentless probing and dismemberment of what had once been Raymond Handley.

As always, his psyche was momentarily askew. He performed each autopsy compassionately. They were constant reminders of the finite line between life and death, between the human body and a corpse without a soul.

And there had been the physical demands: cutting open the body and dictating his findings into the microphone that hung just over his head; looking for signs of mischief in the intricate collaboration of veins, capillaries, and arteries that stitched together the pulpy organs that had supplied and supported life to the now smelly, inanimate mess that lay before him; collecting blood and fluids and slicing sections of bones; examining the lifeless eyes and slicing open the skull to reveal what secrets the brain might reveal; weighing heart, liver, lungs, kidneys and the myriad other elements of the once miraculous human machine that he was dissecting in his quest for whatever explicitly had destroyed it.

Wolfsheim finally set free a sigh, took the cup of black coffee Vincent Hue offered him, shook off his momentary lapse of objectivity and smiled at her.

They knew what had killed Raymond Handley.

And this one was a beaut.

It wasn’t what killed Raymond Handley but in what order. Handley’s homicide was a masterpiece of misdirection, leaving a conundrum that Cody and his crew would ultimately have to pull out every stop to unravel. Why had this killer resorted to such deviltry murdering Handley when killing him straight out could have been so much simpler?

That was Cody’s problem. But Wolfsheim wasn’t ready to spring that question. He had his own method of briefing the members of the TAZ. Briefing was, he liked to say, a continuous educational process. So he began by reviewing what the squad already knew.

Wolfsheim sipped his coffee. Then he began his lecture, his build-up to the autopsy findings.

“Micah and Bergman did a great job on entry,” Wolf said. “That was great tracking. And Annie followed up sweeping the whole scene. What we can ascertain for sure is that this was a prepared crime scene. The killer came in first, probably with a key supplied by Handley, and set up the scene of the crime in the library.

“I think we will also assume from the tracks in the carpeting that Handley came in, went straight to his bedroom, undressed, and then walked barefooted to the library where the killer was waiting. Handley walked with the killer to the chair and willingly permitted the killer to handcuff his hands and feet to the arms and legs of the chair. This is when it gets dicey.

“As you know,” he went on, “we try to ascertain the initial cause of death and the last event prior to death and if there is a time lapse between the two. For instance, let’s say a woman is hit by a car. She is rushed to the hospital where it is determined she has catastrophic blunt trauma. Also internal bleeding. Examination shows a broken rib has pierced the heart and she is bleeding internally. Loss of blood has been severe. The rib is removed and the heart is sewn up but the woman dies. Initial cause of death was blunt trauma. The last event prior to death was shock caused by internal bleeding. The time lapse was continuous so the final ruling would be that the cause of death was trauma from the automobile accident.

“In this case, the initial cause of death appeared to be a stabbing or piercing of the throat which was a catastrophic wound. It was a slash from left to right which cut the jugular, all other blood vessels and the windpipe. However, the absence of blood puts the initial cause of death in doubt. Further examination of the body revealed a small puncture wound in the left carotid artery, similar to that left by the insertion of an IV. We also know that approximately two liters of blood were drawn from the body using the IV as a siphon. That’s almost half of the body’s blood supply and would have resulted in extreme trauma to the heart. The result would be a lowering of blood to the brain, shock to the heart. Ultimately lethal.”

“Where did the blood go?” Winters asked.

“Don’t rush me,” Wolfsheim snapped back without looking at her.

“Sorry.”

“That’s okay, you’ll learn,” he answered with a wisp of a smile. “Continuing. There’s another wrinkle. We completed an examination of the blood which shows us it contained toxic levels of both nitroglycerine and yohimbine. Point three milliliters of nitroglycerine and ten milliliters of yohimbine, which you probably know as Yohimbe, a fast-acting aphrodisiac when administered orally. Yohimbine is an alpha-2 adrenergic block agent. A dose of yohimbine this high has numerous side effects, including rapid heart rate, high blood pressure, overstimulation, and seizures.

“The two drugs are additive and would cause an almost immediate and deadly drop in the blood pressure.”

He paused for another sip of coffee while the TAZ squad waited impatiently for the big kahuna to continue.

“The question is, which came first? Based on the condition of the heart and brain, it is my conclusion that the Yohimbe was administered first. I’m sure he took it willingly and chased it down with the drink on the table which was bourbon. The killer then began to masturbate Handley. Then he was given a second drink which contained the nitro tablet, and the killer began to service him orally. Handley was approaching a state of ecstasy and it was easy to slip the handball into his mouth and tie it in with the towel. That stifled any screaming. With the introduction of the nitro, Handley was brought to orgasm-and probably suffered extreme pain similar to angina. Then the killer injected the needle and began the exsanguination. Handley’s blood pressure already had dropped dangerously low with the administration of the drugs, and with the loss of blood he was probably brain dead within five minutes followed shortly thereafter by a fatal heart attack.

“We found no DNA so I guess the killer swallowed,” Rizzo snickered, drawing a piercing stare from Annie.

Wolfsheim ignored the interruption. “The killer then withdrew the IV, the remaining blood had settled by gravity to the lower part of the body and there was no blood when the killer cut Handley’s throat.”

“Why go to the trouble of draining the blood when the nitro-Yohimbe dose would have killed Handley?” Bergman asked.

“Good question,” Wolfsheim said.

Bergman took a cautious guess. “No blood stains on the killer or in the room to mess things up?”

“Possibly, but I doubt it,” Wolfsheim answered.

“Make sure he died if by some miracle the nitro and Yohimbe didn’t kill him?” Hue guessed.

“I like that better,” said Wolfsheim.

Then Annie threw in a question: “Why cut his throat after all that?”

“Why indeed,” Wolfsheim muttered again.

“Now may I ask what happened to the blood?” Kate Winters asked cautiously.

“Sure,” said Wolfsheim. “Annie, you want to take that one?”

“Okay,” she said. “There were a few fibers at the death scene. They were on the floor next to the chair where Handley was killed. We’re checking them but we feel fairly certain they came from the towel around Handley’s neck. We’re guessing that towel was put on the floor and the blood drained into something fairly portable resting on the towel.”

“Like a hot water bottle,” Wolfsheim added. “Then it was dumped into the toilet in the guest bathroom.”

“Did you guess that?” Cody asked. “Is that why you took him out sitting up?”

“Educated guess. The blood had to be somewhere. All the killer had to do was drain half his blood supply, two-point-seven liters, to kill him. So I assumed the rest of it had settled in his lower body. Had we tilted him over it would have run out of his mouth, ears, the slit in his throat. All over the place. So, I decided to haul him out the way he was. Also the neighbors wouldn’t notice.”

Rothschild picked it up. She was excited. “The bourbon most likely came from Handley’s wet bar in the library,” she said. “The knife that slashed his throat had a serrated blade so we think it was one of the knives in a holder in the kitchen. Also washed clean in the toilet. We brought it in to test it.”

“Which still doesn’t answer, “Why make the kill so complicated?’” Hue said.

“Also it had to be somebody Handley knew,” Bergman offered. “Perhaps someone who had been there before to case the place.”

Cody had been listening to the word play. Now he joined in. “Well,” he said, “I agree he may have known Handley before that night, but it’s not a certainty. Handley could have described the layout. We have to assume Handley was discreet. He knew the only potential witness was the masseuse across the hall, who was usually asleep by eleven-thirty. So Handley would have been comfortable going to his place.”

“So would the killer,” said Bergman. “I mean, up the stairs and in the door. Hell, entry in a minute, exit in a minute. Somebody spots you going in, you abort the job. Only risk is a minute to get out.”

“Any ideas, Micah?” Wolfsheim asked. “Think about it. The killer was set up and waiting when Handley came home at 12:55 a.m. The entire procedure could have taken say twenty or thirty minutes max, depending on how much the killer was enjoying it. Clearly S amp; M is involved in this. My guess is the perpetrator was out of there by one-thirty, two at the latest. And all the killer needed to bring into the scene was a hot water bottle or some other viable container, a three-foot IV, liquid Yohimbe, two pills, gloves, and some booties.”

“Stuff easily carried in a purse or a paper bag,” Cody said. “Maybe…to complicate matters? Maybe he was testing us? Or maybe…”

“Yes?” Wolfsheim asked.

“It was just a cruel joke.”

Everybody paused to think about that. Could Handley have set up his own sadomasochistic game only to be killed by his partner?

“Could have been a her,” Annie said.

Cody nodded. “True enough. We don’t know for sure whether it was a him or a her.”

“Or both,” Hue added.

“Or androgynous,” Bergman said with a smile. “A he-she.”

“It’s unlikely for this kind of killer to be a woman,” Kate said.

“Yes, it is unlikely,” Cody told her. “But it happens. Though when women kill they usually employ the softer devices, like suffocation.”

Larry Simon looked thoughtful. “But some women torture, and even use guns and knives.” He pointed out that Nell “Hell’s Belle” killed forty men; and that Theresa Noor, who shot her first husband and tortured other victims, including her own daughter, giggled while confessing.”

“She tortured her daughter?”

“Yeah,” Simon said. “She spread a whole pot of macaroni and cheese on her daughter’s legs, made her eat every bite, then killed her.”

“Now that’s torture,” Hue chuckled ghoulishly, remembering his mother’s awful mac and cheese that was so dry it nearly choked him on more than one occasion.

Cody hadn’t been paying attention to Simon’s war stories. He was thinking his own thoughts. “It wasn’t anyone in the Stembler family,” he said. “They were all at a party in Boston last night. The old man flew in on the company plane this morning.”

“How’d he take it?” Wolfsheim asked.

“Shock, disbelief. Then when it began to really sink in I think he was overwhelmed by the whole thing. Autopsy, wedding plans to be canceled, telling his wife and daughter.”

“He volunteered to make the ID,” Kate added. “Then he said he had to make a list.”

“Yeah,” Cody said. “The businessman in him started to creep out.”

“That’s pretty cold,” Hue said.

“He’s a corporate shark. He didn’t get where he is suckling on the milk of human kindness. Most people in his spot would have been more concerned with Handley. Motives, did we have any suspects, more details. He made the arc from Handley’s death to the problems he was facing in about three minutes flat.”

“Did you tell him what happened?” Wolf asked.

“I told him Handley’s throat was slit by someone he knew and that it was not a robbery or a fight.”

“Not entirely untrue,” Wolf said.

“For now that’s all anybody has to know but us.”

“I did notice that he didn’t bring up the possibility that the killer could have been a woman,” said Kate. “I got the feeling it was an option he didn’t care to deal with.”

“Maybe we should call the perp Androg,” Bergman suggested. “Covers all bases.”

“Sure, why not,” Wolf said. “Androg. I like it. Of course it opens up a few more doors. Now we really don’t know what the hell we know.”

Everybody laughed. Then Wolf added, “I’d make one change.”

“What’s that?” Hue asked.

“Play it safe,” Wolf answered. And then added edgily: “Make it Androg 1.”

Everyone fell silent.

Cody nodded slowly.

“You agree then?” Wolf said.

Cody continued nodding.

“This is too elaborate to be a one-off. There’s a demon loose amongst us,” Wolf said.

“Yeah, and so far Androg hasn’t left or taken any trophies,” Cody said impatiently. “What are we looking for? A time sequence? A location pattern? Moon phase? What? And why Handley? Hell, we don’t even have a signature yet.”

In the back of the room Larry Simon was staring at the big board. He said, almost casually, “Sooner or later the perp will start bragging. They all do.”