Kay Scarpet - Cruel And Unusual Part 12

"You shouldnat tamper with the satanic, prank or not." Her voice trembled. "I take evil just as seriously as G.o.d."

Susan was the daughter of a minister and had abandoned religion long ago. Iad never heard her so much as allude to Satan or mention G.o.d unless it was profanely. Iad never known her to be the least bit superst.i.tious or unnerved by anything. She was about to cry.

"Tell you what," I said quietly. "Since it appears Iam going to be short-staffed today, if youall answer the phones upstairs, Iall take care of things down here."

Her eyes filled with tears, and I immediately went to her.

"Itas okay."

Putting my arm around her, I walked her out of the room. "Come on," I said gently as she leaned against me, sobbing. "You want Ben to take you home?"

She nodded, whispering, "Iam sorry. Iam sorry."

"All you need is a little rest."

I sat her in a chair inside the morgue office and reached for the phone.

Jennifer Deighton had inhaled no carbon monoxide or soot because by the time she had been placed inside her car she was no longer breathing. Her death was a homicide, an obvious one, and throughout the afternoon I impatiently left messages for Marino to call me. Several times I tried to check on Susan but her phone just rang and rang.

"Iam concerned," I said to Ben Stevens. "Susanas not answering her phone. When you drove her home, did she mention that she was planning to go somewhere?"

"She told me she was going to bed."

He was sitting at his desk, going through reams of computer printouts. Rock and roll played quietly from the radio on a bookcase, and he was drinking tangerine flavored mineral water. Stevens was young, smart, and boyishly good looking. He worked hard, and played hard in singles bars, so I had been UK. I was quite certain his job as my administrator would prove to be a short step on his way to someplace better.

"Maybe she unplugged her phone so she could sleep," he said, turning on his adding machine.

"Maybe thatas it."

He launched into an update on our budget woes.

Late afternoon when it was beginning to get dark out, Stevens buzzed my line.

"Susan called. She ill she wonat be in tomorrow. And Iave got a John Deighton on hold. Says heas Jennifer Deightonas brother." Stevens transferred the call.

"h.e.l.lo. They said you did my sisteras autopsy," a man mumbled. "Uh, Jennifer Deightonas my sister."

"Your name, please?"

"John Deighton. I live in Columbia, South Carolina."

I glanced up as Marino appeared in my office doorway, and motioned forhim to take a chair.

"They said she hooked up a hose to her car and killed herself."

"Who said that" I asked. "And could you speak up, please?"

He hesitated. "I donat remember the name, shouldave wrote it down but I was too shocked."

The man didnat sound shocked. His voice was so m.u.f.fled I barely could hear what he was saying.

"Mr. Deighton, Iam very sorry," I said. "But you will have to request any information regarding her death in writing. I will also need, included with your written request, some verification that you are next of kin."

He did not respond.

"h.e.l.lo?"

I asked. "h.e.l.lo?"

I was answered by a dial tone.

"Thatas strange, "I said to Marino. "Are you familiar with a John Deighton who claims to be Jennifer Deightonas brother?"

"Thatas who that was? s.h.i.+t. Weare trying to reach him.

"He said someoneas already notified him about her death."

"You know where he was calling from?"

"Columbia, South Carolina, supposedly. He hung up on me."

Marino didnat seem interested. "I just came from Vanderas office," he said, referring to Neils Vander, the chief fingerprints examiner. "He checked out Jennifer Deightonas car, plus the books that were beside her bed and a poem that was stuck inside one of aem. As for the sheet of blank paper that was on her bed, he hasnat gotten to that yet."

"Anything so far?"

"He lifted a few. Will run them through the computer if thereas a need. Probably most of the prints are hers. Here."

He placed a small paper bag on my desk. "Happy reading."

"I think youare going to want those prints run without delay," I said grimly.

A shadow pa.s.sed over Marinoas eyes. He ma.s.saged his temples.

"Jennifer Deighton definitely did not commit suicide," I informed him. "Her CO was less than seven percent. She had no soot in her airway. The bright pink tint of her skin was due to exposure to cold, not CO poisoning."

"Christ," he said.

Shuffling through the paperwork in front of me, I handed him a body diagram, then opened an envelope and withdrew Polaroid photographs of Jennifer Deightonas neck.

"As you can see," I went on, "there are no injuries externally."

"What about the blood on the car seat?"

"A postmortem artifact due to purging. She was beginning to decompose. I found no abrasions or contusions, no fingertip bruises. But here" - I showed him a photograph of her neck at autopsy - "sheas got irregular hemorrhages in the sternocleidomastoid muscles bilaterally. Sheas also got a fracture of the right cornua of the hyoid. Her death was caused by asphyxia, due to pressure applied to the neck "

Marino interrupted loudly. "You suggesting she got yoked?"

I showed him another photograph. "Sheas also got some facial perechia, or pinpoint hemorrhages. These findings are consistent with yoking, yes. Sheas a homicide, and I might suggest that we keep this out of the newspapers as long as possible."

"You know, I didnat need this."

He looked up at me with bloodshot eyes. "I got eight uncleared homicides sitting on my desk even as we speak. Henrico donat got s.h.i.+t on Eddie Heath, and the kidas old man calls me almost every day. Not to mention, theyare having a d.a.m.n drug war-in Mosby Court. Merry friggina Christmas. I didnat need this."

"Jennifer Deighton didnat need this either, Marino."

"Keep going. What else did you find?"

"She did have high blood pressure, as her neighbor Mrs. Clary suggested."

"Huh," he said, s.h.i.+fting his eyes away from me. "How could you tell?"

"She had left ventricular hypertophy, or thickening of the left side of the heart."

"High blood pressure does that?"

"It does. I should find fibrinoid changes in the renal microvasculature or early nephrosclerosis. I suspect the brain will show hypertensive changes, too, in the cerebral arterioles, but I wonat be able to say with certainty until I can take a look under the scope."

"Youare saying kidney and brain cells get killed off when you got high blood pressure?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"Anything else?"

"Nothing significant."

"What about gastric contents?" Marino asked.

"Meat, some vegetables, partially digested."

"Alcohol or drugs?"

"No alcohol. Drug screens are under way."

"No sign of rape?"

"No injuries or other evidence of s.e.xual a.s.sault. I swabbed her for seminal fluid but wonat get those reports for a while. Even then, you canat always be sure."

Marinoas face was unreadable.

"What are you after?" I finally asked.

"Well, Iam thinking about how this thing was staged. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make us think she ga.s.sed herself. But then the ladyas dead before he even gets her into her car. What Iam considering is that he didnat mean to whack her inside the house. You know, he applies a choke hold, uses too much force, and she dies. So, maybe he didnat know her health was bad and thatas how it happened."

I started shaking my head. "Her high blood pressure has nothing to do with it."

"Explain how she died, then."

"Say the a.s.sailant is right-handed, he brought his left arm around the front of her neck and used his right hand to pull the left wrist toward the right."

I demonstrated. "This placed pressure eccentrically on her neck, resulting in fracture of the right greater cornua of the hyoid bone. The pressure collapsed her upper airway and put pressure on the carotid arteries. She would have gotten hypoxic, or air hungry. Sometimes pressure on the neck produces bradycardia, a drop in the heart rate, and the victim has an arrhythmia."

"Could you tell from her autopsy if the a.s.sailant started using a choke hold that ended up a yoking? If he was just trying to subdue her and used too much force, in other words?"

"I canat tell you that from medical findings."

"But itas possible."

"Itas within the realm of possibility."

"Come on, Doc," Marino said, exasperated. "Get off the witness stand for a minute, okay? Somebody else in this office besides you and me?"

No one was. But I was unnerved. Most of my staff had not shown up for work today, and Susan had acted bizarrely. Jennifer Deighton, a stranger, apparently had been trying to call me, then was murdered, and a man who claimed to be her brother had just hung up on me. Not to mention, Marinoas mood was foul. When I felt a loss of control, I became very clinic.

"Look," I said, "he very well may have used a choke hold to subdue her and ended up applying too much force, yoking her by mistake. In fact, Iall even go so far as to suggest that he simply thought head knocked her out and didnat know she was dead when he placed her inside her car."

"So weare dealing with a dumb s.h.i.+t"

"I wouldnat conclude that if I were you. But if he gets up tomorrow morning and reads in the paper that Jennifer Deighton was murdered, he may be in for the surprise of his life. Heas going to wonder what he did wrong. Which is why I recommended we keep this away from the press."

"I got no problem with that. By the way, just because you didnat know Jennifer Deighton donat mean she didnat know you."

I waited for him to explain.

"Iave been thinking about your hang ups. Youare on TV, in the papers. Maybe she knew someone was after her, didnat know where to turn, and reached out to you for help. When she got your machine, she was too paranoid to leave a message."

"Thatas a very depressing thought."

"Almost everything we think in this joint is depressing."

He got up from his chair.

"Do me a favor," I said. "Check her house. Tell me if you find any feather pillows, down-filled jackets, feather dusters, anything relating to feathers."

"Why?"

"I found a small feather on her gown."

"Sure. Iall let you know. Are you leaving?"

I glanced past him as I heard the elevator doors open and shut. "Was that Stevens? "I asked.

"Yeah."

"Iave got a few more things to do before I go home," I said.

After Marino got on the elevator, I went to a window at the end of the hall that overlooked the parking loon back. I wanted to make sure Ben Stevensas Jeep was gone. It was, and I watched as Marino emerged from the budding, picking his way through crushed snow lit up by street lamps. He trudged to his car and stopped to vigorously shake snow off his feet, like a cat thatas stepped in water, before sliding behind the wheel. G.o.d forbid that anything should violate the freshened au and Armor All of his inner sanctum. I wondered ft he had plans for Christmas and was dismayed that I had not thought to invite him in for dinner. This would be his AS Christmas since he and Doris had divorced.

As I made my way back down the empty hall, I ducked into each office along the way to check computer terminals. Unfortunately, no one was logged in, and the only cable tagged with a device number was Fieldingas. It was neither tty07 nor tty14. Frustrated, I unlocked Margaretas office and switched on the light.