Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

“Day?” Carmine asked, frowning.

“Yes, I think the process started well before the sun went down-maybe as early as four in the afternoon, when he took a glass of single-malt Scotch laced with chloral hydrate. While he was out, the killer put a Luer-Lok IV needle in his left intercubital fossa and taped it down. It stayed until he was dead.”

“The same technique as Mrs. Cartwright?”

“Superficially. The similarity ended with the introduction of the IV. Mrs. Cartwright was killed as soon as the needle was in the vein, but that wasn’t Skeps’s fate. He was intubated and given a medical curare that enabled the killer to inflict painful bodily harm on the poor bastard, too immobilized to fight back. He was bag-breathed, but if it was attached to a respirator I don’t know. The torture was burns, mostly, but never severe enough to interrupt pain pathways to the brain-he felt it all, believe me! That says the killer must have some medical knowledge. Third-degree burns aren’t felt; the pain pathways have been destroyed too.”

“The instrument of torture?”

“Some kind of soldering iron is my guess-a red-hot tip that could be manipulated. He even wrote Skeps’s name on his belly, after a sloppy dry shave of the body hair that left the skin grazed and raw. I photographed it extensively. Wouldn’t it be interesting to nail the sucker on a handwriting analysis?”

“Pipe dreams, Patsy.”

“While the curare was still concentrated enough to sustain the paralysis, the killer injected Skeps with a small amount of something dilute but caustic. The pain must have been terrible.”

“Jesus, Patsy,” Carmine said, “whoever murdered Skeps hated him! The only other victim of outright torture was the rape case, Bianca Tolano.”

“At some stage,” Patrick went on, “the killer brought Skeps out of his curare paralysis. The airway was removed and Skeps was bound at the wrists and ankles with single-strand steel wire about an eighth of an inch in diameter, tight enough that it would have hurt atrociously to struggle. Yet he struggled! The wire ate into his flesh, though the areas are too bony for deep penetration.” Patrick ceased, and looked enquiring.

“The killer needed to interrogate Skeps, I’m guessing. Or, failing that, needed to hear the mighty tycoon beg and plead like some peon at the bottom of the Cornucopia hierarchy. Under curare, he was mute, especially around an airway. That’s the most important thing you’ve told me, Patsy. A vocal Desmond Skeps was necessary to round out the killer’s purposes.”

“The vocal period can’t have lasted more than an hour, if that long, Carmine. Then Skeps was re-intubated and got more curare-a stronger one. He would have been immobilized when he was finally killed with a solution of common drain caustic. Jesus! All in all, I estimate that from the Scotch to the Drano took twelve hours.”

“And Cornucopia is without its owner-director,” Carmine said. “That alone is of national importance. One of the biggest engineering conglomerates in the world, leaderless overnight.” He huffed. “Any other information I should have?”

“Nothing calculated to make your task easier, at any rate. The bullet boys have reported back on the three shootings, and I’ve managed to do the autopsies. Ludovica Bereson was killed with a.38, but we thought at first it was a smaller caliber because the bullet didn’t exit. It lodged in the mass of bone at the base of her cranium. Cedric Ballantine was killed KGB style, with a.22 bullet into the back of his head just below the inion. The bullet was inside. Morris Brown took a bigger caliber-a.45 to the chest. It exited his back but hit the spinal column squarely on its way out, so it didn’t travel as far as Pisano’s men assumed. I sent them back to the crime scene and they found the bullet where Morris fell. It was too mangled for markings, but intact enough to gauge the caliber. That means three different handguns.”

“That no one heard,” said Carmine, growling. “The gunmen used silencers. But the guy who commissioned the hits must have asked for different calibers, otherwise I think the weapons would all have been.22s, everybody’s favorite for close-up work.”

“Larry thinks the shootings are way out of Holloman’s league.”

“He’s right. And the old lady out in the Valley?”

“Smothered with her own pillow. She was a congestive cardiac failure who didn’t let it stop her, but her heart gave out very quickly under the pillow. The bedclothes were a little mussed, but she probably didn’t last long enough to suffer much.”

“What about Dee-Dee Hall?”

“Throat cut with a cutthroat razor. No sign of it at the scene. She was cut twice-very cunning! The first slash went from ear to ear, just deep enough to sever the jugulars. No sign of a fight-no defensive wounds. She seems to have stood there pouring blood while her killer watched, then she fell to her knees and collapsed. When he figured she’d lost too much blood for her arteries to spurt, the killer moved in again cool as you please and cut her throat a second time, way deeper than the carotids. About all holding her head on was the spinal column.”

“A cool killer indeed. Abe’s got it, right?”

“No, you passed it to Larry Pisano and his boys. Abe’s got the old lady, Beatrice Egmont, and Corey’s got the rape girl, Bianca Tolano.”

When Patrick frowned, Carmine stared at him in surprise. “What gives, Patsy? What did I say?”

“Both your guys are applying for Larry Pisano’s lieutenancy when he retires at the end of the year. They’ve worked together a helluva long time, and they get along together fine, but they’re two very different men,” said Patrick in apologetic tones. “And I know you know all this, so I must sound as if I’m teaching my dear old granny to suck eggs, but sometimes it takes someone on the outside to see things clearly.” He paused to see how this was going down.

“I’m listening,” Carmine said.

“I think it has to be kid gloves for you between now and when the decision about who replaces Larry is made. Are you a member of the job panel, Carmine?”

“Uh-yeah,” said Carmine, feeling the stirrings of unease.

“Then get yourself removed from it, that’s first off. Only one of your guys can succeed, and to bring in an outsider for no better reason than to keep the status quo between them would be grossly unfair. Either of them would make a better lieutenant than Larry, as I’m sure you understand. But the rivalry has begun, and they’re looking sideways at each other. Every task you set them is judged in the light of how it measures up. So when you gave Abe his first case, you gave him a little old lady smothered with a pillow. Not much time has elapsed, but it’s sufficient to tell Abe that his murder isn’t going to be glamorous or juicy. Whereas you give Corey a sex murder! He’s got clues to work, an interesting crime scene, a list of possible suspects in the men who’ve dated the girl. As far as Abe is concerned, your scales are balanced in Corey’s favor. And, into the bargain, Abe is a Jew. Yeah, yeah, Carmine, I know you don’t have an anti-semitic bone in your body, and under normal circumstances Abe knows that too. But this is an Italian-Irish police department, and Corey’s roots are Irish. The fact that, of the two of them, it’s Corey looks like the Jew is suddenly irrelevant to Abe. He thinks you’re on Corey’s side.”

Carmine gave a groan. “Shit!”

“It’s not too late, but watch your step in the future, and make sure you display a keen interest in Beatrice Egmont’s murder-without treading on Abe’s toes. Don’t forget both men have wives at home to keep up the pressure and exaggerate the slights. There’s a big difference between a senior sergeant’s and a lieutenant’s pay and perks. You don’t have two people vying for the promotion, Carmine, you have four.”