Carol O’Connell - Winter House

Was there just a touch of fear in Bitty’s voice? Yes, and Nedda winced.

„Good morning, dear. I was just curious. What did you do with the tape from the security camera? The police were asking about it.“

„I put it where they’d never want to look.“ Bitty fumbled with the afghan then produced her Bible from the folds of wool and opened it.

Oh, not a book at all.

The Bible was a clever box, and nestled inside a rectangular compartment was the videotape.

The morgue attendant from the graveyard shift was not at his desk. The chief medical examiner was about to ask Kathy Mallory what she had done with the poor man’s body, but then the double doors swung open and Ray Fallon appeared, alive if not well. He was nervous – Kathy had that effect on him – and sweating from recent exertion.

After handing a deli bag to the detective, the attendant was tipped lavishly but not thanked, not that Fallon cared, so eager was he to get away from her. „Men’s room,“ he said to his boss.

And Slope knew that the man would not be back again until Kathy had left the premises. „You sent him out for your breakfast?“ The doctor affected the lecture mode that he used when he suspected her of cheating at cards. „If you think I’m going to tolerate – “

„I had to get rid of him.“ She dug into the brown paper bag and pulled out a bagel. „I can’t afford any leaks on this case, and he’s the worst. You know you should’ve fired that weasel years ago.“

This was her very best trick – reversal of guilt, and he should have seen it coming because she was right.

Kathy Mallory bit into her bagel. With her free hand, she pulled out the metal drawer where she kept her own personal corpse. The victim was still encased in the body bag, and there was no attendant paperwork attached. None of her crime-scene photos had included any body parts above or below the torso, and now she pulled back the zipper to give the pathologist his first look at the face. „It’s Willy Roy Boyd.“

„Ah,“ said Slope, „your lady-killer. So, given his current condition – dead – I’m guessing that you lost your temper when he made bail.“

Her strip show continued downward until she had exposed the pair of scissors sticking out of the man’s chest.

„Point taken,“ he said. „Not your style.“ If Kathy had inflicted this wound, the scissors would have been placed more symmetrically and at a perfect right angle to the flesh. She was peculiar that way, compulsively neat.

The doctor unzipped the rest of the body. „If I were to roll him over, would I see any other signs of trauma?“

„No,“ she said. „That’s not it.“

And the game went on.

He checked the dead man’s eyes and fingernails. „No obvious indication of poison.“ He stared at the chest. „Those shears make a hell of an entry wound. I would’ve expected more blood.“

„Right. He was dead when the scissors went in, but Dr. Morgan didn’t catch that. He said the scissors contained the bleeding like a stopper in a bottle.“

In defense of his young and unseasoned, possibly incompetent, medical examiner, Dr. Slope said, „Well, that’s one possibility.“ Like hell it was. Hers was the more likely explanation. The dead man was thin, his chest concave, and the shears went deep. One did not rupture the human heart so neatly, not with a weapon of this size and thickness. „I’ll know for sure after the chest is cracked. So you don’t think he was stabbed to death.“

„Of course he was stabbed to death.“ The perverse brat paused a moment to relish this small win, the look of surprise in his eyes. She pointed to the chest. „And that’s the only entry wound.“

Edward Slope had to smile. He was the one who had taught her this twisted game. The student was surpassing the master.

Kathy Mallory picked through the dead man’s hair. Finding something she liked, she said, „See this spot of blood on the scalp?“

Slope adjusted his glasses as he leaned over the corpse. „Yes, and here’s another one on the upper lip. So small.“

„And this drop on his shirt.“ One red fingernail marked the spot. „That’s three drops total. And none of the blood is where you’d expect to find it if the shears had killed him. It’s a back-strike splatter. So the wound was made with something smaller, thinner.“ She leaned down to rifle her knapsack and pulled out a bag tagged by Forensics. It contained an ice pick. „I like this for the primary weapon. I want his stomach contents. I want to know what he ate for his last meal and where he ate it. I want a screen for drugs. If he’s a user, I need to know when he got his last fix. And I want – “

„Stop.“ The doctor put one hand up in the manner of a traffic cop. „First things first. A few drops of back-strike blood doesn’t prove it was an ice pick. I can’t even corroborate a second weapon. I’ve told you a hundred times, textbook scenarios don’t even get close to the spectrum of trauma I see on my dissection table.“

„I didn’t work this out by reading a book.“ She opened the evidence bag and held it close to his face. „Sniff that.“

No need. The odor of bleach was strong. „Someone cleaned it.“

She turned over the evidence bag to show him the white residue of a price tag peeled from the bottom of the pick handle. „It’s brand new, a perfectly smooth surface. Heller says, even without the bleach, his luminal wouldn’t pick up any blood on the metal. But this is the weapon. It fits with the back-strike blood.“

„You know who killed him, too?“

„An old lady.“

„Good,“ said Slope, finding this only fitting since Willy Roy Boyd had murdered three women. And now he better understood police concerns about leaks to the newspapers. He envisioned the headline: Old Lady Kills Lady-Killer.

Kathy Mallory parted the hair on the dead man’s scalp. „This drop runs horizontally. The woman said they were both standing when she stabbed him.“

And blood ran down, not sideways. „So, either the law of gravity has changed or the old woman lied.“

„No, I believed that part. He was on his feet when she stabbed him the first time. But he was down and dead when she pulled out the pick. And that explains the drop of blood in a horizontal streak.“

The doctor nodded. „And then the shears were pushed into a prone corpse.“ He smiled. „Congratulations. Now you can nail an old lady for mutilating a corpse, but he’s just as dead either way, and hardly worth the trouble of – “

„I want that autopsy. I need proof that the ice pick killed him.“

„Any idea why this woman would go to the trouble of planting a second weapon?“

„Yes.“

„But you’re not going to share. No, of course not. What was I thinking? So, obviously, you want evidence to dispute her claim of self-defense.“

„No, that holds up,“ she said. „Willy Roy Boyd was a one-trick pony. He was in that house last night to kill a woman.“

Though Edward Slope’s brain had stripped a few gears, he was damned if he would let it show. The doctor stared at her with his best poker face, but hers was better.

Endgame.

Kathy Mallory had won a full autopsy by the chief medical examiner, for now that he had been suckered in – what were the odds that he would let anyone else touch this corpse?

W aiting for the explosion, boys? The upper half of the wall was a wide window on the squad room, and, with the blinds open, Lieutenant Coffey’s private office was a damned goldfish bowl on view for fifteen pairs of eyes. He pretended not to notice the men beyond the glass as they covertly looked his way.

The lieutenant was young for a command position, only thirty-six, but he was aging fast to fit the job. Stress had chiseled new lines into his face, giving him an expression of constant pain, and, just now, it was a fight to bite back a scream as three detectives brazenly walked up to the glass, the better to observe their boss, the poor bastard with the thinning brown hair, the tension headaches and a knotted-up gut.