Archer Mayor - Occam's razor

“Frigging politicians,” Willy continued. “Never miss a chance to get some mileage off somebody else’s misery.”

I hesitated to ask, not being overly fond of such conversations, but then figured it might be worse if I ignored him. “What’s up?”

“You know that cluster fuck they had up north, where the kids got whacked? Now the governor and our own Jim Reynolds are jumping up and down, claiming something’s-got to-be-done , quote-unquote. God help us. They’re babbling about maybe the whole system needs to be changed.”

Jim Reynolds was a local attorney trying to make his mark as a state senator. Gail liked him and thought he might go places. I agreed with his general philosophy, but he didn’t impress me much otherwise-there was too much calculation deep in his eyes to make me think his own self-interest didn’t count above all else. Which is what made Kunkle’s comment that much more interesting. “What whole system?”

“You and me-I quote, ‘Governor Howell and Commissioner of Public Safety Stanton have asked Senator Reynolds to be the point man on a series of public hearings concerning the feasibility and advisability of revamping Vermont’s entire law enforcement structure.’”

Kunkle tossed the paper onto the tabletop. “Howell’s also quoted asking why, if New York City has eight million people and two police forces, does Vermont, with one-fifteenth the population, have some sixty-eight different police agencies?”

I paused at my office door. “That’s not such a dumb question.”

Kunkle opened his mouth to respond but then closed it when Tyler said quietly, “Reynolds was in the dailies week before last.”

We both looked at him. The dailies are the reports filed in the computer by all shift officers for the edification of the rest of us. They cover everything from homicides to stray animals and allow us to share the town’s vital signs.

“Why?” I asked him.

“His office was broken into. Nothing missing, according to him. A patrol passed by the back door in the middle of the night and saw it had been jimmied. They probably scared away whoever it was.”

Neither one of us had anything to say to that.

“Is Ron around?” I asked instead.

“Not yet,” Willy answered, as Tyler lapsed back to contemplating his paperwork. “He’s got the late shift again.”

I handed Willy a slip of paper with “PCH” written on it. “That’s a partial plate on a late-model, dark blue Ford Crown Victoria. When he gets in, see if he can get DMV to chase it down, will you?”

Kunkle looked at it appraisingly. “This the car from last night?”

“According to Edward Renaud.” I turned to J.P. “You get anything like tire marks or anything from near the railroad tracks?”

He frowned. “Nope. Looks like they came, they dumped, and they left without a trace. I tried collecting enough of the skull to get an idea what the guy looked like, but I didn’t get far. I shipped the pieces up north anyway-let them play with it. I was hoping for a finger at least, but the train really did a job. His hands couldn’t have been better positioned. I looked all over the place. The only angle I got left is to check local dog owners-see if some pooch brought home a little tidbit.”

Kunkle dropped his legs to the floor. “God Almighty, J.P. You ought to get out more. I’m going for coffee.”

I retreated to my office, an eight-foot-square corner closet with two windows looking onto the parking lot and a third separating me from the squad room. Tyler followed me in with a sheet of paper in his hand.

“This was faxed in from the ME’s office early this morning. A complete report’s coming by mail.”

I took it from him and glanced at the illegible signature at the bottom. “Hillstrom didn’t do it?” I asked, slightly disappointed.

“She’s on a teaching sabbatical for the year. That’s Bernie Short.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Bernard Short was Beverly Hillstrom’s relatively new deputy. A nice guy and a good pathologist, he hadn’t yet instilled in me the trust I had for his boss. Hillstrom and I went back a long way, and we fed each other’s mania for scratching at the details, regardless of protocols, cost overruns, or time allotments. From what I’d been told, it wasn’t a relationship she shared with many others, which made me all the more grateful for the attention.

I scanned the preliminary report with limited expectations and was therefore doubly surprised by its contents. I reached for the phone and dialed the ME’s office in Burlington.

“Hey, Bernie, how’re you holding up?” I asked him, once Short had been put on the line.

His answer was disarmingly honest. “Nervous as hell. I’m sweating bullets I’ll mess something up. Good thing the office folks here know how everything runs.”

“Well,” I reassured him, “if the prelim you just sent me on that John Doe is any indication, you’re doing all right. You wrote you found evidence of chloracne in the genital area, indicating a possible exposure to harsh, chlorine-based chemicals. Could you expand on that a little? I’ve got something cooking down here where that might make sense.”

“Oh, sure. Actually, it kind of surprised me. It’s not something you see a lot. The only other case I’ve ever handled was when I was doing my residency. A factory worker checked into the hospital after splashing himself with a liquid dioxin-some kind of oil. He wiped it off at the time and didn’t think anything more about it, but less than a week later, he came down with severe chloracne-rash, oozing sores, skin discoloration, epidermal hardening. It was pretty nasty.”

“And that’s what this John Doe had?”

Bernie Short equivocated a little. “He had chloracne. I don’t know how he got it. I did look at his sebaceous glands under the microscope. They were hardened, which fits the scenario, and his liver showed signs of degeneration. I’ve ordered a special tox scan, so we should know for sure in a few weeks.”

I quickly reread the report in my hand. “You also mention telltale bruising in the left scapular area. What’s that about?”

His enthusiasm picked up immediately. “That was pretty neat. I’m looking forward to showing it to Dr. Hillstrom when she gets back. When I rolled him over, I noticed a very mild discoloration just below the left shoulder blade. Usually, you just note something like that-get it in the record. But I wanted to try something Dr. Hillstrom had mentioned. Bruising is bleeding under the skin, of course, but if the blow’s perimortem-around the time of death-the blood doesn’t have time to spread out and make that characteristic blue-black appearance. So I cut around what little bruising I could see and peeled the outer layer of skin back. There I found a near-perfect footprint. I took a picture of it-it’ll be in the full report.”

“Nice work, Bernie,” I said with genuine warmth. “I hope Dr. Hillstrom gives you a gold star. By the way, were you able to pinpoint cause of death? I have witnesses who make it sound like he might’ve been dead before the train hit him.”

The hesitation on the other end told me I’d pushed him too hard, which I regretted, given what he’d just delivered.

“Those are actually two questions in one,” he answered gamely, though his disappointment was obvious. “And I’m afraid you won’t be able to do much by either one of them. Cause of death might have been anything from a baseball bat to the train, to a shotgun blast to the head-impossible to tell…Well,” he suddenly paused, “probably not a shotgun-at least not one firing pellets. I checked the surviving skull fragments and found no sign of them. Might’ve been a deer slug, of course…Anyhow, he didn’t die from whatever agent caused the chloracne. Time of death is a little iffy, too. My guess is that he was alive either when or moments before the train hit him-the pulpified tissue was markedly hemorrhagic, and according to your field notes, there was a lot of blood on the ground where the body was recovered.”