James Thompson: Lucifer's tears

Not again. I wish he wouldn’t. I wait.

“You’ve probably heard that I have a high IQ. People make a big deal about my being in Mensa.”

“Yeah. So?”

“I have advanced development of spatial relations and mathematics. The forensics guys are going to come in here, make detailed measurements and photographs, then enter it all into a computer program that will more or less re-create the attack. I don’t need the computer program. I can do it in my head.”

I don’t quite believe him. “Then do it.”

Somebody knocks on the bedroom door frame. I look. A member of the forensics team says, “Sorry we’re late. You guys want to let us in there?”

“Give us a couple more minutes,” Milo says. “Can you loan me a viewing loupe magnifier and a measuring tape?”

She brings them.

Milo looks close up at blood droplets at various points on the walls, measures distances. He stands on the chair and examines the ceiling. This feels silly, like I’m Dr. Watson to his Sherlock Holmes.

My phone rings. It’s Kate. “Where are you?” she asks.

“At a murder scene.”

“The weather is so bad, I was worried.”

I made a mistake taking this case. I want to be at home with Kate right now and I could be. A fuckup. “I’m fine. I should have called, but I got caught up in this.”

“John and Mary will be here this evening. How are you going to be able to spend time with them if you haven’t slept?”

She sounds peeved, doesn’t realize I seldom sleep. I haven’t told her. While she sleeps, I lie in bed beside her and think. “I’ll be fine. We’ll have a nice evening, and I’ll get home as soon as I can.”

“Please try. I miss you.”

I ring off. Milo is waiting, smiling and expectant. I guess I’m supposed to share his joy.

“Okay,” he says. “I got it.”

“I’m bursting with anticipation.”

“Trajectories are three-dimensional and so have three angles of impact. I calculated gamma, the easiest angle, which is the angle of the blood path measured from the vertical surface and extended angle. Then I calculated alpha, the angle of blood spatter moving out from the surface. Then finally beta, the angle of blood pivoting around the vertical. The three angles are connected through trigonomic equations that determine the major and minor axes and angle of impact.”

I interrupt. “Please get to the point.”

“The tangential flight path of blood droplets is determined with the angle of impact and the offset angle of the blood spatter. They converge at the intersection of two blood-spatter paths, and the stains come from opposite sides of the impact pattern. The area of convergence is formed by the intersection of stains from opposite sides of the impact pattern.”

“Get to the point.”

“I’m trying to. The area of origin is the area in three-dimensional space where the blood source was located at the time of the attack…”

The dark circles around his eyes seem to have taken on a dull shine. I’ve noticed this happens when he gets excited. “Milo, please. The goddamned fucking point.”

He purses his lips, frustrated. I’ve ruined his fun. “The killer didn’t beat her at random. He chose small points on her body, hit the target areas repeatedly to cause maximum pain and damage, resulting in the great number of blood-spatter patterns, then chose a new area of flesh to whip.”

I sigh. “Thank you.”

He’s miffed. “And in case you didn’t know, most of the blood spatter isn’t the result of the riding crop striking her. When the whip recoils away from the body at the bottom of the striking arc but still at high velocity, that’s when the blood really flies.”

I did know, but I’m still not certain if I believe he can work it all out without a computer. I’ll talk to Saska Lindgren after we get photos and data from forensics, and see if he confirms Milo’s version of events.

“He hit her with the riding crop a hundred and twenty-six times,” Milo says.

I’m curious about the extent of his capabilities. “What’s your IQ?” I ask.

He’s embarrassed, flushes again. “A hundred seventy-two.”

“Let’s go talk to Rein Saar,” I say.

We turn the crime scene over to the forensics team. We didn’t inspect the other side of Iisa Filippov’s body, because the front of it hasn’t been photographed yet. I ask them to let us have a look when they flip her over.

Rein Saar’s elbows rest on the kitchen table, his chin on his hands. I sit across from him, start the audio recorder and lay it between us. Milo remains standing. “Mr. Saar, how are you holding up?” I ask.

“My head hurts,” he says. “You can call me Rein.”

“All right, Rein. You can call me Inspector Vaara.” He blinks, nonplussed by my cold manner, which was my intention. “Tell me what happened,” I say.

I see a handsome man beneath his bloody face. Athletic medium build. Swarthy and dark-headed. On the tall side.

“Iisa agreed to meet me at seven thirty this morning. When I walked in, I was attacked from behind. I blacked out and don’t know anything else. Somebody hit me on the head. When I woke up beside her, she was already dead.”

“Where were you this morning, prior to coming home?”

“I spent the weekend in Estonia, in Tallinn, at my sister’s wedding. I came home on a ferry with some friends and family. We partied the whole way, and kept the party going all night in Helsinki.”

“So you haven’t slept and you came home drunk.”

He nods. “I’m still drunk. Thank God.” He points at a cabinet. “There’s a whiskey bottle in there. Can I have it?”

His hangover will kick in soon and it might make it harder to interview him. Besides, some truth serum might not hurt. I nod to Milo. He gives Saar the bottle and a glass. Saar pours a healthy drink and slurps. A pack of Marlboro Menthol Lights is on the table in front of him. He lights one. I note that there’s a carton of them in the cabinet where Saar keeps his whiskey. The killer had to go through at least a few cigarettes to inflict that many burns. I get up and check the kitchen and bathroom trash cans. No cigarette butts. The killer took them with him.

I sit down again. “And the purpose of meeting Iisa Filippov was what?” I ask.

He lifts his face from his hands. He folds them in front of him on the table, looks into my eyes and sighs.

“You may think it’s a stupid question,” I say, “but all information pertinent to this case must be directly stated.”

“We were meeting for the purpose of engaging in sex,” he says.

The Finnish and Estonian languages are closely related. So much so that even if he spoke Estonian, I could understand some of what he said. His Finnish is good, but his Estonian accent makes him sound silly, like a child in the process of learning how to speak.

“Tell me about your relationship.”

“I met Iisa about two years ago at the Equestrian Academy. I was her teacher. She is-was-married. We started an affair almost right away. You should be questioning her husband, not me. He’s the only one who would want to do something like this.”

“Trust me, I’ll speak with him, but that’s not your concern. Right now, I want to give you my undivided attention. You should know that it looks bad. She’s dead, in your bed, and she was beaten with a riding crop I found in your closet.”

According to the nonexistent police handbook, I shouldn’t have related this nugget of information, but I wanted to see the look on his face when I said it.

He’s on the verge of panic, starts to twitch. “With my riding crop?”

“Yep.”

“Somebody broke in and attacked us both. I can’t help it if the person used something that belonged to me.”