William Diehl - Seven ways to die

“Causes of death?” Stinelli asked.

“Asphyxiation, stabbing/slashing/puncture wounds, and gunshot.”

“Which leaves drugs/alcohol/poison,” Cody added.

“Right,” Wolfsheim interrupted. “And, if you go by the book, blunt trauma and electrical-thermal. And don’t forget: All the murders take place right after midnight.”?

The forensics exam began minutes after the New Yorkers arrived at Philadelphia Police Headquarters on Franklin Square.

Jackson’s body had been moved from the cooler an hour earlier so that it would reach room temperature before the procedure.

Lou was surprised at his own reaction to the sight of his old high school classmate’s rigid face. A wave of sorrow washed over him, followed by anger at a life wasted and snuffed out. Why was it, he thought, that some people get it together and others don’t? Is the shape of your life really under your control, or is it all the luck of the draw? Certainly Steamroller had little control over his death. Some heartless prick had selected him as a pawn in his own sick game.

Wolfsheim saw the detective’s nostrils flare. “Ammonia,” he nodded at Cody. “Probably maggots in there somewhere.”

The Philly coroner was named Sam Liu, an Asian so diminutive he had to stand on a stool to operate. As Sam made the Y-cut and the abdomen fell open, the smell of ammonia intensified. And, sure enough, they discovered unhatched maggot eggs in the abdominal cavity.

“What does that tell us?” Cody asked.

“You know as well as I do,” Wolfsheim said.

“I like to hear you tell it.”

“Dead bodies attract flies within minutes. The females swarm around open wounds and lay hundreds of eggs which hatch twelve-fifteen hours later.”

“So Jackson was found before they hatched,” Stinelli said.

“And before they could destroy the evidence,” Cody added.

“Maggots can consume a full grown pig in days,” Liu said, apropos of nothing.

The three New Yorkers looked at him, but he continued his examination without further commentary.

“I think we can safely conclude,” Wolfsheim said, “that time of death was shortly after midnight Saturday morning.”

One of Liu’s intern-assistants ran the eggs through a blender, and returned to report that she’d found traces of cocaine in the sample.

Liu nodded. “Happy maggots. That’s consistent with our first conclusions.”

“Something else,” the assistant said. “We identified a residue of liquid in the Chivas Regal bottle found near the body. It was loaded with coke. That’s how it was introduced,” she said.

“At least he died a happy death,” Stinelli commented sorrowfully.?

Liu continued the autopsy, meticulously examining every inch of the flabby corpse that had once borne the nickname “Steamroller.”

“Take a look at this,” he finally said.

At first the visitors couldn’t see what the Philly coroner was pointing to. But it came into focus as he explained.

“Residual pressure point,” Liu indicated with his finger, “precisely adjacent to the heart.”

Now they saw it clearly: the trace of a grid mark on the pressure bruise.

Wolfsheim admitted he was baffled.

“Wait a moment,” Liu asked them. He removed his plastic gloves, excused himself, climbed down from his bench, and left the operating room.

A few minutes later Liu returned, a Taser gun in hand.

The New Yorkers watched as Liu held the gun up to the corpse, demonstrating how its grid-like contact surface could have left the mark sealed by death on Jackson’s body.?

An hour later, Liu concluded his examination of the heart muscle, confirming that “the victim’s heart arrested, probably following constant arrhythmia that it could no longer compensate for due to the strain already put on his system by the alcohol and drugs.”

The Taser had finished him off.

“No doubt about,” Cody said. “It’s our guy.”

Wolfsheim concurred. “And this is yet another m.o.-thermal/electrical. The guy’s working the neighborhood.”

As he saw his visitors to the exit, another of Liu’s assistants handed him a plastic bag. Liu nodded, and gave it to Stinelli.

“What is it?” Lou asked.

“One of the items found on the victim’s body,” the coroner explained. “The minute I walked in I realized who it was.”

Looking perplexed, Stinelli held the plastic flush to the newsprint contained in the bag. Cody and Wolfsheim saw the Chief physically react as he recognized what it was. In a well-weathered newspaper clipping, it was a faded photo of Stinelli with his arm around Jackson. Jackson’s face was a mass of cuts and scratches, but his grin showed through it all.

Stinelli regained his composure. “This was taken outside his locker room, when Valerie and I attended our last prize fight.”

“Who knows about this photo?” Cody asked Liu.

“No one but us chickens,” the coroner replied. “And the cops who found the body.”

“Check the prints on it,” Cody said.?

Cody was silent on the drive back to New York, mulling over the entire Androg scenario to date. It was nearly six when Stinelli dropped off Wolfsheim at his apartment, then, at his insistence, dropped Cody back at the Loft. “Knock off early. Get some sleep,” Stinelli advised.

“I’ll sleep after we stop this son of a bitch,” was Cody’s reply.

Stinelli grunted. That’s why he’d chosen this man to head TAZ.

Cody lost no time getting to Google. He looked up “Clue Awards” and, pinpointing the date, quickly corroborated the suspicions that had been nagging at him for the last twenty-four hours.

Hamilton was in Philadelphia at the time of Jackson’s murder. If he had planned it in advance, he could have had his limo drop him off near the alley after the event, walk a few blocks to find him, tempt Jackson with the fine scotch, chat with him while the combination of coke and liquor produced its effects, press the Taser against the man’s chest until his heart failed, then walk to the waiting limo, and head back to New York as though nothing had happened.

How could he possibly know that Jackson was in that particular alley? Even the homeless have habits, Cody thought. And Hamilton was a master researcher.

But something was wrong with this theory. How could he still be so certain when there was an obvious problem with it?

The problem was Uncle Tony.

With growing dread, he knew the evidence was right in front of his eyes. The totem was subliminal and artfully designed so only Cody would begin to flash on it, which he did as the messages from his unconscious continued.

One after the other, he deciphered the subliminal signs-trying to figure out if each murder had either a distinctive male or female overtone:

Was it Victoria who had killed Handley, after giving him oral sex?

Victoria could have killed Uncle Tony while Hamilton was busy in Philly. She hid in the ladies room until the time was right because she was a lady.

She would have gotten home just in time to greet Hamilton returning from the Awards.

Hamilton, who had just killed Jackson in the alley. Chivas was a man’s drink. It had taken a man’s strength to hold the former boxer still enough for the Taser to finish the drugs’ work. Cody could imagine the scene: a man in a tuxedo with his arm around a bum in the alley, the Taser concealed as it shocked the boxer to death.

Hamilton or Victoria could have killed Song, though women killers rarely use guns.

Whose turn was it next? Who was Number Five?

This entire theory was too preposterous to take seriously. It would leave Cody out on a limb that could fatally distract him from stopping Androg. Or was it? He couldn’t get it out of his mind.