Michael Baden - Skeleton justice

Jake met Detective Pasquarelli in the hall. "Can I look around the apartment?"

The detective nodded. "Give it another few minutes and the techs will be done."

Jake glanced at the front door. "Any sign of forced entry?"

"No. He pushed his way in, or she let him in. The doorman claims he didn't send anyone up to her apartment, so our guy must've gotten in the building by requesting someone else, or he came in through the service entrance. Luckily, this place is guarded like Fort Knox. There are security cameras trained on all doors, and in the elevators. We'll need a few hours tomorrow to review the tapes."

"Maybe we'll get lucky."

Pasquarelli grinned. "Don't count on it, Doc. I never do."

"Who found her?" Jake asked.

"Maintenance man came up here just before five p.m. Last call of the day. Bet he wishes he'd knocked off early." Pasquarelli tugged on his already-crooked tie. "Apparently, Ms. Hogaarth called yesterday to say her air-conditioning unit was making a rattling noise. Since it wasn't an emergency, the guy didn't make it up here till today. Opened the door with a passkey when she didn't answer. Called nine-one-one at four-forty-eight p.m."

Jake glanced at his watch: 9:35 p.m. "What took you so long to call me?"

"The responding officers thought it was a natural death," Pasquarelli explained. "The tour doc from the ME's office came. He's the one who noticed the needle mark in her arm, and a few other suspicious things. Said if this was related to the Vampire, we'd better bring you in."

Jake's expression flickered between a smile and a scowl. His subordinates knew how interested he was in the Vampire case; he was surprised Pederson had been willing to let him have it after that display of authority in his office yesterday.

Stepping past Pasquarelli directly into the living room of the apartment, Jake recognized it instantly-the faint but distinctive smell of ether. That's why he never followed OSHA guidelines by wearing a face mask-the possibility of missing such transient evidence was too great. And once overlooked, it was gone forever. Now he could be certain he was dealing with the Vampire.

Ms. Hogaarth appeared to have preserved her dignity, dying a tidy death in what had been a very tidy home. Jake glanced around. The overwhelming impression was beigeness. Off-white walls, thick cream carpeting, matching light tan sofa and love seat. The only contrast came from mournful streaks of black fingerprint powder as the crime scene investigators went about their work, which destroyed the cleanliness Ms. Hogaarth had obviously held dear.

The body was stretched out on the middle of the living room floor. Jake nodded at his colleague from the office, Todd Galvin, who jumped from a crouch beside the body and rushed over to him.

Only two years out of his pathology residency, Todd was the youngest member of the ME's staff, and eager to show what he had learned. "I found a needle mark," he began, gesturing Jake toward the body. But Jake turned away.

"Remember what I've been teaching you, Todd. Let's look through the crime scene first to see what that tells us about the victim, before we get distracted by her body. She's not going anywhere."

Jake headed straight for the bathroom. The medicine cabinet revealed the usual lineup of over-the-counter remedies, but just one prescription: Lasix for high blood pressure. Other than that, Ms. Hogaarth had been quite healthy. He opened a drawer and found a shabby stethoscope and a blood pressure cuff. "Interesting-maybe she had been a nurse and used her old gear to monitor her own blood pressure."

Todd nodded. "Possibly. A layman would be more likely to use one of those new blood pressure monitoring kits they sell at the drugstore."

The young man peeped behind the shower curtain. "Sure is clean in here. This lady wouldn't have liked to see my bathroom."

They moved on to the bedroom, a room of almost monastic simplicity. Jake looked at the tautly drawn bedspread and lifted up the bottom. Just as he suspected-hospital corners on the sheets. In the closet, the shoes stood in military rows; the clothes all were hanging in the same direction. Nightstand: lamp, clock, one issue of Reader's Digest. Dresser: comb, brush, lavender talcum powder. Bedspread, curtains, carpet-all beige. Jake made a 360-degree rotation-not a single photograph, picture, or knick-knack. "What kind of woman makes it into her sixth decade of life without acquiring a single tchotchke, a photo of grandchildren, nieces, or old friends?"

"Yeah, it's like a hotel room," Todd agreed. "Kinda creepy."

Jake led the way to the kitchen and looked into the refrigerator. "The contents of the refrigerator can also help you establish the time of death." Jake smiled at Todd and shook a carton. "The milk expiration date is your friend."

Todd peered over Jake's shoulder. "Jeez, there's even less food in her fridge than in mine. English muffins, low-fat margarine, juice, and milk. She must've eaten out a lot."

Jake glanced into the garbage can-empty. Dishwasher-cleaner than a showroom model. "The killer didn't leave anything behind in here."

The living room revealed nothing more than it had on first glance-no clutter, no photos, no soul. Looking down at the coffee table, Jake's eye was drawn to a single round clean spot, where no fingerprint powder had fallen. The CSIs must've removed something from here, he thought, a mug or a glass. In the average home, he wouldn't have thought anything of it, but in Amanda Hogaarth's home, it seemed extraordinary.

Now Jake moved toward the body. Amanda Hogaarth lay on her back, her knees slightly bent to the right, her arms splayed to either side. A brown tweed skirt covered her stocky legs to mid-calf; a beige sweater met the skirt demurely, leaving no flesh exposed. She had the stiff Margaret Thatcher-like hairstyle typical of a woman in her late sixties, and not a hair had been disturbed as she fell.

Todd crouched down beside the body. "Look at this," he said as Jake joined him. He pointed to a tiny needle mark and a speck of dried blood inside the elbow joint of the victim where blood had obviously been drawn.

That alone was not suspicious. The woman might simply have been to the doctor's and had blood drawn for tests the day she died.

"And," Todd continued with rising excitement, "look at her mouth."

Ms. Hogaarth's perfect white top teeth were false, and the denture had been knocked askew in her mouth, giving her a slightly grotesque expression. Around the corners of her lips were tiny abrasions.

"She was gagged," Jake observed. He glanced down. Her legs were bare, and her feet, contorted with the bunions and calluses of old age, lay uncovered on the rug. He had been in her home for only ten minutes, but Jake felt strongly that this was not a woman who would have padded around barefoot. "Have you found her panty hose?" he asked Todd.

"I told the criminalists to look for it, but I doubt they'll find it. The killer probably took that with him.

"Rigor is receding," Todd continued. "She's been dead about twenty-four hours."

"Maybe more, Todd. The algor mortis will provide more information. Check her core body temperature, and take the ambient air temperature, too. That may have prevented some decomposition."

"The air conditioner has been running on high. It's sixty-five degrees in here," Todd reported.

"Yes, her body temperature would have dropped more rapidly in this cool room," Jake explained, "making it seem that she's been dead longer than she really has been."

"Her livor mortis is fixed." Todd pressed his thumb against the maroon pooling of blood on her back and could not produce a white pallor. "There's no doubt she's been dead for more than eight or nine hours at least, and she hasn't been moved at all since she died."