Carol O’Connell - Killing Critics

The plastic surgeon’s face hovered over her for a moment before her eyes closed, and her mind was swept away in the anesthetic whirlpool. She was well beyond feeling the first stroke of the scalpel as it cut into her body.

A long hose was inserted into a bloody hole in her left thigh. The music of youth and beauty began with squishy suction noises, the siphoning of fat sucking to the steady beat of the motor which powered the wildly upscale vacuum cleaner. What came out of her was the color and texture of yellow chicken fat, grease and blood. Another hole was made on the inside thigh, and the ugly bits of her body collected in a glass jar at the end of the hose. Another hole was cut in her skin, and another for the next leg-more globules slopped into the jar.

In a dream state she heard a voice say, “Time to roll the meat.”

More holes were made in the back of her knees. The long rod was moving under her skin, minding the black marks of the butcher shop diagram. The vacuum cleaner was slurping up fat, ripping away pieces of her body with its greedy incessant sucking.

Two hours later, her eyes were open again. The surgeon was standing over her, saying a polite variation of You’re nuts - totally insane ! His exact words were, “At your insistence, I removed more fat than I should have. You’re going to need rest for at least three days, if not longer. No lifting, no bending, no stairs. Going to a dress ball is absolutely out of the question.”

“Bullshit.”

The Manhattan Charities Ball was a networker’s dream. Every power figure in the city would be there. But best of all, Gregor Gilette would be there. She was nearly ready for him. Her triple chin had been suctioned away to a mere double roll of flesh. And her legs would be svelte beneath the tight wrap of a ball gown that was not designed for dancing, and most certainly not designed to be worn by the likes of Emma Sue Hollaran.

“So how’s Doris?”

Dr. Edward Slope pushed back the Plexiglas face guard and looked up at her with a quizzical eye.

Kathy Mallory was one of few cops who could make idle conversation over the open chest of a dead man. The only thing that bothered him was that she never made small talk.

Now he left his assistant the chore of bagging the body parts and replacing them in the open cavity. He removed his gloves and gown as he walked Mallory to the door of the autopsy room. “Doris is just fine.” He tossed the bloody garments into a disposal bin. “She wonders why you never come by for dinner.”

“And Fay?”

“Oh, you know kids. Last week she wanted to be a veterinarian, and now she’s decided to be a musician. I can see the tuition bills rolling in from Juilliard now.”

“Is she giving you any problems?”

“We’re working it out.”

“So you’re going to keep her?”

“She’s a little girl. It’s not quite the same as returning an unsatisfactory pet to the Puppyland Kennels. And Doris is already planning on grandchildren. You could say it’s a done deal. So now you’re doing civilized small talk. Helen would be proud of you, Kathy.”

“Mallory,” she corrected him. “So, can we talk body parts now?”

“Sure.” He plucked a file from the rack and held the door for her. The air in the hall was warmer, and the odor of death was exchanged for the strong disinfectant smell of chlorine.

His office farther down the hall had the smell of stale cigar smoke, and a hint of the aftershave he slathered on for his wife’s sake. “You’re lucky Starr’s gallery dealer didn’t want to waste money on embalming.” As he sat down to his cluttered desk, he waved her to a leather armchair. “So tell me what you want first. Markowitz would’ve wanted to know what he had for breakfast.”

“Did he die instantly?”

“No, by the blood flow, I’d give him a full minute to live.”

“I want to know why he didn’t scream. He’d just been stabbed. That must have hurt like hell.”

“Not necessarily. He had enough drugs and wine in his system to dull the pain of major surgery. And the back isn’t the most sensitive area of the body. You’d be surprised how many people have reported not realizing they’d been stabbed in the back. They know something’s happened. There’s a localized pain, but they’re not aware of the penetration. I can tell you there’s evidence of long-term drug habituation.”

“Same as Peter Ariel, the artist who died twelve years ago.”

She handed him a copy of his own autopsy report on Ariel. He scanned the lines, and finding the entry he wanted, he nodded his head. “Both artists used the same combination of drugs. It’s a heroin cocktail with some interesting additives. Why in God’s name are you digging around in that old case? It was over and done with twelve years ago.”

“It’s being reopened… quietly. We never had this little chat, okay? So, the heroin cocktail gives me a link to Peter Ariel.”

“Well, no it doesn’t. You won’t find the exact same combination. They have brand names now. Even if the combo is close, a lawyer could argue that link is no stronger than two people sharing the same blend of tobacco or coffee beans.”

“What about the weapon?”

“I agree with the first postmortem. Ice pick probably. But you were right, it couldn’t be the one they found by the body. It had to be at least six to seven inches in length. I’m guessing the point of the weapon was filed down. The rod was thin for an ice pick, and razor sharp. No tearing on entry. Very smooth, very neat. There wouldn’t be any blood splatters on the clothing of the killer. It’s the perfect weapon for a public killing.”

“I need another link to the old murder.”

“Frankly, outside of the drugs, I can’t see the similarity at all. The first crime was brutal, insane. Kathy, I don’t-”

“ Mallory ,”she corrected him as she always did. They had played this game for all of the five years since she had joined the police force and forbidden him to use her given name.

“Well, you’re still Kathy to me. I’ve known you since you were ten.”

“Eleven,” she corrected him again.

“ Ten . You lied that extra year onto your age. You put it past Helen Markowitz, but you never fooled me. So don’t expect me to treat you like a cop, when every time I look at you I see a ten-year-old brat. You haven’t changed all that much, Kathy .”

“Mallory.‘’

“All right, what else do you want from me?”

“I want to know about the detail that Markowitz held back.”

“I have no idea what you mean. We never discussed the case after the autopsy. I know Markowitz didn’t believe it was Oren Watt, but I did.”

“I know the old man was holding out-that was his trademark. There was something he didn’t want anyone else to know, not even his own men. It was a real bad year for department leaks. It seemed like every damn detail of a case wound up in the tabloids. He knew Oren Watt was lying when he confessed. I know the old man had something, and he used it to trip up Watt. It was something about one of the bodies, wasn’t it?”

“That was twelve years ago. I’ve worked on a great many bodies since then.”

“This was the most brutal homicide you ever worked on. Don’t tell me the details just slipped your mind. You know what I remember about that year?”

“You were only a little kid, and you lived inside a computer. Don’t go telling me that Markowitz discussed this case with you. He wouldn’t-he didn’t.”

Slope was right about that. The old man had only given her shopping lists of things he needed from other people’s computers. And Mallory had never cared to ask what the information was for. She had been perfectly focussed on the wonderful novelty of sitting at a computer terminal in a police station and raiding cyberspace for all the data she could steal, stealing until she was sated with theft. And getting away with it-that was the best-licensed to steal. It had been one great year.