Тесс Герритсен - I Know a Secret

“You said she was found by her father?” said Maura.

“Yeah, he owns this building. Lets her live here rent-free. She was supposed to meet Dad for lunch today at the Four Seasons to celebrate her birthday. When she didn’t show up and she didn’t answer her cell phone, Dad drove here to check on her. Says he found the entrance unlocked, but everything else looked fine to him. Until he got to the bedroom.” Jane paused. “About this point in his story, he turned white, clutched his chest, and we had to call the ambulance.”

“The patrolman downstairs said the man was still alive when the ambulance left.”

“But he wasn’t looking good. After what we found in the bedroom, I was worried that Frost might need an ambulance too.”

Detective Barry Frost was standing in the far corner of the bedroom, determinedly focused on what he was jotting in a notebook. His wintry pallor was more pronounced than usual, and he managed only a feeble nod as Maura entered. She gave Frost scarcely a glance; her attention was fixed on the bed, where the victim was lying. The young woman lay in a strangely serene pose, her arms at her sides, as if she’d simply settled on top of the bedspread, fully dressed, for a nap. She was all in black, in leggings and a turtleneck, which emphasized the ghostly whiteness of her face. Her hair was black as well, but the blond roots betrayed the fact that her raven color was merely a dye job. Multiple gold studs pierced her ears, and a gold hoop gleamed on her right eyebrow. But it was what gaped beneath the eyebrows that drew Maura’s shocked attention.

Both eye sockets were empty. The contents had been scooped out, leaving behind only bloody hollows.

Stunned, Maura glanced down at the woman’s left hand. At what were nestled like two gruesome marbles in her open palm.

“And that’s what makes this a fun night, boys and girls,” Jane said.

“Bilateral globe enucleation,” said Maura softly.

“Is that some kind of fancy medical talk for someone cut out her eyeballs ?”

“Yes.”

“I love how you give everything a nice dry clinical spin. It makes the fact she’s holding her own eyeballs somehow seem less, oh, totally fucked up.”

“Tell me about this victim,” said Maura.

Frost looked up reluctantly from his notebook. “Cassandra Coyle, twenty-six years old. Lives — lived here alone; no current boyfriend. She’s an independent filmmaker, has her own production company called Crazy Ruby Films. Works out of a small studio on South Street.”

“That’s another building that her dad owns,” added Jane. “Obviously there’s money in the family.”

Frost continued. “Her father says he last spoke to the victim yesterday afternoon, around five or six P.M., just as she was leaving her film studio. We’re gonna head over there next to interview her colleagues, try to nail down the exact time they last saw her.”

“What kind of films do they make?” asked Maura, although the answer had already been apparent, based on the movie posters she’d seen hanging in the loft.

“Horror flicks,” said Frost. “Her dad said they’d just finished filming their second one.”

“And that goes along with her sense of fashion,” said Jane, eyeing the victim’s multiple piercings and raven-black hair. “I thought Goth had gone out of style, but this gal totally rocked the look.”

Reluctantly, Maura focused again on what was cradled in the victim’s hand. Exposure to air had dried the corneas, and blue eyes that once glistened were now dull and clouded. Although the severed muscles had shriveled, she could identify the recti and oblique muscles that so precisely control the movements of the human eye. Those six muscles, working in intricate collaboration, allowed a hunter to track a duck through the sky, a student to scan a textbook.

“Please tell us she was already dead when he did... that,” said Jane.

“These enucleations appear to be postmortem, judging by the condition of the palpebrae.”

“The what?”

“The eyelids. Do you see how there’s almost no extraneous damage to the tissues? Whoever removed the globes took his time doing it, and that would be difficult if she were conscious and struggling. Also there’s minimal blood loss, which indicates to me that she had no pulse. Her circulation was already shut down when the first cut was made.” Maura paused, studying the hollowed-out sockets. “The symbolism is fascinating.”

Jane turned to Frost. “Didn’t I tell you she’d say that?”

“The eyes are considered the windows to the soul. Maybe this killer didn’t like what he saw in hers. Or he didn’t like the way she looked at him . Maybe he felt threatened by her gaze and reacted by cutting out the eyes.”

“Or maybe her last movie had something to do with it,” said Frost. “ I See You. ”

Maura looked at him. “That poster was for her movie?”

“She wrote and produced it. According to Dad, it was her first feature film. You never know who might have watched it. Maybe some weirdo.”

“Who might have been inspired by it,” said Maura, staring at the two eyes cupped in the victim’s hand.

“You ever seen a case like this, Doc?” asked Frost. “A victim with the eyes cut out?”

“Dallas,” Maura said. “It wasn’t my case, but I heard about it from a colleague. Three women were shot to death and their eyes excised postmortem. The killer’s first excision was surgically precise, like this one. But by the third victim, he’d gotten sloppy. Which was how they caught him.”

“So... a serial killer.”

“Who also happened to be skilled in taxidermy. After he was arrested, police found dozens of women’s photos in his apartment, and he’d snipped out all the eyes of the photos. He hated women and was sexually aroused when he hurt them.” She glanced at Frost. “But that’s the only case I’ve heard of. This sort of mutilation is unusual.”

“It’s a first for us,” said Jane.

“Let’s hope it’s your first and only.” Maura grasped the right arm, tried to flex the elbow, and found the joint immovable. “The skin is cold and she’s in full rigor mortis. Based on the phone call with her father, we know she was still alive around five P.M. yesterday. That narrows the postmortem interval to somewhere between twelve and twenty-four hours.” She looked up. “Any witnesses who can help us narrow down time of death? Security cameras in the area?”

“Not on this block,” said Frost. “But I spotted a camera on the building around the corner, and it looks like it’s pointed right at the entrance to Utica Street. Maybe it caught her as she was walking home. And, if we’re lucky, it recorded someone else too.”

Maura peeled down the turtleneck collar to check for bruises or ligature marks, but she saw neither. Next she pulled up the victim’s black turtleneck to expose the torso and, with Jane’s help, rolled the body onto its side. The back was a deep purple, where blood had pooled after death. She pressed a gloved finger against the discolored flesh and found that livor mortis was fixed, which confirmed that the victim had been dead for at least twelve hours.

But what had caused this death? Except for the mutilated eyes, Maura saw no evidence of trauma. “No bullet wounds, no blood, no evidence of strangulation,” she said. “I see no other injuries.”

“He cuts out the eyeballs, but he doesn’t take them,” Jane said, frowning. “Instead, he leaves them in her hand, like some sick parting gift. What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“That’s a question for a psychologist.” Maura straightened. “I can’t determine the cause of death here. Let’s see what turns up at autopsy.”