William Bernhardt - Strip search

Tony smiled as I approached. "Me and the boys were betting on how many seconds would pass before you showed up."

I guess that was a compliment. Of sorts. "That weird?"

"Oh yeah."

"Slit the guy's throat?" I paused.

"Right."

"Looks like he did it in a single blow."

His eyes widened appreciatively. "Very good. So you were awake during my blood spatter seminar."

Well, off and on. "Do we know what weapon was used?"

"Not exactly. Any big knife would do. Lots of them here in the kitchen. I don't really know yet. But we can safely assume it was something strong and extremely sharp. Look at the pattern of the arch." With a finger in the air, he traced the path of the blood across the stainless steel counter and then onto the wall behind it. "It's one thing if your victim is beneath you and you can swing the weapon executioner-style, like you're swinging one of those hammers to ring the bell at the county fair. But if that had been the case, the blood would've spattered across the floor. These two, killer and victim, were standing one behind the other. Meaning the assailant had to reach around his throat, while holding him upright."

"So we're looking for a guy. A very strong guy."

"I don't want to sound sexist, but given the upper-body strength requirement…" He shrugged. "Either it's one of those chicks from the Worldwide Wrestling League, or it's a guy. A barbarian."

"Tall, dark, and brutal?"

Tony shook his head. "Again, look at the main concentration of the blood spatter. Over six feet off the floor, and forming an upward elliptical arch. Our assailant was shorter than his victim, probably shorter than average."

"A homunculus."

"Well, I don't like to make value judgments about strangers. But I wouldn't set him up on a date with my sister."

I nodded my agreement. "I'm surprised the victim didn't struggle more."

"Oh, God, didn't anyone tell you?"

Just the way he said it gave me a severe case of the jimjams. "Just give it to me straight, Tony. What happened?"

He pointed to the stainless steel gizmo to the left, obviously uncomfortable. "Do you know what that is?"

"Tony, the only thing I cook is Lean Cuisine."

"That's a deep fat fryer. It's where they make french fries and onion rings."

"I feel certain the victim wasn't killed by onion rings."

Tony swallowed. "The killer pushed the vic's face down into the fryer. Into the boiling oil. While it was on."

I felt an intense surge of nausea rising up my stomach like a surfer on the big kahuna. "So the temperature was…"

"Approximately three hundred and fifty degrees."

I took several quick short breaths, trying to steady myself. "How-"

"First," he continued, "the skin would melt off your face. Then you would go into shock. Your brain would literally begin to cook. It would feel like-"

I held up a hand. "I don't need to know what it would feel like."

"Okay." He looked away, then muttered: "Having his throat cut afterward was probably a mercy."

I fought back the nausea, the shaking in my knees that oh so desperately wanted a quick snort of something with a very high alcoholic content, and asked, "But-why?"

Tony laid his hand on my shoulder. He was looking a bit ashen himself. "And with that question, Susan, you have officially moved out of my realm-and into yours."

"Isteadied myself against the counter, doing my best to stay out of the way of the scientists who had real work to do, and thought. Or perhaps more accurately…I listened. To the kitchen. What had happened? What went on here?

Could there possibly be a rational motive behind boiling someone's face? It was hard to imagine. Was this planned or spontaneous? The killer used his brute strength and the tools at hand-in this case, one that fried potatoes at three hundred and fifty degrees Fahrenheit. But he might've also brought a weapon for the decapitation. Premeditated? Every instinct told me he wasn't killing for love, money, jealousy, revenge, hatred, or any of the usual motives. Everything I had seen so far pointed to a psychopath.

Which led to the second question: Why here? Why commit a murder in a fast-food restaurant? Just to take advantage of the deep fat fryer? It hardly seemed likely. A private location would be better. Even the victim's home would be better. Perhaps he didn't live alone. Still, subduing a family would be easier than luring someone to a downtown eatery late at night, wouldn't it? No, the only possible explanation was that the victim worked here. Maybe the killer didn't know where he lived, maybe the victim was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he worked here. Which meant there was about a ninety percent chance he was young, thirty or under. He was here late, after hours, presumably alone. So he must be on the managerial staff, the poor chump with the job of turning everything off and locking up. Except this time, he didn't lock up fast enough. Or the killer was too determined to be deterred by a locked door.

"Granger," I said, doing my best to feign politeness, "find out who was the manager of the late-night shift yesterday, okay?"

"We're methodically reviewing all the employee records-"

"Forget that. Just find out who last night's late-shift manager was. Then call his home."

"Oh yeah? Why?"

"Because I have a hunch he won't answer."

I left Charlie Chan wondering what I knew that he didn't and approached my best friend on the force, Amelia Escavez. Over the past few months-after my childhood friend Lisa moved to Los Angeles-we had become very close. We palled around at the office and off-hours, too. She helped me get through some rough times and I loved her dearly.

Amelia was standing by the patty grill, her trusty field kit close at hand. She was an impressions examiner. Over the years, I'd seen her taking impressions of tire tracks, footprints, fingerprints, even teeth marks. But this was the first time I'd seen her plying her trade with a greasy grill.

"Trying out a new oven cleaner, Amelia?"

She glanced up for barely a moment, then returned her attention to her work. She'd coated the surface of the grill with a white substance and was now hardening it with a handheld hair dryer. "Yup. Figured I could sell it to Dow and finally make some real money."

"New car, new house, speedboat on Lake Mead?"

"I'd be content if I could just get a date."

Girl talk. The older we get, it never really changes. I used to be so obsessed with work that I almost never socialized with anyone else in the PD-well, not counting David, obviously. But after Lisa took off, I made a real effort to get to know some of my colleagues, especially Amelia. Turned out we were very compatible; we were both smart, funny, and utterly sans a love life. Although staring at her slim figure and perfect height (meaning she didn't tower over and intimidate three-fourths of the male population like yours truly), I couldn't imagine that date-getting was really that much of a problem for her. My theory was, for whatever reason, she just wasn't trying. "Don't tell me the perp left a tire track on the grill."

"Oh, it's ever so much stranger than that. Someone-we're assuming the killer-left a message in the grease."

"What message? Stop me before I kill again?"

"No."

"His name and address?"

"You wish." She glanced at her watch. "Two more minutes and I'll show and tell."

"What's that weird goo you've poured all over everything? It doesn't look like dental-stone casting or any of your usual fixatives."

"My own special recipe. Not an easy thing, lifting an impression off cooking grease."

"I would imagine not."

"We took pictures, of course, but there's always a chance that an impression will reveal something not apparent to the naked eye. A fingerprint, a swirl pattern. A minute hair or fiber. You never know. Problem was, all my normal casting agents would've dissolved the grease."