Skin Deep

by Gary Braver

  Ottoman did not speak like a man jaded by what he saw on a daily basis. On the contrary, he held forth with the eerie enthusiasm of someone intellectually titillated by his work, like a math teacher explaining the Pythagorean theorem. But he had a disconcerting habit of flashing grins at dramatic moments as if repressing ghoulish delight.

  “Most tourniquet suicides are by hanging with a slipknot noose fastened directly above the head so that full gravity quickens the loss of consciousness. Even when the body isn’t completely pendant—that is, the victim is partially resting on feet or knees—there’s enough pressure on the neck to cause unconsciousness in seconds. That’s not the case here. The stocking was at a thirty-degree angle with the horizontal.”

  “So what are you saying?” Neil asked.

  “I’m saying that someone intent on suicide would wrap the stocking around her neck and tie a full knot in front. Otherwise, she’d fall unconscious, the muscles in her neck would relax, the ligature would loosen, and she’d start breathing again. But that’s not the case here.” He flash-grinned again.

  “What about accidental asphyxia?”

  “Much more common with males, although the number of female victims has grown. So has the number of deaths—over a thousand each year—and the addiction rate of people unable to achieve sexual climax unless they’re strangled.”

  “Remember the time when people just got laid?” Steve slipped in.

  Another flash-grin. “The pathological term is asphyxiophilia,” Ottoman continued. “Because of diminished blood oxygen to the brain, sexual pleasure is apparently heightened. But what’s critical is pressure and timing. The orgasm must happen just before the person passes out or the ligature will continue to tighten.”

  “Maybe she just miscalculated,” Neil suggested.

  “That was my first guess since vaginal fluids suggest that she’d been sexually aroused. Also her nakedness, body position, and the intimate apparel. The headboard is high enough to provide the necessary pressure. She manually stimulates herself to achieve a climax before the pass-out point, but passes out instead. And she dies.” He grinned again.

  Neil nodded. “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “But I have problems with that. First, we found no trace of vaginal fluid on her fingers. Second, the ligature pressure is inconsistent with gravity. If she had passed out against the stocking, the pressure against her throat would be about thirty pounds per square inch, and less along the sides and back of her neck. We took cell samples of the bruised tissue around the full circumference and could not find any variation in damage. Pressure was consistent all around—showing contusions from a force two to three times that. Plus her windpipe was crushed.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning she died of a sudden and powerful strangulating force applied evenly around her neck and great enough to have knocked her out in seconds.”

  Silence filled the room.

  Then Neil said, “Maybe she pulled it too tight and passed out.”

  Ottoman made another out-of-the-blue grin. “No, because the force that produced this trauma would have embedded the stocking into her neck evenly all around. You can see in the photo there’s a gap between her neck and the knot big enough to put two fingers into—just as the lieutenant reported.” He glanced at Steve. “Gravity could not account for that.”

  “What about when the neck muscles relax?” Neil asked.

  Ottoman removed two photographs from the pile and laid them out on the table. “Look at the knot—a standard double overhand knot, correct? Correct. But look at the short end of the stocking—about two inches, the other end stretched out to nearly four feet and tied to the bed. Unless she had an exceptionally strong grasp, I don’t believe she could have pulled the short end against the other to have created the killing force.”

  “You mean it was tied then retied,” Steve said.

  “Yes, and by a righty. And according to the report, the victim was left-handed.”

  Then Steve said, “You’re saying the autoerotica was staged.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant. I think she was murdered and set up to look like accidental asphyxiophilia.” He made a happy-face grin.

  “But there were no signs of struggle,” Neil protested. “No forced entry. And nobody heard any cries or disturbances. No reports of visitors entering her apartment.”

  “Yes, and no signs she was raped,” Ottoman added. “No semen, no vaginal bruises. No sign of condom lubricants. And no unattached foreign hairs on her body. And no sign of vaginal, anal, or oral sex. And, as you can see, no ligature marks on her wrists or ankles. No fingernail marks and scratches of the assailant on the neck. No defensive wounds anywhere.”

  “So she knew her assailant but didn’t have sex with him,” Steve said.

  “That would be my guess.”

  “What does that tell us about him?” Steve asked, wishing Ottoman would cover Terry’s face with a cloth. The grotesque disfigurement was making his brain feel soupy.

  “Or her,” Neil said. “It could have been a woman.”

  “If so, a very strong woman.”

  The thick purple ring of broken blood vessels looked like a tattooed necklace. “Let’s assume she was strangled with two hands on the stocking,” Steve said. “After she died, one end was tied to the bed to look like an accident. Given the force and speed it took to knock her out, she had no time to resist.”

  “Correct. And that’s why her hands aren’t bruised and her fingernails aren’t broken even though we’ve taken scrapings for DNA.”

  “So, she knew the attacker and let him in,” Steve said, as the image came together. And Ottoman nodded him on. “With her consent they go into the bedroom and engaged in some kind of sexual activity that did not involve intercourse. And during that the assailant suddenly strangles her and sets an accidental autoerotica scenario, then covers his tracks and leaves.”

  “That would be my guess,” Ottoman said.

  If he was correct, Farina’s murder was premeditated, organized, and compulsive—not impulsive. In his mind he saw a faceless killer going through the place, wiping clean surfaces he might have touched, maybe even returning his own champagne glass to the cabinet, and pressing Terry’s dead fingers on the bottle to make it look as if she drank alone.

  Except nobody drinks champagne alone, Steve thought. The killer had screwed up.

  While Ottoman continued, Steve looked down at Terry’s face. Slitted open, her eyes, once bright blue, were now dead gray globes of jelly. If Ottoman was correct, the last thing those sad smoky eyes had taken in was the face of the person who did this to her–who came into her bedroom, took pleasure in her nakedness, then wrapped that stocking around her neck and pulled until she passed out of this life. If only those dead jellies could project their last light.

  The thought quickened his pulse. And out of the black, that sensation winged its way in and nearly came to roost but turned and sliced back into the gloom.

  “What would you estimate for the time of death?” Neil asked.

  “Between three P.M. and three A.M.”

  “Twelve hours. Is that the best you can do?”

  “I’m afraid so. The AC was turned to sixty degrees, which slows down the pooling of the blood, and, thus, postmortem lividity and decomposition. The temperature of her skin when she was found was room temperature, but her liver was sixty-four degrees. It takes about eight to twelve hours for the skin to reach ambient temp, but three times longer at the center of the body, which is why we measure the liver. That means her body temp dropped a little over thirty-four degrees. The rate of algor mortis is a decrease of one point five degrees per hour…”

  Steve felt as if he were being lectured by the caterpillar in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. “My head’s spinning. What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying she was dead for at least twelve hours, although it would help to know if the bed was turned on massage mode, but I doubt there’s any memory in the electronics.”


  “Livor mortis begins within half an hour after death.”

  “Yes. And that’s the point. If she were strangled in one position—say on her back or front—then moved to where she was found, it must have happened pretty fast since the discoloration is consistent with her position. The other unknown is why the low AC temp.”

  “The temperature on Saturday was in the sixties,” Steve said.

  “That’s right,” said Ottoman. “There was no reason to turn the AC all the way down.”

  “So, what are you saying?”

  Ottoman grinned full teeth. “I’m saying that the killer was creating an alibi.”

  7

  “It still doesn’t feel right,” Neil said. “Got a sex scene without sex.”

  “You’re still thinking accident?” Steve asked.

  “Because I’m having trouble with someone she knows showing up for sex, strangling her instead, then setting up an asphyxia scene. It’s too much of a stretch. Plus there’s no physical evidence another person was there.”

  They were back in the squad car with Neil driving back to headquarters at One Schroeder Plaza at the corner of Ruggles and Tremont near the Northeastern University campus.

  “The champagne and lights are circumstantial. Same with the ligature trauma. She could have twisted. Nylons stretch. Plus I don’t see any motive.”

  “That’s what we have to work on.”

  The traffic was light at this time of the day. The plan was that Neil was going to make calls to the victim’s credit card and telephone companies plus follow-ups on neighbors of the deceased while Steve would question Farina’s colleagues at the Kingsbury Club on the North Shore.

  “You seem pretty convinced.”

  Steve could hear an edge of accusation. “Because Ottoman made a convincing scenario.”

  “Hell, you were convinced from the get-go.”

  Steve didn’t know what Neil was getting at. “Only after I looked things over.” They didn’t say anything for a while as Steve could sense Neil turning something over in his head. The rim of his ear was red and he chewed away on his stirrer.

  “I don’t know,” Neil finally said. “You seem to have all the answers is all.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m saying. You walk in an hour late, and one-two-three you put together a whole fucking homicide theory, and now you got the M.E. and D.A. in agreement.”

  “I’m not sure what’s bothering you.”

  “I don’t know either.” Neil rubbed his face. “Maybe I’m feeling a little put out is all. Mangini, C.S.S.—I thought we’d pretty well figured it out. Then you bring up the ligature inconsistencies.”

  Steve felt his throat begin to tighten. “Yeah?”

  “I don’t know. Mangini should have picked up on that. Me, too…and the lights thing. It’s just that I’m feeling like the south end of a mule.”

  “I get it. You’re feeling bad only because you’re an inferior criminal investigator.”

  Neil made a humphing chuckle. “Yeah, something like that.”

  “Look, how many hangings have you had?”

  “Not many.”

  “Course not. You’re up in Gloucester where they throw themselves in the water. Besides Boston’s got more rope and stockings.”

  Neil smiled and nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Hey, man, we’re partners. We’re working this together, okay? There’s no one-upsmanship bullshit.”

  Neil nodded. “Maybe you called it.”

  “And maybe not. We’ve got lab stuff still to come. We’ve got an investigation to mount.”

  “Yeah.”

  Steve felt himself relax a little in whatever reconciliation had been established. But he wasn’t sure if Neil was sitting on something else.

  “You seem to have all the answers is all.”

  They had been partners for less than six months, so Steve was still getting to knowing Neil, who had been rehired from Gloucester on the North Shore. He had said that low pay, boring assignments, and minimal overtime made him leave. So he took the civil service tests, scored high, got hired, did time on the streets, and was eventually promoted to homicide. But the real reason for the move was his wife’s death three years ago.

  Neil wanted to be out of Gloucester and all reminders of his loss. Also, he wanted a fresh start for his sixteen-year-old daughter, Lily, who had behavioral problems. So part of Neil’s emotional makeup was family baggage. That and a fierce competitiveness which sometimes surfaced as pit bull finesse.

  Neil pulled the stirrer out of his mouth and tossed it out the window. Unconsciously, he began to finger the crucifix chain around his neck. It was another one of his tics. For several minutes, neither of them said anything as they proceeded toward headquarters, Neil looking as if he had put behind them any resentment that Ottoman had corroborated Steve’s murder theory. But Steve was not convinced. Neil was a quiet brooder.

  “I don’t care how good a pathologist he is,” he finally said. “He gives me the fucking creeps is all. I mean, how many guys say, ‘Let’s talk strangulation,’ and grin like that?”

  “You’d be creepy too if you spent your days cutting up cadavers.”

  “Yeah, but I think he gets off on it. I mean, when he was a little kid instead of a fireman or baseball player, did he say he wanted to be a coroner?”

  Steve laughed. “He probably made that decision in medical school.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. He’s got a whole list of medical options—psychiatry, neurology, cardiology, gynecology, pediatrics, whatever. So, what kind of person decides he’s going to make cadavers his specialty?”

  “I don’t think he sees dead people the way most people do. They’re more like scientific problems to be solved. And what about us opting for homicide?”

  Neil shrugged. “Maybe we’re a little weird, too. Not like we’ve got lots of cool options—traffic, public safety, cyber crime, domestic violence, harbor patrol. Administration. I think I’d die an early death if I had a desk job.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” Only on movie or TV screens was homicide cool—cops rolling into crime scenes in shiny black Hummers, wearing Armani suits, spouting hot-shit platitudes, finding conclusive DNA evidence, getting the bad guy IDed the next day. The real thing is not like that. Nor is the crime sanitized. In Steve’s experience it was a daily confrontation with human depravity: bodies found in a basement, their brains exploded for a fistful of dollars; young kids dead in a playground over sneakers; a wife and child bludgeoned in a moment of madness because of mounting bills; a pregnant woman murdered, her fetus cut out of her. Or shooting dead some kid zonked out on OxyContin and coming at you with a gun. All in a day’s work.

  But one never quite gets used to it. You cope for a while, maybe seek counseling for the stress and horror. But eventually it comes back up like a clogged toilet. That’s when you go for the unhealthy solutions—cigarettes, booze, drugs—whatever it takes to anesthetize your emotions to the constantly unfolding human tragedies. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they fail and you find yourself gripped by nightmares and crying jags, overcome by fear, depression, and cynicism.

  The occasional blackout.

  And then you have to go home to loved ones expecting emotional comfort, intimacy, and normal family life. At least medical forensics is science.

  “What about you?” Neil asked. “Why’d you want to become a cop?”

  “I just wanted to get out of the house.”

  “That bad?”

  Steve nodded. “My parents had a rotten marriage, fighting all the time. By the time I went to college, they were dead and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I thought maybe I’d be an actor. Then it was an English teacher. Then in my junior year I changed to criminal justice. I think it was all those cop shows. They made it look easy. Maybe I should have been a TV cop.”

  “Yeah. But I can’t see you as an English teacher.”

  “Me neither. The funny thing i
s when I was a kid I never felt comfortable around cops. They’d look at me twice and I’d feel like I’d done something wrong.”

  “Sounds to me like you were paranoid.”

  “Yeah. I always felt guilty around them. Pretty weird, huh?”

  “So, why’d you want to become one?”

  “I guess to get bigger than the things that scared me.”

  Neil looked at him with a half smirk. “You there yet?”

  “I don’t know. I think the job’s made it worse.”

  They arrived at the stoplight at Massachusetts and Columbus Avenues. “Check out this girl.”

  Waiting at the light were two young women, one wearing a Northeastern University baseball cap and unremarkable student attire. The other was curvy and dressed in low-slung jeans and a short tight top, leaving most of her midriff exposed. She held a cell phone to her ear and leaned back slightly to hear better, stretching her exposure. “Cute,” Steve said.

  “Cute? Her jeans are practically down to her bush.”

  “Funny thing is you see a woman’s stomach on the beach all the time and you give it little thought. But cover the rest of her and put her on the street, and it’s provocative.”

  “Provocative? It’s goddamn slutty. And that’s the standard-issue mall-girl look. I took Lily to the Cambridge Galleria last weekend, and I swear half the girls are dressed like that—got the belly-baring tops and low-slung spray-on jeans. Their navels got beads and rings and tribal tattoos. And the latest is short shorts with fishnets. I mean, they look like porn stars.”

  Since his wife’s death, Neil had been raising Lily on his own. She was a sullen kid who, like her father, suffered from migraines and who had some emotional issues that Neil said they were dealing with. Steve counted the seconds for the light to change.

  “You see the same thing in church,” Neil continued. “No modesty. When I was a kid, you showed up in jeans or shorts, they wouldn’t let you in the door.”

  “Probably stone you.”

  “I’m serious, man. Women wore dresses.”