by Lisa Gardner
“Harmony’s pretty sure the guy is nuts. But cash is cash, and no one, not the night manager, not anyone, knows about this money, which makes it even better. The beginnings of a nest egg, maybe even a way out if the idiot actually lives. He seems just crazy enough to be that lucky.
“He gives her the money. Then he limps his way to the bathroom, and positions himself on the edge of the tub. He picks up one of the threadbare washcloths, folds it three times—a makeshift gag to keep himself from screaming, he informs her. Can’t have the cops, or the ambulance, arriving too soon.
“A final check of tools. Butcher knife, saw, hammer, all within reach. Should he take another Oxy, now that the moment is here? Except he’s already feeling loopy, and this will require a steady hand. Plus, he’s afraid if he takes too much, not being an experienced user, he’ll vomit them back up again. So the four he’s already taken will have to do.
“He wants the amputation as clean as possible, he informs her. It will make for a better fit for the prosthetic.
“Harmony doesn’t talk. Doesn’t say a word. She’s got a thousand in cash clutched in her fist as the guy uses both hands to lift his right leg, swing it over the edge of the tub, and dump it in the dry ice.
“It hurts. She can tell immediately. His teeth dig into the washcloth, the cords stand out on his neck. She’s sure he’s screaming, though no sound comes out. But he doesn’t pull his leg out. If anything, he plunges it deeper into the tub, all the way up to his twisted tie.
“It felt cool against her cheeks, that’s mostly what she remembers. The ice in the bathtub was smoking, but it felt cool against her cheeks.
“The man thrashes his head, beats it against the walls. At first she thinks this is it, he’s having some kind of fit, game over. But apparently, it’s just his way of riding through the pain, because next thing she knows, he has the butcher knife in his hands.
“He removes the gag, stares at her wild eyed. ‘Hit me. Hit the leg,’ he orders her. ‘Hard!’
“She does, jabbing a patch of exposed shin with her nail.
“‘I don’t feel it!’ He’s excited. ‘Try the hammer next.’
“She picks it up, gives the lower limb an experimental tap. Nothing. Crazy guy is a happy camper. He sticks the washcloth back in his mouth, picks up the knife instead.
“Harmony is less certain about this part. Apparently, she’s not very good with blood. What she knows is that the second he slices into his thigh, there’s blood, skin, and meat. Definitely meat. She starts freaking out, already backing up, but the guy keeps on cutting. Deeper and deeper. It’s like a traffic accident, she tells us. She can’t bear to watch, and yet she can’t look away.
“Except all of a sudden, it’s too much. And not just for her but for him, as well. He drops the knife, groaning, shaking uncontrollably.
“‘I can’t, I can’t. No, oh no.’ It’s like the guy is possessed. He wants to cut himself, but he can’t cut himself, and now he’s pissed off.
“‘Smash the leg, smash the leg,’ he starts yelling at her, while at the same time he attempts to hit nine-one-one on his phone. ‘You can still damage it enough. Come on!’
“But Harmony can’t take it anymore. She bolts back into the bedroom, hammer in one hand, cash in the other. She just wants out of here. Right as she hits the door, it occurs to her the video cameras will see her. And given all the blood and madness going on in the bathroom, no way does she want to be tied to this scene. Then she spies the window.
“Harmony is a woman with survival instincts. It only takes her an instant to toss everything in the nearby duffel bag. Then, with both hands free, she pops open the window, tosses out the duffel bag, and shimmies through after it. Thirty seconds later, she’s bolting down the street.
“What about her client? We demand to know.
“She assumed an ambulance was already on its way for him.
“And his wallet, his cell phone?”
“She frowns at us, shakes her head. She doesn’t have any wallet or cell phone. She has the black duffel bag. Take it, now. Money, too. Take it all. Hell, she never wants to think about that room again. Then, at the last second, she catches herself. And the guy? Did the EMTs get there in time?
“I study her for a while. Guy didn’t make it, I inform her. He finished the job, got his leg off. But he must’ve never completed his call to emergency services because he ended up bleeding out trying to crawl to door for help.
“Harmony appears puzzled. That doesn’t make any sense. She knows he reached nine-one-one. She heard the female operator talking to him. Plus, the man had already thrown the knife to the side. When she shimmied through the window, the guy wasn’t trying to hack off his leg anymore. He was fighting to live.”
• • •
“All right.” D.D. surveyed her audience. “Your turn to play detective. If you were me, what would you do next?”
Hands shot in the air. She picked several at random.
“Trace the nine-one-one call” was the first offering.
“Good idea, except you know how many calls are generated per hour in a city the size of Boston? We can get a recording of the call, but that’ll take time. Other ideas.”
“Arrest the hooker.”
“Follow up with the motel manager.”
“Return to the scene and find the guy’s car so you have his identity.”
“Hey, can’t you trace his prints?”
D.D. held up a quieting hand. “Actually, the first thing we did was take custody of the black duffel bag. And we did book Harmony LaFab, basically for distributing illegal drugs, to which she’d willingly confessed. Did I think she’d killed the guy? Honestly, I doubted she had the strength, let alone mental fortitude, to hack off anyone’s leg. At the same time, however, she was our best lead, and we didn’t want her to go anywhere. So we called for a patrol officer to give Miss LaFab a one-way trip to the district office, and then we searched the duffel bag.
“Which turned out to have a name scrawled in black Sharpie on the inside label. Steven Wrobleski. We ran the name through the system, got an address, then Phil and I went for a ride.
“Wrobleski lived out in the burbs, Lexington to be exact. For those of you who don’t know Boston, Lexington is a nice town. Kind of place with grand old colonials, white picket fences, a historical town green. Basically, the address fit the suit, which was our first hint we were on the right track.
“Next up was the fact that when we pulled up at four thirty in the morning, the lights were on. We didn’t even have to knock before the door opened and a woman appeared. Fifty years of age, expensive hair, even more expensive loungewear. The kind of well-kept woman who spends her days doing a lot of yoga and not much else. She took one look at us and said, ‘Are you here about my husband? Is Steven okay? Because I’ve been calling his cell phone for hours now and he won’t answer. He always answers. Oh my God, what happened?’
“This is the hard part of the job. Dealing with distraught loved ones. You think it will get easier. It doesn’t. And while it’s understandable that this woman has questions, that they all have questions, the bottom line is, you’re not there to answer their queries. You’re there to answer your own.
“We requested to come inside. I escorted the woman into her own kitchen, had her take a seat at the table. Phil, who’s a pro at this, went to work making coffee. You don’t ask, you just do. Take charge. Which, most of the time, starts to calm people down.
“The woman’s name was Eve, and yes, she was Steven wife. She produced a picture, which resembled our DG. Best she knew, her husband, a partner at a Boston consulting firm, had been staying late to work. But when he still hadn’t returned home by midnight, she’d grown concerned. She’d called his cell phone numerous times without receiving an answer. According to her, that was extremely unusual. Steven was responsible and, even when working late, ch
ecked in. She’d got an increasingly bad feeling about things. For the past few hours, she’d simply been waiting for either the phone to finally ring or the cops to show up at her door. Then, she looked right at me. ‘It was his leg, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘He finally went and did something awful to that damn leg.’
“Who in this room has heard about BIID?” D.D. looked around.
Older gentleman to the left. “Body integrity identity disorder. Basically, it’s people who want to amputate their own limbs.”
The room stirred.
“No way!”
“Crazy.”
“That’s gotta be the lie.”
“No lie,” D.D. assured them.
“It’s real,” the man seconded. “I used it in a book.”
“Of course you did. The syndrome is rare, but it’s genuine. For whatever reason, a person feels part of them isn’t real. Maybe a hand, or a foot, or a leg, or even both legs. Some experts consider it a psychological disorder, maybe brought on by trauma. Others are moving more toward a neurological disorder. Kind of the reverse of phantom limb pain. Except, instead of feeling sensation in a limb that’s no longer there, sufferers of BIID can’t relate to a limb that is present.
“According to Eve, her husband claimed that for as long as he had memory, he was convinced his right leg wasn’t his own. When he was a little kid, he thought it might be robotic. Then, for a bit, he worried it was some kind of alien transplant. But he hated it. Wished it to be gone, to such a degree he would only take pictures from the waist up. Even on their wedding day. Because if his leg was in the photo, then it wasn’t a picture of him.
“She worried about him, of course, urged him to seek help. As a counselor who specializes in substance abuse, she did some outreach and found him a therapist. For a while, that appeared to be working. He didn’t talk about the leg as much, seemed more upbeat. For the record, he was a great husband, successful, smart, considerate. He didn’t drink. He didn’t do drugs. He just had this one thing: He hated his own leg.
“And tonight, when he didn’t answer his phone, and hour turned into hour without him returning home, it had come to her: why he no longer talked about the leg so much. Not because his condition didn’t still bother him, but because he’d finally decided to do something about it.”
“Suicide high,” someone in the room murmured.
D.D. nodded her head. “People with a history of depression often appear happiest right before they commit suicide. Not because their depression has passed, but because they’ve finally chosen a course of action.
“With Eve’s permission, Phil took a look at the computer in Steven’s home office. And sure enough, he found in the browser history a chat room devoted to sufferers of BIID. Topics included self-amputation, the recommended method being to tie off the body part with a tourniquet, then submerge it in dry ice. And yeah, it’ll take some massive painkillers to see it through, but if you can keep the limb in the dry ice long enough, you can damage it to the point a surgeon will have no choice but to remove it for you. Because reputable doctors won’t remove a healthy limb, even if you claim it doesn’t belong to you.”
“So the DG killed himself?” someone called out. “Because of a psychological disorder?”
D.D. regarded the room. “What do you think? Did the DG kill himself?”
“Where’s his wallet, where’s his phone?” a woman to her right asked immediately.
“Exactly, where is his wallet, where is his phone? Because we’ve already searched Harmony LaFab’s place. She had his duffel bag and his cash. But no wallet, no phone. And what about her claims of him reaching nine-one-one? Because Eve agrees with Harmony. Sufferers of BIID don’t want to die. They just want to get rid of the offending body part. So what exactly went down in that motel room?
“Which is why Phil and I left the victim’s wife and returned to the night manager.”
• • •
“All right.” D.D. polished off her coffee, set it aside. She glanced at the clock on the rear wall. Fifteen minutes left, which was about right. “Know how I mentioned a big part of a detective’s job is crime scene management? Screw up working the scene, screw up the investigation? Now, welcome to the second half of the job, except this part is more art, less science. Suspect interrogation. This is where a good detective truly earns her paycheck.
“Our first person of interest was Harmony LaFab. Hardly had to work for that one. A traumatized, strung-out prostitute, she needed to tell us her story. Our job was simply to listen—though trust me when I tell you some detectives would’ve still ruined the moment, feeling a need to talk over the witness. Doing less is often doing more, which was the best strategy with Harmony LaFab.
“Now, however, we’re returning to the motel night manager, Shaggy. Phil had already talked to the man once, getting permission to watch the video footage. According to Phil, Shaggy, whose real name involves more vowels than consonants, is a stringy, midthirties Eastern European male, most likely raised in a country where cops are the enemies and your best shot at getting ahead involves selling out your own mom. In other words, Shaggy won’t be volunteering anything for our benefit. This is going to take work.
“First off, we want to be as prepared as possible. So while I drove, Phil called our other squad mate, Neil, to get the latest on COD—cause of death. The ME wouldn’t be making an official ruling for days, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get some expert guesses to guide our discussion.
“According to Neil, COD appeared to be exsanguination from lower-leg amputation. Now, this is where things get interesting. For one thing, last we’d heard from Harmony LaFab, Wrobleski had started the deed with the butcher knife, but lost heart before ever reaching bone. According to her statement, when she fled the scene he’d already tossed aside the knife and was begging nine-one-one to save him.
“But the leg definitely ended up severed. Furthermore, Neil discovered scratch marks on the bone consistent with the teeth of the bloody hacksaw recovered from the scene. Meaning someone—Wrobleski? our mysterious wallet thief?—finished the job at hand. And to add even more insult to injury, at some point in the leg-removal process, the tourniquet was loosened. For those of you trained in first aid, a proper tourniquet needs to be twisted tightly—you can use, say, a pencil or a stick to twist the knot tight enough to cut off blood flow, then tie it off. In Wrobleski’s case, he’d definitely need to pinch off the major arteries in the leg before hacking away at his lower extremity.
“Instead, Neil found only a knotted silk tie serving as the tourniquet. Except this didn’t make sense to him. What kind of man goes to the trouble to research dry ice, only to botch a basic tourniquet?
“So he went back to the bathroom and searched the floor on his hands and knees. Where Neil discovered, behind the toilet, a bloody plastic pen bearing the name of the consulting firm where Wrobleski worked. Neil’s theory: Wrobleski had fashioned a proper tourniquet using the pen to get the necessary torque. But at some point, someone removed the pen, loosening the knot, and leading to catastrophic blood loss. Needless to say, Neil bagged the pen for prints.
“Phil and I don’t want to wait for this report. Not to mention, finding a usable print on a bloody pen is a long shot. But that’s okay. One of my favorite interrogation strategies is bluffing. And between Harmony’s testimony and Neil’s theories, we are good to go.
“Arriving back at the motel, we don’t waste any time. We discover Shaggy sitting in the back office, clutching a mug of coffee that, based on smell alone, is spiked with way more than cream and sugar. He’s sweaty, clearly agitated and trying not to show it. Like a lot of players watching their house of cards go up in smoke, he decides his best defense is a strong offense.
“Right out of the gate, he states his demands: The police officers need to go. Ambulance, ME, everyone. We’re hurting his business, we’re infringing upon his rights. Take the se
curity footage, bag the bedding, rip up the carpet, remove whatever we want, but get the hell out. Now, now, now!
“We let him talk. True to Phil’s assessment, Shaggy’s wound a little tight. Overgrown brown hair, thick brow, hollowed-out cheeks. Man’s probably not just supplying illegal narcotics but also using. And with all these cops around, he’s behind on his nightly fix. Meaning the more we drag things out, the more strung out our new favorite suspect is about to become.
“We ask stupid questions. Why not? We’re detectives, we deserve to have some fun. I ask about childhood pets, favorite brand of coffee. What does he think of Dancing with the Stars, and are Bostonians the worst drivers in the world, which has been my theory for a while, or are they truly worse in his homeland of Hungary?
“He chugs his coffee. Practically licks the mug to get out the last remnant of vodka. And then, when the mug starts shaking uncontrollably in his hands, we go in for the kill.
“We know what he did. Everything he did. How he set up Wrobleski with illegal narcotics. How he’d arranged to have Harmony already waiting for Wrobleski in the room, Oxy in hand. Except, how could he have anticipated Wrobleski’s true fetish? Come on, a guy who wants to amputate a healthy limb?
“Of course Harmony freaked out and fled from the room. Which left Shaggy on the hook. He’s got a crazy, mutilated businessman summoning ambulances and cops to his property. For a guy with Shaggy’s interests, no way that’s going to end well. Which is why when he went to the room and discovered Wrobleski begging nine-one-one for rescue, Shaggy disconnected the call, then loosened the man’s tourniquet, letting Wrobleski’s own actions take care of the rest. Better for the EMTs to recover a dead body than one able to testify six months later at a criminal trial.
“Shaggy denies everything. Of course he does. With his hands trembling and his eyes darting everywhere, he’s all no, no, no. He did nothing, he knows nothing. Whole thing, very unfortunate, very tragic, but not his fault. Definitely not his fault.”