What if he didn’t know her?
No. She would make sure that he did. She would introduce herself. She would make it clear.
Over the next half hour, the seats around her filled, and eventually the lights flashed on and off, warning people to take their seats. She was back to being invisible. Fine. More than fine. It was perfect.
A thin man with perfect teeth and hair came out and introduced the conference and the speaker. Never once in the three minutes did he use the man’s name. Not only that, but he referred to him as a director. And had they changed the company’s name? Or did she miss it? Had Bengal made a specific request that the introduction not include his name?
She’d seen it online. He would be here today.
Clapping rose up around her, and she jerked her hands into the air to join in. The man beside her opened his laptop and started to type. Prepared to record every word of the upcoming speech.
This special man. This legend in the tech industry. In the “sass” field. On the backdrop, it was spelled “SaaS.” Whatever that was.
Well, he wouldn’t be special much longer.
A trilling sound flooded her ears as a pant leg emerged from the side curtain. Black. Of course. And a black jacket. The shirt beneath was also black. Her gaze traveled up to his slender face.
From the moment she saw the chin, she knew she was wrong. He was wrong. It wasn’t him. This man—this imposter—stepped behind the microphone and opened his mouth. A noise escaped from the back of her throat.
“Hello, everyone,” he said. “Thank you for joining me today.”
Tears flooded her lids until the man on the stage morphed into a blur of black. She barely heard the first minutes of his speech. He said something about filling in for someone else because of an exciting new product coming out within days.
He wasn’t coming.
Pitching forward in the chair, she got to her feet and ran to the side of the room, then up the back aisle. She ran out of the conference room and out of the hotel lobby into the pouring rain.
She stared at the people on the street, ducking to check faces hidden by umbrellas or behind car windshields and windows.
How was it possible that he wasn’t here? He had to be here.
Her white blouse was soon soaked.
“Do you need a ride, miss?”
She withdrew from the touch. The doorman hesitated beside her in his black suit, an umbrella hovering over them. “No.” She cleared her throat, which felt full of phlegm from a cold she had only just contracted.
She pulled herself away, hurrying down the street, her purse in her arms. “I’m fine,” she whispered, but only to herself.
And she didn’t believe it for one second.
12
It took physical energy for Schwartzman to tear her gaze off the strange implement. Hal was right. It was the kind of tool someone would use in a ritual killing. Hate crimes targeting religions or ethnicities—Muslims, blacks, Jews—committed by people who faced the unknown with fear that they masked with anger and hate. Spencer came to mind, images of him unbidden in her head.
No. She would not think of him.
Schwartzman returned to the victim. His shirt had been untucked from his pants.
“I’ve photographed everything so far.”
Schwartzman jumped at Naomi’s voice. Instinctively, she pressed her hand to her chest.
“Sorry,” Naomi said, moving in beside her.
“You’re fine. I’m just—” What was she? Since seeing that woman in the car . . . No. It wasn’t until she saw her dead on the ground . . . Then the strange, curved scar, the dragonfly . . . Now the weapon and a second victim.
She was jumpy.
Before proceeding, Schwartzman suited up. Zipped into her Tyvek suit, her hands gloved, she got down on her knees. The blood felt cool through her wool slacks and the Tyvek. There was no way to examine the body without getting close. And he was surrounded by blood.
Schwartzman checked the victim’s eyes and mouth, both of which were partially open. No dragonfly. She also palpated his skull, though the amount of blood on the ground and the weapon made cause of death appear obvious. She found a contusion on the cranium, a small indentation resulting from a blow, either from him falling into an object, or an object striking him. Despite the blood, it was possible that the contusion had contributed to his death. She wouldn’t know until the autopsy.
Moving on, she unbuttoned the victim’s white dress shirt and exposed a strong, slender abdomen. The waistband of his slacks was torn on the side where he’d been stabbed, which suggested the weapon had penetrated from the front, slicing the material as it entered. She unfastened his pants, the blood making her purple gloves black, and exposed the wound.
Victims of violent crimes in San Francisco, as in most cities, were often young black men, and she’d had too many of them on her table—more than any other demographic.
Naomi snapped a series of photographs of the abdomen and the wound site while Schwartzman studied the slender entrance of the stab wound.
Hal joined her and bent over, resting his hands on his knees rather than squatting.
“How are the knees?” she asked, knowing they’d been bugging him.
“Old.” He nodded to the victim. “Kid’s name is Malik Washington. Freshman at SF State. Worked here two nights a week.” He didn’t refer to his notebook.
Kids were the hardest for Hal, black kids maybe tougher. She tried to imagine it from Hal’s perspective. How did race play into his thoughts? As a black man, did Hal recognize himself in kids like Washington, ones who were on the straight and narrow, doing everything right, only to die a senseless death?
It wasn’t something they had talked about, but she always sensed a difference in him when these cases came up. Or maybe it was her own sensitivity to the issue, in the same way she was sensitive to the way people spoke of Jews. Because she was one.
“What do you think?” he asked.
She scanned the high ceilings of the theater. “No dragonfly?”
He shook his head. “But we haven’t searched.”
The process of trying to find a dragonfly in a theater would be especially cumbersome. Schwartzman studied the victim’s face. The muscles naturally relaxed after death. Laughlin had been facedown, so the pressure of the ground had likely prevented her mouth from opening, even when the muscles released. But Washington had been found on his back, so there was nothing to hold the mouth closed until rigor set in.
The truth was, there was no way of knowing whether Washington’s mouth was open or closed when he died.
Hal read the answer in her silence. “The wound looks different than on Laughlin.”
“Different placement,” she agreed. “The entry wound in this case is lower—penetration happened in the right iliac region.” The iliac region represented the two sides of the abdomen below the navel. The wound on Laughlin had been dead center and in the top section of the abdomen. And Malik Washington lacked the two incisions on either side of the entry wound.
If the same weapon was used—which appeared to be the case—then the lack of those side lines meant the blade didn’t puncture as deeply as it had on Aleena Laughlin.
“That placement tell us anything useful?” Hal asked.
“It might imply a left-handed killer,” she said, imagining the killer standing in front of Malik Washington. The blade had cut through the front of his pants and entered into the right side of his abdomen, which meant the blow had come from the left. As only 10 percent of the population was left-handed, that information would be useful when they found a suspect. Schwartzman herself was likely left-handed, as was her aunt Ava. But Schwartzman’s mother—along with her teachers—had “corrected” her from day one. If she picked up a fork with her left hand, it was moved to her right. Same with a pencil. A croquet stick. A badminton and later a tennis racquet.
Only in her college psychology class did she learn how commonly left-handed children used to b
e corrected. For centuries, left-handedness had been synonymous with evil. Anything Schwartzman learned to do after that day in college psych, she did with her left hand.
Hold a scalpel, for instance.
Hal pointed to the wound. “The shape is different. See how the skin gapes open?”
It was true. The skin fell open at the site of the wound. “It’s because the blade penetrated the skin perpendicular to the Langer’s lines.”
Hal raised an eyebrow.
“Langer’s lines are the elastic lines in the dermis. Cut horizontally—like in the case of Aleena Laughlin—the wound will stay closed because the elasticity of the skin runs in that direction. Cut vertically—like this one—the wound tends to gap open. The gaping isn’t particularly significant. Langer’s lines can vary from person to person. But it does appear that the killer held the blade differently when he—or she—attacked Washington.”
“Like he was coming from a different angle?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Bigger victim. Maybe he needed more strength. Or he had to take him by surprise, so he held the blade hidden at his side.”
“Either might explain the variation.” Or neither. Stab wounds were tricky. Skin was easily pulled and torn, and any motion of the victim or the assailant might create a dozen variations in a wound. She’d spent most of one day in the lab with Roger on a case last year. Using a variety of different blades and paper, they had tried to recreate the distinct wounds on a victim. In the end, they’d discovered the victim had been stabbed with a pair of needle-nosed pliers. More than seventy times.
She measured the width of the entry. Thirty-four millimeters, eight millimeters wider than the wound on Laughlin. This entrance wound was shaped slightly more like a v than the one on Laughlin, which was a straight horizontal dash. “There was also some movement during the attack.”
“Like the killer moved the blade—either going in or coming out.”
“Or the victim moved,” she clarified. “Or some combination of the two.”
Hal made notes in his little book and then used the backside of his pen to point to the wound again. “What were you saying about it being lower?”
“The entrance wound on Washington is maybe eight or nine inches lower than the entry wound on Laughlin.”
“He’s taller, though, right? He’s got to be—what?”
“About one point eight meters.”
Hal frowned.
“Six foot, maybe six one,” she translated. “Laughlin was just over five seven, so a height difference of five or six inches.” She estimated the difference between the two wounds. “My guess is that Washington’s wound is lower in comparison by a couple of inches. Maybe more.”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you thinking?”
She wished she had something to offer him that might help identify a suspect. “Nothing useful. Too many possibilities at play. The victim might have been bent over, or his knees might have been bent. Or both. Any number of things would explain the height difference . . .”
He waited for her to go on.
“I know from Laughlin’s autopsy that she was upright when the blade when in . . . The blade entered her organs almost exactly horizontally.”
“Ninety degrees to her body.”
“Right.” She studied the theater’s sloped floor. “It’s possible that Washington was standing on higher ground than his killer when he was stabbed.” She couldn’t say more until she studied the wounds side by side and took careful measurements. “I might know more after—”
He sighed. “Autopsy.”
“Yes.”
Hal started to say something else, but he was interrupted by shouting.
“Dr. Schwartzman!” Davis waved his arms at the theater door. “They found the boy. He’s in a Jeep in the parking garage next to the theater, but the car’s locked and he’s not responding.”
Schwartzman ran for the door, Hal on her heels.
Please let him be okay.
Schwartzman was not a runner. But picturing those brown eyes, that happy, little-boy smile, she kept up with a sprinting Davis.
“He’s on the second floor,” Davis said, ducking into the stairwell.
She hurried up the stairs, lungs burning, with Hal following close behind.
A group of pedestrians and a police officer huddled around the Jeep. Several people knocked on the window, and an older couple stood nearby, distraught.
“Someone have a tire iron?” Hal asked the crowd.
“I’ve got one,” said a man in an ill-fitting suit.
Hal followed him to his car as Schwartzman moved through the crowd.
She peered into the window. The boy lay across the seat. Her fingers found the door handle, and she yanked instinctively. As though it hadn’t been done a dozen times. Of course, the door didn’t budge. The Jeep was old enough that there was no alarm, or no working alarm.
Her chest heaving, she cupped her hands to the glass. Winded, she steadied herself until she was still enough to detect a small rise in his ribs. Breathing. Or was it her mind playing tricks on her?
“Stand back.” Hal stood behind her, a tire iron held high.
“Do the passenger window up front,” Schwartzman said. “It’s the farthest from his face.”
Hal nodded. It was where he’d been going. Using the butt end of the tire iron, he punched through the glass.
The boy didn’t move.
Surely, the noise should have startled him.
With the top half of the glass gone, Hal reached into the car and unlocked the door.
Schwartzman yanked open the back door and reached across the seat. Without touching him, she knew the boy was warm. She pressed her fingers to his carotid, felt the blood rushing though the artery. “He’s breathing.”
Crawling into the car, she opened his eye and examined his pupils. Dilated. Big as saucers, the irises a slim band of brown around them. He’d been drugged.
The hatch of the Jeep opened, and Hal’s long torso stretched across the space. From over the seat, she watched him palm a reusable Trader Joe’s shopping bag and several blankets.
“What are you looking for?” she asked without taking her eyes off the boy.
He shook his head as the horn of an ambulance blew from somewhere in the parking structure. Red lights circled on the concrete, slicing up through the crevice between the levels.
Schwartzman emerged as the ambulance came to a stop and paramedics jumped out.
Hal was on the opposite side of the Jeep, running his hands under the driver’s seat and then reaching across to do the same under the passenger’s seat.
He stepped back as the paramedics wheeled over a gurney.
Schwartzman watched the paramedics work. “He’ll be okay?” Hal asked, standing beside her.
“I think so.”
His brow settled over his eyes.
“What is it?” she asked. “What were you looking for?”
Hal rubbed his bald head, not meeting her eye. “He’s got a little sister. Eight months old.”
The words struck like a punch. Her gaze returned to the car.
Oh, God. Where was the boy’s sister?
13
Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine.
Spencer MacDonald gritted his teeth and heaved his chin up over the bar, arms trembling. As he reached the top, he held there until his muscles wouldn’t hold him. Drawing another breath, he clenched tighter, fighting the exhaustion as the rage hissed through his veins, and the palms of his hands bled against the rough steel bar. With one final burst, he yanked himself higher, until the bar bit against his throat. He let out a strangled animal cry.
Pushing away, he dropped to the ground. Fell to his knees and held his head in his hands. His palms flared like they’d been burned, and his head throbbed. Sweat dripped onto the garage floor. He tasted copper and smelled engine oil. When he touched his mouth to the back of his hand, the tang of blood hit his tongue.
H
e’d bit the inside of his mouth.
Again.
He drew several deep breaths and stood to stretch his arms behind him. The movement ached as the small connections popped free beneath the skin, the muscles lengthening and the tightness releasing. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror he had mounted on the garage wall. He was a different person. Better, more focused. Stronger than he’d ever been. His size forty-one suit jackets were getting tight in his shoulders. His thighs filled the pant legs. At the same time, he had dropped ten pounds from his prejail weight.
He weighed in at 160 pounds. His leanness showed in the angle of his jaw, the cut of his pecks. Growing up, he had been a Southern boy. Soft, comfortable in pink oxfords and seersucker suits. Spencer had always told himself he would never be round and doughy like his father. But he’d never been strong. Not like this.
Part of his success in business came from his ability to leverage his pretty-boy appearance to deflect from his aggressive style. And to use that appearance—along with his charm—to smooth things over after screwing the competition.
He’d done everything in his power to build up the pretty-boy image.
Being in jail changed that.
Entering that rank building, he had been confident enough. A little nervous, but his contacts had ensured him a measure of safety. He was not in with the general population. He would be afforded more comforts, the benefit of a private cell. And he’d had the pieces set up long before he’d entered the ten-by-eight concrete room. He would be released. It was only a matter of time.
Even with that certainty, with all the dominoes lined up for his release, the weeks spent behind bars were torture. Only as a child, under the strict hand of his father, had Spencer felt so helpless.
To prevent others from sensing the fear, he had buried it down deep. He had acted like the killer he was accused of being. Even at night, lying on that mattress, criminals all around him, he had maintained the appearance of control.
Four months he was in there.
Expose (Dr. Schwartzman Series Book 3) Page 7