by Julie Cave
“I’ll do it now.” Ferguson tapped at his keyboard, logging into the DMV site to search. The car was registered to an Ivan Petesky, of Foggy Bottom. Ferguson grabbed his keys while Dinah drained the last of her coffee.
He drove quickly, both agents consumed with urgency. Now that the body had been found, the next 24 hours were critical.
Ivan Petesky was a second grade teacher who was, by all intents and purposes, convalescing from a bad car accident. At his front door, Dinah rang a recently installed intercom buzzer.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Petesky, this is Special Agent Harris from the FBI. We’d like to talk to you about your car accident.”
“There is a camera in the intercom,” the muffled voice said. “Can you hold your ID up to it please?”
Dinah rolled her eyes at her partner but held her badge up. There were a few moments, and then there was a click as the front door unlocked. The two agents stepped inside cautiously, looking around the dim house.
“I’m down the hall on the right,” the voice called out.
The two agents found themselves in a modified hospital room. Ivan Petesky was encased in plaster from his hip to his toe, a heavy neck brace and gauze wrapped around his head. Bright hazel eyes peered at them from beneath the bandage. He raised one free hand in greeting.
“Hi,” he said. “Sorry about the nuisance. I just can’t get up to answer the door as you can see.”
“That’s okay,” said Ferguson, glancing around him. “Are you doing okay?”
“Oh yes,” said Petesky cheerfully. “I’ve never been so glad to get out of the hospital, I can tell you. There is a nurse that comes around every day. I have to be honest, I can’t really remember much about the accident.”
“It’s not really the accident we’re interested in, per se,” said Dinah. “We’re interested in what happened afterward. But start from the beginning.”
“Well, I’d just visited my mother in Pennsylvania, and I was driving home,” said Ivan. “It was late at night, I fell asleep, and I hit a tree. Well, I clipped it side on, and the car rolled over a few times.” Petesky laughed ruefully. “That’s what I’m told, anyway. I don’t remember a thing. I woke up in the hospital, covered in plaster. Broke my right hip and pelvis, and two ribs. I gave my head a good crack as well, but luckily I didn’t have any injuries that were life-threatening.”
“Do you know what happened to your vehicle after the accident?” Ferguson asked.
Petesky shrugged. “All I can tell you is what the insurance company told me. The car was towed to the insurance company holding yard, where they assessed the damage and what the payout would be, then took it to an auto-wrecking yard. I haven’t seen it since the accident and I’m not sure I want to see it again.”
Ferguson named the yard where Petesky’s Chevy had yielded Thomas Whitfield’s body. “Was it that yard the insurance company had it towed to?”
Petesky considered. “I don’t think so. It doesn’t sound familiar. I didn’t think it was in that part of the city at all. You could always check with my insurance company though. I have the claim papers in the desk drawer in the next room.” He paused. “Is there a problem? I sort of expected the insurance company to do some investigation of the accident, since it totaled the car. I didn’t think they’d involve the FBI though.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t reveal any facts of the case to you,” said Dinah. “I can tell you that we’re not investigating you for insurance fraud. Do you mind if we take those insurance papers with us?”
Petesky waved his free hand again. “No, take it. The claim is paid and closed; the insurance company just sent me the papers as confirmation of the claim.”
“Thanks for your assistance,” said Dinah, while Ferguson began to dig through the desk in the next room. “We’ll send the papers back to you when we’ve finished. I hope you recover well from your accident.”
“Thanks,” said Petesky, again sounding cheerful. “You know what? I am just happy to be alive.”
Dinah imagined the teacher must have had more to live for than she, because she couldn’t for the life of her imagine being happier alive than dead.
Chapter 7
The late fall sun was at its zenith as Dinah and Ferguson reported for the worst duty their jobs called for — advising relatives of the deaths of their loved ones. Eloise Whitfield was staying with her sister, Mary, since her home at Georgetown had been ransacked.
Eloise’s sister let them into the kitchen, where Eloise was making coffee, dressed in a housecoat. She glanced up, hope a tiny spark in her face. Without saying a word, Eloise saw the somber expressions of the two agents and realized that the news was bad. Dinah felt a helpless anger as the spark of hope in Eloise Whitfield was extinguished.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Eloise said, her lower lip trembling as she fought for control.
“I’m terribly sorry,” said Ferguson, as gently as he could. “We found Thomas’s body this morning.”
Eloise sat heavily at the kitchen table, her face reflecting the pain of her world crashing down around her. Her sister Mary sat beside her with a box of tissues, her own face a mask of sadness. Dinah and Ferguson sat down and waited as unobtrusively as they could for the first, intense flurry of grief to subside.
Finally, Dinah said, “Mrs. Whitfield, I know this is very hard. I’m very sorry for your loss. But we still need your help to find the person who did this.”
Eloise Whitfield sniffed. “I’ve told you everything I know.”
Dinah nodded. “I know. I need to ask you some questions about Thomas’s travels. They may provide an important link to what happened. We now know exactly where he went and I wonder if any of the places jog your memory.”
“Okay.” Eloise blew her nose and sat up straighter.
Dinah flipped open her notebook. “In April 1999, he flew to Denver, Colorado. He was there for an entire week. Do you remember what he was doing there for an entire week?”
Eloise shook her head, tears starting to well up again. “I’m sorry, I’m not….”
“Wait a minute,” interrupted Mary. “Denver in April — I remember that trip.”
We’ve been asking the wrong person, Dinah thought in exasperation.
“You remember that trip?” Ferguson asked. “Why?”
“I remember it because you were both very upset,” Mary said. “Eloise, you had just gotten out of the hospital and couldn’t travel. I remember Thomas flew over there by himself.”
“Oh no!” Eloise looked stunned. “How could I forget? Thomas and I lost our niece at Columbine!”
“In the school shooting?” Dinah asked.
“Yes! It was just awful. Rebecca was the only daughter of Thomas’s brother,” said Eloise. “Thomas was devastated. They lived here in Washington for over ten years and had only just moved out there. We had become pretty close in those years. Rebecca was like another daughter to Thomas.”
“So what happened then?” Dinah pressed. “How did you find out?”
“I was still in the hospital, recovering from minor surgery,” said Eloise. “Thomas had come to visit me. We were watching the news on the little TV they have in the room. As soon as they said the name of the high school, Thomas went white. I had no idea Rebecca was at that school. Thomas called his brother on his cell phone, but it was still chaos and they didn’t know whether Rebecca had gotten out safely or not. An hour later, Thomas got the phone call that she had been killed.”
She shook her head sadly. “I suggested he go out there for the funeral. He flew out the next day.”
“He was very upset?” Ferguson asked.
“He was devastated,” Eloise said. “We all were. Rebecca was incredibly bright and vivacious. I think she developed a special bond with Thomas because she was interested in science. She asked him all kinds of questions about where we all came from and that sort of thing. She wanted to be an astrophysicist, if you can imagine. Her parents bought her a telescope for her 13th
birthday and she spent just about every night staring up at the sky. She really loved it.”
She looked up at the agents from her memories. “Do you think the shooting had anything to do with what happened to Thomas?”
“It’s difficult to say at this early stage,” said Ferguson, with a glance at Dinah. “We’re just gathering as much information as we can. You never know what eventually helps to catch the killer.”
Eloise flinched at the final word.
“What about a trip he took to Detroit, Michigan, in February 2000? He stayed there for two days, rented a car, and stayed in a three-star motel.”
Eloise thought about it. “No, I just don’t know why he would do that.”
“What about San Diego, California, in March 2001?” Dinah asked. “He flew in Monday night and out on Tuesday night. He rented a car and stayed in Santee.”
There was another silence while Eloise chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. “No,” she said finally. “I’m sorry.”
“There was also a trip to St. Cloud, Minnesota, in 2003. He stayed at a little place called Cold Spring for a couple of days. Any ideas?”
Eloise shook her head. “I’m really sorry.”
Dinah asked again. “Can you think of any reasons why Thomas would travel to Michigan, California, and Minnesota?”
Eloise and Mary chewed their lower lips in unison as they thought hard. It must be a family trait, thought Dinah, smiling in amusement.
Her son had chewed his fingernails like she did.
Her smile died.
“No,” said Eloise at length. “I really can’t think of anything. I have never been to Michigan in my life. I don’t know a soul in California or Minnesota.” She glanced at Mary, who shrugged and nodded. There was nothing else they could remember that would be of any help.
The two agents stood. Dinah knew when they left, Eloise would be left with the crushing sense of grief and loneliness that would never really leave her. They could walk away and turn their attentions to the case, but there was no escape for Eloise.
“We’re very sorry again to have to bring you this news,” Ferguson said. “We’re doing everything we can to find the person responsible.”
The two agents left the apartment and climbed back into the car. Dinah couldn’t help but feel a nudge in the back of her mind — something that, if remembered, would link together vital clues in this case.
While Ferguson and Dinah drove back to the office, Ferguson received a phone call from the medical examiner to ask them to come to the morgue.
“Which examiner did the autopsy?” Dinah asked when Ferguson had finished on the phone.
“The head guy himself,” said Ferguson. “Dr. Paul Campion. We can rest easy that it would be the most thorough autopsy possible.”
“He’s good?” Dinah asked, having been out of the field for a while and unfamiliar with the current batch of medical examiners.
“He’s the best,” said Ferguson. “I must warn you, he’s one of those born-agains, though.”
“A what? A born-again Christian?” Dinah asked.
“Yeah. Don’t be surprised if he talks about it a lot.”
“I don’t care, as long as he does a good autopsy,” said Dinah as they pulled up in the parking lot of the medical examiner’s office.
• • • •
Dinah had never liked the morgue. The cold, steel equipment and stark lighting served to enhance the atmosphere of indifferent death, in Dinah’s opinion. Ferguson had once pointed out to her that playing harp music and having cheerful pictures on the walls wouldn’t have been appropriate. Dinah had grudgingly agreed.
Dr. Paul Campion, the chief medical examiner, was in the front office talking on the phone when the agents arrived. It seemed that he was setting a date for an appearance in an upcoming trial. While they waited, Dinah studied him. He was a tall, thin man in his fifties with a full head of silvery hair. He had quick, dark eyes that looked intense, and an expression of contentment on his face. Here was a man, thought Dinah, utterly comfortable working with the dead.
When he was done, he looked expectantly up at his visitors. “Good afternoon,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
The agents showed their badges. “Special Agents Harris and Ferguson,” said Dinah. “We’re here for the autopsy of Thomas Whitfield.”
The examiner was silent a moment as he mentally catalogued his recent autopsies. “Ah yes,” he said. “You’re here to see Tyndale.” He stood up and began to lead the way to the examining rooms behind.
“Uh, no, that’s Thomas Whitfield,” corrected Dinah.
“Yes, I got that,” agreed Dr. Campion. “I give my patients a little nickname, you see. It helps to personalize them a little. It’s just a little idiosyncrasy of mine.”
While the two agents waited for Dr. Campion to don his scrubs and sanitize his hands, Ferguson asked, “So why the name Tyndale?”
“It’s the cause of death,” said Campion. “I’ll tell you about it in a minute.”
He led them to a steel table where the body of Thomas Whitfield lay, a green sheet pulled discreetly up to his chin. The blood that Dinah had seen on the body in the trunk had been washed off, but the bruising and swelling were clearly evident down the left side of his face.
“All right,” said Dr. Campion briskly. “Let’s begin with cause of death, shall we?”
He rolled the sheet down, exposing the Y-incision dominating Thomas Whitfield’s torso. Dr. Campion pointed at the dead man’s neck. The two agents leaned closer and saw what was a clear and deep ligature mark embedded in the skin of the neck.
“Death was caused by asphyxiation. Specifically, the victim was strangled using a length of rope, cord, or wire. You can see this from the ligature mark around the neck, but also because the ligature is quite high on the neck. The place of the wound indicates to me that the attacker stood behind the victim and pulled backward and upward at the same time. My guess would be that the person used wire.”
“Why is that?” Dinah asked.
Dr. Campion gently moved Whitfield’s head up so the agents could see the wound more clearly. “Apart from the fact that I found no fibers consistent with a rope or cord, the esophagus was crushed underneath the ligature wound. That would indicate to me that the weapon had little yield. Also, the wound is rather deep for a rope or cord to achieve.”
Dinah nodded. “Okay. Go on.”
“Death by asphyxiation is confirmed by the fact that we can observe petechiae in the eyes. This is generally caused by some trauma that results in this redness.” Dr. Campion opened one eyelid to expose the broken blood capillaries that helped to confirm cause of death. “You will also see that the victim’s lips are faintly cyanotic — that is, bluish purple in color due to the lack of oxygen.”
Ferguson nodded. “And what about time of death?”
Dr. Campion made a face. “I really can’t comment on time of death with any certainty. Generally speaking, I would say approximately 24 hours ago. I make this assumption based solely on the appearance of rigor mortis and hypostasis. I’ll explain those in a minute. I can’t be any more specific than that because I don’t know whether the victim was killed indoors or outdoors, or how long he remained in those environmental conditions before being moved. Obviously, if he was killed and lay outdoors in below freezing temperatures, his body would cool much faster than if the murder happened indoors. I take it you haven’t yet found the murder scene?”
Dinah shook her head.
“Then my rather generic time of death stands. Hypostasis occurs when blood ceases to circulate and sinks to the lowest part of the body. How the victim is positioned on the ground is evident through discoloration.” Dr. Campion pointed to the torso and legs. “You can see the discoloration appears on the front of the torso and front of the thighs. This confirms my theory that the attacker stood behind the victim during the attack, then allowed the victim to fall face-first after death. The victim remained in this position for about two ho
urs before being moved. I understand the victim was in a different position when he was discovered?”
Dinah nodded. “Yes, he was found in the trunk of a car on his left side.”
“Hypostasis doesn’t lie,” said Dr. Campion, sounding enormously pleased about that fact. “Also, although most people find my next point disgusting, I must mention that there was no sign of any insect activity on the body. There were certainly no maggots, but I was surprised to find there were not even any eggs laid on the body. The cold temperatures overnight might explain it, but I would have expected some activity.” He paused and looked at the agents. “Do you have any questions regarding cause of death or time of death?”
“No, you’ve covered it,” said Dinah.
“Excellent, moving right along then,” said Dr. Campion. “A study of the victim’s internal organs yielded nothing of interest. No organic disease was present. The victim had no traces of alcohol or drugs in his system. He had not eaten recently. Nothing of real interest there. Are you happy to keep moving?”
The agents nodded.
“All right. Now, the victim did suffer a sustained, heavy attack before his death, and my first theory is that he was tortured. When the victim was presented to me, his head and face were covered with blood.”
Dinah nodded, remembering that when she had seen the body in the trunk of the car, Thomas Whitfield’s facial features had been almost totally obscured by dried blood.
“My first thought was that death may have occurred through some blunt force trauma to the head, given that head wounds bleed copiously. However, I found that the victim did not have any fractures of the skull although I found a small subdural hemorrhage on the left side of the brain. A hemorrhage of its size may have the killed the man, but it would have taken some days, if not weeks. Now, with the head wounds, I found that there were a large number of them, and that they were consistently very small and quite shallow. This is what leads me to believe that the attack the victim sustained in the head region was by a human fist rather than a weapon or tool of any kind. Usually a weapon or tool will cause some fracturing to the skull and, depending on its shape, open up large gashes in the scalp. It is my guess that the small cuts were caused by a ring or even a fingernail. It is a similar story on the victim’s face, where you can clearly see bruising and swelling from the eye socket to the jawline. Now, I believe these injuries to be inflicted prior to death, due to the body’s cellular reaction.”