Close to the Bone

by Lisa Black

  The first officer on the scene was also named Allman – Casey Allman, he and James were first cousins. This was not a coincidence. He had heard the dispatch over the radio and recognized the address. He then responded without being assigned, beating the dispatched unit there.

  Theresa slid the 5x7 crime scene photos out of their envelope. Probably because of the quick resolution of the case, not many had been printed and all were of the kitchen. Though she knew what to expect, Theresa still took a sharp breath in to see her friend, dead, the rope biting into her neck so deep that it seemed ready to separate the head from the body. Theresa made herself look, but to her relief saw nothing to linger on. Diana had been wearing a blue T-shirt and white shorts, a white scrunchy in her hair, and nothing on her feet. Scratches on her neck illustrated how she had clutched at the thing around her neck, trying to breathe, trying to live.

  Theresa flicked through the Trace Evidence Department report Don had written up. No DNA under the fingernails, except the victim’s. Clutching one’s own throat was instinctual, but why hadn’t Diana tried to wound or scratch her assailant? Her fingernails were certainly long enough. They’d been the envy of the secretarial pool.

  Close-ups of the hands showed the broken nails, the slight crimson edges where she had drawn her own blood. No jewelry except for her wedding ring, no bracelets, and one gold Hello Kitty watch.

  Theresa glanced over Don’s shoulder as he flipped through the autopsy report, and sure enough, Dr Reese had noted how the jump rope had been knotted from behind. Diana hadn’t gouged her assailant because she couldn’t reach him. Theresa went back to the crime scene photos. Shephard continued to read through the newspaper articles.

  Diana’s kitchen, fairly tidy except for a pile of junk mail, had only a few loose items on the counter and three more empty coffee mugs by the sink. Close-ups revealed dregs at the bottom, and the rims had been swabbed for DNA, according to the evidence inventory. The swabs had never been tested – no need, given the plea.

  Behind the coffee cups sat the container of Dunkin Donuts decaf coffee, an unlabeled canister, a wicked-looking steak knife, a jar of vitamins (B complex) and a two-liter bottle of generic ginger ale (diet, of course). A box of Zesta saltines was next to a box of animal crackers, somewhat incongruous in the home of two adults, at least one of whom watched her carb intake religiously.

  On the breakfast counter sat a Cosmopolitan magazine, a box of Pop-Tarts, a labeled prescription medicine bottle, and a pen, next to a blank white envelope. Another shot showed a close up of the bottle, a prescription made out to Diana Allman for metformin, which confused Theresa because Diana had not been diabetic. At least, not that she knew of … though of course Diana could have been and it simply never came up in conversation.

  And these were the items surrounding Diana Allman at the end of her life.

  Theresa found herself staring at the back cover of the Manila file.

  ‘Ten years is a long time,’ Shephard said. ‘Were you working here then?’

  ‘Yeah. Still married then, with a daughter in middle school. Don here had just started.’

  ‘I was still on the road,’ Shephard said, meaning he had been a patrol officer with an assigned area. ‘So what does this murdered secretary have to do with Reese and Johnson and the missing Justin Warner?’

  Don held the autopsy report. ‘Reese did the autopsy. Just as they did today, they emptied the building—’

  ‘I remember that,’ Theresa said.

  He patted her shoulder. ‘Leo told you to stay home – in one of his rare shows of compassion – knowing that you two used to hang together. I collected the fingernail scrapings, stored the ligature and taped the clothing.’

  ‘Ligature?’ Shephard asked.

  ‘The jump rope she’d been strangled with. Where’s the clothing list?’

  Theresa pulled it out, the white copy of a three-part form. ‘Here.’

  ‘Who was the deskman?’

  ‘Darryl Johnson.’

  Shephard inhaled sharply. ‘Let me see that.’

  Don turned it around so the cop could read it, pointing to a set of initials in one of the last boxes. ‘The personal property – earrings, wedding band, watch – were dropped in the Property Department drop box.’

  Theresa pointed to a set of initials in the corner of the form. ‘George Bain transported the body. Well, he and his partner, Cindy Messina.’

  ‘We should call Cindy,’ Don said.

  ‘She doesn’t even live here any more, remember? She went back to North Carolina and full-time ministering. She has a small church in Greensboro.’

  ‘That’s right. Still, might not hurt.’

  Shephard exhaled. ‘So that’s all our victims. But no mention of Justin Warner, right? Did Warner know Diana?’

  ‘She died ten years before he started working here,’ Don pointed out.

  ‘They could have known each other outside of here. They were about the same age.’

  ‘But why would Justin suddenly get curious about Diana’s death? It had been solved. It’s not as if anyone here—’

  He broke off as Theresa grasped his arm.

  She thrust one of the newspaper articles announcing the plea deal at him, pointing to a picture of the defendant. It was an inch-square, grainy, badly lit black and white photo, but still—

  ‘No way,’ Don said.

  ‘What?’ Shephard demanded of them both.

  ‘Justin Warner,’ Theresa said, ‘might be James Allman. Diana’s husband. The one who went to jail for her murder.’

  THIRTEEN

  ‘I don’t know,’ Don said. ‘It doesn’t look exactly like him. Something about the mouth—’

  ‘I’m not positive either,’ Theresa admitted. ‘If it is him then he’s at least fifty pounds lighter.’

  ‘How can you not know what the woman’s husband looks like?’ Shephard demanded.

  ‘This is a morgue,’ Theresa said. ‘Family members don’t tend to visit or hang out here. And the case pled out – none of us ever had to testify, so no, we never met the man. I do remember seeing a grainy picture in the paper, but that was ten years ago. And I could still be completely wrong.’

  Don said, ‘But if you minus the beard—’

  ‘And shave the hair.’

  ‘And add a smile.’

  Shephard ignored them, occupied with a phone call to the prison to find out just where James Allman now resided.

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Just possible,’ Don said.

  Shephard hung up, jabbing the buttons of his phone with agitation. ‘He’s out.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What?’ Theresa said.

  ‘He got parole. His sentence had been ten to thirty and the judge gave him twenty-seven. But you only have to serve the minimum of your sentence to be eligible, not the two-thirds of the actual sentence like it used to be. Plus he got eight months off for good behavior. So he’s out. He’s been out for about five and a half months.’

  ‘Plenty enough time to be working here for three,’ Don said.

  ‘They’re going to call me back with his parole officer and current address. Do you two want to tell me how you can have a felon on parole, who happened to kill one of your employees, working for the highest-ranking law enforcement official in the county?’ His voice rose a decibel with each word.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Theresa said. Nor was it her fault, but this wasn’t the time to insist upon that.

  ‘We don’t know that he is James Allman.’ Don, as always, the voice of reason. ‘He may simply look like him. He may be a relative. James Allman might have sent him here. Seriously, it’s not our department, but the county does do background checks, fingerprints—’

  ‘Prints,’ Theresa said, thinking about the print on the gurney and how it did not match those in Justin Warner’s personnel record. Was that because Justin Warner was not their killer, or because the prints on Justin Warner’s fingerprint card had not come from the ma
n she knew as Justin Warner? ‘If he could fake the prints, he could do it.’

  ‘How?’ Shephard demanded.

  ‘Our employees have to go get fingerprinted at the city, but then the card is given to them to add to their application packet. He could have himself printed, then roll someone else on a blank card and fill in all the proper stamps and ORI number, forge the tech’s signature—’

  ‘Where would he get a blank fingerprint card?’

  ‘Maybe he palmed one on the way out of jail, I don’t know. It’s not that hard – they’re just blank cards, not necessarily under lock and key. He could get some friends to pretend to be references, use their phone numbers and tell them what to say when the county calls. Then all he would need is a clean drug test, because those results are sent directly.’

  ‘Allman would have failed that,’ Shephard said. ‘He had a history of drug offenses.’

  ‘He had ten years to clean up. I never saw any signs of drug activity in Justin, and that’s something we keep a very close eye on here, naturally. He wouldn’t be able to use and fool everyone in this building at the same time. But either way, if Justin is James Allman or someone sent by Allman – why would he come here? Why would he kill the people involved in his wife’s case?’

  ‘Revenge,’ Shephard said. ‘For getting him sent to jail.’

  ‘He pled! There was never a trial, never any testimony. How would he even know who had performed his wife’s autopsy, and why would he care?’

  ‘His attorney would have had copies of all the forms,’ Don said. ‘He might have seen them through him.’

  Theresa felt a chill. ‘Where’s his attorney? If he’s taking out people who helped him into a jail cell, he’s probably been telling himself that his attorney talked him into the plea.’

  Shephard flicked open his cellphone again. Allman’s attorney had given several statements to the press, her name clearly printed. He only had to call the public defender’s office and hope she hadn’t moved on; most young lawyers at either the PD or the prosecutor’s office jumped ship for more prestigious and better paying positions once they had a few years of experience under their belt.

  She had, landing as senior counsel to a small firm of personal injury lawyers. Small enough that she answered the phone herself and assured Shephard that she had not been beaten or killed or even contacted by James Allman. In fact, she hadn’t heard from him in years and did not know that he had been released on parole. If he had wanted to find her it wouldn’t prove difficult – she had married but retained her own name for professional reasons, and the PD routinely gave her contact information to former clients and other attorneys who might want to reach her about past cases.

  Shephard gave her a vague update on the situation, but enough to impress upon her the importance of caution in the next few days to weeks. Just because Allman hadn’t contacted her yet didn’t guarantee she wasn’t on his list. He might be getting around to it. The presence of a husband in her home might be the only reason she had been spared – so far.

  ‘Though he seems to be focused on the medical examiner’s office, for some reason,’ Shephard said to no one in particular after he hung up. ‘Strange.’

  ‘Very strange,’ Theresa said. For all the people she had helped put in jail, she never seriously worried that one might come back at her. After a criminal had been arrested by the cops, testified against by witnesses, friends and sometimes family, prosecuted by lawyers, judged by a jury and sentenced by a judge, they were not likely to have any ire left for a lab tech or pathologist. Theresa had certainly never worried about it and truthfully didn’t feel she had reason to worry now. Her name appeared only once in the medical examiner’s report – where it stated that the tapings from the clothing had been submitted to her for fiber analysis. She had never done it – by the time she could face looking at them, the husband had been caught and a plea seemed certain. ‘You’re in the file more than I am,’ Theresa said to Don. ‘You’re in the actual autopsy report.’

  ‘Just the fingernail scrapings.’

  Which normally would have been her job, but on that day he had told her, gently but firmly, that he would take care of all the trace evidence tasks relating to Diana and she should go home. And she had. She had not seen her friend’s body, not that day, not at the funeral. The strangulation had made an open casket too difficult, and it would have been a further crime to see a woman as beautiful as Diana looking less than stellar at her final appearance. ‘And you got DNA off the jump rope.’

  Don switched his attention to the trace evidence report. ‘But we never received James Allman’s buccal swab to compare it to. He entered his plea, and that was that. I also never tested the swabs of the coffee cups. No point in wasting reagents on a closed case.’

  She picked up the toxicology report. ‘I wonder if his attorney would have seen a copy of Dr Cooper’s report.’

  ‘Doubt it. He doesn’t finish those for weeks after the death. Sounds like James had already pled and been sentenced by then. Anything in it?’

  ‘N, N-dimethylim‌idodicarbonimidic diamide hydrochloride. Doxylamine succinate. Oh, and three, four-pyridinedi‌methanol, five-hydroxy-six-methyl-hydrochloride.’

  ‘You’re not helping,’ Shephard complained. ‘Summarize it.’

  ‘Nothing illegal, nothing mood-altering, nothing that would have contributed to her death.’

  ‘See how easy that was?’

  Don said, ‘Basically, we reported nothing from this office that either sunk or exonerated James Allman.’

  Theresa said, ‘So why is he killing men who work at the medical examiner’s office?’

  ‘Don’t get comfortable with the “men” part. He could expand his parameters to any name in that file at any moment. Face it – we need to go into defensive mode. From now on it’s the buddy system. You don’t leave my sight until he’s caught.’

  ‘And you don’t leave mine.’ She tamped down her smile but couldn’t erase it completely. ‘We can make popcorn and build a fort out of the sofa cushions.’

  ‘I’m serious, Theresa.’

  ‘So am I. Believe me, I’m serious.’ But also delighted.

  ‘I’m fairly serious myself,’ Shephard intoned from across the table. Then he made some more phone calls – to the arresting officers, then to the prosecutor, who he told to warn the judge. Allman was out and might be looking for revenge.

  Or something.

  Theresa steeled herself again and slid the autopsy photos out of their assigned envelope. She knew what she would see, but still the sight of her friend’s naked body lying flat on a cold steel table took her breath away. The slender arms, full breasts and dark hair all seemed as graceful as they had in life, but the swollen, mottled face did not belong to the Diana she had known.

  She passed to the next photo. Close-ups of the limbs, the slender but unremarkable feet and legs, arms, the nails of her right hand, chipped.

  ‘Reese did the autopsy,’ Theresa said aloud. ‘But who acted as diener? It probably would have been another pathologist.’

  Don flipped to the front of the autopsy report. ‘It’s not filled in.’

  Theresa flipped to the next photo. ‘What about Reese’s notes?’

  ‘Yeah – here. It’s … crap, can you read that?’

  She glanced over. The ink scrawl next to the printed title Diener appeared, like so much of Dr Reese’s handwriting, to be illegible. ‘No idea,’ she said. ‘But I can make a guess.’

  ‘Really? How?’

  She held up a photo of Diana’s left hand, showing the damaged nails and a slight smear of blood under one of them. The limp hand had been held open by someone who wore blue latex gloves and, beyond all these sets of fingers, a silver John Cena belt buckle.

  ‘Causer,’ Don said.

  FOURTEEN

  Only a few autopsies had been completed by late afternoon. The rest – including the cooling body of pathologist Reese – waited in the walk-in refrigerator, anonymous in their zi
pped-up bags. The office had toughed it through Darryl Johnson’s autopsy, but Dr Reese’s murder added up to too many shocks in too short a time, so despite the Police Department agitating for a report, the procedure had simply been shelved. At last it had been decided that the medical examiner himself would come in early the next day and complete the autopsy before the rest of the staff arrived. This would avoid any more taxpayer-funded hours off for county personnel. Dr Banachek, voted Least Likely to Complain, would function as diener. Everyone knew what a report would say, anyway: death due to cerebral trauma. Homicide.

  And so Theresa found Mitchell Causer alone in the autopsy suite, mopping the floor. The dieners were responsible for clean-up, as well as making the Y-incision and snipping the ribs with garden shears. They could not leave until every bit of blood had been washed away and the stainless steel gleamed. If this occurred as early as one in the afternoon, they still got paid eight hours – if it occurred at four thirty, not so much, but still it was a perk of the job as well as the most effective incentive for workplace efficiency ever.

  For everyone except Causer. He either disliked the drudgery too much to force speediness or he had no home to go to, because while everyone else had cleared out he had swabbed only half the floor and had a sink full of trays, forceps and knives to clean. The tiny specimen room still had a stack of jars to be labeled and dispersed through the building. Causer pushed the mop up and back, missing the corners and humming tunelessly to himself. He had thin black hair, swept back with gelled flair, thin clothes, a thin frame and nicotine-stained fingers. No official wrestling belt buckle today, but a silver number embossed with a gold skull. The pot belly had faded over the years, but he still seemed to own more belt buckles than he owned shirts.

  ‘Ms MacLean,’ he said the moment her foot hit the threshold. He leaned, quite literally, on the mop and swept her from head to toe in one unblinking gaze, pausing slightly at chest level. ‘What can I do for you? And please feel free to say what you can do for me.’