Pattern of Wounds

by J. Bertrand

  “What about the message I sent earlier? Can you tell where it came from?”

  “He switched up on us. The location was different, and I’m working on the provider to see if I can pinpoint it. He might have just used an open network. A coffee shop Wi-Fi signal, maybe even somebody’s house. He could pull up to the curb just like he did with Dr. Hill.”

  “Couldn’t he do that again, with our email?”

  “Sure,” he says. “The difference is, we’ll see his face. Also, he’ll be opening the software to compose a message. In the time it takes him to do that, we might be able to get there. You never know.”

  “So let’s send our message and see what happens.”

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 14 — 4:19 P.M.

  Bridger greets me with an unaccustomed smile, approaching through the lab in a white coat, eyes sparkling behind his rimless glasses. He has one hand behind his back.

  “That’s not a knife,” he says, channeling Crocodile Dundee. “That’s a knife.”

  He brings the hidden hand around to reveal a bowie knife bagged in plastic. I take the knife, hold it up to the light, and whistle. “It’s not what I expected.”

  “That is not a cheap throwaway, March. It’s more like a trophy. The scales are made of stag, and the blade’s all wavy like that because it’s Damascus steel. And take a look at this . . .” He motions for the knife and points to a small line of text stamped into the blade near the hilt. “Eric Castro pointed that out when he brought the knife over.”

  I squint at the stamping.

  It reads: 29 OF 50.

  “A limited edition,” he says. “Tell me that’s not going to be easy to trace.”

  “If I get a hit on those prints, it’ll save me the trouble. But yeah, I’m thinking it shouldn’t be too hard.” I can feel my mouth twisting into an involuntary smile. “He pretty much handed himself over on a silver platter.”

  “I would assume this is his ritual weapon. As much care as he took to clean up the Simone Walker scene, I’m surprised he would hold on to the knife.”

  “Is it the knife? You’re sure about that?”

  “If you’ll follow me,” he says, heading back into the depths of the lab. We pause before a pair of microscopes and a bank of sterile-looking computer screens.

  “The blade had been wiped down, but the crime lab pulled apart the handle and scraped some dried blood. They sent some results over, which I’ve just been verifying.”

  With Bridger the answers never come easily. He considers these encounters to be teachable moments, forcing me to peer through microscopes and examine inscrutable charts on a variety of monitors, lecturing me all the while on blood type, blood cells, and the intricacies of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA. I nod my way through, waiting for the plain English explanation of his findings.

  “You already know the prints on the handle aren’t Simone Walker’s,” he says.

  “I didn’t know that. But why would they be?”

  He ignores the question. “Do you talk to your crime lab people at all? I got the information from them.”

  “Why would the prints on the knife belong to the victim?”

  “They wouldn’t ordinarily,” he says. “But somebody in your fingerprint division floated the theory that the fingerprints belonged to a woman—something about the ridge density. So they were checked against Walker’s prints and didn’t match. You don’t know about this?”

  “The man we took that knife from was trying to murder my wife with it. Pardon me for being a little preoccupied. Anyway, in case you haven’t heard, our fingerprint detail is under a cloud at the moment.”

  “Maybe that’s why they’re turning this stuff around so fast. Trying to look efficient.”

  An impatient nod. “Yes, yes, yes. Now, what about blood, Alan?”

  “Look for yourself,” he says, pointing to a white-cased microscope with two black viewers jutting out at me.

  “I already did. Can you please tell me?”

  He chuckles. “The state of science education in this country—”

  “I’m begging you.”

  “Please don’t beg, March. Here’s the deal. We have blood from two separate sources. Based on the viscosity, I’m guessing one is older and the other is fresh . . . as recent as a day or two. The older sample matches Simone Walker, so in my opinion—and this is backed up by your own people—this is the weapon used in her murder.”

  “For certain?” I clench my fist and all but pump it in the air.

  “I’ve double-checked Dr. Green’s measurements and they’re consistent with this blade. She did a great job on those estimations, by the way. I couldn’t have given you better.”

  “So this is absolutely the murder weapon?”

  “In my opinion, yes.”

  “And what about the fresher sample? If it belongs to the killer—”

  He shakes his head. “The second sample is from a woman, too. Your DNA section ran it through CODIS and came back with nothing, so whoever she is, she’s not in the database.”

  “Maybe the prints are hers, then.” I can hear the disappointment in my own voice. A couple of days ago, finding a woman’s blood on the knife and being told that the ridge density of the prints might suggest a female, my mind would have raced to Joy Hill. But Carter didn’t wrestle the knife away from a fifty-something woman.

  “You’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, I would start checking on where the knife came from. If it’s some kind of custom piece, there are bound to be records of who bought it.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “I’ll get right on that.”

  Apart from the number, the only word on the blade is SCHARF. An Internet search from Bridger’s desk pulls up a custom knife maker in California named Wade Scharf. The photos on his site look vaguely reminiscent of the murder weapon, but I can’t find any exact matches. I dial the phone number on his contact page and reach his wife. She informs me in a creaky elderly voice that Wade is out in the shop. After I identify myself, she volunteers to fetch him.

  “A homicide?” he asks, like he’s unfamiliar with the term.

  I describe the knife and answer a couple of his follow-ups.

  “That sounds like one of my Old School Bowies. Does it have a coffin handle?”

  “You’re gonna have to tell me what that is.”

  “If you hold it with the point down, the handle swells toward the top and has diagonal steps on either side, like a coffin from the eighteen hundreds.”

  “Then yes, I think it does.”

  “All right. Let me get my paperwork.” Over the line I can hear him opening and closing metal filing cabinets, digging through papers. “That was a limited edition I did four or five years ago. Some of them were snapped up as preorders and some went to dealers. There’s a dealer in Houston I do a lot of business with, and I’m betting your knife is one of those.” He hums to himself while scanning a list, rattling names off under his breath. “Yep, I’m right. The dealer’s name is Sam Dearborn. Here’s his number if you’ve got a pen handy.”

  I write Dearborn’s number down and thank Scharf for his help.

  “This doesn’t sit too well with me,” he says. “People collect my work, you know. The prices are sky high. I’d bet most of my blades are never used at all—certainly not for something like this.”

  “There’s a first time for everything,” I say.

  Getting in touch with Sam Dearborn is a little harder. The number rings to a voicemail box informing me business hours end at five. I leave a message for him to call me back. Searching the computer again, I find Dearborn’s website, which also lists a mobile number. I dial and wait.

  “Dearborn Gun and Blade,” he says.

  I explain who I am and tell him Scharf pointed me in his direction. “You received some knives from a limited edition he did, some coffin-handled Old School Bowies. I’m trying to find out who bought number twenty-nine.”

  “I’m not sure I can help you with that.”

  “This i
s a murder investigation, Mr. Dearborn.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I want to help. But if I remember correctly, I had five of those and sold them at gun and knife shows. I move a lot of product through my booth that way. If they paid with a credit card, I might have a record, but a lot of guys will pay in cash. Not to mention, collectibles trade hands. I know a lot of people liquidating collections in this economy, so there’s no guarantee the person I sold it to is who you’re looking for. In fact, I’d go out on a limb and say he’s not. My customers are a pretty select group.”

  “Can you check your records and get back to me? This is an urgent request.”

  “Of course,” he says. “It might not be until tomorrow. I’m already gone for the day.”

  “Maybe you could go back to the office and take care of this? Time is of the essence.”

  He lets out a huff of consternation. “I guess so,” he says. “Should I call you on this number?”

  “That would be fine.”

  After driving back from the medical examiner’s office, I zone out in my cubicle for a few minutes, eyes closed, resting my head in my hands. Then I call Charlotte again and make sure she’s all right. She says she is, but adds that what happened is just beginning to sink in.

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

  “Don’t even say that word. Sleep. I’m gonna come see you later. Tell Ann not to worry—I’ll make sure I don’t have a tail.”

  We laugh together, and then Bascombe comes up behind me.

  “Gotta go,” I tell her.

  It takes ten minutes to bring the lieutenant up to speed on the case, and another ten to relate the highlights of my New Orleans trip. He’s intrigued by the story Bourgeois told about the envelopes, annoyed that we conducted the interview while a drugged prostitute was tied up and bleeding down the hall, and uninterested in Gene Fontenot’s protestations of innocence in the Fauk confession. I leave out his admission of guilt in the recent case.

  “So what are you doing now?”

  “Waiting,” I say. “The crime lab’s supposed to be getting back to me on the prints, and I’ve got the knife dealer checking his receipts from the gun shows.”

  “Have you briefed Aguilar?”

  “I was just about to.”

  “Well, do it.”

  When I poke my head over his cubicle wall, there’s no sign of Aguilar, but the photos from my house, this morning’s crime scene, are spread in a semicircle. The forced back door, the splintered bathroom entry, washed-out flash photography of Carter’s injuries, and of the bruising on Charlotte’s face. The knife. I pull the last one from the stack. If Carter was right about the man wearing gloves, then the prints on the handle probably belong to someone else. If the expert’s speculation is right, they’re bound to be from the same woman whose dried blood was under the grip scales. The coffin handle. I turn the photo so that the point aims down. The stag handles are bone-colored with rough furrows of brown. The prints would have come from the smooth parts on either side of the exposed tang.

  “Detective.”

  I turn to find Eric Castro in the cubicle entrance, a report clutched in both hands like he’s afraid of it getting away.

  “You have the fingerprint results?”

  He nods. “The criminal databases came back with nothing.”

  “Figures.” I rub my eyes with the heel of my palm, suddenly tired.

  “But . . .” he says. “When we ran them against the immigration database, we got a hit.”

  “Give me that.”

  I snatch the report away, scanning the page while Castro peers over my shoulder. The original check went through HPD to the Sheriff’s Department and from there to DPS. I flip the page and find the immigration results, complete with Green Card photos of a fair-skinned, blue-eyed blonde in her twenties and a full set of prints.

  “The name, the name—”

  Castro points to a line near the top, then smiles. “How you’re supposed to pronounce that, I don’t know.”

  I say the words out loud: “Agnieszka Oliszewski.”

  The Polish grad student who lived with Joy Hill, the one who had a relationship with Dr. Hill’s husband. What were her prints doing on the handle of the knife? What was her blood doing under the scales?

  Aguilar stands on one side of the red door, hand on the butt of his pistol, and I take the other. My second knock goes unanswered, so I try the bell. The chime sounds inside. I listen for movement, my ear close to the door.

  “Police,” I say, pounding a third time.

  The house is on Sheridan a block off of W. Holcombe, the opposite side of Kirby from where Dr. Hill lives. Quaint single-family homes, mostly postwar construction evoking classic styles, with the occasional duplex conversion. Agnieszka Oliszewski’s name is on the lease for the bottom unit of the two-story duplex, with the top unit still for rent. The original brick is clotted with recent white paint, the fake shutters black as oil. In the yard, a Realtor’s clear plastic display box contains a few damp flyers with interior photos and a monthly rent that suggests Oliszewski’s financial situation improved after she left Hill’s house.

  I bend down, conscious of a twinge in my leg, and take a peek through the brass mail slot. Some bills and a couple of red Netflix envelopes lie in a pile on the carpet.

  “Maybe she’s not home,” I say.

  We exchange a look.

  We take the stairs up to the vacant unit and give the door a try, despite the key box hanging from the knob. This time Aguilar stoops down, pushing the mail slot open with his finger. He shakes his head.

  “Empty,” he says. “No furniture or nothing.”

  “Let’s go around back.”

  Before we left downtown, Aguilar looked up the address online, pulling up a Google satellite map of the property. Scouting the lay of the land. Some kind of outbuilding—a shed, a one-car garage—screened the yard on one side, leaving just a sliver of green grass before the neighbor’s fence encroached. We follow the driveway around, a melting glacier of concrete chips overrun by a sea of grass and weeds. The outbuilding, a wood-framed single stall garage, leans slightly with a mold-black line of water damage reaching about a foot high. I peer through the grimy glass window and see nothing but grease stains on the slab and a jumble of rusted rakes and shovels in one corner.

  “Check this out,” Aguilar says.

  Just inside the fence that separates the driveway and the yard, a pale blue Vespa scooter rests on its kickstand, the tan leather seat speckled with flecks of dried mud. Pinned under the front tire, a blue tarp meant to protect the machine from weather twists gently across the grass.

  I reach over the fence to unlatch the gate.

  “What’s that sound?” I ask.

  A low, rumbling murmur, like a distant engine or maybe a washing machine cycle.

  Following the noise, we move over the lawn toward a screened porch where the second level overhangs the rear entrance. A flimsy old structure of wood frame and wire mesh. The screen door springs squeak softly as I pull. Inside, situated against the exterior wall of the house, there’s a teak-slatted octagonal hot tub. The cover rests slightly askew. I can hear the water bubbling like a slow boil.

  Without a word we step to either side of the tub. On my signal, Aguilar dons a pair of gloves and draws the cover open another foot or two.

  I get my first hint of the smell. The wet heat on my face.

  The water churns dark and polluted, and a body bobs toward me, the skin veiny and translucent but pinkish purple, a lock of yellow-white hair swirling from the head.

  A freckled shoulder, the spinal ridge, and the same half-crescent punctures I remember from Simone Walker’s corpse.

  I step back as the body rolls in the water.

  Her mouth is set in a snarl of pain, the glassy blue eyes glistening. Between her breasts, the sawing, twisting gouge where the bowie knife entered.

  Portable lights illuminate the yard as the Crime Scene Unit conducts its g
rim inventory, a fingertip search of the surrounding area, a catalog of every inch from the birdbath near the back fence to the sun-faded gnome lying facedown in one of the flower beds. The investigators from the ME’S office have given the okay for Agnieszka Oliszewski’s body to be removed, leaving the stretcher team to figure out how best to do it. Meanwhile two fatigue-clad techs from the HPD crime lab prepare for the task of draining the hot tub. Every ounce of water must be sifted for evidence and the tub’s inner walls scrubbed. A still photographer is on hand to snap pictures as needed. A separate videographer gets everything on tape.

  With no local politics to distract him, Hedges arrives on scene for a briefing. I lead him down the driveway to the back fence for a look at the scene, then around to the red door in front for a walk through the apartment.

  “The lack of blood around the hot tub suggests she wasn’t killed there,” I say.

  The floorboards creak under our weight. We pause at the threshold of Oliszewski’s bedroom just as the lights are being switched off. A technician with a black light moves carefully around the bed, revealing a freshly glowing cast-off pattern with every wave of the hand.

  “He butchered her,” Hedges says under his breath.

  “When we checked in here, the mattress had bloodstains on it, but the sheets had been stripped off and he washed down the walls. I think he used the sheets to carry her body out back, dumped her in the hot tub, then pulled them out.”

  “Have you found them?”

  I shake my head. “He cleaned up after himself at the Walker scene, too.”

  “Any signs of forced entry?”

  “He used her key. When she arrived home, she pulled her scooter through the gate but never got a chance to put the tarp over it. I think he approached her then. There are marks on her neck that look like some kind of cord or wire. If he came up behind her and choked her out, he could’ve dragged to the door and let himself inside.”

  “Did anyone see anything?”

  “I canvassed the block myself, and Aguilar went a block over to check the residents with backyards fronting the property. Nobody saw the attack, but one of the neighbors across the street remembers her leaving the house around noon yesterday. We don’t know when she came back, so that’s a window of about twenty-nine hours from the last sighting to the time we discovered her. She was in the water for at least twelve hours, probably longer—though I can’t get anyone to confirm that at this point—so my guess is, he attacked her early yesterday evening and was out of here by midnight.”