“Think of the sheer amount of planning that had to go into this killing.” Jessica clenched her teeth. “G'damnit. “
“It'd take months to set up, maybe a year,” agreed J. T.
Young Holbrook, one of her protdgfs, stared openmouthed at Jessica, having never heard her swear before. The Chinese intern, Chen, her nose dimpled and curled, offered an agreeing frown.
Jessica half-smiled to lighten the moment as much as possible and said, “The skin-art and hairiness of the victim presents you interns with a good lesson. We're not in the business of prejudging the victim from the evidence of the way he led his life. We don't write a body off just because of the chosen lifestyle, which often dictates the deathstyle, if you follow me.” Jessica half-joked, but it remained a serious point. The foul-of-the-earth issue raged as hot debate among medical people in the U.S. and elsewhere. Whom to serve first and foremost, those who live a clean life, or those who live a foul life? Jessica saw that while Holbrook accepted the notion on its face, that Yon Chen appeared to mentally grapple with it. Good, Jessica thought.
She decided to go on. “Well, it represents only one of a multiple set of problems surrounding Horace. This stone-cold John Doe represents a mystery. He's died with absolutely No distinguishing or identifying marks or papers on him, no wallet, no cards, very few teeth—the assumption already having been made that his killer took his dental plates to retard identification efforts. Somebody somewhere went to a great deal of trouble to confuse any efforts we make to identify Tattoo Man.”
J. T. had returned from the intercom where he'd shouted at maintenance, as he believed the temperature, and thus the odors in the room, was on the rise. He returned just in time to dovetail on Jessica's words for the benefit of the interning students. “No explanations as to who Horace had been in life, save the largest calling card Dr. Coran and I have ever seen on a body—the full-body tattoos that he accumulated over a lifetime of what one might assume—”
“Assume at one's own risk,” Jessica cautioned.
“—to be the result of hard and fast living, a lifestyle which may well have contributed to his untimely death.”
“The body's age, according to bone structure and what few teeth he has in his head, puts him at between fifty-five and sixty years of age,” Jessica estimated. “I'd take the conservative path, guess the lower end of the scale more accurate.”
“Whatever his age, he's lived the life of a hard-bitten, crusty old salt,” J. T. put in.
Jessica immediately replied, “And the man appears to have had a 'hard-bitten' death as well.”
Only young Chen remained silent as the other three laughed aloud. “Hard-bitten?” she asked.
“Later,” Holbrook assured her. “I'll explain it to you later.”
Still, Jessica hated the typical cop mentality that the deceased had probably brought on himself. In some ways, maybe so, but Jessica knew only a handful of men—serial killers she had hunted down—whom she honestly felt deserved a death as heinous as that which Horace had met, to be mauled to death by animals starved and made rabid by someone Horace knew.
“Horace's murder, and indeed it is murder,” Jessica said for the record and the interns, “represents a particularly brutal one.
Jessica's sense of awe at the flamboyant needle etchings and delightful, multicolored designs covering Horace's form only grew as she worked. She had to keep reminding herself to focus on the autopsy and to stop “reading” the illustrated man lying like an open book before her, but this proved impossible.
One set of images spiraled into a depiction of hell, while another displayed a rose garden that looked as peaceful and virginal as any heaven. Overall, Horace the Tattoo Man preferred dark and sinister themes in his body art, even incestuous scenes of twisted family life and child abuse. She wondered if such scenes meant a graduation from skeletons swallowing snakes and women whole, and eyeballs with all manner of terrible instruments plunged through them. Chains and peculiarly designed machines held people in limbo all about Horace's body. Torture all mixed up with sex appeared his main theme.
She wondered if his choice of artwork reflected anything of the man himself, or if the raw artwork with its undisguised themes of hatred toward women and lust for sexual power over them and children amounted to simple affectations taken on to make the man appear more sinister than he actually was. Either way, the artwork itself proved, by anyone's standard, superb. The artist was a master at his craft, likely at the apex of his career when he did John Doe's body. What year would that have been?
“We need to get an ink expert down here to make some estimation of how old the tattoos are,” she said to J. T., who nodded appreciatively.
“Sure, it would tell us a lot to know when the most recent tattoo was applied.”
“Exactly. Maybe after the when, we can begin to hone in on the where and the who.”
“The artist, sure.”
“Maybe he'll have a record or at least a recollection of the client. Either that or perhaps someone in the know about tattoos might recognize the artist's work. Lead us to the artist, and perhaps we're in Horace's neighborhood.”
The body, gone rotting and decomposing over a weekend and discovered under a harsh sun, had been discovered in a New Jersey junkyard by a couple who had come in search of some used auto part.
Having learned of the dead man's much mutilated and torn body, Chesterfield police proceeded to the scene, only to find six hungry and nasty pit bulls in various, eerily posed stances on and around the body—white, foaming slaver dripping from each muzzle. The animals, standing guard about the body, protective of their kill, had prompted the elderly couple to call 911 immediately. Each of the starved and rabid dogs continued to take additional strips of meat from the carcass from time to time until the arrival of the infamous Pet Patrol police. They came armed with their dart guns. Six of the dogs by this time, lying over the body, were in the throes of paralysis, the rabies overtaking them completely. They were easily put down, one shot after the next, but the seventh—only recently infected and in the first stages of the disease—proved more difficult to target, hiding in the recesses of the yard. The seventh dog belonged to the junkyard owner, who professed no knowledge of the other dogs or Horace.
The junk dealer, it was reported, had been more upset about the loss of his dog than the fact a man had died on his premises.
The police could not identify the dead man. He remained a person the junkyard dealer claimed not to know, or to ever have done business with in the past.
Business had been bad, the junk man told police, so he had shut down for a couple of weeks and had taken a long-needed vacation. He claimed not to know how six additional pit bulls and a dead guy wound up inside his fence without any apparent break-in. Somebody lied somewhere, somehow, to someone. Either that or the killer knew not only how to make rabid dogs but how to pick expensive locks and subdue a junkyard dog on hand.
Regardless, Jessica Coran, having dissected hundreds of corpses, hadn't been so amazed by a body in years. J. T., her male counterpart in the lab and her most trusted friend, pointed out that she really ought to at least attempt to contain her amazement over Horace. J. T. had jokingly told her, “I fear that the young and impressionable interns might get the wrong idea—that maybe you like seeing unknown victims of brutal attacks by vicious pit bulls come rolling through the door.”
“Short of a bear attack or an attack by a wolf pack,” Jessica retorted, “I imagine Horace's end to be the worst way to go out of this world, the pain absolutely excruciating.”
J. T. nodded, bit on his lower lip, and replied, “I can't imagine a worse way to die.”
“Maybe one,” she countered. “Did you read that horrible story in the Post about the woman's body discovered in a park someplace in London in which the victim had been staked to some sort of cross and actually crucified?”
“Oh, yeah ... how awful. Suffocation, slow and painful. Still, I think t
he rabid dog attack even worse.”
“You really think so?” Jessica had her doubts.
“Oh, absolutely. I mean these dogs were hungry, mad, and vicious.”
The dogs, all but the junkyard dog, had been rabid. They'd not only killed John Doe, aka Horace, their mindless attack had filled his body with the rabies virus. The neurological toxin commonly referred to as rabies did not kill Horace, as it had not the time to incubate in his wounds as yet. Given the number of bites and tears to his flesh, and the fact he'd been attacked by not one but six rabid animals who had ripped at one another as well, meant that the level of neurotoxin in his system would begin to work in half the normal three days to three months.
In time, the poison would have reached its full deadly power. His killers, banking on getting away, meant to leave him with a little something extra.
“Someone desperately wanted Horace dead.”
Their eyes had met over the autopsy a hundred times, matching the number of punctures to the body. Each realizing that Horace could not have lived long even had he somehow miraculously been able to find an escape route from the gang of starved and rabid animals that'd repeatedly bitten and torn away at him. In fact, Horace's corpse remained riddled with the rabies virus, frozen in place. Perhaps his killers believed it a fitting gift to leave him with in the hereafter, a kind of forged chain for his ghost to rattle for eternity.
J. T. said, “Police in Chesterfield, New Jersey, tell us by all indications that Horace had put up a hell of a fight. He broke some doggy legs and bit off a couple of ears during the struggle.”
This made Holbrook and Chen gulp in unison.
Jessica continued the assault on the young interns by saying, “They also surmise from cigarette butts, chewing tobacco wrappers, and a woman's cosmetic case dropped at the gate where Horace's final moments of agony ended, that his killers had had a front-row party, applauding the man's death even as he must have begged their mercy.”
“Still,” cautioned J. T., “all the speculation remains circumstantial with the consistency of candlewick smoke, nothing that can hold a DA's attention. The most interesting element about the case, aside from the full-body tattoos, so far as Jessica and I are concerned, is the total lack of identification save the tattoos. Perhaps our only hope of ever IDing this brutalized man is here in his skin-art.” J. T. punctuated by jabbing his ballpoint at Horace.
Jessica felt a great pang of remorse for the unidentified man, telling the others in the room that “Horace, here, suffered a death as no one should, in a trap from which he could not survive even if he had managed to somehow claw his way free of the dog attack. Given the remoteness of the area and the time of death, which the New Jersey coroner placed at between two and three in the a.m., what hope did he have for survival? His blood loss alone was massive.”
J. T. fielded the question with a question, replying, “Short of stumbling over a ten-foot-high fence and then stumbling on a medical team, what chance did poor Horace have?”
“He... he had no hope whatsoever,” replied young Holbrook, who then bit back his lower lip.
“What kind of devious mind could concoct so heinous a murder and so pitiable a death?” Jessica now asked, as much to herself as her two interns. “Six dogs, each one infected, the dogs themselves at the slavering stage of the rabid animal. All timed perfectly. The dogs had to've belonged to some one—or to more than someone; they had to have had a sales history, a past of their own.”
“Needle marks screamed out, located after the hair on each dog carcass had been shaved and the skin microscopically examined, revealing the puncture wounds where the rabies had been introduced to the dogs,” explained J. T., who lifted a set of photos from a nearby table, adding, “We have photos of the dog autopsies. If we solve this case, believe me, it will be one for the books.”
Jessica continued, using her scalpel like an index finger and saying, “Whoever the killer or killers are, they knew about animal venoms, and how to handle them. The doctor in Jersey who examined the executed dogs knew her stuff as well. She was said to have once been a veterinarian before becoming an autopsy specialist. This helped tremendously. Any other well-meaning autopsiest might not have taken as much time and care with the executed animals.”
“Meanwhile,” added J. T., “local authorities scoured every pet shop and animal shelter and anyone with a license to raise dogs, and anyone with a history of killing or brutalizing animals. For the dogs, too, are victims in this crime.”
The two young people stood dumbfounded at such intentional brutality. Jessica feared for both that the first case involving them, even peripherally, could prove their last if their stomachs gave out. Still, Jessica believed in throwing the young who dared enter the field of death investigation into the deep end of the cesspool.
When neither student had anything to add, and it became painfully obvious that this was so, Jessica nearly shouted at her young Asian intern, Yon Chen, “Get a lot of photos, rolls and rolls of photos. And I want close-ups of every tattoo remaining intact.”
“You mean? Effery wound, jes?“That, too, but I want clear and large shots of the tattoos, understand? And I want them blown up to eight by tens, got it?”
“Got it?” Yon Chen bit back another question, letting it slide. “No, Yon ... Don't ask me if I've got it, do you got—have it? Do you know what 1 want?”
“Jes, got it.”
Jessica gnashed her teeth, hoping nothing was lost in the translation, and went on. “Then we're finished here, Yon, except for those photos. See to it they're on my desk by tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, Doctor. First thing 'morrow on your desk.”
Jessica looked dubiously at the girl whose big, innocent, black marble eyes seemed to mark her as entirely wrong for this profession, yet she'd never had a more enthusiastic intern. Despite her frail refugee appearance, she possessed an enormous capacity to learn. She seemed to feed on knowledge, reminding Jessica of herself at that age.
Jessica asked, “J. T., will you please oversee our two young interns from here alone.”
“Sure, sure, Jess. Get out of here for a while.”
Jessica stripped off her blood-smeared gloves and lab coat, preparing to exit the room. Glancing at her watch, she saw that 5:40 p.m. had crept up on them. She shouted over her shoulder at J. T. and the others, 'Time to get a life, people. Have a nice night. What's left of it....”
-THREE-
There is no neutral ground in the universe: Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.
—C.S. Lewis
Exhausted, Jessica stepped into her office, only to find her divisional chief, Eriq Santiva, waiting there with two distinctly unfamiliar, well-dressed gentlemen. The men with their rumpled London Fog coats, equally rumpled three-piece suits, and inexpensive ties hanging limp about their necks, looked the part of a pair of weary travelers—two wise men from afar, she flashed—who have come not bearing gifts but bad news.
Santiva forced a smile while still fondling the female skull which Jessica used as one half of a pair of bookends—the other a male skull—from her bookshelf. He stood just behind her desk with the visitors, one sitting and the taller, more good-looking one, staring out the window. It appeared Santiva had timed her arrival fairly closely to meet with the visitors. Obviously, Gloria had kept him informed of her movements. She'd called down to the autopsy room for Jessica's estimated time of arrival, and Jessica had told Gloria to go home for the night.
“Dr. Coran!” Eriq began, bouncing the skull in his hands as if it were a Nerf ball. “I want you to meet our guests from New Scotland Yard. They are here on an unusual mission.”
Jessica immediately reclaimed her skull and space. Eriq Santiva, inching from behind the desk now, gave ground to Jessica. “Afternoon, gentlemen,” she said, replacing the skull against the books Santiva had disturbed. She noticed that DiMaio's Forensic Science and Helpern's Autopsy had their spines upside
down. “I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” she continued while straightening the books, making a show of it for Eriq's sake.
“Please, forgive me. This is Inspector Richard Sharpe, CID, New Scotland Yard and—”
The tall one at the window eagerly stepped to her desk, reached across it, took her hand, and firmly shook it. His eyes were alight with energy but something darting and mysterious hid there as well. Something dangerous unless left alone. She loved the salt-and-pepper look of his thick, short, and unruly hair. “I believe we've met, or rather had words, a couple of weeks ago.... When I rang you up,” he crisply said to her. “Richard Sharpe.”
“It's an honor.”
“No, I am honored to meet you, Dr. Coran. I've read a great deal about your successes in forensic investigation. I know we can learn much from you—at the Yard, that is.”
“And this is Lieutenant Inspector Stuart Copperwaite,” Eriq completed the introductions. “Also of New Scotland Yard.” Eriq had managed to master his Cuban accent to the point that no one could tell where he was from. The only remaining giveaway was his dark features.
The one with the charming name, Copperwaite, had an equally firm handshake, Jessica thought.
“So, you're visiting from England?” she asked, returning Copperwaite's smile, turning her eyes again to Sharpe.
“Yes,” Copperwaite readily replied, eyes beaming, “come to learn what we might from your famous profiling division.”
“Looking for help?” she asked. “Then you've come to the right place. Our experts are the best,” Jessica assured, dropping into her desk chair thinking, My feet are killing me, not realizing until now that the Britons, unlike Santiva, had remained standing until she sat. How awfully British of them, she thought with a touch of disdain, but finding that she actually liked the affectation.
Santiva asked, “How goes it with Horace, our Tattoo Man?”
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