Precious Blood
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He found a row of three identical oblongs of adhesive residue on one arm, each about the size of a poker chip; he waited while Seeley photographed them. He was calm. He was okay. He could do this.
He gently tilted her head to expose her neck. He rolled her lip down; the inner surface was split and bruised, the teeth intact. He looked at her eyes, the bright blue-green irises vivid against the hemorrhage in the whites. Her face was purple and congested, with countless tiny red dots in the skin; strangulation could cause blood vessels to pop like this, but so could the body position after death. Since there were no neck marks, and she was upside down, positional asphyxia was a real possibility.
He lifted her hair, draped wetly over the back of his hand, like a curtain on each side, and saw that her left earlobe was bloody and split, probably from a ripped-out earring. The right was torn, too: probably deliberate.
He’d driven two bolts into each wrist, crushing through the small bones. Her yellow plastic Magilla Gorilla watch was still working.
“Anyone got a flashlight?”
He took Garcia’s Maglite, leaned forward again, and shone the beam over her mouth and cheeks. There was a faint trac-ery of whitish gray particles on the cheeks, probably from a duct-tape gag. What did he do with her hands? Was she conscious when he nailed her up?
He stood. “I need to get her down. Can I get a hand?”
Rad Garcia stepped up. “Let’s do it.”
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The two knelt in front of her, awkwardly supporting her shoulders and head as Seeley tugged at the loosened bolts at her ankles. They went slowly, lifting her away from the wall so she didn’t fall; in the heat of the lights, Jenner could feel the sweat plastering his shirt against his skin. As the ankle bolts came out, her body lurched forward, and Jenner braced her bare hip against the wall with his shoulder as Seeley struggled to control her calves.
“Gently . . .”
Seeley guided her legs as they moved her carefully out onto the carpet and laid her out. Garcia and Seeley stood, slightly out of breath; Jenner squatted by her body, rolling her onto her side; he could see no wounds on her back.
He stood, still looking at the girl on the floor, then at the wall where she’d hung. He turned to Seeley. “Mike, you through with the other rooms?”
“We took a quick look around, didn’t see anything out of place. This seems to be where the action is, Doc. But go ahead and look if you want to.”
Jenner walked down the narrow, dark hall toward the bathroom. He poked his head into the first door, opposite the kitchen. A student’s bedroom with an unmade bed, white walls decorated with unframed pencil sketches. A half-unpacked suitcase lay on top of the small desk, the chair behind it pushed back against the radiator near the window.
Next to the suitcase, an iPod and tangled headphones, a ring of keys, some rolling papers, and a scatter of brown seeds.
He went on down the hall to the second bedroom, the door wide open. The hallway light was off and didn’t respond to the switch, so Jenner opened the bathroom door and turned the light on.
He bent for a second, then gently pulled the bedroom door toward him.
“Found something?”
Jenner turned to Garcia and muttered, “You might want 12
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to tell Crime Scene that you always see more with the lights on, okay? Tell them it’s not an episode of CSI, it’s a goddamn murder scene.”
He pointed at the frame. “The strike plate has been torn off. Look at the door near the lock; this thing has been kicked in.”
He knelt, then turned. “Rad, ask Mike to come here with a camera, a forceps, and an evidence envelope.”
“What have you got?”
Jenner turned on the Maglite. “There’s a clump of hair here. It’s blond and long—not the victim’s.”
“What do you think, the killer’s or the roommate’s?”
“Well, it still has hair bulbs at one end, so it was torn out.
I guess it could be the killer’s, but judging from the living room, he seemed to be really in control.” He squinted. “And this hair is bleached—the roots are much darker.”
He turned to Rad. “I think we’re looking at a second victim.”
Seeley’s assistant appeared at the end of the hall. “Lieutenant, the DA is here.”
Jenner followed Garcia back to the living room. Assistant District Attorney Madeleine Silver stood between the light stands, staring down at the body.
She shook her head and said, “Wow. That piece of shit really did a number on her . . .” She turned, nodded grimly at Garcia, then saw Jenner. She gave a soft smile and said,
“Hey, Dr. Jenner!”
“Ms. Silver.”
She was of average height, early forties, curvy with feathered hair and the warmth of someone who hugged a lot, like a kindergarten teacher or elementary school counselor. Meeting her for the first time, junior defense attorneys took one look at the pearls and tennis bracelet, then dismissed her as some soccer mom treading water until her husband made partner and they moved to Scarsdale. But in the courtroom, the pearls and the gloves came off, and if the defense was foolish enough Precious Blood
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to expose their neck, she’d rip out their throat and spit it onto their cap-toed Oxfords. After her first trial, when, legend had it, she’d made a rapist cry on the stand, Mike Merino from the DA’s squad had called her Mad Dog, and it had stuck; she drove a Honda minivan with a maddog license plate.
She put a hand on his arm tenderly, looked into his face with soft brown eyes, and said, “How are you doing?”
Jesus, did everyone know? Jenner stepped away, muttering he was fine, thanks.
She let him go and said, “You’re working for her family?”
He nodded—good, change the subject. “Yes. The roommate’s uncle is a good friend.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Y’know, I’ve never been at a death scene with a private forensic pathologist before.”
He shrugged. “Yeah. It’s a first for me, too. Her dad is a pretty well-connected lawyer in Boston, and he’s been pulling strings.”
She snorted. “Not just any lawyer, Jenner—corporate counsel for Massachusetts. DA Klein called me himself to invite me here. On a Sunday, no less!”
She smoothed her hair. “So, what do you make of the scene?”
He looked at the body. “I really don’t have any background story. Can you fill me in?”
The solicitousness vanished. “Well, Doc, what we have is this: victim is a law student over at Hutchins, lives here with your friend’s niece. They may be lovers, the two women who live downstairs don’t know for sure. They think so, but they’re not sure. But they’re lovers, okay?”
“The women downstairs?”
“Yeah, they own the building.” She continued. “Anyway, they’re at their house upstate in Woodstock, and they have a fight. Sandy drives back into the city around four a.m., drops her car at the garage, then walks home. She’s really tired, but she can’t sleep because the TV’s on really loud upstairs. So she calls up to the dead girl, Andrea, no answer.
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“She tries to sleep, but it’s not happening, TV’s still blaring away. She calls them on the phone again, again no reply.
Now she’s really pissed, so she goes up and knocks on the door. Still no answer. She’s starting to freak out, so she gets her passkey and goes in.
“She says she immediately knows something’s really wrong because of the smell—apparently she’s got this thing about smell, makes scented candles and such—so she runs downstairs and calls 911.”
Jenner nodded. “What do you have on time of death?”
She gestured toward the kitchen. “Empty mailbox, open letters on the kitchen table, no messages on the answering machine. Oh, and the phone’s dead—the line’s cut in the kitchen. Her body’s pretty fresh, and the lights were on.
She paused, waiting for a reaction. Jenner had none.
“We didn’t find a weapon.” She hesitated a second. “And I don’t know what to make of your friend’s niece—” She glanced at her notebook. “Ana de Jong. We don’t know if she was here, if she’s a victim, a witness, an accomplice, whatever. No one knows where she is.”
Jenner shook his head. “There’s a good chance she’s a second victim. The bathroom door’s been kicked in, and I found a clump of long, bleached-blond hair.”
“Shit! I was hoping she wasn’t there.” Her eyes went to the wounds on the body at her feet. “God. If he’s got her, I almost hope she’s already dead—God knows what he could do with her, tucked away somewhere private.”
They walked down the hall toward the bathroom, where Seeley was processing the door frame. She asked, “What can you tell me about Ana?”
“Nothing—I’d never heard of her before this morning. The victim’s father woke me six thirty a.m. Douggie Pyke—my friend—had given him my name. And now I can’t reach Precious Blood
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Douggie—he’s working somewhere in Africa, and his satellite phone number isn’t working.”
She shook her head. “That must have been a hard conversation, the one with the dad.”
“He seemed pretty tough. He told me his daughter had been murdered, that Douggie said I was good, said he knew my fees, and could I start right away. And that was it—the whole conversation lasted five minutes, tops.”
Mike Seeley, standing by the door with a hand lens, interrupted. “Jenner, what do you think? There’s some blood spatter on the door here, really fine. It’s weird, like contact transfer with half-dried blood.”
Jenner squinted and peered at the bloodstains. “Yeah, I can see what you mean. You think maybe the blood was already half dry before he kicked the door?”
He looked at the door. There were small stove-in depressions near the handle, but the damage was limited. “And why isn’t it more battered, Mike?”
Seeley shrugged. “It’s pretty shitty quality, Doc. Maybe it just buckled rather than really falling apart . . .”
“Do you think he could have done it barefoot? Usually there’s a shoe imprint or two near where the outer surface breaks, and I can’t see anything here.”
Seeley tipped his head, studying the door thoughtfully.
“Yeah, I was wondering about that. Tell you what, we’ll print the whole outer surface, see if we can get a footprint.”
Madeleine Silver said, “Would a footprint be any use?
I mean, I know they print babies’ feet in the hospital, but . . .”
Jenner shook his head. “Probably not. But sometimes you can get a match—for instance, pilots and flight crews have their feet printed for possible identification after a crash. At the least we’ll get his foot size, and that may give us an idea of whether he’s unusually big or small.”
“I see.” She scribbled in her notebook, then tucked the 16
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pad into her purse. They walked back toward the living room. She was quiet for a second; Jenner could almost feel it coming.
“So . . . I thought you quit forensics.”
“Pretty much. Mostly I’ve been reviewing medical records for asbestos litigation cases, not glamorous, but at least the cat and I get to eat. And I don’t want to do fieldwork anymore.”
She smiled at him and pressed his arm. “And yet, here you are . . .”
“If it weren’t Douggie’s niece, I’d have said no.” He asked her if she’d spoken with Whittaker.
“He figures she was likely strangled, given the eyeball hemorrhages. No obvious sign of sexual assault, but she is naked, so . . .”
Jenner agreed it looked like an asphyxial death, but said he didn’t think it was a strangulation; either way, the autopsy would resolve the issue. She hesitated, then asked if he thought there was any chance the roommate could have killed her, either alone or with an accomplice.
“That was her in the hall photos?” he asked. “Ana? The blond girl?”
Silver nodded. “The woman downstairs ID’d her. She looks pretty athletic to me.”
“Well, she may be strong, but I doubt anyone her height and build could get that body up onto the wall like that, certainly not by herself.” He shook his head. “But look at the victim—the way the body is shown, spread out naked like that? A man did this.”
“Yeah, I agree,” she said, nodding firmly. “I just want to keep an open mind.”
“Well, there’s the hair, too. I think she’s the second victim.
I think he’s got her.”
“Christ, I don’t want to even think about it.” She looked around the apartment. “Where’s Garcia?”
Jenner said, “I think he was calling the chief of detectives, let him know you’re looking at a probable abduction.”
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She cursed, turned away to call her boss.
His back was cramping up; he stretched and straightened.
He realized how tired he was. He’d gone to bed after 3:00
a.m., and had been woken before dawn. It was almost 10:00
a.m. now, and he needed a shower and some sleep.
He’d had enough. He’d call Garcia and Seeley later for an update, maybe come back for a look at the rest of the apartment once they’d finished processing it. And, he figured, if the DA was already asking questions, Whittaker would do the autopsy that afternoon.
Jesus! Whittaker . . .
He patted Silver’s shoulder, and she nodded at him as he made his way toward the door. He formally introduced himself to Roggetti, and took his card before leaving the apartment. It was just politeness—Roggetti was officially the lead investigator, but Garcia would call the shots.
On the landing, he glanced down, then called to Seeley.
“Mike—you got this pink mud here?”
“Thanks, Doc. We got it already; I couldn’t make a shoe imprint out of it.”
Rad Garcia stepped past Jenner, hand covering the mouthpiece of his cell.
“I’ve got to talk to Madeleine.”
Jenner nodded. “She’s briefing DA Klein, I think.”
They shook hands, and Jenner headed for the staircase.
“Yo, Jenner.”
He turned back to the detective.
“Nice to have you back.”
Outside, a small crowd had gathered at the perimeter, and he saw the antenna of the Channel 7 Mobile News van poking up into the bare branches halfway down the block.
He slipped under the tape and nodded to the perimeter cop as he made his way through the spectators. The morgue wagon was turning onto Seventh as he flagged a cab on Avenue A.
He was home less than ten minutes later.
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*
*
*
Jenner lived on the top floor of a converted lightbulb factory on Crosby Street, between SoHo proper and Little Italy.
He’d bought the loft several years back with inheritance money from his grandfather. He had enough left over for interest to cover his maintenance costs; now that he wasn’t working so much, his taxes had dropped, and he’d found that life was quite manageable on his sporadic income, so long as he was careful. And it wasn’t like he was going out much or anything.
The loft had been a good investment: the area had become fashionable, and its value had soared. They’d cleaned the facade that summer, and on sunny days the brick glowed a deep golden red.
He paid and climbed out of the cab, shoving his change into his coat pocket. Unlocking the entryway door, he saw Julie’s name still next to his on the buzzer; he kept forgetting to remind Pete to take it off.
Takeout menus and car service flyers were plastered down with shoe prints on the lobby floor. He pushed the elevator button
and heard the answering grind of machinery.
He rode up, blearily staring at the eddies in the worn gray linoleum floor. There was a bump as the elevator settled on the sixth floor.
Dove gray light filtered through the hall skylight. Across the hall, Jun Saito’s doorway was open. Jun was standing in the doorway, swaying to Santo and Johnny’s “Sleep Walk,”
holding a bottle of beer. Seeing Jenner, he tipped his gray Kangol cap from his eyes and straightened.
“Jenner? I thought I heard you come in a half hour ago.”
Jenner shook his head. “Too many Red Stripes, my friend.”
Jun’s girlfriend Kimi appeared in the doorway behind him and said something in Japanese to him, then saw Jenner. “Hi, Jenner. Tell Jun it’s time for bed.”
“Jun, go to bed.”
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Giggling, she pulled Jun inside; as Jenner closed his door, he heard her call out, “ ’Night, Jenner.”
Inside his loft, all the curtains were drawn, and the heated air made the large room seem coddled and close. At the other end of the room, a small Noguchi lamp on his bedside table made a warm hollow of golden light. His robe was on the floor by the bed, and his notepad lay open by the phone, Andrea Delore’s address scrawled on the top page.
He tossed his coat over the ladder-back chair by his desk, and undressed in the bathroom. Taking off his watch, he saw it was already 10:15 a.m. Cursing the loss of sleep, he stepped into the shower.
He dried and put on a T-shirt and pajama bottoms, then brushed his teeth. He turned out the bathroom light and walked toward his bed. He was exhausted, but he didn’t know if he could sleep—the room was dark, but he was awake, wired. He should call Douggie, tell him what was going on. Fuck. He sat on the bed.
And then stood quickly: in the corner of the room, half hidden by the tall curtains, stood Ana de Jong.
She was holding a grubby pink raincoat closed over her sweatshirt. Jeans, white sneakers. She was tan and blond, slightly snub-nosed, eyes pale blue; she looked like she’d just stepped off a farm in Iowa, except for the bloodstains on her pant leg and tops of her shoes.