by Harry Kraus
Once I was in town, I took a right to head for the university.
I’d decided to first head over to Jefferson Hill Apartments to see where Cindy Swanson had died. When I arrived five minutes later, something that Chris Black said was tugging at the back of my mind. He referred to brake skid marks. I’d let the phrase pass without thinking, but now I realized I needed to take a look. New Mercedes with antilock brakes don’t leave skid marks.
I motored in the lot beneath the apartments and managed to bring the Triumph behemoth to rest with surprising ease. I was starting to understand why Henry loved this bike so. Behind the darkened visor, I was in my own little world, just a throttle-twist away from freedom. I leaned the bike carefully onto its kickstand and dismounted. I removed my helmet, lifted my camera from the saddlebag, and retraced the path that I presumed Henry had driven. He’d described traveling back up the lane and hitting Cindy as she fell beneath the front wheels. A sidewalk met the driveway twenty yards from the deck beneath the apartments. The asphalt was clean and dry, a sure sign that the apartment’s owner had scrubbed away gruesome evidence. There were no bloodstains and little proof that anything had taken place at all, but true to the detective’s report, skid marks were present. A double row of tire marks three yards long ended right at the intersection with the sidewalk.
I photographed the marks from four angles and knelt down to study the pattern. A typical error, I thought. The skids were acceleration marks, not brake marks. Brake marks start light and end heavy. Acceleration tire marks start heavy as the wheel spins and lighten as the tire grips the road.
I puzzled over the meaning. Perhaps the skid marks were not left by Henry’s Mercedes at all. Perhaps they were there before the accident. Yet Henry’s Mercedes was certainly capable of leaving acceleration skids.
I pulled a measuring tape from the pocket of my leather jacket. I measured the distance between the tire marks. I couldn’t be sure, but my closest guess was that they belonged to Henry’s Mercedes. I’d do a measurement on Henry’s car later and make a comparison. Perhaps he wasn’t braking at all. Maybe he was leaving in a hurry and hit Cindy Swanson as he accelerated down the drive.
I felt ill at ease leaving the scene. My job lent itself to magnifying my baseline paranoia, and evidence that didn’t match up revved my what-iffer into high gear.
Another thought troubled me. Was this the evidence that convinced the police that something was amiss? No, I thought, Chris wouldn’t have tried to mislead me by telling me there were brake marks present. There must be some other evidence that makes them think Cindy’s death was no accident.
I decided to pay Sig Eichmann a visit. It was time I knew firsthand what the results of Cindy’s autopsy showed.
In a few minutes, I was on Interstate 81 heading south to Roanoke, glad for a long stretch of straight road that wouldn’t challenge my novice abilities on the bike. As I drove, I thought about the implications of my findings at the Jefferson Hill Apartments. Is Henry lying? If he set up Cindy’s death to look like an accidental hit-and- run, what was he covering up? I shook my head. Henry may have been able to fool the PD, but he would have known that I would eventually look at the evidence and pick up the inconsistencies.
Was Henry sending a message that only I could read?
CHAPTER 25
Sig Eichmann and I had been on friendly terms since I spent a three-month period doing an externship with him after graduating from UVa. My focus had been the patterns of injury seen in automobile crashes and how a reconstructionist could work backwards from the human injuries to the type of impact and speed responsible for the specific injury pattern. Although Sig was typically professional and a bit distant, I thought I’d gotten beneath his German skin and was one he counted as a confidante.
Today, I approached his office with a bit of consternation, knowing he seemed a bit suspicious of my motives. But I had to talk to someone. And I knew Chris Black wouldn’t give me an inch. Most likely, he had sent his drones to arrest me. I needed to know the autopsy data to know how to defend myself against it.
His secretary let me in and led me to his door, which was wide open, as usual. His desk was stacked with folders, communication, books, and the evidence of too many takeout pizzas. I knocked on the doorframe. He looked up over half glasses. His white hair was uncombed, in character with his Einstein brilliance. “Hi, Sig,” I said.
He frowned. Seeing me was a surprise, evidently not a pleasant one. “Wendi, you’re the last person I expected here.”
I sat down uninvited. “I’m in trouble, Sig. I need your help.”
He lifted his glasses away from his face and sighed. “What have you done?”
“I’m not confessing to a crime,” I said. “Unless curiosity and ignorance are punishable now.”
I saw the first hint of a smile form at the edges of a face that seemed permanently etched by a constant exposure to some of humanity’s worst cruelties.
“I’m a suspect in a murder,” I began. “Maybe two.” I paused, my voice almost pleading. “Sig, you know me. I couldn’t hurt someone like that.” I hesitated. “I need to know what the autopsies showed. Why are the police asking questions of me like I’m a common criminal?”
“Wendi, information like that has to come only to and through the proper channels. You know I can’t — ”
I leaned forward, interrupting him. My voice was quiet, but tense. “Sig! I’m asking you to look the other way. You are my friend. I’m not asking you as a professional consultant. I’m asking you as my friend. You know I’m not capable of murder.”
“Is that what the police really think?”
“They seem to.” I paused. “It didn’t help for you to tell them I’d called you.”
“I wasn’t trying to cast suspicion on you,” he said, wrinkles filling his forehead. “If anything,” he added, looking away from my gaze, “I was concerned about your husband.”
“But why? Did your investigations find evidence of foul play?”
Sig let his chin sag into his cupped hand. I was putting him in a hard place. He might have to testify that he showed me the evidence.
“The police came to my house this morning to arrest me. I’m here only because my sister tipped me off.”
Sig shook his head. “Be careful of Chris Black. He’s unable to look at you with any kind of objectivity.”
“So, help me,” I pleaded. “Put the files on your desk and walk away. You won’t see anything.”
I saw the conflict behind his blue eyes. He wanted to help me, but what I was asking was a clear deviation from protocol. “Maybe you should be calling a lawyer.”
“And sit in jail until they’ve figured this all out? Sig, this is what I’m trained to do. Let me reconstruct the accident and see if it all fits. I don’t need an attorney for — ”
He stood up, waving his hand to interrupt me. “I’m dying for a cup of coffee,” he said. “I’ve got so much blasted work to do, it will take all the caffeine I can pump into me just to keep going.” He pointed to his desk. “Look at this mess. I try to keep up with my work, filing each completed case by the last name here,” he added, touching a wall of filing cabinets. “You know I can’t show you about these cases, Wendi.” He turned to go. “I’m off in search of coffee.” He shut his door behind him.
I was alone, with specific instructions about how Sig filed his cases. The unspoken message was clear. I can’t give you information, but I won’t know what you do when I’m gone.
I scampered to my feet and opened first one filing drawer, then another and another, thumbing through the files until I came to “Swanson, Cynthia.”
I opened the folder and scanned the document for conclusions. The injuries were listed from lethal to trivial.
CAUSE OF DEATH: Severe brain contusion, epidural hematoma beneath occipital skull fracture, non-displaced. Other injuries: depressed parietal skull fracture, C2 – 3 cervical spine fracture with spinal cord transection. Of note, the parietal skull fractur
e is suspected to have occurred after death, as there is no bleeding around the fracture site as would be expected if it occurred when the heart was beating. Incidental findings: Evidence of recent ethanol ingestion below legal intoxication limit, blood alcohol level 0.3, nonforced sexual intercourse (active motile sperm percentage in sample indicating time of sexual activity twenty-four to thirty-six hours prior to death).
I felt sick. Maybe this was why my mentor was so reluctant to share the findings with me. I read and reread the passage, committing it to memory. Why would she have a significant skull fracture that occurred after death? And if she’ d had recent intercourse, does that mean that Henry . . . ?
The implications of the report were damning. And scary. But why do they think that I had anything to do with it? Just because I “threatened” her the week she died.
I glanced at my watch. I quickly filed away the Cynthia Swanson case and began my search for the file of Yolanda Pate. In a minute, I had it in my hand.
I wiped sweat from my brow and opened the file, again turning pages to the conclusion:
CAUSE OF DEATH: Narcotic overdose. Incidental findings: Ethanol intoxication. Minor lacerations inside lips and on the tip of the tongue, premortem. These could be evidence of a premortem struggle with force applied from the outside of the mouth, as if the deceased may have been forced to swallow, or could merely represent self-inflicted trauma.
I returned the file to the cabinet, not wanting to go where the data was pushing me. This is why the police are suspicious. I clenched my fist. They think I had something to do with these girls’ deaths?
I thought of the next option. What if they are right to be suspicious? But if it wasn’t me, then who?
The next thought took my breath. Henry? He was a lot of things. Arrogant. Hypocritical. But a murderer?
I opened the door into the hall, wanting to be anywhere but Sig’s office, which suddenly seemed too small. I passed him next to a coffee pot in a small kitchen. I couldn’t talk about what I’d seen, even if Sig would have allowed it. Something in my heart was breaking. Had Henry been unfaithful to me? Was he now trying to cover it up? How could Henry . . . ?
I stumbled forward through the front doors into the sunshine. I squinted and dabbed at my eyes.
I walked numbly towards the Triumph, trying to extract some sense out of the information. I straddled the behemoth and pulled on my helmet, thankful for the tinted visor that shielded me from the world. Inside my full-coverage Shoey helmet, I could cry, talk, and even scream, and the rumble of the Rocket covered it all.
I drove north on I – 81, skirting the valley between the Blue Ridge and the Allegheny Mountains. I overtook and passed the interstate truck traffic. I’d known Henry for seven and a half years. I knew he was a poser, always concerned about his appearance. But unless he was a lot bigger fake than I, there was no way Henry was guilty of murder. I couldn’t believe that. Pride, yes. An affair with a resident . . . well, Henry could have fallen into that trap, but murder?
I settled into the right half of the slow lane and tried to understand the pieces to the puzzle. The police wanted to arrest me. Cindy Swanson’s autopsy suggested foul play. If her skull fracture occurred after death, what had killed the blonde beauty? And if she hadn’t died in the accident as Henry reported, why would he lie? What did Henry have to cover up?
I drove another thirty miles, as green hillside scenery passed in a blur. With my thoughts about the mysterious deaths simmering on a back burner, the only other thing cooking in my brain was the craziness of my week. My prodigal sister shows up, HIV-positive, pregnant, and on her own, reunites with our parents and encourages me to mend broken family fences. My piano-teacher-almost-clandestine-lover ends up with a head injury in the hospital with no memory of my seduction.
The next thing I knew, I was fighting back tears and asking God why my life had ended up in such a mess. The problem with my rhetorical-question prayer was that every time I asked it, I sensed the same feeling of condemnation, and the memory of my love affair with a married man smacked me in the face with frightening clarity.
What do you want from me? I’ve tried to be a good wife, at least until recently. I attend church. I give to the United Way. I raised money for the medical auxiliary to buy new monitors. I even took in my prodigal sister with HIV, didn’t I?
I listened, straining to hear anything above the roar of the Triumph Rocket III, the wind, or the sound of my own voice, but the heavens remained closed.
I squinted through my tears. I knew what God wanted. Perfection. But that was the intolerable goal that had driven me to the brink of the crazy plan that I’d initiated and failed.
I drove ahead, conscious of little except my turmoil. Instead of heading north to confront Anders, I knew I needed to see Henry. He knew more than what he was saying. And if he was going to hide all day in his work, I’d go straight back to the hospital and talk to him there.
Something somewhere was very wrong. And I was determined to get to the bottom and clear my own name.
If only my past was as easy to clear.
CHAPTER 26
I wrestled the Triumph into an open space in the doctors’ parking area across from the hospital, scaring myself in the process. At highway speed, the cycle was easy to drive; in a parking lot, the weight of the beast was almost intolerable. I shut off the engine, immediately aware that the bike wanted to drift forward because of a slight grade encouraging the cycle deeper into the parking space. I arrested the forward movement by squeezing my front brake, but I wanted to curse my stupidity. I wasn’t tall enough or strong enough to roll the bike out of the space by myself. I’d either need help or have to take Henry’s Benz and leave him the Rocket.
I carried my helmet and crossed the street to the hospital, enjoying the stares of two male residents. I swaggered and stared back from beneath my killer shades. Wrapped in my leather jacket, I was one bad biker chick. I couldn’t keep from smiling. My little excursion on the Triumph gave me new insight into Henry’s psyche. Riding the bike had little to do with the fuel economy or reliability of transportation. Riding this bad boy was all about image and power.
I passed Henry’s secretary and entered his office without knocking. It was empty. I set my helmet on his desk and sighed. Should I wait?
I looked up as Henry’s secretary appeared in the doorway. “He’s in the operating room.” She frowned. “He asked me to take messages. He said he’d make return calls tomorrow, which means he thinks he’ll be a long time.”
I looked at Grace. She was young and blonde. Why did she have to be so pretty? “Thanks,” I mumbled. “Maybe I’ll see if he can see me between cases.”
Grace smiled. “Good luck. You’re a brave woman.”
I walked away, whispering under my breath. “Maybe just a little desperate today.”
I searched the OR lounge and the front desk area, places I could travel without scrub attire. No luck. Henry was safely squirreled away in the protection of his surgical haven.
I peered through the double doors leading down the OR corridor.
“Mrs. Stratford?”
I turned in response to the voice of a man. He was large and appeared too young to be sporting a physician’s white coat. “Yes,” I said, reading his name tag. “Ulrich.” I saw him on the day of Jack’s accident.
The doctor shoved a pack of Nabs into the pocket of a white coat overladen with supplies. “Are you looking for your husband?”
I wanted to ask him if he ever ironed his coat. “Yes.”
“He’s in room three, draining a pancreatic pseudocyst with Dr. Myers. He’ll be a few hours.”
I nodded, feigning knowledge. “Of course.” I had no idea what a pseudocyst was. I looked back into the hallway, thankful that the young physician moved on. I studied the room numbers. It looked like room three was only two doors down on the right. Maybe if I snuck into the hall, I could get Henry’s attention through the window.
I knew the rules. No one passe
d the double doors without surgical scrubs. Henry would die of embarrassment if I dared enter his domain without authorization or proper clothing.
I looked back at the resident, who was now leaning over a chart at the OR nursing station.
“Could you go back there and let Dr. Stratford know that I need to speak to him?” I smiled. “It’s an emergency.”
I could see the conflict on the intern’s face. He wasn’t supposed to bother the boss.
“An emergency,” I repeated.
He took a deep breath and peeled off his white coat. Underneath, he wore a pair of green scrubs that appeared a size too small. “OK,” he said. “I’ll ask him if he can scrub out and talk to you.”
I watched through the doorway as he schlepped down the hall. He hesitated at the door and retrieved a mask from a box above the scrub sink before disappearing through a door on the right side of the corridor.
A minute later, a nurse appeared, holding open the door, making way for Henry. He was in scrubs, covered with a sterile gown that was splattered with blood. His hands were covered by a green towel, and he held them in the air away from his body. His eyes met mine. He traveled halfway down the hall towards me before speaking in a hushed voice behind his mask. “This had better be important.”
I suddenly felt very stupid, very childish for interrupting this important god of surgery for my mundane mystery. I cleared my throat. “We need to talk, Henry. I examined the accident scene at Jefferson Hill Apartments.”
I studied him for a reaction. He flinched, but only for a second before he regained his regal composure. “OK?” he said, drawing out his words as if to say, “so what?”
“You didn’t kill that girl, did you, Henry?”
Henry’s eyes bolted open. I could see white above his iris, even from this distance. He stepped forward, alarm apparent on his face. He stopped ten feet from me, apparently conflicted. I wasn’t sterile, and I wasn’t talking through a mask. He mustn’t get too close.