The Dead Room

by Robert Ellis

  THIRTEEN

  They wouldn’t be tenting this one. They wouldn’t be fumigating the corpse in a roaster bag with burned up super glue. What the river water hadn’t washed away from the girl’s body, time and schools of fish had....

  Teddy sat on the floor of the boathouse, leaning against the wall and trying to compose himself. ADA Carolyn Powell was kneeling before him, overwrought with disbelief and suspicion, and holding a flyer that included the victim’s picture in her hand. Apparently, the girl’s name was Valerie Kram and she’d been missing since mid-October.

  Powell narrowed her eyes and told him to say it again. Teddy had shown her where he found the body and recounted his story six or seven times over the last three hours. Every time Powell got off the phone, she wanted more.

  “I don’t know what happened,” he said. “Until yesterday, I was working on a personal injury case. I had an appointment with someone. I came down here, but she didn’t show.”

  “And what?” Powell shot back. “You walked into the boathouse and found another body. Valerie Kram. Just like that.”

  Teddy gave her a look, knowing his story sounded preposterous. “Just like that,” he said.

  The medical examiner was working on the body ten feet away and well within earshot. “We don’t know who this is yet,” he said.

  Powell ignored him, her eyes still drilling Teddy. Everyone in the room seemed to know who it was.

  “The missing persons unit has been looking for Valerie Kram for six weeks,” Powell said. “You found her in what, a half hour?”

  Teddy remained quiet, his eyes drifting back to the body. It struck him that Valerie Kram looked remarkably similar to Darlene Lewis. They were roughly the same age. They shared the same coloring and overall style. The implications seemed ominous.

  Powell stood up, clipping her cell phone to her belt. “The treasurer of the boat club is Fred Bingle,” she said. “But his wife doesn’t work for an insurance company and he doesn’t know what you’re talking about. Her name’s not Dawn, it’s Doris, and she’s a housewife. Capital Insurance Life has no record of an employee by that name either. The phone number you gave us isn’t even part of a cellular network. It belongs to a dot com company that hit the skids two months ago.”

  He didn’t say anything. He knew that he’d been set up the moment he found the body. He knew that he’d been led here to find it, and that the Holmes murder case was no longer what it seemed.

  “This is bullshit,” Powell said. “You’re gonna need a better story, Teddy.”

  District Attorney Alan Andrews was standing with Detective Vega and his partner, Nathan Ellwood, watching the ME cut the tube top away from Valerie Kram’s body with a pair of scissors. But the district attorney was shifting his weight and fidgeting. Once Teddy had pulled himself together, he’d made the call to Powell on his cell phone. She notified Vega and Ellwood, but a dispatcher had made the mistake of using the radio to reach the ME rather than a land line. The press had overheard the conversation, and were waiting for Andrews outside in force. Andrews was still angry about it and looked edgy enough to snap.

  “Forget about the kid,” he said to Powell. “He made a mistake. A big one. He’s trying to cover his tracks and it’s not working very well.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said.

  Andrews turned. He had a smile going now and appeared mean as his eyes locked on Teddy’s.

  “There’s only one way he could’ve found the body,” Andrews said. “And that’s if Holmes told him where he’d left it. Nice work, Teddy Mack. You want a job with the prosecution team, just say the word. Either way your client’s a dead man.”

  Powell moved closer. “Is that what happened, Teddy? Did Oscar Holmes tell you where the body was?”

  Teddy lowered his eyes, trying to hide his anger and surprise and the feeling that the situation had a life of its own he couldn’t control. He hadn’t thought about the next step. He hadn’t considered what the scene might look like to others when he called for help. He heard Andrews snicker, then watched the man return to the corpse. The ME had removed the cloth and was examining the wound down the girl’s chest. It was long and deep, all the way through but still somewhat frozen. Unlike Darlene Lewis, none of her skin appeared to be missing.

  “One thing’s certain,” the ME said. “You guys need to adjust your time line.”

  “Why?” Andrews asked.

  “If this is Valerie Kram, then she turned up missing in October.”

  “It’s Valerie Kram,” Andrews said. “Her face matches the picture. She was last seen jogging on the bike path. So what?”

  “This girl hasn’t been dead for more than a week or two.”

  Andrews snapped to attention, then knelt down for a closer look at the body.

  “The water would’ve been relatively warm in October,” the ME said to him. “Once she went into the river, she was part of the food chain. Fish. Turtles. You get the idea. And she’s swollen, but not bloated. Most of her hair’s intact. Her flesh is still clinging to her bones. If she’d been in the water for two months, she wouldn’t resemble that picture any more. Not by a long shot. What was left of her would look and feel like Jell-O.”

  The ME pinched the dead girl’s skin, trying to make his point.

  Teddy turned away, glancing at the crime scene techs roaming through the building as he thought it over. Not many women jogged in a tube top. And if he could trust what he’d just heard, then Valerie Kram probably hadn’t been murdered here or anywhere near Boathouse Row. The murderer had picked her up somewhere along the bike path. He’d taken her away and kept her for more than a month, then dumped her in the river when he was through with her. If the rope holding the corpse to the bottom had held, no one would’ve ever found her. But that didn’t seem very important right now. What stood out for Teddy was the time the murderer spent with the girl. The place he held her. The dread in his gut that Holmes might be responsible for a second young woman’s death.

  “I’m gonna schedule of double autopsy,” the ME said. “Her and Darlene Lewis.”

  “When?” Andrews asked sarcastically. “Next week?”

  “Tomorrow,” the ME said, ignoring the spike and turning to his assistant. “Let’s bag this up and get her out of here.”

  Teddy rose to his feet and stretched. Outside the window he could see the press crowding behind the crime scene tape that had been strung along the trees on Kelly Drive. He turned back to the room. When Powell broke away from Andrews, he pulled her aside.

  “I want the keys to Holmes’s apartment,” he said.

  She gave him a suspicious look. “Why?”

  “Because he’s my client.”

  “It’s still under seal,” she said, turning away as if she had something more important to do.

  “I have a right,” he said. “I want the keys.”

  She turned back, studying his face and thinking it over. Teddy held the glance.

  “You’ll need an escort,” she said after a moment. “Someone from the office. The keys are in my desk. I’ll give you a call in the morning.”

  “I want to go tonight,” he said. “Now.”

  She was sizing him up again. “What are you up to, Teddy? What haven’t you told us?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “I want to look at my client’s apartment.”

  “I’ll have someone meet you there in twenty minutes.”

  She walked off. Teddy spotted Andrews standing before a mirror in the hall. The man was whispering something to himself. After a moment, Andrews began experimenting with different smiles and various shades of compassion as if he were alone. When he found what seemed like the appropriate facial expression, the district attorney vanished through the lobby and out the door ready to meet the press. Teddy waited a beat before following him outside.

  The night air had a bite to it. And the afternoon mist had thickened into a rich wet fog. He saw Andrews waving his hands as the press gathered around and camera ligh
ts were switched on. Teddy started up the bike path, then stopped and turned to watch once he reached the shadows. He noticed the boathouses were lit up. The small white lights outlining the buildings were part of the festive nature of the city and burned every night of the year. They looked like Christmas trees. Only tonight didn’t seem particularly festive, and the holidays felt like maybe they ought to be postponed.

  “I have a short statement to make,” Andrews said. “Then I’ll answer any questions I can.” He paused a moment, waiting for everyone to settle, then remained silent a moment longer as if to underline the gravity of the situation and his importance to the cause. “At two-thirty this afternoon the body of a young woman was found on the banks of the Schuylkill River along Boathouse Row. As yet, the victim remains unidentified. Detectives Dennis Vega and Nathan Ellwood of the homicide division are heading the investigation. An autopsy will be performed tomorrow to determine cause of death. I’m sorry, but those are the only details I have right now.”

  “What about the time?” a reporter called out. “How long has the body been in the water?”

  Andrews glanced at a piece of paper and pretended to read a notation. “Our preliminary examination of the body indicates that the victim died sometime ago.”

  “Hours, days or weeks?” another reporter shouted.

  “Weeks,” Andrews said. “We’ll know more after the autopsy.”

  “Who found the body?”

  “The body was found as a result of our expanding investigation into the Darlene Lewis murder. We’re working the case twenty-four-seven.”

  “Then they’re related.”

  “I can’t say at this time,” Andrews said.

  “Two bodies in two days,” a reporter said. “Is it true that Oscar Holmes was a former butcher?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was the body you found today cut?”

  “Yes,” Andrews said with just the right hint of a smile. “And let me reassure everyone here tonight or watching on television that Oscar Holmes was arrested yesterday and is safely behind bars.”

  He’d done it, Teddy realized. Andrews had succeeded in linking the murders to Holmes while denying it.

  Teddy glanced through the crowd and caught Carolyn Powell staring at him. She looked back at Andrews, but Teddy could tell from the expression on her face that she knew exactly what Andrews had done as well.

  He listened to the district attorney answer a few more questions, taking credit for as much as he could. When no one asked about Nash’s press conference yesterday and the role the DA had played in sending an innocent man to his death, Teddy started up the bike path to his car. In one day, Alan Andrews had cleaned the slate. It had taken the gruesome murders of two young women to pull it off, but it was done. The city had been attacked. Because Andrews was perceived as playing a key role, he was beyond criticism much like a president leading his country into war. Teddy thought it over as he spotted his car. It took a certain kind of person to become a politician these days. And Alan Andrews seemed particularly well suited for the job.

  FOURTEEN

  A late-model Cadillac DeVille idled in the darkness taking up two parking spaces on Pine Street. Teddy legged it down the sidewalk, keeping his eyes on the spooky-looking guy behind the wheel. The man was staring back at him while smoking a cigarette with the windows closed and listening to an old Frank Sinatra song. When Teddy stopped before Holmes’s apartment and looked about the street for his escort, the man turned off the ignition and climbed out of the DeVille with a rough groan.

  “You the lawyer?” the man said like he was pissed off.

  Teddy nodded slowly.

  “I’m Michael Jackson,” the man said. “Not the dancer, but the detective assigned to the district attorney’s office. I’ve worked with Andrews since he got rolling.”

  He jingled a second set of keys in the air, then lumbered up the steps to the building’s entrance as if his stomach was full. Teddy hesitated, watching the sixty-year-old man make the climb. His eyes were hooded, his skin pockmarked, and he wore a cheap black rug that Teddy spotted even before he got out of the car.

  Jackson unlocked the building door and turned back, flicking his cigarette at the sidewalk by Teddy’s feet.

  “You coming or what, kid?”

  Teddy hurried up the steps, following the detective into the building.

  “Next time you need to see somethin’,” Jackson said, “do me a favor and pick a better fucking time.” The man let out a sigh, then pointed to the stairs. “It’s the penthouse on the third floor,” he said. “They’re always on the third floor.”

  As Jackson opened his coat and started up the steps, Teddy caught a glimpse of the gun clipped to the detective’s belt. It was an old .38. Teddy had grown up with guns and was comfortable using them. Still, there was something about the worn-out look of this one that made him uneasy. Mulling it over, he wasn’t sure if the darkness emanated from the gun or the man who carried it. Either way, both looked used and dangerous.

  He shook it off, following Michael Jackson’s tired legs up the stairs. On the drive over he’d had a chance to review his conversation with the mysterious Dawn Bingle. She’d known the body was at the boathouse and led him there. That much he was sure of. But she’d also taken the time to find out who Teddy was. She knew where he worked, and seemed to have an understanding of his cases. The bait she’d used to get him to the boathouse had been perfect. A nice touch that itched beneath his skin.

  They finally reached the third floor landing. Jackson struggled to catch his breath and started coughing. When the hacking stopped, the man lit another cigarette, got the door open and switched on the overhead lights.

  “This is it,” Jackson said, waving the smoke out of his bloodshot eyes. “Paradise lost. You wanna touch something, that’s okay with me. You wanna take it, that’s no good at all. Now start looking, kid. I don’t wanna make a night out of this. It’s only our first date.”

  Teddy stepped inside the door. He wasn’t searching for anything in particular. All he wanted to do was see the place and get a feel for it. What Holmes had done to Darlene Lewis was horrific. What happened to Valerie Kram seemed beyond the pale. Even though the evidence wasn’t in and there was still a chance the two murders weren’t related, that feeling in his stomach told him that they were. Teddy needed to understand the way Holmes lived. Was it an apartment or a prison? A refuge or a hiding place? If Holmes kept Valerie Kram here for more than a month, Teddy needed to see how it worked.

  The first thing that jumped out at him was the overt neatness.

  The living room was sparsely furnished with a coffee table set before a cheap couch. A chair with a slipcover sat in the corner facing the television. Teddy wasn’t sure why the place seemed so odd until he looked at the side tables and realized there was nothing else in the room. No family snapshots, no bric-a-brac, not even a magazine or newspaper by the chair. He checked the walls, noting that they were blank. The room was devoid of any humanity, even what little Holmes might possess, and looked like a rundown sitting room in a spent motel.

  He felt Jackson watching him from behind his back and stepped into the kitchen. The garbage disposal sat on the counter. Teddy remembered the plumbing had been pulled at the Lewis house in Chestnut Hill as well. The detectives had been searching for the girl’s skin.

  Moving to the refrigerator, he snapped it open and found it filled with food. Holmes obviously ate in, and this surprised him. Curiously, the bottom shelf was loaded with small containers of fruit drinks in tropical combinations Teddy thought were meant for kids. He felt Jackson’s presence in the doorway again. Ignoring the man, Teddy started going through the cabinets. From what he could tell looking at the variety of spices, Holmes was something of a cook. All except for one cabinet that was well stocked with junk food. Teddy quickly checked the contents of the drawers, stopping when he reached the knives.

  They were imported from Germany, and looked as if they were more expensive than a
nything else he’d seen in the entire apartment. When he pulled one out to test the sharpness, Jackson gave him a funny look and winked.

  “Blackjack,” the detective said. “Butcher’s tools. Sharp as a rabid dog’s teeth. I checked ‘em out yesterday, kid. The man’s got a thing for knives. He likes to cut things.”

  Teddy felt the razor sharp blade and returned it to the drawer. Jackson had obviously participated in the investigation of the apartment with Nathan Ellwood yesterday.

  “Where’d you find his uniform?” he asked. “The one with blood on it.”

  “In there,” Jackson said, pointing to the cabinet below the sink.

  Teddy popped the cabinet open and took a quick glance at the trash can. Then he walked out, heading down the hall for the bedroom. As he stepped inside, he was struck by the neatness and lack of personal possessions again. A lamp was set on the chest of drawers, a clock radio sat on the table by the bed. But that was it. He ran his finger across the table, checking the surface for dust and smelling the light scent of furniture polish. When Jackson entered the room and sat down on the bed, Teddy moved to the chest and sifted through the drawers. Holmes seemed to take great care in sorting his clothing by color and keeping everything neatly folded. The man was so meticulous, Teddy guessed he even ironed his boxer shorts. Something about it didn’t compute with Holmes’s hulking, even sloppy appearance last night.

  Teddy thought it over as he opened the closet and saw the man’s postal uniforms cleaned and pressed on hangers. Holmes didn’t have a life. His possessions would’ve fit inside a couple of suitcases. Each day he delivered mail to some of the wealthiest people living in Chestnut Hill, then came back to the blank walls of his own drab world. From what Teddy had seen tonight, Holmes didn’t have a hobby or any interests other than food. The only thing that stood out were his collection of imported cooking knives. Teddy imagined Darlene Lewis probably took one look at the man and thought he was ridiculous or even stupid. For some reason she got off on teasing Holmes and letting him look at her flowering body. There was no way she could have been aware of what it was doing to him. Not until yesterday when Holmes finally blew.