“Petechial hemorrhages,” Hirsch read aloud.
“Exactly. Petechial hemorrhages in the eyes.”
“What are they?”
“Red splotches in the whites of the eyes. The usual cause is the restriction of blood flow in the head area. Here, I would venture to say that the cause of that blood flow restriction is linked to this observation.”
He pointed to the phrase slight compression of soft tissue of neck.
“What does that mean?” Hirsch said.
“I can't be one hundred percent certain without an autopsy, but in my judgment the most likely cause of death was manual strangulation.” He shook his head sadly. “I'm afraid there would have been plenty of pain and suffering.”
Hirsch tried to grasp the implications.
Granger leaned over one of the morgue shots with the magnifying glass, studying her neck. “It's barely detectable in the picture,” he said, frustrated. “They should have taken a close-up.”
He sat back and gazed at Hirsch.
“David, based on what I've reviewed here, I'd say that it is more likely than not that someone strangled that poor girl. Strangled her, stuck her behind the wheel of that car, and then drove it into a tree. You wouldn't need much of an impact to trigger the air bag. Moreover, if you were seated in the passenger seat and could brace yourself for the moment of impact, you could actually run the speed up high enough to do some impressive damage to the front end of the vehicle without seriously injuring yourself.”
Granger removed the reading glasses and studied Hirsch. “I suppose one could try to construct another scenario out of this evidence, but this is the one that seems most likely to me.”
He put his glasses back on and peered at the front page of the medical examiner's report.
“Judith Shifrin. The name sounds familiar.” He looked up. “Who was she?”
Part Two
“Take care, your grace, those things
over there are not giants but windmills.”
Sancho Panza to Don Quixote
CHAPTER 9
“Doovid?”
The hoarse whisper registered somewhere along the edge of his consciousness.
“Doovid.”
Louder this time.
Hirsch looked up from his prayer book. Mr. Kantor stood before him, eyebrows raised. He was holding out the pushke. Hirsch fumbled for his wallet, removed a pair of dollar bills, and stuffed them into the silver box. Mr. Kantor nodded and moved down the aisle.
Hirsch tried to focus on the service, but his thoughts kept returning to yesterday's meeting. Granger refused to elevate his cause-of-death scenario above hypothesis. Nor would any competent pathologist, he assured Hirsch. Without an autopsy, no one could be certain that Judith Shifrin had been murdered. The existing evidence was strongly suggestive but incomplete. The only potentially conclusive evidence would have been a fractured hyoid. Manual strangulation occasionally fractured the hyoid, which was a small bone in the neck area near the base of the tongue. Even a pathologist as second-rate as Sam Avery would have checked the hyoid, Granger said. Moreover, Judith's X-rays indicated no such fracture.
In many cases, Granger explained, exhumation of the body, even years later, could provide the necessary confirming (or refuting) evidence. But not here. As the copy of the death notice in Judith Shifrin's file confirmed, a Jewish mortuary prepared her body for interment, Rabbi Zev Saltzman of Anshe Emes officiated at the funeral, and she was buried (next to her mother) in an Orthodox cemetery. Observant Jews do not embalm their dead, believing that the soul's return to God is dependent upon the body's swift return to the earth.
For dust you are and to dust you shall return.
Three years after her burial, Judith Shifrin's corpse would have no remaining relevant soft tissues to examine.
So now what?
The day after Jack Bellows's press conference, Hirsch had shifted his focus to the Ford Motor Company. If Jack the Ripper wanted to throw down the gauntlet, he was prepared to pick it up and smash him in the face with it. He'd assigned one of Rosenbloom's brightest paralegals to research accidents involving Ford Explorers. She'd already found him an Explorer accident database at a Web site maintained by a national organization of plaintiffs personal injury lawyers specializing in SUV crash cases. Each day, he'd called another two or three of the lawyers listed on the site who'd handled accident cases against Ford. Although he didn't have much yet, he'd come across a few promising leads, or what had seemed to be promising leads before yesterday's meeting with Henry Granger.
Strangled her?
Was it even conceivable?
He tried to visualize Brendan McCormick—six foot four, at least two hundred sixty pounds these days—choking little Judith Shifrin.
Strangulation was a crime of passion.
Obviously.
No one committed a premeditated murder by strangulation.
What could have set off that type of rage in McCormick? An affair gone bad? Announcement that she was pregnant? He tried to imagine a scenario that would end in her death.
Nothing.
He thought back to the rumors he'd heard during their assistant U.S. attorney days together. Vague rumors about McCormick's sexual antics at Mizzou. About rough stuff with football groupies—some involving McCormick alone, others involving several players at once. Rumors about one such incident that ended with the young woman in intensive care.
Just rumors, though. McCormick was never charged. None of them were. Which didn't prove a thing, of course. Back then, athletic departments of the major football schools tended to view sexual assaults as a cost of running a successful program. Boys would be boys, and when something got out of hand, there were influential alumni standing by to help keep things quiet.
Just rumors.
Then again, he'd once witnessed McCormick's rage up close. Almost twenty-five years ago. Several of the assistant U.S. attorneys had gone over to Broadway Oyster Bar for drinks after work. There'd been a blues band playing that night, and the place was jammed. Bodies jostling against one another, a haze of cigarette smoke in the air, waitresses squeezing through the crowd with drink trays held aloft, the blues harp wailing and the electric bass thumping. He'd been standing directly behind McCormick when it happened. A skinny guy with long hair and a scraggly mustache was working his way through the crowd toward the men's room. A mug of beer in his hand, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips. Someone bumped him from behind. He staggered against McCormick, beer slopping over the edge of his mug, cigarette burning a hole in his shirt. McCormick stepped back, shirt wet, clearly pissed off. He shouted something at the skinny guy, who said something back—Hirsch couldn't hear over the din. McCormick suddenly punched the guy in the stomach. As he doubled over in pain, McCormick grabbed him by his hair, jammed his head under his left arm, and started pounding him with uppercuts. By the time several of them pulled him away, the guy was unconscious and bleeding from his nose and mouth and ears. McCormick would have killed him if they hadn't intervened.
“Page one sixty-nine,” Mr. Kantor called out. “The psalm of the day.”
Hirsch looked down at his siddur and turned to the correct page. He silently read the English translation:
O God of vengeance, Hashem. O God of vengeance appear! Arise, O Judge of the earth, render recompense to the haughty. How long shall the wicked, O Hashem, how long shall the wicked exult? Your nation, Hashem, they crush and they afflict. Your heritage. The widow and the stranger they slay, and the orphans they murder. And they say, “God will not see and God will not understand.”
The words blurred.
He lifted his head. The men on either side of him continued chanting. He stared at the ark, his thoughts roiling.
What in God's name had happened that night?
Rosenbloom glared at him from behind his desk, his hands gripping the handles of his wheelchair. “Are you fucking insane?”
Hirsch shrugged. “I don't know what else I can do.”
“I'll tell you what else you can do, you crazy bastard. You can settle that goddamn case right now and walk the fuck away.”
Hirsch shook his head.
“What?” Rosenbloom demanded.
“I can't do that. Not after what I've learned.”
“After what you've learned? What exactly do you think you've learned? You got some guesswork from a retired Quincy. What's he call it? A working hypothesis. Guess what? His goddamn working hypothesis has already been refuted by the actual goddamn medical examiner who examined her body on the night of the goddamn accident. You don't have any hard evidence to contradict those findings. You got no autopsy. You got no body. All you got is bupkes, my friend. Bupkes.”
“That's because I haven't started looking yet.”
Rosenbloom rolled his eyes heavenward. “Oh, my God, Samson, listen to yourself. You're actually thinking about trying to build a three-year-old murder case against a federal district judge? And from scratch? Talk about insane. No, it's worse than insane. It's suicidal.”
“If Dr. Granger is right, this really is a wrongful death case. I can't just walk away from that.”
“Of course you can. This is a free country, pal. Start walking.”
“It's not the right thing to do.”
“What's right have to do with it? It's the smart thing to do.”
“You sound like a lawyer.”
“Because I am one. And so are you. We're talking about a lawsuit here, not an Elizabethan revenge play. This ain't Hamlet, boychik, and you ain't Prince Hal.”
Rosenbloom paused and sighed.
“Come on, Samson. Get real. You'll never prove he killed her. Never. And even if you could, which you can't, so what? That's not going to bring her back to life. She's dead, and no matter what you do she's going to stay dead. Forever.”
Rosenbloom shook his head.
“Listen to me, Samson. The old man wants to preserve her memory, right? You can do that, and you can do it now, before he loses the rest of his own goddamn memory. Squeeze a nice settlement out of that fat piece of shit, pocket our fee, and tell the old man to use the money to build her a memorial.”
The receptionist buzzed on the speakerphone.
“What is it?”
“I have a call for Mr. Hirsch on line four.”
Rosenbloom said, “Take a message, Lois. Tell them he's in a meeting.”
“It's a judge, sir.”
“Which one?”
“Judge McCormick.”
Hirsch and Rosenbloom stared at one another across the desk. After a moment, Rosenbloom pressed the intercom button. “He'll take it in here.”
Rosenbloom looked at Hirsch and nodded toward the phone.
Hirsch leaned over the desk, lifted the receiver, and depressed the blinking light. “Hello?”
“Mr. Hirsch?”
“Yes.”
“Hold for Judge McCormick.”
A short pause.
“David?”
“Yes.”
“Bet you thought I'd forgotten all about your lawsuit.”
“I assumed you were busy.”
“You can say that again.” A grim chuckle. “I've been on a killer pace, but that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about you and poor Judith. How's the case going?”
Hirsch held Rosenbloom's gaze. “It's still early.”
“I caught Jack Bellows's circus act on the tube last week. Off the record, David, he was way out of line. He ever tries a stunt like that in one of my cases, I'll wring his neck. Anyway, I'm calling because I should finally have a break in my schedule the week after this one. How 'bout we get together that Friday afternoon and talk about your case?”
Hirsch took out his pocket calendar and checked the date. “Okay.”
“Say about two?”
“That works.”
“I'll see you then.”
CHAPTER 10
Hirsch didn't need a psychic to figure out the cause of the professor's attitude. When he'd phoned her that morning, she'd been pleasant enough until he told her his name, at which point her voice turned cold. He had soldiered on, explaining that he had filed a wrongful death claim on behalf of Judith Shifrin and needed to talk to her about the case. She'd been reluctant to meet but finally agreed, telling him that she had office hours that afternoon between two and four. He told her those times didn't work, pretending to have a conflicting appointment, not wanting to explain the real reason. He'd suggested they could meet somewhere on her way home. Anywhere. Perhaps for a cup of coffee. He told her it was important. He promised it wouldn't take long. Eventually, she relented. Kaldi's at five, she told him. He told her thanks. She hung up.
He arrived there ten minutes early, wanting to be sure they would have a table with some privacy. He ordered a cup of coffee and carried the steaming mug over to the table. He took a chair facing the door. The coffeehouse was half empty, its late-afternoon patrons consisting mostly of college students hunched over textbooks, one per table.
After the telephone conversation that morning, he'd gone to the law school's Web site to look up Professor Adelaide Lorenz—partly so he'd recognize her when she came through the door, partly to find out who she was, and partly to figure out why her name sounded familiar. She'd certainly reacted to him as if they had a history, and not a pleasant one at that. Maybe she'd been in private practice before going into academia. If so, perhaps they'd had a professional confrontation years ago, maybe a skirmish in some lawsuit. She'd hardly be the only adversary he'd pissed off back then. Then again, the chill in her voice might not be tied to a particular lawsuit. It could be general disdain for the conduct that put him in jail. She'd hardly be the only member of the profession to shun him.
Or perhaps her frostiness was truly personal. That was his real fear. He didn't remember any conquest named Adelaide Lorenz, but the names and faces blurred together. During those final years, coked up or boozed up, he'd been the king of the one-night stands, a serial seducer of dozens and dozens of young women. Paralegal, junior associates, secretaries. Quickies on his office couch at night, stand-ups in bathroom stalls at bars, trysts in their little studio apartments as he pretended to admire their taste in art or books or music while maneuvering them toward the fold-out couch. Pumped 'em and dumped 'em—that was his modus operandi. If there was a Hell, that part of his life guaranteed him a miserable spot several levels down.
But the photograph on the Web site hadn't rung a bell. He would have thought that he'd remember someone that attractive.
Her biography didn't ring any bells either. Professor Adelaide Lorenz had earned her bachelor of arts magna cum laude from Wellesley College and her juris doctor with honors from Stanford University, where she'd been an editor of the law review. She'd clerked for a federal circuit court judge for two years and then gone into private practice, mainly representing plaintiffs in employment discrimination cases. She'd joined the law school faculty of Washington University in St. Louis seven years ago.
He'd run a search on her in Nexis, which turned up three articles from the Post-Dispatch, all on a nasty custody battle with her ex-husband. She'd married a Stanford classmate the summer after graduation. They divorced eight years ago, back when she was still in private practice. During the dissolution proceedings, her ex-husband—ironically, a divorce lawyer himself—launched a nasty custody battle over their son, Benjamin, who was six at the time. She didn't back down, and eventually prevailed.
The search also picked up a feature article on the Family Justice Legal Clinic that she ran as part of the law school's clinical program. Dozens of law student volunteers, mostly women, staffed her clinic, which provided legal services to the victims of domestic violence and child abuse. The article gave her age as thirty-nine. That was two years ago. According to the article, everyone at the clinic—students, staff, and clients—called her Dulcie.
That's what Judith had called her as well. The Hanukkah card she'd sent to Judith a week before her death was signed, “Love, Dulcie.�
��
He was sipping his coffee when she stepped inside the coffeehouse a few minutes after five. He stood and offered a friendly smile. She nodded in acknowledgment, glanced at his coffee mug on the table, and stepped toward the counter, her manner clearly telling him not to even bother offering to pay.
He studied her as she placed her order. She was dressed in black—Vogue magazine black. Black leather jacket, black turtleneck sweater, black wool skirt hemmed above the knees, black tights, and black leather boots. The color seemed to highlight her striking Mediterranean features—strong nose, curly dark hair down to her shoulders, high cheekbones, olive skin. He definitely hadn't slept with Adelaide Lorenz. Even in the fog of alcohol and cocaine that swirled around those quickies, he would have a remembered a woman that striking.
She paused at the sideboard to pour milk in her coffee and then came over to the table. They shook hands. She had a firm grip.
“Professor, I'm David Hirsch. Thank you for meeting me here.”
She placed her mug on the table. “You can call me Dulcie, Mr. Hirsch.”
Her tone was cool, professional.
“And you can call me David.”
As she hung her jacket on a hook on the wall, he noticed the swell of her breasts beneath the turtleneck, the elegant sweep of her neck. She had the aura of an athlete, of someone who worked out regularly. She also had the aura of determination, of someone who'd be a formidable adversary in the courtroom or the boardroom.
She took the seat opposite him. Lifting the mug with both hands, she studied him over the rim as she sipped her coffee. Her eyes, dark and enormous, seemed to blaze with intensity.
She said, “You have some questions for me about Judith Shifrin?”
“I do”
“I have some questions for you first.”
“Fire away.”
“Did you know Judith?”
“No.”
In the background came the sudden gurgle and hiss of the espresso machine.
“How did you get the case?”
The Mourning Sexton Page 7