Jake Lassiter - 02 - Night Vision

by Paul Levine

  “Tell him about the time you opened a stomach and ID’d the restaurant by smelling the beer in the barbecue sauce,” I prompted Charlie.

  “Only one ribs joint in town had sauce like that,” Charlie said. “Wasn’t hard to figure where he had his last supper, then a waiter identified his dining companion, a hired killer.”

  The assistant ME bit his lip, shot an embarrassed look toward Pam Maxson, and sank to his knees. His head disappeared between two pale, slightly chubby thighs.

  “Three-to-one the kid says he smells barbecue sauce,” Detective Rodriguez whispered to me. He had been in the department twenty years and had little time for rookies in any field.

  A voice without a face came from the general vicinity of the corpse’s pudendum. “What smells should I be…uh…looking for?”

  “Anything, son!” Charlie boomed. “The latex of a condom or a surgical glove, maybe soap, talcum, or a douche scented with lily of the valley, even a man’s distinctive cologne. Some men splash it on their privates, you know. Maybe we find a guy who’s crazy for Aqua Velva.”

  “Or Listerine,” Rodriguez suggested, “depending on his proclivities.”

  There was the sound of a bloodhound sniffing, then the assistant ME picked himself up, looked sheepishly toward Charlie, and said, “Sorry, sir, but…it’s just plain pussy to me.”

  “Oh, never mind. You’ll want to do a complete autopsy, of course. Take a good look at the neck. I’d advise elevating the shoulders, eviscerate the body, and remove the brain. If you want a dry field, don’t dissect the neck until the blood has stopped draining. Don’t let the homicide detectives rush you. Take your time.”

  The kiddie coroner nodded, then piped up, “I’d say the assailant was right-handed, Dr. Riggs.”

  From behind me I heard a snicker. “Fantastico,” Detective Rodriguez said. “I’ll put out a BOLO for all right-handed guys.”

  Doc Riggs was more diplomatic. “And how do you reach that conclusion, Doctor…?”

  Charlie squinted at the name tag.

  “Whitson,” the alleged doctor proclaimed. “Well, there’s a single abrasion on the right side of the neck and four on the left. So the assailant’s right thumb would have made the single abrasion, the fingers of his right hand the rest.”

  “Assuming she was strangled from the front,” Charlie added politely.

  “I thought of that, sir. You can tell from the concavity of the crescents that the strangulation occurred from the front.”

  Charlie made a little tsk-tsking sound. He didn’t want to lecture the lad in front of spectators, but he had no choice. He examined the neck. “All I can tell is that the nail on the ring finger is jagged. In a couple of days, it will grow back, so the information is of very little use. As for the crescent, the direction of the concavity can be misleading. The crescent will be reversed, as often as not. Here, I’ll show you. Jake, roll up your sleeve.”

  “Why me?” I protested. “I haven’t forgotten your electrocution experiment.”

  “It was only two hundredths of an amp, Jake, and I turned it off as soon as you went into muscular paralysis. Now be a good scout.”

  Everyone was watching, so the good scout rolled up his sleeve. Charlie looked around and spotted Pamela Maxson, who was intently studying titles of the shelved books in the small apartment.

  “Pamela, perhaps you can inflict some pain on Jake for a moment,” Charlie wondered cheerfully.

  “Gladly,” she chimed in. She placed a cool hand on my forearm and dug five fingernails deep into my skin.

  “I’ll always remember the first time we touched,” I told her, showing my All-Conference smile.

  She dug deeper, letting up just before severing the radial artery. I held up my arm, and sure enough, the crescents went the opposite direction of each nail’s shape. Charlie was explaining something about the free edge of the arch of the nail having no purchase and therefore creating the reverse crescent and how fallacious it was to infer much from fingernail marks. I just looked at the little dents in my arm and said to Pamela Maxson, “I’ll bet you leave a mark on every man you meet.”

  “With some,” she replied, “it takes a sledgehammer.”

  Having exhausted my store of witty repartee, I stood silently, surveying the scene. The apartment was sparsely furnished in Yuppie Modern—white tile and green plants, a large-screen TV, and CD player, a few bookshelves. There was a galley kitchen with a few pots and pans and a cupboard containing bran cereal, microwave popcorn, bottled spaghetti sauce, and spinach pasta from a gourmet market. The oven was practically sterile, indicating either an immaculate cook or no cook at all. The refrigerator had four different flavors of yogurt, none of which had expired, bottled water, an eye mask filled with what looked like antifreeze, and not much else. The bedroom and bathroom were down a hall, but I hadn’t seen them yet.

  Young Dr. Whitson picked up his camera and click-clicked through several rolls of film, shooting the body, the furniture, and even one or two of me. Charlie puttered around the body for a while, giving more tips to the young pathologist. Pamela Maxson walked through the little apartment, her green eyes bright, taking everything in, letting nothing out.

  Nick Fox motioned me onto the small balcony where we were alone. I looked him in the eye. I was half a foot taller, but he had impressive width. A stocky fireplug of explosive energy. “Marsha Diamond,” he said. “Ever see her on Live at Five?”

  I shook my head. Usually, I’m still working then. If not, I’m playing volleyball on the beach or fishing with Charlie. Afternoon television is for those in traction. Physical or mental.

  “I want you to be a special prosecutor and lead the investigation,” Nick said. “Present a case to the grand jury when you’ve got a suspect.”

  “Why can’t your office handle it?”

  He didn’t hesitate, just shrugged those big shoulders. “Conflict of interest. I was seeing her. Not heavy-duty. But I’d slip over here in the mornings or she’d come by my place at night. It’s sure to come out in the investigation.

  Before I could ask, he said, “I’ve been separated for six months. Irretrievably broken and all that.”

  “So the first statement I take is from you,” I said.

  He showed the hint of a smile. “Should I have my alibi ready?”

  I looked at him hard. His girlfriend’s body was drawing flies and he makes a little joke. A used little joke.

  “I don’t show much emotion,” Fox said, reading my mind. “Not in public, anyway. Maybe tonight I’ll get drunk by myself. Maybe I’ll put my fist through a wall. But that’s none of your business. Your job is to find the slime that did this, get an indictment, and try the case.”

  Through the glass I saw Pamela Maxson talking to Detective Rodriguez. He was nodding and making notes on a little pad. Across the street the ocean breeze rattled the palm fronds. Traffic crept along Ocean Drive, young people cruising at a pace to see and be seen.

  I came in and told Rodriguez what I wanted. A computer whiz to print out everything inside the beige box on Marsha Diamond’s desk and the disks in her drawer. All her address books, appointment schedules, credit-card receipts, a list of her friends, relatives, and coworkers, and a chronology of her daily routine. I wanted statements from her gynecologist, her hairdresser, her pharmacist, her landlady, her maid, and her masseuse. I wanted to know every man she dated in the last three years and anyone she met in the last three months. Did any deliverymen bring her groceries or furniture or laundry? Where was she every minute of the last week? Within forty-eight hours, I wanted to know more about Marsha Diamond than her best friend, her mother, or her lover ever did.

  It wasn’t asking too much. Anyone who cares to can know everything about us. Somewhere, I am sure, there is a giant computer that stores a thousand megabytes about each of us. What we got in geography and who we took to the senior prom. Where we eat, what we buy, who we call. How much money we make and how much we give away. What airlines we use, where we slee
p, how much we spend on clothes, booze, and pills. Traffic tickets, domestic disputes, diplomas, and the books we buy. Modern life is one sweeping, cradle-to-grave invasion of privacy. An encroachment on our ever-narrowing space. Behind us we leave a trail of carbon copies and floppy disks. Fodder for the snoop and the historian alike.

  In the twenty-first century, they tell us, our houses will be smaller, our lawns nonexistent. We’ll work at home and recycle our garbage into compost. Our bathroom scale will record our weight, pulse, and blood pressure, and transmit the information to the company physician and anyone else with the right seven-digit password. The computer will link us with the office, the grocery store, and each other. The paper trail will be obsolete, but in its place, microscopic chips and laser scanners will transcribe details even the most astute biographer would overlook.

  ***

  “Lassiter, come take a look back here.”

  It was Rodriguez, motioning me through the bedroom and toward the bathroom. I moseyed back there and stood, filling the doorway, peeking over Charlie Riggs’ shoulder. It was old-fashioned but clean, a small porcelain sink, shower stall, and toilet crammed into a room without a window. There were powders and perfumes and white fluffy towels, and on the mirror above the sink was a message scrawled in blood red lipstick: Catch me if you can, Mr. Lusk.

  “We got ourselves a show-off,” I said. “Now, who the hell is Mr. Lusk?”

  “Probably some guy she was playing tag with,” Rodriguez said, “and it looks like he caught her.”

  In the mirror I saw Charlie’s jaw drop in astonishment. It was not his usual expression. He moved closer, as if the image might disappear at any moment. “Pamela, come here please!”

  In a moment Pamela Maxson joined the party. And there the four of us stood. I hoped somebody knew more than I did.

  “Mr. Lusk.” Pamela’s voice trembled.

  “Yes, Mr. Lusk,” Charlie said.

  “You know the hombre?” Rodriguez asked.

  “George Lusk,” Charlie Riggs mumbled, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “I’ll bring him in,” Rodriguez said.

  Charlie laughed but there was no pleasure in it. “Sorry, detective. Mr. Lusk is quite dead.”

  Rodriguez squinted at the mirror. “Then who’s—”

  “In the fall of 1888, in the East End of London, the Whitechapel section, there were a series of murders of young women.”

  “I get it,” Rodriguez said. “George Lusk was the cop who cracked the case.”

  “Not exactly,” Charlie said. “He was a private citizen who formed the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee to patrol the streets and help the police. One day Lusk received a parcel in the mail. It contained a kidney cut from the body of one of the victims and a most grisly note. I can’t remember the contents exactly, but the note concluded—”

  “‘Catch me if you can, Mr. Lusk,’” Pamela Maxson said.

  Charlie nodded.

  “Hey,” Rodriguez said. “You’re talking about Jack the Ripper.”

  Charlie nodded again and looked straight at me.

  “And I guess that makes me Mr. Lusk,” I said.

  CHAPTER 4

  Breaking the Ice

  They had already zipped the body into a plastic bag when I made a final pass through the living room. The assistant ME had packed his bag and capped his camera. The cops were growing bored and filing out; there were other bodies in other apartments and the night was young. Charlie Riggs was on the staircase outside with Pamela Maxson, reminiscing about murders most foul. I looked around and struggled to remember everything the old canoe maker had taught me.

  Be alert to every detail. I tried to memorize everything in the room. The computer was an IBM clone, the desk white oak, the telephone a new Panasonic. Marsha Diamond had been sitting at the computer when she was killed. I looked closer at the phone. Two lines, a bunch of buttons. One button was for making conference calls, another put you on hold, a third activated the speaker phone.

  Then the last one. “Redial.”

  I congratulated myself on how smart I was. Half a dozen cops and nobody thought about it—maybe the last person Marsha Diamond spoke to just a dial tone away. And maybe with some luck, that last person was the guy who squeezed the life out of her. Don’t you dare come over here, Harry, we’re through!

  Then again, it could be the weather number, a wrong number, or the public library. Only one way to find out. I picked up the receiver and hit the button. Seven electronic notes played do-re-mi in my ear.

  A click and then the whir of a woman’s recorded voice. “Welcome to Compu-Mate, where the person of your dreams awaits you. Dial ROMANCE, 766-2623, on your modem, and we’ll put you in touch. Why not let Compu-Mate find your life mate?”

  “Or your death mate,” I answered the mechanical voice, “as the case may be.”

  ***

  I put the top down on my ancient Olds 442 convertible, deposited Charlie Riggs in the back and Pamela Maxson in the passenger bucket seat. It’s the Turbo 400, yellow body, black canvas top, black interior, Rallye wheels, four-speed stick. An overgrown kid’s toy.

  “No sign of a break-in, nothing missing from the apartment,” Charlie yelled over the roar of three hundred sixty-five horsepower. “No apparent motive.”

  It was a cloudy June night; the air was humid with a hint of salt. We were approaching the Miami Journal, just on the Miami side of the MacArthur Causeway. The boxy building sat there, lights twinkling against the blackness of the bay, taunting me.

  “An organized crime scene,” Pamela Maxson added.

  Above us, on the superstructure, yellow lights flashed and we came to a stop at the drawbridge. When the lights turned red, the traffic gate lowered into place, the tender yanked on a long steel lever, and the bridge started clanking skyward. Below us, a nighttime sailor aimed a sleek Hinckley with a towering mast through the opening.

  “Based on a cursory review,” she continued, “I would say you’re looking for a white male in his late twenties or early thirties, probably firstborn, height and weight within norms, higher-than-average intelligence, though an underachiever in school. He probably knew the victim or at least had seen her and followed her. His socioeconomic background is at least average, and he probably had a two-parent household, but he never formed a stable relationship with his father.”

  “I suppose the family dog got run over by a truck when he was going through puberty,” I said, with just a hint of sarcasm.

  The psychiatrist stared at my profile. The sight did not weaken her knees. “Actually, he probably tortured and killed pets. Slicing open a cat’s belly and pulling out the intestines would be typical.”

  That muzzled me for a moment. The bridge dropped back into place, the gate lifted, and we were moving again. I swung onto the I-95 connector and headed south, tires singing on the concrete thirty feet above the mean streets of Overtown. Then I said, “I’m not sure that shrinks have all the answers they think they do.”

  “Don’t sell forensic psychiatry short,” Charlie Riggs shouted from the backseat.

  “I don’t. But the data doesn’t do any good. We can’t haul in all the firstborn sons in town.”

  “No,” Pamela Maxson said, “but we can predict this killer’s future behavior based on studies of past serial killers. He has fulfilled the fantasy of murder. He will repeat it, and will add to it his other fantasies he has so far repressed.”

  “You’re assuming it’s a motiveless crime. Not a jealous boyfriend or a bumbling robber.”

  “Unless you discover a pecuniary motive or an emotional one, you will find the murder quite motiveless, except in the deranged mind of the psychopath who committed it.”

  It’s hard to argue with someone so obviously used to being right. We rode in silence as I pulled off the interstate and onto the Rickenbacker Causeway. The moon was coming up over Key Biscayne, spreading a creamy glow across the water. I pulled up in front of Tugboat Willie’s. On the front porch a couple of ol
d salts were debating the merits of rubber jigs—the Zara Spook versus the MirrOlure—for catching crevalle jack. Charlie got out and came around to the driver’s side.

  “Why would Nick Fox appoint you to head the investigation? Why not one of his cronies, someone he could control?”

  “Says he wants to do the right thing. Not even an appearance of a conflict of interest.”

  “You believe that?” Charlie asked.

  I shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.”

  “That’s what I always say,” I said.

  Dr. Maxson helped me out. “Loosely translated, ‘Beware of an enemy bearing gifts.’”

  Charlie nodded, then climbed into his mud-spattered pickup truck for the drive westward to the Glades. Pamela Maxson had taken a cab from her hotel, so I graciously offered to drive her back. Her eyes shot a look toward Charlie’s truck, as if to ask if I was trustworthy, but he was gone. Either she decided to risk it, or she couldn’t get out of the shoulder harness, because she wordlessly stayed in her seat.

  It was a short ride to the Grand Bay Hotel in Coconut Grove, but the doctor made it seem like a transatlantic flight. I mentioned the beauty of the moon and she said, “Umm.” I remarked on the nighttime feeding habits of the turkey vultures, gliding above the sewage plant at Virginia Key, and she said, “Umm.” When she gave me the same reply to the question of how long she’d be in town, I asked if she was practicing her mantra. That drew only silence, so I slipped a Beach Boys tape into the slot, and keeping time with palm slaps on the steering wheel, provided my own off-key praises to California girls, doubtlessly adding to the doctor’s impression of me as a simpleton and rapscallion. To her credit, she never once complained about my singing or the dank evening air. When a few fat drops from a passing shower splattered our windshield, she never once asked me to put up the top. The wind blew her long hair straight back, and like a California girl without the tan—or the smile—she stared ahead into the nighttime breeze.