Social Death: A Clyde Shaw Mystery

by Tatiana Boncompagni

  Dr. Cho moved swiftly around the bed. “Ms. Shaw you are in no condition.”

  I was about to argue with her when the room began to spin. I rested my head back down against the pillows and waited for the spinning to stop before looking back at Alex. He had my jacket in one hand, my phone in the other. “It was in here,” he said, handing both to me.

  “But my notes,” I said, my eyes widening with urgency.

  Alex grabbed his own jacket from the back of his chair. “I’ll call Maldone’s assistant. She left her card. They must have it.” He hovered by the door. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay, Clyde? I can have someone else handle this and stay with you.”

  “Just go find my bag.”

  The door shut behind him. I turned back to Dr. Cho. “Is it normal not to be able to recall anything?”

  “Memory loss is common.”

  “Will it ever come back?”

  Dr. Cho checked my IV bag. “It may. It’s hard to tell. If you’ve been sexually assaulted we’ll be able to find evidence of that upon examination. I did a visual exam when you were admitted and I didn’t see any evidence of an assault, but I would still like to do a rape kit just to be sure. Do I have your permission?”

  I nodded, sickened by the thought. I wanted to call my dad, but if I did he’d only get worried and insist on taking me back upstate with him. “When can I leave here?” I asked Dr. Cho.

  “After I examine you, I’d like to keep you under observation for the next few hours, then you can go home to rest. You received a rather large dose of Ketamine, Ms. Shaw. The sedative effects will take some time to wear off completely.”

  “When can I go back to work?”

  Dr. Cho poured water in a cup and handed it to me. “By tomorrow afternoon you should be able to return to your normal daily activities. But you probably won’t feel like working for another forty-eight hours. I’ll come back in a few minutes for your examination. In the meantime, ring the call button if you need anything.”

  I drank my water, wondering who at the party had seen me get carried out and whether the news had filtered to the network, specifically to Georgia and the dozen or so colleagues who had been around at the height of my drinking days. I hoped they’d give me the benefit of the doubt and not jump to any wrong conclusions.

  I dialed Panda, feeling terrible for disturbing him at such an early hour. He picked up on the third ring. I could hear the grogginess in his voice, his wife murmuring next to him in bed as he turned on his bedside lamp and listened to me explain as concisely as I could what had happened. It took some time; my brain was still a bit foggy.

  “I’d come over myself but I think you’re better off talking to my partner in case the two crimes are linked. Call the precinct in a few hours and ask to be put through to Ehlers. He and Detective Restivo from North Homicide will come to pay you a visit. I know they want to talk to you again. Call me after they leave and we’ll figure out a time to meet.”

  “Is everything OK, Neal?” Panda’s wife asked in the background.

  “Go back to sleep, Bess. Everything’s fine.”

  “I’m sorry I woke you,” I mumbled into the phone.

  “It’s OK. I was going to call you this morning, actually. There’s been a development in the case. I’ll swing by your apartment later with bagels and coffee.”

  “I’ll be at work.”

  “Like hell you are. Ketamine is a serious drug. Your body needs a chance to recuperate.”

  “And miss out on the scoop you’ve got for me?”

  He sighed grumpily. “Now I’m sorry I told you. Get some rest, kid.”

  I fell asleep sometime after Dr. Cho was done administering the rape kit. When I woke up, it was with a start, breathing hard, my hands gripping the rails on either side of my hospital bed. I’d been dreaming. Someone was chasing me through a dark forest. I hid behind a fallen tree, only to find I was standing in a bloody bog, a pair of soft white hands just visible through a clump of leaves. Suddenly they came alive, reaching for me, the fingers just inches from my face before I came to.

  Dr. Cho had warned me I might be haunted by flashbacks for a while as my body finished processing the drugs in my system and my mind dealt with the trauma of being attacked, but it still took me a good three minutes to get my pulse back down to normal.

  The clock on the wall read 9:45 a.m. Dragging my IV line, I managed to change back into my own clothes. Back in bed I placed a call to the police department, eventually getting patched through to Detective John Ehlers. He arrived with Detective John Restivo as I was downing the tepid, watery cup of coffee on my hospital-issued breakfast tray.

  I raked a hand through my hair and invited them to sit.

  “I’ll stand.” Restivo was tall, dark-haired, and craggy-faced, with even less interest in small talk than Ehlers. He might have been considered the bigger dog on the case, but Ehlers was the better “get.” He was more attractive and had more energy.

  Ehlers planted himself in the same chair Alex had spent half the night in. “How’s the noggin?”

  The headache had subsided but I still felt disoriented and foggy-brained. “Been better.” My speech might have been a little slurred.

  Restivo tossed the remainder of his Starbucks in the plastic-lined bin by my bed. “Why don’t you tell us what happened last night?”

  I told them everything, ending with the ominous warning I’d received in the gallery’s bathroom. Ehlers brought out his notebook and took down all the names of the people I’d seen at the party as well as all the names of the people I’d interviewed so far and the address of the gallery. “What about your encounter in those woods behind the Rockwell house?”

  I repeated what I’d told Panda. The detectives exchanged glances. Restivo leaned against the doorframe. “How was Mr. Rockwell’s demeanor?”

  “Threatening. Angry. But I think he just wanted to scare me.”

  Ehlers put his notebook away. “Mr. Rockwell has a known history of violence, Ms. Shaw. I suggest you stay as far away from him as possible.”

  My reporter instincts kicked in. “What do you mean known history of violence? We checked police records. He has no priors, no restraining orders, either.”

  Restivo took a step closer. “This is not for your show.”

  “He threatened me, Detective. I have a right to know.”

  Ehlers looked to his partner, who gave him a slight nod. “Off the record, date rape. She said, he said and then she decided he didn’t. Whole thing was swept under the table, but most everyone agreed he’d done it.”

  “When did this happen?”

  Ehlers glanced again to Restivo, who this time shook his head.

  “Who’s your source?” I pressed.

  Restivo moved toward the door, two strides on his long legs were all it took to get there. “Isn’t that your job, to find sources?” His tone was heavy with sarcasm.

  There were two kinds of cops in this world: those who thought all news people were the devil’s spawn and those that didn’t. My guess was that Restivo had been double-crossed by a reporter early on in his career, and was hell-bent on punishing the rest of us for the hack’s misdeeds.

  Ehlers slipped his notebook back into his pocket and gave me a sympathetic smile. “We’ll see if we can pinpoint who slipped the Ketamine into your drink. But I have to tell you these cases are pretty hard to crack without eyewitnesses or surveillance video.”

  “There’s another thing. I’m missing my handbag,” I said.

  Ehlers pitched forward in the chair. “What was in there?”

  “My notebook with my interview notes. It’s extremely important it doesn’t fall in to the wrong hands.”

  “Like your competitors at GSBC?” Restivo quipped, his hand back on the doorframe.

  I clenched my molars.

  He opened the door, holding it ajar with his foot. Ehlers got up, zipped up his windbreaker. “We’ll look for your purse, and do our best to figure out who drugged you, but in t
he meantime get your locks changed, Miss Shaw.”

  My apartment keys. I hadn’t thought of them. I kept spares in my desk at work. The super also had a set. He’d have to let me in so I could shower and get back to the office.

  “You’ll call me as soon as you know something?”

  “Just take it easy, Ms. Shaw. And get those locks changed. We’ll check in with you soon.” Ehlers joined his partner in the hall, closing my door swiftly behind him.

  In the cab home, I dialed Alex’s cell. “Don’t tell me you left the hospital already,” he said.

  “Like you would have stayed if it was you on that bed. Did you find my bag?”

  I heard him open a desk drawer. “Maldone’s assistant had it and brought it to the office.”

  I rolled down the taxi’s window and lay down on the back seat. “What’s in there? Anything missing?”

  “Not that I can tell. Wallet, keys, tape recorder, a roll of Tums, a notebook, a few takeout menus, powder compact, lipstick, that’s all here. Do you want me to count the cash in the wallet?”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. My notes and tape recorder weren’t gone. “It sounds like everything’s there. I’ll be back in an hour. Can you keep it for me until then?”

  “No problem. But are you sure you should be coming in? I can have someone take it to your apartment.”

  “No, I’m coming in.”

  At my apartment, the super let me in so I could shower and change. I was about to blow-dry my hair when I noticed some papers sticking out of one of the file drawers of my desk. I wasn’t the tidiest person on the planet, but I was fastidious about my files.

  I carefully canvassed my apartment, but nothing else was missing or out of place. Was I being paranoid? Dr. Cho had warned me the Ketamine could have that effect, and Alex had confirmed that my keys were in my bag. I opened my desk drawer, returned the papers to the correct file, and then got the hell out of there. Crazy or not, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had been in my apartment while I was gone.

  Half an hour later, I lumbered through Georgia Jacobs’ office door. “I was about to send out a search mission,” she said, spearing a salad crouton with a plastic fork. It was a quarter to one and she and Wallace were having a desk-side lunch. “You look like hell.”

  “Feel like it too,” I said.

  Wallace’s spoon hovered midair over what looked like cheese-covered chili. “Alex filled us in. Why aren’t you still at the hospital?”

  I threw myself into the only vacant chair and grabbed a packet of oyster crackers from Georgia’s desktop. I split the wrapper open with my front teeth and dumped the whole thing in my mouth. “I’m fine,” I said, almost believing myself.

  Georgia didn’t buy it. She wanted to force-march me back to Beth Israel herself, while Wallace tried bargaining with me, hoping to get me to go home for the day. They were taking turns yelling at me when my phone buzzed in my hand.

  It was Panda. I’d tried him twice already that morning, without any luck. I held up my hand, motioning for them to be quiet.

  “I can’t talk long,” he said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “We found Rachel’s body.”

  “The Haverford. Basement storage. Another resident complained of a smell and the super called it in last night. Parents identified the body this morning.”

  “God, that’s awful.”

  “This is a game changer,” Panda remarked. We were no longer dealing with a crime of passion, but a deliberate, calculated killer. This also meant that Olivia’s case had gone from homicide to double homicide. Bodies were stacking up. So were the stakes and so were the potential ratings. I wondered if GSBC knew about the body, too. Penny Harlich clearly had her own inside source. She couldn’t have landed the housekeeper interview without one.

  “When is the PD going to announce it?” I asked.

  “Soon.”

  “Do we know how long she’s been dead?” At that, Georgia began waving her hands frantically. I held my finger up to my mouth and moved into the hall for some privacy.

  “Don’t know,” Panda exhaled. “We’re way past rigor mortis.”

  I shut myself into an empty conference room. “Cadaver dog?”

  “Yep, but not that necessary.”

  When a body dies, muscles relax, including intestinal muscles. I’d been around enough crime scenes to know that what the resident smelled probably wasn’t decaying flesh but excrement and urine. “Cause of death?”

  “Not bludgeoning. Looks like asphyxiation.”

  From a killer’s perspective, suffocation was a smart choice. No blood splatter, and, if done right, virtually noiseless. Plus it fit the killer’s profile in that it was intimate—like bludgeoning, you really had to get up close and personal to do it—and it took a good amount of strength, especially if the victim wasn’t tied up. “Ligature marks around the wrists?”

  “Yes. She was cuffed behind her back.”

  That sounded sexual to me. “Auto-erotic?”

  There was a long pause.

  “What is it?”

  “This is all I can give you.”

  “No way, Neal. I need everything this time. The rest can be off the record, but you’ve got to give it to me. Whoever killed Olivia and Rachel probably just drugged me.”

  Panda expelled a breath. “Off the record, ME said Rachel had recently had sexual intercourse.”

  I was confused. “We know that already because Olivia had vaginal fluid under her nails.”

  “No, Clyde.” He cleared his throat. “I’m talking intercourse. The ME found ejaculate in her vagina.”

  “How old?”

  “Pre-mortem.”

  “But not rape?” The wheels of my mind spun to Michael Rockwell and his date-rape past. What if he’d gone to Olivia’s apartment, killed Olivia, and then raped and killed Rachel before smuggling her down to the basement?

  “No sign of it.”

  So much for that scenario. It took me a few seconds to come up with another. “Three-way, then?”

  “Possibly.”

  I thought of Alex’s comment in Diskin’s office, back on the first day of the case. “So much for no sex play.” I thanked Panda for the head’s up and hung up. Then I sat down on the floor of the hall, a fresh wave of nausea roiling my stomach. Olivia was dead. Rachel was dead and someone had drugged me. Taking a long, deep breath, I girded myself for the hours ahead. I needed to do my job and get the story out there. Then I could get some rest.

  I got up and let myself back into Georgia’s office and announced the news. “They found Rachel’s body.”

  “I got that, Sherlock.” Georgia looked at her watch. “How fast can we take this to air?’

  “An hour if we want to go live from the scene. I’d also like to get confirmation from the information officer first.”

  Wallace shook his head in disagreement. “If they won’t confirm, just go to air with the speculation. We are not gonna lose this one.”

  Georgia threw the rest of her lunch in the trash. “Get the van, take your crew, get them set up and then get your ass home. I don’t want to see your sorry mug anywhere near this building until Monday morning.”

  “What about the weekend shows?” I crossed my arms in defiance. The news wasn’t a Monday-through-Friday gig. When you were on a big story, you worked 24/7, weekends, nights, whatever it took.

  “Save it,” Georgia barked. “It’s either go home now, or go home in a few hours. We can handle the weekend shows without you.”

  I picked up Georgia’s desk phone to buzz Alex and bring him up to speed. Then I emailed Diskin and the two o’clock news hour director from my phone to tell him to make some room for us at the top of the hour.

  Ten minutes later, I was back in the sat truck with Alex and the team heading uptown to the Haverford. My head ached and the stop-and-go traffic wasn’t helping the nausea. Alex took one look at me bent over, my head between my legs, and tried to hand me half his sandwich. “Yo
u need it more than I do,” he said. “It’s homemade. Even the bread.”

  I lifted my head an inch. “I’m not taking your lunch.”

  Dino, our cameraman, whipped his head around from the front passenger seat. “I’ll take it, man. I’m starving.”

  “You’re always starving, man.” Alex pushed Dino’s hand away and patted me on the back. “C’mon Clyde, you look like you’re about to faint. I need you in form when we get out there.”

  “Jennifer can get me pizza.”

  “This is much healthier than a greasy slice of pepperoni.”

  “I get the sausage and pepper.”

  “Even worse.” He pulled me up to sitting and unwrapped his lunch. “Now eat.”

  I reluctantly took a bite. Then I handed it to Dino.

  “Clyde, what?” Alex yelped, pawing at Dino for his sandwich half.

  Too late. Dino held it out of his reach. “Is that Camembert I taste?” he asked with a full mouth, taunting Alex.

  “Yes,” Alex groaned, giving up. “And fresh roasted turkey, avocado, romaine, and this mustard I picked up in Paris. Can’t get it here.”

  Aaron eyed Dino’s windfall from behind the wheel. “You really make the bread, too?”

  Alex nodded glumly. “Organic split wheat.”

  Jen and I looked at each other. This was a side of Alex neither of us would have guessed existed. “I’ll get us some slices as soon as we get a break,” she said.

  We pulled up around the corner of the Haverford. I stayed inside the van and let the sound and truck engineers set up the shot as I continued working on the script with Alex. My phone rang and I stepped outside to take the call from the very irate IO, who first hassled me about where I’d gotten my information, and then refused to confirm the tip. He also declined to give me any additional crime-scene details, like the name of the resident who smelled the body, or how the killer had hidden the body.

  I slipped in my earpiece and stepped outside, gathering my team and the remainder of my energy. “Let’s go live, people!” Jen called the studio, Dino hoisted his camera, and I counted down from three. It was go time.