The Harry Starke Series Books 4 -6: The Harry Starke Series Boxed Set 2 (The Harry Starke Novels - The Boxed Sets)

by Blair Howard

  Angela lay on her back, the block already under her back to extend her chest for…. Look, actually I can do without all the detail, and so can you, so I’ll move right along.

  Sheddon made the classic Y incision…. You know what the worst part of an autopsy is? It’s when they take those damned pruning shears to the ribcage. The crunch they make is god-awful. So, Sheddon opened her chest and removed and weighed her organs, opened the skull, removed the brain and did the same and, to cut it short, came to the conclusion that she’d been strangled.

  “How do you figure that?” I asked. “There are no ligature marks, no bruising or petechiae that I can see.”

  “Oh, there are petechiae. But it’s suborbital, under the eyelids.”

  “Then she must have put up a fight. Is there anything under her fingernails? I don’t see it, Doc. There’s not a mark on her anywhere.”

  “Well, there actually is. See here?” He indicated a slight discoloration on her upper left bicep. “And here.” This time it was the right bicep. “Pressure has been applied to both spots. Not much, I grant you, but it leads me to believe she was unconscious at the time of death.”

  “I see it, but—unconscious?”

  “I think so. It’s possible she was under the influence of Rohypnol, ketamine, or some such drug. GHB maybe, one of the so-called ‘date rape’ drugs. If so, it wouldn’t have taken much effort to do her in.”

  He looked at me, shook his head, and said, “Harry, you know as well as I do what goes on these days. Here’s what I think may have happened. Someone slipped her the proverbial Mickey, then straddled her, placing his or her knees on her arms, here, to make sure she didn’t move. Then whoever it was simply applied gentle pressure to the carotid arteries, thus starving the brain of oxygen. Total loss of consciousness would have occurred within ten to fifteen seconds, death within three to four minutes.”

  “Gentle pressure? Are you kidding me?”

  “No. Ten to twelve pounds of force is all it would take, especially if the victim was in a state of torpor due to the ingestion of, say, ketamine.”

  “You’re sure, then, that it was manual strangulation?”

  “Of that, yes. I won’t be able to confirm the drug, or even if there was one, until the toxicology comes back, and that could take several weeks. In the meantime, I suggest you assume that I’m right—I usually am—and conduct your investigation accordingly.”

  It was said without a hint of self-consciousness. The doctor was well aware of his abilities and, as always, was willing to stand on his beliefs and opinions until he was proven wrong. He rarely was.

  “Time of death?” I asked.

  “Ah, now that’s a tricky one. She wasn’t wearing much in the way of clothing, so that wouldn’t have slowed the rate of drop in body temperature. The water was 58.4 degrees, and the body temperature taken when she came in yesterday morning was 79.2. There’s some rigor mortis, but not much. She must have been mostly on her back after she died, because lividity is well-established, as you can see.” He gave the girl’s buttock a poke. “So at least eight to ten hours. Taking all that into consideration…. I can’t be absolutely precise, but I’d say that when you found her, she’d been dead for ten to twelve hours.”

  “So, late on Wednesday evening then? Between nine o’clock and midnight?”

  “I’d say that’s about right. Probably closer to ten o’clock than midnight, with eleven being the prime number,” he said with a grin, but then he shook his head clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “It was pre-meditated, personal, and brutal. Whoever did this to her must have hated her very much.”

  “Was she killed where we found her, or dumped there after her death?”

  “Lividity suggests she was killed on the spot, but I don’t think so. Look here.” He pointed to her left wrist. “This is where she wore her watch. There’s some discoloration there, too, and here on her right ankle.”

  He stared at the body, seemingly lost in thought. I looked at the wrist and ankle. The bruising on the wrist was barely discernable, and I couldn’t see it on the ankle at all, but if Doc said it was there, it was.

  “And…?” I prompted.

  “I’m thinking that the discoloration might have been caused by pressure. Look, suppose someone—two someones—picked her up by her wrists and ankles to carry her. That would have put pressure on the watch, causing it to dig in and cause bruising. The discoloration on the ankle is slight, so… it’s difficult to say. Maybe she was grabbed by the wrists and dragged, by just one person. If so, that might account for the lack of shoes. They could have slipped off as she was being dragged…. If she was dumped, it would have had to have been within an hour of death, two at the most.”

  He was silent for a moment, then turned, stripped off his gloves, and said, “Anything else? No? Good luck to you, Harry boy. You’ll need it.”

  “Well at least we have something to work with, and we know who she is. So that’s a good start. I’ll pass it all on to Kate Gazzara. It’s her baby. I’m just here to get the skinny. Anything else I should know, Doc?”

  He thought for a moment, shrugged, then shook his head. “Not that I can think of. If I do think of anything, I’ll give you a buzz. In the meantime, I’ll send Kate a preliminary report. The results of the toxicology… two, maybe three weeks.”

  I nodded, thanked him, stripped off the scrubs and the rest of the gear, and left him muttering to himself. Carol waved goodbye.

  To say I was depressed was putting it mildly. I knew Angela Hartwell. In fact, I’d known her for several years. Her husband, Regis, now deceased, had been a member of the club. She retained the membership after he died.

  I wondered…. We never had figured that out, had we. There had always been some question about that, his death. He was a banker. Died of a heart attack. Hell, he was only thirty-eight years old. Fit as a damn fiddle. Induced, maybe? SUX or potassium chloride? Who knows. He was too young and too fit. Well, I would have thought he was, but what did I know?

  I sat in my car outside the forensic center for several minutes, daydreaming. I was in another world, but not for long. My Bluetooth cut into the music playing on the radio. It was Kate.

  “Hey you,” I said. “What’s the haps?”

  “You out of there yet?”

  “Just a few minutes ago. I was going to drop by and give you the good word. Where are you?”

  “The Boathouse. You want to join me for lunch?”

  “I can do that.” I looked at my watch. It was eleven thirty. “Give me about five minutes. Order for me, will you? Get me a bowl of gumbo.”

  Traffic was light, so the ride to Riverfront Parkway was quick and uneventful. By a quarter to twelve I was seated across from Kate, sipping on a Blue Moon and gazing out the window. As usual, she was easy on the eye. Jeans and a white blouse. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail.

  “So,” she said, “how did it go?”

  I filled her in on what little detail I had and wished her good luck with it, but she wasn’t having it.

  “I told you I was swamped. We’re short-handed, Lonnie is back on the street for a month, and I just don’t have the time. I do have you, however, and I managed to talk the chief into letting you consult, but I can tell you, he didn’t like it worth a damn, so don’t let me down.”

  “Consult? That means I get to do all the work. Kate. I can’t do it. I’m swamped, too. I have—”

  “Oh hell, Harry. Suck it up. It’s not like I ask much of you. I’m always there when you need me. Now I need a favor. And it should be simple enough, right? And then there’s the fact that you know these people. They’re your kind; the country club crowd. They’ll respond to you when they won’t to me.”

  I leaned back in my seat and looked at her. She was lovely—serious as hell, but lovely. I shook my head, exasperated. I really didn’t like it, but….

  “Okay. Okay. I’ll see what I can do—but if it gets complicated, Kate, I’m dumping it right back in your l
ap. I’m not a cop anymore. I left the force eight years ago to get away from this type of work, and all the stupid rules and politics, the bullshit. You know that. Now you want…. Oh hell.”

  She grinned at me over the rim of her glass and sucked on her straw.

  “You love it,” she said. “You know you do. If it wasn’t for me, you’d go nuts with all that white-collar crap you handle. Thank you, Harry. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.” She looked at me through her eyelashes as she said it.

  Damn, she knows how to push my buttons.

  There was a time when those words would have sent my heart flying, but those times were, unfortunately, long gone, and it was my fault. For more than ten years, Kate and I had been much more than friends and colleagues, until… well, that’s another story. Whatever. I gave her a wan smile.

  “So where will you start?” she asked as the waiter set my gumbo down in front of me.

  “With the basics. Who? Where? What? When? How? I know who she is and when she died, but that’s about it. I’ll get Tim started on the research when I get back to the office.”

  Tim is one of my staff, an IT expert, a computer geek, whatever. He’s been with me since before he dropped out of college when he was seventeen—yeah, he’s that good—and he was a hacker way before that.

  “Tell me something, Kate. I seem to recall that her husband was a banker, and that he died kinda suddenly a year ago, maybe a little more. Did you hear anything about that?”

  “No. I don’t recall anything. Why? What’s so strange about a sudden death? It happens all the time. Heart attack, stroke, aneurysm.”

  “True, but this guy was thirty-eight and a fitness freak. Worked out every day, as I recall. But you heard nothing about it?”

  She shook her head, sipped another spoonful of gumbo, and looked up at me over the spoon. Then she froze. “Oh no. Don’t you even go there. This is about her, not him. Harry. It’s supposed to be quick and easy. Remember?”

  l sucked air in through my teeth. “Yeah… but….”

  “No buts, Harry. Angela Hartwell. That’s it. We put it to bed, and quickly…. Oh shit. Here we go. I know that look on your face. That’s what I get when I involve you. Damn it.”

  I grinned at her. She was right, of course. My brain was already starting to churn. Two sudden deaths. Husband and wife. A year apart? Well… wouldn’t you be intrigued?

  “No worries. I’ll just do a little checking. Just to make sure. Probably nothing to it.”

  “Hah.” She dropped her spoon into the empty bowl, sat back in her chair, and stared at me.

  Now that’s unfair. She knows I never could resist those eyes.

  “You hang me out to dry, Harry,” she said quietly, “and it will be the last time you do. I’m just about fed up with you making something out of nothing. Angela Hartwell. We sort it out and we put it away. Understand?’

  I nodded. “Time to go,” I said, avoiding her eye and rising to my feet. “Your treat, right?”

  “The hell it is. Dig out that fat wallet of yours and consider yourself lucky I let you buy me lunch.”

  She pushed her chair back and stood up. “Angela Hartwell. No more, no less.” And with that, she stalked off out of the dining room, her heels clicking sharply on the wood floor. She really did have a nice….

  I dropped two twenties on the table and headed back to my office.

  Chapter 3

  It was just after one o’clock when I got back to my office that afternoon. Bob wasn’t back from lunch, but the rest of my staff were all busily going about their duties.

  Jacque, my long-time PA, glared at me, but said nothing. She did, however, thrust a wad of papers at me as I walked past her desk to my office.

  Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about her. I expect a lot from her. She, in turn, expects a lot from me. She also has to deal with my moods and disrespect for detail on a daily basis. She’s twenty-seven years old but looks nineteen, and has a master's degree in business administration and a bachelor’s in criminology: quite a combination, which is one of the reasons I hired her even before she got out of college. But more than that, I liked her. She’s Jamaican, and has an infectious personality. When she cracks a smile, she lights up the room, and she has a great sense of humor when she’s not cranky with me. But she can be serious when she needs to be, especially when she's at the office.

  I grabbed the pile and tilted my head to indicate she was to follow me. She closed the door behind her and seated herself on the other side of my desk.

  I dumped the papers off to one side. She frowned, got up, grabbed them, and set them squarely down in front of me, not saying a single word.

  “Okay, Jacque. I get it. Look, I need some space in my schedule. I need to work a murder. How busy am I?”

  Now that might seem like a stupid question, with an answer I should know, right? Wrong. I stay busy, and I’m not the most organized manager in the world, as she will readily tell you. My day starts around eight o’clock, and never seems to really end. It all takes a lot of keeping up with, hence the need and question for Jacque.

  “Very. You are personally handling three cases, overseeing a dozen more, and you have six potential new clients, all important, all awaiting your call.”

  “I knew that!” The hell I did.

  You’ll understand now why I was so reluctant to let Kate railroad me into taking on the Hartwell murder. I employ nine people, including five investigators, two secretaries, an intern, and Jacque. I run a very successful, busy agency.

  There are several reasons why I’m so successful. The first is that I’m discreet—what I learn stays between me and my clients.

  Second: I know just about everyone that matters, not only in Chattanooga, but also in Atlanta, Birmingham, and Nashville, not the least of whom is my father, August. It’s not what you know, but who you know, right?

  Third: I’m a winner. Since I first opened my doors, I have worked for just about every important lawyer and judge south of the Kentucky border, and more than a few of our city's most prominent residents. In all but a few cases, I’ve produced results.

  Finally, over the past two years, I’d achieved a certain national notoriety, having put away a powerful United States congressman for life, for solving a decade old cold murder case, and for shedding light on the dirty secrets of human trafficking. All of which brings me a lot of business.

  “Look, Jacque,” I said, as I picked up the pile of paperwork. “You can handle most of this. I know you can. I trust your judgment. Make the calls, get the information, make the decisions, and tie it all up. Whatever you decide, I’ll back you. If you need signatures, fine. As to my cases, I’ll hand Webber off to Heather. I’ll need to bring her up to speed, but that shouldn’t take long. Bob can take over Jamison. He’s already familiar with it, and it should be wrapping up pretty soon.

  “That leaves me with Elizabeth Roe’s missing son, correct?”

  She nodded, expressionless.

  “I’ll handle that one myself. How does that sound?”

  “We’ll see. I’m not sure Heather is up to handling Webber… but we’ll see.”

  I could tell she didn’t like it. When she gets stressed, angry, or pressured, her Jamaican accent becomes just a little more discernable, the way it was right now.

  “We’ll both keep an eye on it, but she’s experienced and damned good at what she does and…. I mean hell, Jacque. I can’t do it all myself. That’s why I hired these people. Gotta let ‘em run, do their thing.”

  She nodded.

  “Okay then. If you’ll start the ball rolling,” I said, handing her the pile of papers, “I need a few minutes with Tim. Would you send him in, please?”

  When I said Tim was geeky, I meant it. He’s tall, skinny, wears glasses, and speaks a language only he and his peers can understand—but oh boy does he know his way around a computer. He maintains the company website, handles background checks and skip searches, finds people, addresses, phone numbers,
you name it. You cannot hide from Tim. He’s also the busiest member of my staff.

  He came in, loaded up as usual with a laptop, iPad, and iPhone. I looked at him and shook my head. He grinned at me, sat down, dumped the iPad and phone on the edge of my desk, and sat there looking at me expectantly, his hair hanging over his eyes.

  “Tim. I need to know everything there is to know about a guy named Regis Hartwell. He was a local community banker. He died just over a year ago. I also need to know about his wife, Angela. We found her body in the river yesterday morning. I need to know about their social lives—real and virtual. I need to know about their business lives, who their friends were, hobbies, financials, reputations, everything—and I need it fast, so drop everything and spend the rest of the day on it. But before you do anything else, I need to know where she lived.”

  “You got it, Boss. If it’s all local, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Good.” I looked at my watch. It was just after one thirty. “Okay, go get to it. I’ll expect something before close of day.” And he went.

  I spent the next hour with Bob Ryan, my lead investigator, and Heather Stillwell, one of two senior investigators. I brought them up to speed on the two cases I was handing off to them, and then I grabbed a cup of coffee—Dark Italian Roast, my favorite—closed my office door, and sat back down behind my desk.

  I sipped on the coffee for a few moments, lost in thought. I kept seeing Angela’s body, lying on its back in the shallow waters of the Tennessee.

  Why there? I wondered. It’s remote, yes; more than a half-mile from the clubhouse or nearest road. Easier access to the river than anywhere else on the golf course. But whoever dumped her sure as hell wasn’t trying to hide her, and it couldn’t have been easy getting there. Might have been seen, even late at night, after dark; there are people in the clubhouse until after midnight most nights… although, most of them are usually a little under the weather.

  And then there’s that ‘gentle strangulation’ thing. That’s really weird: nasty, malicious, deliberate.