No Rest for the Dead
Page 9
The German Historical Museum of Berlin was his only concern since taking over as director nearly two decades earlier. An academic by training—and some said by nature—Kroege believed in hard work and routine.
Today, as every other day, he’d left his flat in Mitte on upper Friedrichstrasse at exactly 8:12, had taken the U-Bahn to Museumsinsel, and had arrived at the museum at nine sharp. He’d spent only six minutes, rather than his usual ten, reviewing his daily calendar when he realized the crate from America was still languishing in a basement workroom and had been for a week. That was it. Enough. Infuriating. That one of his prized objects—and one of the most popular with the museum’s visitors—should be sitting in a dank workroom galled him.
Kroege reached for his phone, then realized the museum installers were, like just about everyone else, on vacation.
The hallway leading to the basement storeroom was hot, the consequence of turning off the museum’s air-conditioning at night, an energy-saving effort that Kroege disapproved of despite the board vote, and particularly irritating at the moment with his starched white shirt already sticking to his thick upper body.
He was sorry he’d loaned the iron maiden to the American museum in the first place and would not have if the curator hadn’t persisted in a letter-writing campaign that culminated in her calling and pleading, insisting it would be the centerpiece of an exhibition devoted to savage-torture devices, and, in her polite-though-forthright manner, convincing him. Unlike most of the American curators Kroege dealt with, who acted as if they were entitled to anything and everything, Rosemary Thomas had been a velvet steamroller, as genteel as she was persuasive. And good to her word, her exhibition at the McFall Art Museum had garnered serious press, which had credited his museum with the loan, and so perhaps it had not been a bad idea, though right now he was anxious to get it back on display.
The workroom felt like a tomb, no sign or sense of a human presence among the multisized crates and art objects awaiting repair, tools strewn along a worktable, sawdust on the floor, more suspended in the hot, sticky air.
Kroege snorted with disgust. How dare his employees leave the room in such condition? He shook his head as he made his way toward the largest crate, taller than he by several feet and twice as wide.
Kroege circled the crate as if inspecting some object from outer space and stopped dead when he noticed a foot-long crack in the plywood. Had the maiden been damaged in shipping?
He plucked an electric drill from the worktable and quickly removed a dozen Sheetrock screws until one side of the panel fell open—and with that came the faint odor of rotten eggs or fruit.
Kroege, features screwed up, imagined some idiotic American workman accidentally packing his lunch along with the precious maiden.
He stared at the one exposed side. It looked fine. But he had to see if it had been damaged elsewhere.
More screws undone, more plywood tugged away, until the maiden stood in all her glory, a black iron monolith, forbidding and impressive.
Kroege pictured its insides, the iron prongs that closed on its living victims, a torture device from which the only escape was death.
He ran his hand over the hard, pebbly surface, ignoring the smell, which was stronger now, more like rotting meat than fruit or eggs, but the device itself looked fine, unscathed.
Just then he looked down and saw the liquid seeping out from the bottom.
“Was zum Teufel…?”
Kroege bent over to swipe a finger through the puddle, but never reached it, the stench so strong, so repulsive, that he immediately straightened up, fighting the urge to gag.
He stared at the iron maiden, then slowly, and with much effort, began to pry her open.
He didn’t get far.
The object inside, as big as Kroege, wrapped in heavy, opaque plastic and bound with tape and rope, tumbled out and hit the floor with a thud. Then, as its contents settled, the top of the plastic split open and a milky ooze, studded with lumps and streaked with lemony yellow and deep crimson, pooled around his shoes, while the stench filled his nose and caught in the back of his throat like burning acid and rot. When, as if hypnotized, he dared a closer look, he recognized a human skull and the black hole of a mouth that appeared to be moving.
Hand over his nose, Kroege looked closer, realizing too late that the movement was caused by a swarm of maggots.
Then he was spinning, flailing, shoes skidding in the primordial ooze, and slipped and fell, his face inches from the hideous skull, one murky, jellied eye socket staring at him as he frantically scampered away and somehow managed to right himself, the contents of his belly having finally worked their way up into his throat, vomit spewing forth as he raced from the workroom.
The Police Reports
KATHY REICHS
EVIDENCE
TRANSFER RECORD
Institute of Legal Medicine
REPORT OF AUTOPSY EXAMINATION
DECEDENT
Document Identifier: C1998073042
Autopsy Type: ME Autopsy
Name: Unknown (Presumed, Thomas, Christopher, DOB 19 09 52)
Age: 35 to 50 years
Race: White
Sex: M
Stature: 183 centimeters +/-
AUTHORIZATION
Authorized by: Dr. Dagmar Zepper
Received From: Berlin City Police, District 3
ENVIRONMENT
Date of Exam 20/7/1998 Time of Exam 0915 hours
Autopsy Facility Institute of Legal Medicine, Berlin
Persons Present. Adolph Munger, Mette Brinkman
CERTIFICATION
Cause of Death
Undetermined
Manner of Death
Homicide
The facts stated herein are correct to the best of my knowledge and belief.
Signed by
Bruno Muntz, MD 20/7/1998, 1429 hours
DIAGNOSES
Decomposed human adult
IDENTIFICATION
Body Identified By
Personal effects; partial print, left fifth finger
EXTERNAL DESCRIPTION
Body Condition Decomposed/skeletal
Hair Degraded, original color is undeterminable
Teeth Missing, save one fragment
Clothing was adult male-type trousers, jacket, shirt, and undergarments. A gold belt buckle bore the initials CT, surrounded by a circular diamond pattern. When removed from the apparatus, the remains weighed 60 kilograms. Organs were liquefied. Brain and soft tissue were putrefied. Some bones remained connected by ligamentous tissue. One digit was deeply embedded in the left femoroacetabular junction, preserving the tissue of the distal aspect. Insect specimens were collected and submitted for analysis. See separate entomology report.
INJURIES
Though sloughing, the skin of the torso and limbs showed multiple sharp-instrument perforations. Though putrefied, the muscles of the torso and limbs showed multiple sharp-instrument perforations. Fifty-three fractures and perforations were seen on the skull and postcranial skeleton. No associated hemorrhage was evident. All sharp- and blunt-instrument trauma was consistent with postmortem injury due to spikes projecting inward within the iron maiden apparatus.
DISPOSITION OF CLOTHING AND PERSONAL EFFECTS
Clothing discarded. Belt buckle returned to family along with remains.
PROCEDURES
Radiographs
Selected postmortem odontological and long-bone radiographs were obtained to aid in determining identity and cause of death. See separate radiology and odontology reports.
IDENTIFICATION
See separate fingerprint report.
INTERNAL EXAMINATION
Body Cavities
Organs liquefied. No samples retained.
Skeletal examination
Survey
The bones consisted of a complete adult skeleton. Fractures and perforations were noted at fifty-three locations. (See attached skeletal diagram.) Femoral measurement
s were taken to establish height. Following skeletal survey and measurement, radiographs were made of the maxilla and mandible, the torso, and the long bones of the lower and upper extremities. Blunt- and sharp-instrument trauma was evident at fifty-three sites. No associated hemorrhage was observed at any trauma site. Following the examination of radiographs by the radiologist and the odontologist, the bones were packaged for transport to the United States.
SUMMARY AND INTERPRETATION
At the time of discovery decedent’s identity was unknown. The body had been wrapped in thick plastic and taped.
Officials at the San Francisco Police Department provided information of a missing person, Thomas, Christopher, last seen alive 20/06/1998. Dr. Dagmar Zepper, Berlin, medical examiner, assumed jurisdiction of the body and authorized autopsy. Review of Christopher Thomas’s medical records showed that he was a white male, stature 180 centimeters, forty-five years old at the time of his disappearance.
Autopsy examination showed a skeletonized human adult with liquefied organs and putrefied brain and musculature. Long-bone measurements were consistent with a white male of stature of approximately 180 centimeters. Findings were consistent with enclosure of the body within the iron maiden apparatus following death.
Fingerprint analysis positively identified the decedent as Christopher Thomas. See fingerprint report.
Entomological analysis suggested a PMI greater than 18 days, a time period consistent with an LSA for Christopher Thomas of 20/06/1998 with discovery of the body on 18/07/1998. See entomology report.
In my opinion, the cause of death in this case is most appropriately certified as “undetermined.” Examination of the skeletal remains does not allow differentiation of death from a natural disease process such as pneumonia, or from a nontraumatic external means, such as asphyxia.
The circumstances of body treatment require manner of death be classified as “homicide.”
Bruno Muntz 20 July 1998
Bruno Muntz, MD 20 July 1998
DIAGRAMS
1. Skeleton (front/back)
ASSOCIATED REPORTS
Entomology
Fingerprint
Odontology
Radiology
THE PRESENT
8
JOHN LESCROART
The fog was in.
The forty-two-year-old estate lawyer Stan Ballard pulled his car into an open parking space at Ocean Beach about a hundred yards south of San Francisco’s legendary tourist attraction the Cliff House, which was all but invisible through the gray cloud that enveloped the western half of the city.
For a long moment, cocooned in the warmth of his Lexus, Ballard simply sat behind the wheel and let the motor run, watching the mist settle onto the windshield, almost as if it were actually raining. But there was no real rain, only the damned perennial fog. On the dashboard, he noted the external temperature—forty-three degrees—and shook his head with disgust.
The first day of summer. Ridiculous.
Ballard wore a light charcoal suit with infinitesimally small, maroon pinstripes that had set him back $1,900 at Barcelino. He also sported a TAG Heuer watch, a $200 custom-made ivory dress shirt with his initials on the breast pocket, a Jerry Garcia tie (to balance out the ultraconservative tone of the rest of his attire), a highly shined pair of Brioni loafers. Even his knee-length, black silk socks came dear—$18 a pair. But he knew that if you wanted to instill confidence in your clients, you simply had to dress the part, as though money were the last thing you, or they, ever had to worry about.
Even without the elegant threads, Ballard cut an impressive figure. He worked out in his converted basement for an hour and a half every morning, so his six-foot frame looked pretty much the way it had when he’d pitched for Cal back in the eighties. A few lines had begun to crop up around his hazel eyes, but his light brown hair was still thick, his skin ruddy and smooth. The prominent, slightly off-kilter nose only added to his aura of powerful manhood.
Finally, he couldn’t put the inevitable off any longer, and he killed the ignition, took a steadying breath against the temperature shock, and opened the door.
There, out on the beach, where she said she’d be, by one of the boulder-bordered fire circles the hippies and/or the homeless used most nights, he could barely make out the huddled figure of his wife. He’d been with Sarah now for eight years, and though they’d had some difficult times in their marriage—their inability to conceive their own children had been a festering wound for half of those years together—it hadn’t been until recently that Ballard had begun to consider the possibility, for no specific reason other than apathy and guilt, that their relationship might actually end in divorce.
But they weren’t there yet—he hoped.
Now Stan was playing the role of the dutiful husband, coming down here to the ocean’s edge, at Sarah’s urging, because she had told him she needed him. And because she had so obviously still needed him, suddenly in the here and now, what he was doing didn’t feel like playing a role at all. Some flame still burned among the embers at the mere thought that he might still have an important place in her life, in her heart. And the warmth of that flame both surprised and disoriented him.
The ocean’s melancholy roar as waves broke at the offshore bar thrummed under the early evening’s weight. The tide was out, the sea itself not visible through the fog.
Stan came up beside her. She was wearing jeans and hiking boots and her familiar cowled BAY TO BREAKERS sweatshirt, with the hood up over her shoulder-length hair. He cleared his throat and she looked up at him, her shoulders giving in relief.
“Is there any more room on that rock?”
She shifted over a few inches, patted where she’d been, and he lowered himself down beside her.
“I’m sorry about this,” she said. “I don’t mean to be melodramatic. I was trying to keep you out of this, but it’s been a few days now and I don’t see how I can.”
“No, you can’t,” Stan said. “Out of what, though, exactly?”
She held her hands clasped tightly in front of her, her elbows resting on her knees. “Do you know what August twenty-third is this year?”
Stan considered for a long moment. “Should I?”
“You might. It might say something if you did.”
“Which means it also says something that I don’t?”
She turned to face him. With ice-blue eyes, finely pored, fair skin, and wide, perfectly defined cheekbones, Sarah was attractive from any angle, but from straight on, her face could be distracting in its beauty. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know, Stan.” After a pause, she said, “It’s the tenth anniversary of Rosemary Thomas’s execution.”
Nodding, Stan remained silent for a beat. “I guess that’s about right.”
“It’s right. I googled it and made sure. Though I didn’t really doubt it.”
“How did it come up?”
“That’s what’s gotten me so upset. I got a letter—not an e-mail, mind you, but a real letter—from Tony Olsen.” She raised her eyes and looked out in front of her, as if she could see the breakers. “Actually, it was addressed to you.”
“When was this?”
“I don’t know. Monday, I think.”
Stan strained to keep the note of anger out of his voice. “And you opened it?”
“I had to. I was afraid of… I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“What he’d do. Of why he could be writing to you, after all this time. Of what he wanted with you.”
“Tony Olsen’s got nothing to do with me, Sarah. He was connected to Rosemary and Chris Thomas, and so was I, and that’s it.”
“I know, but your testimony… I know he never forgave you for that, and he’s a powerful man, Stan.” Again she faced him with a pleading look.
“So what did he want?”
“I’ve got the letter, if you want to read it.”
“In a minute, maybe, but what’s the short version?”
&nb
sp; “He wants to have a memorial service.”
Stan barked out an outraged laugh. “For Rosemary? That’s insane. Why would anybody want to do that? Okay, a memorial for Chris, maybe, but not for the woman who killed him.” Stan remembered now that Rosemary had mentioned such an event in her will, though he’d never expected anyone to take it seriously.
“Except nobody liked Chris.”
“I liked him all right. I’ve got to believe his mistress—what was her name, Haile—she liked him. And there were others.”
“Girlfriends, yes. But, according to Jon, the guy was a thorough shit. Believe me. He dug up some crazy dirt on Christopher Thomas during his investigation. And Haile? She was just impressed with his money and power. For you the Thomases were just early clients who helped you get going. But Christopher wasn’t anybody’s idea of a nice guy. And maybe, in fact, Rosemary didn’t kill him.”
“Wrong. That’s your ex-husband talking. There’s no maybe on that score. She killed him all right. The jury had no problem with that. There wasn’t ever any doubt about whether—” Suddenly he stopped and turned to his wife. “Ah. But this isn’t really about Tony, is it?”
Sarah hunched down farther into her sweatshirt.
“Maybe I ought to take a look at the letter,” Stan said.
“All right.” She reached inside the sweatshirt and came out with an envelope. “But you’ll see, he never mentions Jon.”
“No. He wouldn’t, would he? Especially to us. You’re married to me now. That case is what got us together. No need to belabor the obvious, but Jon always thought he screwed up that case—everybody knows that—and that was what screwed him up. Terminally.”
“Not terminally.”
“No? Well enough to lose you over.”
“I know. I just wish it could have been something else.”
“There was something else, if you remember. Animal connection, if nothing else.”
But the small attempt at humor got no rise from her. “I sometimes wonder if there was nothing else.”