by CJ Lyons
“I can’t speak to that as I haven’t found the cause of death yet.” He turned to his assistant, Joel. Tierney was constantly snapping at him, expecting him to somehow read his mind and know what he needed next. Harper could tell that he would have preferred if Maggie never got a day off work. “Did you find the films yet?”
Usually Maggie would take full body X-rays in any suspicious death case and have them ready for Tierney to examine before he started working with the body. But there’d been some screw-up somewhere and today Tierney was forced to examine the body while waiting for his X-rays.
“Yes, sir.” Joel snapped to attention and flicked a large computer screen on. “Here they are.” He moved to prepare the head and neck for dissection, cleaning and covering the rest of the body, while Tierney reviewed the films.
“Well, now. Harper, look at this.” He tapped the computer and an enlarged view of the skull films appeared on Harper’s screen in the observation area. “See this?”
Harper sent a silent prayer of thanks to Maggie. In the spring, when she’d first been assigned to Luka’s squad and had been lost in a sea of forensic knowledge that she’d never had to use out on the street, Maggie had given her informal tutorials. Tierney traced a thin black line that threaded the otherwise white bones of Spencer’s upper neck.
“A fracture?” Harper hazarded a guess and was rewarded with a nod from Tierney. She touched her own neck in the same area, immediately below the base of her skull. “Cervical spine—that’s bad, right?”
“For this gentleman, worse than bad. Fatal. Both odontoid processes, extending into the body of the second cervical vertebrae.”
“Is that what killed him?” Harper asked. A broken neck—she hadn’t been expecting that. Neither had Luka—although he had suspected that Spencer hadn’t killed himself, she remembered.
“Unless I find another injury, yes.” He whirled back to the cadaver and grabbed a scalpel. “Let’s see if I’m right.” As he slid the knife around the face, prepping to reflect the skin back over the scalp to reveal the skull, Harper averted her gaze—she hated this part.
“With his neck broken like that, would he have been paralyzed right away? Or might he have lived long enough to make it to his car, turn it on?” Because someone had started the car—the question was, could it have been Spencer himself? Perhaps this was all an accident, only Spencer had succumbed to his injuries before he could leave the garage? But if so, why did he have his suicide note and confession with him?
Unless someone else had placed them there. The widow would be a good bet, given that the confession exonerated her. Who else stood to profit from Spencer taking the fall for conning all those people? Except, so far, her alibi seemed to check out.
Tierney waited until he had the brain and spine exposed and could determine the extent of the damage before answering her question. “If you’re hypothesizing that he managed to walk to his car, open the door, climb in, and turn it on—no, in my opinion there’s little possibility he could have managed any of that. I think he would have dropped where he was injured. The injury would have killed him approximately ten to fifteen minutes later without medical intervention. In my opinion,” he repeated in a tone that suggested that his opinion was as good as fact. Which, knowing Tierney, it probably was.
“How would a fracture like that happen?”
“A rapid deceleration injury combined with the angle of impact. We see this type of injury in diving accidents, pedestrians—especially children—struck by automobiles, slip and falls, such as where a person lands hitting their occiput on a step or curb.”
A step. Like the running board below the SUV’s driver’s door. “What killed him?”
He glanced up from his probing of the neck bones. “That’s the unfortunate part. You see, if he’d received prompt medical attention, the fracture could have been stabilized and he might have survived. But as it was, a spinal injury that high, the accompanying swelling would have eventually compressed the nerves that control the muscles of the rib cage and diaphragm. Basically, his breathing would have become more and more shallow until, eventually, he asphyxiated.”
Suffocated, she translated. A horrible way to go. “But if he was paralyzed as soon as he fell, then someone else must have placed him in the car.” Unless… “Any signs that he was moved after he died?”
“No. All indications are that he died sitting up in the driver’s seat.”
Meaning, Standish hadn’t been alone in the garage. Someone had moved him into the car and made his death appear a suicide—all while he was slowly suffocating to death. “So, we’re talking premeditated murder.”
Tierney met her gaze through the glass separating them. He gave her a grin that suggested she was asking the right questions. “Excellent reasoning, Detective. Find your answers and you find the person or persons who left this man to die.”
Twenty-Three
“Code indigo, nursery,” the calm yet authoritative tones of the hospital operator sounded from every speaker. “All personnel, be advised, code indigo, nursery.”
“I take it that’s us,” Luka said, as he waited, on hold with hospital security. Good Sam’s campus encompassed several buildings connected by a maze of tunnels, two parking structures, and three off-campus parking lots. It was a big area to cover with only a handful of personnel.
“Code black is anyone with a weapon, code silver is for a missing dementia patient, and code indigo is a missing child,” Leah told him. They sat together inside the locked nursery where she was going over Beth Doe’s chart and was on hold with the social worker who had visited her last night.
Leah held a hand up and turned her focus to the phone. “This is Dr. Wright. I need to talk to you about Beth Doe. You did a consult on her.”
Luka was still on hold, so Leah put her phone on speaker. “Why?” the social worker answered, sounding hurried. Luka glanced at her name in the chart, it wasn’t someone he recognized from his work with Leah’s Crisis Intervention Team.
“Your note says she refused services.”
“Right, because she did. What’s this all about?” Now the social worker sounded defensive.
“I need to know exactly what you saw and what she said. What was her affect? Did she mention a plan, a home, any friends or family she’d be contacting? What safety net does she have to help her with the baby? Was the baby in the room? How were they interacting?” Leah spit off the questions in rapid fire, clearly annoyed. “You know, basic foundation of any social work consult.”
“My God, it’s her, isn’t it? She’s the code indigo.”
“And you might have been the last person to see her.” Leah was exaggerating; they already knew the nurses had seen Beth after the social worker, but sometimes a bit of melodrama loosened tongues. “By the way, I’m here with Detective Sergeant Luka Jericho of the Violent Crimes Unit. He’s also waiting to speak with you. We’re up in the nursery; when you get here, we’ll buzz you in.” Because of the lockdown, most of the hospital keycodes were deactivated.
The social worker blew her breath out. “I’m on my way.”
While they waited, Luka read the nursing notes. “They were getting ready to discharge mom even though the pediatricians wanted to watch the baby another day? How does that work?”
“Blame it on insurance,” Leah replied. “They only cover twenty-four hours after delivery, then the mom is kicked out unless she has complications. But if we have room available, the nurses are really good at finding ways to let mom stay; they call it ‘nesting.’”
“A woman just gave birth and you kick her out on the street?”
“It’s either that or the hospital won’t get paid anything for violating the insurance guidelines. And what good does it do anyone if no one can use the hospital? I mean, no wonder our infant and child mortality rate—not to mention the number of women who die of pregnancy and delivery complications—is the same as most third-world countries. It’s not because doctors and nurses are stupid or we
don’t want to do our jobs; it’s because politicians and business people are lining their pockets with money meant to go to patient care. The insurance companies have skimmed everything they can from the health care industry and there’s nothing left.”
She took a breath and Luka held up his hand to indicate that he was no longer on hold. The security chief had been rambling for a few moments, but since none of what he said was helpful, Luka had barely listened.
“These are vulnerable missing persons,” he told the chief. “I need you to pull the video of any vehicles leaving campus, as well as all entrances and exits over the last two hours.” He hung up before the chief could sputter a protest.
Two hours. Beth and her baby could be anywhere by now. He turned to Leah. “If Beth had provided her details, had insurance to pay, followed all your hospital procedures except she left with her baby before the paperwork was done, would you consider her or the baby at risk? Enough to warrant a manhunt? Because with us already two hours behind, that’s what it will take—we’ll need more than my people, we’ll need state police, maybe even the feds, public service announcements, which means getting the press involved as well.”
Her glare was answer enough, but he needed more. “I’m playing devil’s advocate, here, but to my knowledge Beth hasn’t broken any laws. So unless I can prove to a judge that she and her child are at risk—”
“Luka, she was terrified,” Leah protested.
“Of what? Of who?”
“I don’t know.” Frustration creased her forehead. “What about an Amber Alert for the baby?”
They both knew she was grasping at straws. Amber Alerts were only issued when you had descriptions of the suspects and their vehicle. Otherwise, they only served to alarm the public and alert the subjects that the police were searching for them. “An Amber Alert for his own mother? We have no evidence that anyone else is involved or that they’ve been kidnapped—”
“We have no evidence they weren’t.”
“We also have no evidence that Beth wasn’t delusional. Possibly her fears were a result of a mental illness, not based in reality?”
Leah directed her sigh at the phone where she’d hung up from the social worker. “We should know that—if the social worker did a proper consult.”
“And we have no evidence that the baby is at risk, being with her? You said so far everything looked fine, the pediatricians were monitoring him, right?”
“Yes, but…” She trailed off. “I can’t prove anything, but Luka, trust me, I know, I just know. This isn’t a case of a woman who mistrusts doctors or modern medicine. She was truly, genuinely terrified. She didn’t just leave. She ran.”
“There’s not much I can do, legally. But I’ll review the hospital security footage, see if we can identify how she left, if she used a vehicle. And if she was with anyone.”
“It’s been two hours. She could be anywhere. If she has a car, she could be in Pittsburgh, Philly, New York, DC, Baltimore. And from there—”
“She doesn’t have any ID, a credit card or a phone,” he reminded her. “She has no money. So wherever she went, her first stop would need to be to get those things.” Unless Beth had other plans for herself and her baby. For some reason all he could think of was Spencer’s suicide plan—throwing himself off a bridge. Luka envisioned Beth and her baby sprawled at the bottom of a ravine. “You knew her better than anyone. Do you think she’d hurt her baby?”
Leah’s eyes went wide. “No. No.” If the first denial was vehement, the second was a little uncertain. “No. I don’t think so. She seemed totally focused on the baby’s safety. She was afraid someone was going to take him.”
The buzzer sounded—the social worker waiting to be admitted. Leah saved Luka the pain of getting his crutches and went to let her in. “I’m Dr. Leah Wright and this is Detective Sergeant Luka Jericho.” She made introductions as they all took seats in the narrow charting area.
“Lise Haywood.” She sat hunched forward, hugging a binder to her chest. She was younger than Luka had imagined from her voice, but the expression in her eyes—that, he recognized; he’d seen it too many times in cops. Burnout. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I did my job. That’s all.”
“You showed up for work and you’ll get paid for your hours, but as to doing your job—” Leah snapped, surprising Luka. He caught her eye, reminding her that despite the unusual circumstances, this was still a witness interview. Funny, because he’d seen her face down a man with a gun without flinching or losing her calm. But the idea of someone letting down one of her patients sparked her fury.
“Look.” Haywood’s tone was one of aggrievement. As if she’d heard this before. Or maybe she felt guilty. “Talk to my supervisor, if you’ve got a complaint. You know how many—”
“All we want to know,” Luka put in, keeping his voice low and friendly, “is about this one case. Your professional impressions. We need you to be our eyes and ears.”
Haywood shifted in her seat, focusing on Luka, her back to Leah. She opened her binder, her gaze never raising from its scrawled notes. “Okay, then. I found her to be calm, attentive and caring for her infant, with no suicidal or homicidal ideation. No obvious cognitive defects or signs of delusions or psychosis. She simply refused to give any identifying information. I’m not sure whether that’s not within her constitutional rights, by the way. I mean, if she was Amish, we wouldn’t be hassling her for wanting to leave as soon as possible or even insisting on a home birth. And it’s not my job to ensure that she is able to pay her hospital bill. So, without any further cooperation forthcoming from her, and no signs of any mental illness that might pose a risk to mother or child, my assessment was completed.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Leah interjected. “What about discharge planning? Transportation? Money for food? Adequate housing? Were you planning to let her and her baby leave with nowhere to go?”
“No.” Haywood ignored Leah, speaking directly to Luka. “My plan was, since the baby was being monitored for forty-eight hours for possible GBS infection, I was going to return later today and focus our next meeting on the infant’s needs upon discharge. I had no indication that mother and child would abscond prior to that meeting.” She stood, her grip on her binder white-knuckled. “I really can’t tell you anything more and I have other clients waiting.”
Luka waved her out. Once the door shut, Leah said, “Why weren’t you tougher on her? She might have seen something that gave us an idea of where Beth went.”
“No. She wouldn’t have. I’ll bet if we asked her to pick Beth out of a line-up, she wouldn’t even know what she looked like. Probably buried her head in her notes, checking off everything so she could move to her next case.”
Leah made a noise of disgruntlement that Luka sympathized with. He was used to less than helpful witnesses, but clearly she’d expected more from a fellow healthcare professional. He remembered when they’d first met and she’d been a suspect in her husband’s murder. He’d interviewed the ER staff and the consensus had been that Leah pushed her team hard, striving for excellence. The only person she was harder on was herself.
“When’d you learn how to be such a good bad cop?” he asked, hoping to joke her out of her foul mood.
“From you and Ray when you interrogated me after Ian was killed.”
He hated to tell her, but they’d taken it easy on Leah. “What’s GBS? She said the baby was being monitored for it.”
“Group B strep. A type of bacteria that can spread from the mom to the baby during birth.”
“Is it serious?” His phone buzzed. A text from Harper that Spencer’s autopsy had yielded a preliminary cause of death, asking him to call her.
“It can be. Can cause meningitis, sepsis. Most moms at risk get antibiotics before delivery to prevent it in the baby, but—”
“Beth delivered him before she could get any. So the baby needs medication?”
“No. From his chart, he looked so good that the pediatricians decided to mon
itor him clinically after checking cultures. If he’s doing well and the cultures don’t show any bacteria after forty-eight hours, the baby is safe to go home.”
“Which means he’s still in the danger zone.”
She nodded, her expression grim. “Technically, yes. But I’m more worried about Beth’s state of mind. The doctors and nurses would have all explained the risk to her baby, the need to monitor him. So what was so terrifying that she’d risk her baby’s life by running?”
Twenty-Four
As Harper waited for Tierney to finish his exhaustive examination of Spencer Standish’s body, she followed up with the CSU techs who were examining the SUV he died in.
“Double-check for any signs of blood or hair,” she instructed them. “He died of a head wound and with the black paint and upholstery—”
“We know how to look for blood,” the tech cut her off. “But we’ll double-check. I’ll follow up on the other samples from the garage as well.”
“Thanks. Anything from the car’s computer? It would help with calculating TOD.” If she could tell Tierney the exact time the car was turned on, compared to Standish’s carbon monoxide levels and the time his body was found, along with other variables like temperature, then she hoped he would be able to calculate a narrow window for their time of death.
“Yeah, sure. Hang on.” The sound of computer keys echoed through the line. “Let’s see. The engine was started at 8:04. Hmm, he must have been close to the car with his phone, because there’s a call showing at that exact same time—maybe he was already on the phone and it switched to the car’s Bluetooth when he got close to the car? If so, that would mean he started the car himself.”
An image formed in Harper’s mind. Standish in his garage, doors still shut, using his key fob to remotely start the car, walking toward it while speaking on his phone. But before he either got into the driver’s seat—or perhaps he had gotten inside the car but left it again—he fell, breaking his neck. An accident? Or was he attacked by whoever moved him into the driver’s seat and left him to die? Either way, there had to be a second person present, and that person’s act of abandoning Standish constituted premeditated murder. “We’re still missing his phone. Can you tell me who the call was with?”