Cold Blooded (Dennis McQueen 02)

by Randisi, Robert J.

  “What’s this about a frozen guy on Coney Island?”

  “I’ll fill you in, after you meet the boss.”

  He led her across the room to the open door of the lieutenant’s office. He entered without knocking. “Boss, here’s Detective Sommers.”

  Jessup looked up from his desk, then stood up. He stared at Sommers for a moment, and McQueen knew the man was replaying in his mind the physical description he’d been given of the new detective in his squad.

  “Detective Sommers,” he said, finally.

  “Sir,” she said. “I’m very happy to be here.”

  “And we’re happy to have you,” Jessup said. “Getting settled in all right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Has Sergeant McQueen told you that you’ll be partnered with him for the time being?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “I’m looking forward to working with him.”

  “Are you familiar with the sergeant, Detective Sommers?” Jessup asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  McQueen looked surprised, exchanged a glance with his boss.

  “And how is that?” the lieutenant asked.

  “When I found out I was being transferred here, I did some research,” she explained.

  McQueen and Jessup both waited, and when nothing else was forthcoming the lieutenant asked, “And?”

  “I read about the serial case a few years back,” she said, “where the killer was working from his dead wife’s diary. Killing people as a result of some of her fantasies?”

  It was the case that had gotten McQueen promoted to sergeant so he could be second whip on a task force. McQueen had tracked the killings and decided they were being done by the same man, a distraught husband named Turner.

  “It was primarily Sergeant McQueen’s work that led to the killer’s capture and conviction,” she said.

  She tossed a brief look McQueen’s way. “I was impressed by what I read, sir. Originally I was just happy to be transferred to any homicide squad. The fact that this was the only one with an opening didn’t matter to me, but after I did my research . . . well, I’m anxious to work with Sergeant McQueen, as I said before.”

  “Well . . . good, then,” Jessup said, after a moment, “good. Why don’t the two of you get to work, then?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “Come on, Sommers,” McQueen said. “I’ll fill you in on the body we got yesterday.”

  “If you have any problems, Sommers,” Jessup said, seating himself again, “just let me know.”

  “Yes, sir, I will,” Sommers said. “Thank you.”

  She turned and followed McQueen out.

  Chapter 7

  “What was that about?” McQueen asked.

  “What was what about?”

  McQueen waited until they were at his desk to speak again.

  “All that stuff about wanting to work with me?”

  “It’s true, Dennis,” she said. “I did the research. You did a hell of a job in that case. It couldn’t have been a fluke, could it?”

  “It sure could have,” he said.

  “But it wasn’t, was it? You’re good at this, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “Then I want to learn,” she said, “and I might as well learn from someone who, if he’s not the best, at least is good.”

  McQueen looked across the room at Velez and Cataldo, to see if they were hearing any of this. They seemed oblivious.

  “Okay,” he said, “have a seat.”

  McQueen seated himself behind his desk and Sommers took a seat across from him. He took out the report he had typed the night before, about the body on Coney Island beach, and tossed it across the desk.

  “What we have is in there, but I’ll give it to you briefly,” he said, and outlined everything that had happened the day before, what they knew, and what they didn’t know.

  “So we don’t know yet if it’s a murder or not,” she said.

  “Right.”

  “When will we know?”

  “Normally when we get a report,” he said, “but since you’re new I think I’ll take you down there so we can find out firsthand.”

  “To the lab?”

  “And the morgue.”

  She was quiet.

  “You have been to a morgue before, haven’t you?” he asked. “Seen dead bodies?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was your last assignment?”

  “Sex Crimes.”

  He got up, grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair.

  “What you’ll see at the morgue can’t be any worse than some of the stuff you saw there.”

  “Probably not,” she said.

  “Well then, go get your parka and we’ll get going.”

  “Right.”

  She ran down the hall and came back ready to go. “Where first?” she asked, in the elevator.

  “Morgue,” McQueen said. “We’re gonna find out if we have a murder on our hands.”

  They found Bannerjee in his office in the morgue in Kings County Hospital, on Clarkson Avenue in the confines of the 71 Precinct.

  “I was going to call you,” the doctor said, looking up at his visitors.

  “I’ll bet,” McQueen said. “Dr. Bannerjee, this is Detective Sommers. New to the Brooklyn South Homicide Squad. Detective, Dr. Bannerjee.”

  “My pleasure,” the handsome doctor said.

  “Nice to meet you,” Sommers said. The doctor’s good looks had not escaped her notice.

  “What have we got, Doc?” McQueen asked.

  “I have a dead body,” Bannerjee said. “You have a murder, I think.”

  “You think?”

  “Perhaps we should look at the body.”

  “Lead the way.”

  The doctor stood up, excused himself politely as he slipped past Sommers to go out the door. They followed him out, down the hall and through dual swinging doors. There was a gowned doctor at the other end of the room working on a body.

  “Do we need gowns?” Sommers asked. “Masks?”

  “I’ve already autopsied our body,” Bannerjee said. He walked to a table, grabbed the edge of the sheet that was covering the body, then paused and looked at Sommers.

  “Are you ready?”

  She swallowed and said, “I’m ready.”

  “Me, too,” McQueen said, unnecessarily.

  Bannerjee pulled the sheet down to the waist, leaving the bottom half of the body covered, from the genitals down. McQueen figured if he’d been there alone, or with Velez, the sheet would have come completely off. Ever the gentleman, the good doctor. As it was, Sommers had a good look at the incision in the torso. “The body was pretty cold when we got it,” Bannerjee said, “In fact, frozen in some areas. We had to thaw it out.”

  “He froze to death?” Sommers asked.

  “Ah,” Bannerjee said, “there’s the odd part. I found something very interesting when I removed the lungs and examined them.”

  “You put them back, right?” McQueen asked. He didn’t think they needed to see the actual lungs.

  “Yeah, but I kept enough tissue samples.”

  “And what did you find, Doctor,” McQueen asked, “when you examined the lungs?”

  “There were two very interesting things.”

  “So how was he killed?” McQueen asked impatiently.

  “Well, from the condition of the lungs I’d say he died in a fire,” Bannerjee answered.

  “He was burned to death?” Sommers asked.

  “Not quite,” the doctor said. “As you can see, there are no burns on the body.”

  “So he didn’t freeze to death, or burn to death,” McQueen said. “Should we just keep guessing? Do this by process of elimination? Hit by a car? Fell out of a tree?”

  “He’s very impatient,” Bannerjee said to Sommers. “You’ll learn that about him the longer he’s your partner.”

  “He’s not really my partner,” she said. “It’s just . . . like . . . or
ientation.”

  “Good for you,” Bannerjee said.

  “Doc?” McQueen said, feeling and exhibiting the impatience he’d been accused of.

  “Oh, right,” Bannerjee said. “Well, he died of smoke inhalation. I found evidence of not only smoke but other—”

  “So he was in a fire,” McQueen said, cutting him off. “Apparently.”

  “So somebody dropped a dead body off at the beach?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “That still doesn’t make it murder.”

  “Ah, to that.” Banneilee reached behind the head of the corpse. “If you look at the back of the skull—”

  “Doc,” McQueen said.

  “Okay, okay,” Bannerjee said, “I’ll tell, not show.”

  “Thank you.”

  “He was hit on the back of the head. Blunt force trauma.”

  “Hard enough to kill him if he hadn’t died of smoke inhalation?” McQueen asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Could the injury have been caused by a fall?” Sommers asked.

  “Possibly,” Banneijee said, “but there are other bruises on the body, on the torso, and around the kidneys. I think he was beaten, or in a fight, and then somebody hit him on the back of the head with . . . something. They then apparently left the body somewhere—in a building—in a car—something that they either set on fire, or was on fire—”

  “Hit him with something like what?”

  This time it was Sommers who cut him off. “A hammer?” she asked.

  “No, something blunt,” he said. “A club of some kind.”

  “A baseball bat?” she asked.

  “Possibly.”

  “A shillelagh?” McQueen asked, half serious, or less. Banneijee frowned.

  “I suppose so . . . although I’m not really sure about the shape of one of those.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” McQueen said. “The important thing is that you’re calling this a murder.”

  “Yes, I am,” Bannerjee said. “You’ll have my report on your desk by later today. It will have all the details that you, uh, have not allowed me to elucidate for you now.”

  “Having it in a report will be fine, Doc,” McQueen said. “This is all we need to get started.”

  “Well, there is that other interesting thing I mentioned,” Bannerjee said as McQueen turned to leave.

  “And what’s that, Doc?” He was half in, half out the door.

  “Something else about his lungs,” Bannerjee said. “They were frozen.”

  “From being in the water?” Sommers asked.

  “Definitely not.”

  “Why definitely?” McQueen asked.

  “The lungs were frozen solid,” Bannerjee said, “and covered with ice crystals. I examined the crystals and guess what I found?”

  “Doc—” McQueen said, but Sommers was more willing to play the game.

  “Freshwater?” she asked.

  “Give the lady a prize,” the M.E. said.

  “So . . . he was frozen first, and then dropped in the water?” McQueen stepped back into the room.

  “I believe so,” Bannerjee said. “I see evidence that he was in the water, not just dropped on the beach. Also . . . well, have a look.”

  They walked back to the body with the doctor, who turned the man over onto his side.

  “See that?” he asked, pointing.

  McQueen bent to have a look.

  “A scratch?”

  “Exactly.”

  It was down around the small of the back, horizontal, about four inches long. It seemed deeper at the top than at the bottom.

  “From something in the water?”

  “No,” Bannerjee said, letting the body down on its back again. “There is blood in the scratch, but not his. He was dead when he went into the water, so he was not scratched then. In fact, whenever the scratch was inflicted, he was dead, and so did not bleed.”

  “So when? And with what?”

  “Still working on that,” the doctor said.

  “About the lungs, Doc,” McQueen asked. “Why would they still be frozen?”

  “Have you ever taken a turkey out of the freezer and thawed it for Thanksgiving, Sergeant?” Bannerjee asked.

  “What’s that got to do—”

  “I have,” Sommers said, catching on. “The outside can be thawed, but when you slide your hand inside it’s still frozen solid and covered with crystals of ice.”

  “Exactly!” Bannerjee said, happily. He looked at McQueen. “She’s sharp, this one.”

  “So the body was in a freezer?”

  “That’s what I think,” Bannerjee said. “That’s why I can’t figure out the time of death. After he was killed he was stored in a freezer, and then disposed of days . . . perhaps even weeks later.”

  “Well, that’s just great,” McQueen said. “Doc, when you get something more from that scratch, let me know, huh?”

  “You’ll be the first.”

  “We gotta go,” McQueen said.

  “Detective Sommers,” Bannerjee said, executing a small bow, “it’s been a pleasure.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” she said, with a smile.

  “Sommers!” McQueen called from the hall.

  “Where to now?” she asked from the passenger seat.

  “One Main Street,” McQueen said.

  “What’s there?”

  “Crime Lab,” he said. “We’re chasing down their results, too.”

  “What about fingerprints?” she asked. “To ID the body so we can have a name and address on the victim?” She made points with him by not saying “vic.”

  “That’s one of the things we’re after.”

  “And what else?”

  “Whatever they got from the body, or the mattress,” he explained. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Why?”

  “Well, unless you’ve been in a homicide squad a detective wouldn’t have a lot of experience with the morgue,” he said. “Ever sit on a ripe one while on patrol?”

  “I saw one, once,” she said. “I never . . . sat on it.”

  “The morgue is a lot different from seeing D.O.A. on patrol.”

  “I saw that,” she said, “and I’m fine.”

  “Good.”

  They rode in silence for a while and then Sommers said, “Can I ask a question?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “Why wouldn’t you let the doctor finish what he was saying?”

  McQueen hesitated a moment, then said, “This is not a TV show, it’s real life. There’s no reason for the doctor to go into great detail about what he found. All I need is the results. They can save all the computer-generated guts for the TV audiences.”

  “I take it you don’t watch much TV?”

  “Not cop shows.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind for future conversations,” she said. “What do you like to talk about?”

  “I’m not famous for my conversational skills, Bailey,” he said. “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” she said. “I’m here to learn the job. Can I ask questions about that?”

  “All the questions you can think of,” he said, glad she hadn’t decided to try to engage him in something more personal.

  Chapter 8

  Upon arrival at the crime lab, McQueen presented himself and Sommers to the clerk at the desk and asked for the tech he’d spoken to at the scene, Cahill.

  “Marty Cahill?” she said. “Sure, he’s here. Hold on.”

  She picked up her phone, spoke to Cahill and then hung up.

  “He’ll be right out.”

  While they were waiting, Sommers asked McQueen, “What do you expect to find from the mattress?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I just want to know if they did find something. It’s possible the mattress floated in and covered the body by accident and has nothing to do with the case. I’m hoping this guy will tell us.”

  A man McQueen recognized from Coney Island
Beach appeared in the hall, approaching him and Sommers.

  “Sergeant McQueen?” He extended his hand.

  “Cahill,” McQueen said. “This is my partner, Detective Sommers.”

  Cahill gave Sommers a frank appraisal and obviously liked what he saw.

  “My pleasure, Detective.” He did not offer to shake hands with either of them. He said to McQueen, “I thought you had a different partner yesterday.”

  “That was my regular partner,” McQueen said. “This is a temporary situation, but Detective Sommers will be my partner for the duration of this case.”

  “Excellent.” Cahill was tall, slender, in his thirties, a good-looking young man who had been with the Crime Scene Unit for about five years. He had an easygoing manner that McQueen thought would probably take him far. It probably helped him with women, too, if the look on Sommers’s face was any indication.

  “We’re here about your findings,” McQueen said.

  “I figured,” Cahill said. “Come on back. I’ll show you what I’ve got.”

  As they walked down the hall with him, McQueen said, “I thought I’d get a written report.”

  “And you will,” Cahill said. “As soon as I can get the time to sit down and write reports. I’m working six different cases from all over Brooklyn, and that’s just my case load. In here.”

  He took them into a small room with two desks. Apparently one belonged to him and one to another tech.

  “Sorry there’s not much room to sit,” he said. “Sergeant, you can sit behind that desk. Detective, you can have my chair. I’ll just perch right here.” He sat on the edge of his own desk.

  “Did you get anything off that mattress?” McQueen asked.

  Cahill picked up a folder and opened it.

  “The mattress was soaked,” he said. “Any trace evidence that might have been on it had been destroyed by the seawater.”

  “That figures.”

  “But it also looked like the mattress had nothing to do with the body, anyway,” Cahill went on.

  “It washed in?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “And landed on the body?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What do you mean maybe?”

  “They may have drifted in together.”

  “But not connected to each other?”

  Fine, McQueen thought. The man was confirming his thoughts.