A Simple Lie

by Mary Bush

  Val was stunned by what she heard and her thoughts ran wild.

  “Val, I’m not a medical examiner and I’ll be the first to admit Blythe has knowledge and experience way beyond what I could ever hope to have. But I’m not sure how he came to those conclusions. I saw him go into the autopsy room with the skull and I also saw him come out. He was in that room for all of five minutes. He didn’t go back in there until his meeting with Gavin. How do you reach those detailed conclusions in five minutes?”

  “You can’t,” Val said.

  “Something isn’t right. Gavin didn’t challenge Blythe. Unless another set of teeth are found, this is going to be swept under the rug and then it’s going to disappear. Detective Gavin’s happy that Colin has been arrested and he’s not going to do anything to screw that up. The only way to have someone look into it is to have Jack Styles and Thomas Hayden do it.”

  Gwen was right, but, what to do? If Blythe was hiding information from Gavin, if he was purposely trying to sway the case in the wrong direction, then Blythe’s mixed up in it somehow. Any way she looked at it, Blythe’s odd behavior needed to be investigated.

  Val became wedged between a rock and a hard place. She wanted to help find who really murdered Julia. Julia had saved her by giving her this job—she would always be indebted to her. But if she embarked on this journey, she could lose the job Julia gave her and the ability to look into her murder. Blythe would have every reason to fire her if he found out that she had got involved in this case with Jack and Thomas. Plus, what else might Blythe do if he discovered that she was also searching for evidence?

  “Val, you’re the only person I trust right now and if something isn’t right, and I’m not just being paranoid, I don’t want to be the next person who has my teeth ripped out and gets chopped into bits. If Blythe has something to do with this, then the murderer is still out there.” Gwen appeared scared, making it obvious she shared at least one of the same worries as Val. “He knows I overheard his discussion with Gavin. You should have seen the way he looked at me when he noticed. And Val, you should be concerned too. Because, how do I say this… he just doesn’t like you.”

  21

  The restaurant was not only small, it was crowded. Fortunately, Val, Gwen and Jack were seated at a table in the far corner that offered some privacy. Dinner menus, three glasses of water and a basket of papadums, with a dish of chutney, sat on the table. Val reached into the basket and pulled one out. She picked this place because she thought Jack, with his British background, would appreciate curry. The Taj Mahal served authentic Indian cuisine. And it did so superbly.

  Gwen didn’t waste any time and quickly began explaining about Dr. Blythe’s odd behavior with the newest skull. Jack listened closely, showing little emotion. No more than a disgusted shake of the head. When she was finished he shared his own information.

  Though there were three victims, Julia was the one they were focusing on. It was her death that led to Colin’s arrest and the police to conclude he was involved in the other murders. But all the people in Julia’s life needed to be ruled in or out as suspects. “Your Dr. Blythe is quickly springing to the top of list,” said Jack. “His uncooperative behavior, with outright refusal to speak to either of us, has raised a few red flags.” But, Jack explained, it was mostly his supposed relationship with Julia that was the concern. A number of her reports described the re-examination of Blythe’s autopsies. If he knew about these, and what she’d written about him, this could certainly be a motive to kill her.

  “Her conclusion was that Dr. Blythe should be relieved of his duties,” Jack said. “There was also suggestion that he was possibly involved in fraud. The report was scathing, but Julia’s superiors wanted more evidence before taking any disciplinary actions against Dr. Blythe. What Julia had found was circumstantial only. It looks like she was just about to embark on this task.”

  Val was shocked by what she heard. She knew Blythe had a problem with Julia but she had no idea that it was something like this. The conversation stopped as the waiter came by and asked about drinks—Jack ordered Cobra beer. Val and Gwen did the same.

  As soon as the waiter left, Jack said, “With your information Gwen, it only adds to our suspicions about Dr. Blythe, but I’ll be honest, that’s all it is at this point, a suspicion. There was no proof, nothing tangible at all to link him to these crimes.”

  “So, what are you going to do?” Val asked, scared, her stomach tightening. If Blythe was guilty, she wanted him behind bars. Not roaming the same halls that she did, let alone loose on the streets of the city. Val knew she was on his shit list already, and had been for some time. She felt the target on her back getting bigger.

  “If he’s involved, he must have screwed up somewhere. We just have to find out where. We have to keep going at him. This is how it’s done. Sometimes it’s persistence that pays off in the end,” Jack said. He took a papadum and scooped some chutney onto it. “Which brings me to the reason for our meeting tonight. With your positions at the medical examiner’s office, you are the best people to get information, anything on Blythe. With the medical examiner refusing to speak to us, this investigation is about to stall. We need information quickly. Ladies, Thomas and I need your help.”

  “What if Dr. Blythe finds out? This could be dangerous,” Val said, fidgeting uncomfortably in her chair. It creaked as she moved. She looked at Gwen. Working on this case with someone like Thomas Hayden should be a dream come true. This dream, though, could quickly become a nightmare. “Two things could possibly happen. If he’s guilty, he could kill us. If he’s not guilty he could fire us. We lose either way.”

  “I don’t think either of you has to worry that Dr. Blythe will take out your teeth and dismember you,” Jack said. “If he is guilty, the last thing he would do is to murder someone in the same way, especially with Colin sitting in jail for crimes like this. I’ve seen stupid criminals before, but never one daft enough to do something like that.”

  “What about firing us?” Val asked, though her mind was still focused on the getting killed part.

  “How would he know you were involved? I have no intention of telling him. The only way he would know is if he was arrested and you had to testify against him. And honestly, at that point, he wouldn’t have the capacity to do anything to you. He’d be behind bars.”

  Val wanted to do this. She wanted it badly. If Blythe was guilty, she wanted to help catch him. But it was such a risk. For some reason tonight, she loved the idea of taking a chance. She looked at her hand, at the scar. The images of the attack were far away as she studied the odd pattern that would be forever on her palm and thumb. This had made her an insecure victim just as much as her dental career molded a confident professional.

  She had taken a big risk lying to get this job, a job that she was enjoying tremendously, more so than dentistry. Val knew it was time to take another risk. Plus, to work on a case with Thomas Hayden was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, one that was either going to make her, or destroy her. She could see the desire in Gwen’s eyes. Gwen wanted the same thing.

  The waiter came by, set a bottle of beer down in front of each of them and asked if they were ready to order. Jack, Gwen and Val had been so preoccupied they hadn’t even looked at the menu. After a moment, Val flipped it over to the last page and pointed to a series of choices which offered a range of smaller dishes for a set number of people. “Let’s just have this one to save choosing. We can share.”

  “Good call,” said Jack. “It all looks great.”

  Gwen nodded in agreement. “All of my favorites are there.”

  Val pointed to the menu. “We’ll have this one for three people.”

  The waiter nodded his head in approval. “Excellent choice. Naan for the table?”

  “Of course,” Val said.

  The waiter hurried off to put the order through.

  The conversation quickly moved to the latest skull.

  “Where was it discovered?” Jack asked.r />
  “Dr. Blythe thinks it belongs to someone who went over Niagara Falls. It was caught on some rocks four miles downstream along the shoreline of the Lower Niagara River. It’s the part that runs next to the trail in Devil’s Hole Park. In his opinion, that’s where the damage came from,” Gwen said. “It did have good sized breaks in it.”

  “What’s the area like?” Jack asked, “I’m not familiar with it.”

  Val tried to explain what she knew of Niagara Falls. She had purposely prepared for the meeting with Jack tonight, hoping to sound knowledgeable on this issue, especially after her less than stellar performance that afternoon.

  “There are three waterfalls, the Horseshoe, American and Bridal Veil. People planning to go over the falls for suicide or a daredevil act tend to jump into the Horseshoe, because it’s the largest, but this one is mostly in Canada. Those who want to jump into the water in America do so with the American Falls.” Val paused, lining up her facts. “As the Niagara River approaches the American Falls, the water is going about sixty miles an hour. Then it drops about 110 feet onto large boulders.”

  “I can certainly understand how that could cause some damage. With the speed, large drop, not to mention the rocks, someone’s head could easily have been shattered,” Jack said. “But the skull was found several miles away.”

  “Yes, and more damage could have come from the next part of the trip,” Gwen added. “That’s what Blythe thinks.”

  Val continued with her list of facts. “Once over the drop, the river becomes known as the Lower Niagara. As it enters the Niagara Gorge it calms slightly. That’s because the gorge widens but then the water travels through a narrow part and quickly picks up a lot of speed and turbulence, forming the Whirlpool Rapids. These are class six rapids, the most dangerous kind and considered nearly impossible to travel on.”

  “Why is it called Whirlpool Rapids?” Jack asked.

  “There’s a ninety-degree bend in the river. At the elbow of the bend there’s a basin that the water’s forced into. The water circles slowly here forming a whirlpool,” said Val.

  Gwen remarked, “Actually, the whirlpool is on the Canadian side of the river. It’s a common spot where bodies wash up. They get caught up in the swirl of the water.”

  “What happens after this spot?” Jack asked. “This skull wasn’t found there. Evidently it missed this prime congregation area for human remains.”

  “After the whirlpool, the gorge widens again and the water slows again. It picks up speed once more at Devil’s Hole, forming the Lower Whirlpool Rapids. After Devil’s Hole, it calms one last time and remains like that all the way to Lake Ontario.”

  “So, there are several places where the water calms or slows down.”

  “Yes,” Val answered.

  “And a place where bodies typically wash up. The Canadian side of the whirlpool.”

  “Yes.”

  “So why didn’t this skull wash up in these areas? Or a body for that matter?”

  “The water’s pretty strong. It could have moved it along,” Val said, unsure of Jack’s point.

  “Only where the water’s strong. But there are places where it’s somewhat calm.”

  “Then it simply floated down the river.”

  “That all sounds very reasonable—the only problem is that human bones usually don’t float. Their density is greater than water so they sink. Oh, let me correct that, they might float for a couple of reasons. One is if the victim has osteoporosis which makes the bone less dense than they ordinarily would be. The other is when bones become dry, also making them less dense. And we do have a drying issue in this case, from what I’ve heard.”

  Val’s eyes went wide as she finally understood where Jack was heading. “So, it’s incredibly unlikely that someone went over Niagara Falls and an ordinary decomposed skull washed ashore as it did, where it did,” she said.

  “Exactly,” Jack answered. “This raises far more questions than it answers. How did it get there? Why didn’t it end up in one of the more likely spots? And where is the rest of the body?”

  At that moment, the food arrived. The conversation paused awkwardly as the waiters loaded small, fragrant dishes onto the table along with a basket of naan and a bowl of rice.

  Once they were free to talk again, Gwen asked, “That skull—do you think it was deliberately placed there?” She spooned some dhal onto her plate. “The remains from the other victims were purposely put out where they’d be found. The first was in a park, the second in a landfill, now this one is in a river.”

  Jack thoughtfully tore off a piece of naan before responding. “A good way to begin to answer that, and some of these other questions, is to look at the area where the skull was discovered but more importantly, examine the skull itself.” He turned towards Val. “Is this a possibility?”

  “You are joking, right?” she said, fork in mid-air.

  Jack laughed. “No, I don’t suppose the good doctor Blythe would let me see it. He won’t even say hello to me so I don’t think he would let me examine key evidence.” He thought for a moment then said, “Francine Donohue was the only victim to have another body part found, something other than a skull.”

  “Yes,” Val said. “Her arm.”

  Jack stared straight ahead for a moment. “So why are we finding more remains of Francine than any other victim?”

  “She was also the only one in a landfill. Thrown out like she was garbage,” Val said eagerly. She could see where Jack was heading with this.

  Jack appeared to be grappling with possibilities and he said, “Maybe we’re looking in the wrong direction. Julia should be the focal point since her death resulted in the arrest of Colin. But, what if we’re wrong? What if the focal point was elsewhere? What if this case centered on Francine and not Julia?”

  Val thought the exact same thing, and agreed with strong nods of her head.

  “Francine’s sister was also found dead,” Gwen remarked, nudging Val. “Tell Jack about that.”

  Val explained what she knew about Samantha Ritcher. “She had high drug levels of the pain medicine Percocet in her system, but was injected with something and died from anaphylaxis.”

  “Do you think someone purposely killed her?” Gwen asked.

  “If you wanted to kill her, ‘why kill her this way?’ is the more important question,” said Jack, “Especially if she was impaired because of a drug like Percocet. It makes no sense. Push her down a flight of stairs or hit her on the head with a heavy object. This is far easier than to inject her with something she’s allergic to. Who would have even known what Samantha’s allergies were?”

  “Maybe her ex-husband? He’s getting even with her for putting him away?” Val suggested. The newspaper had the story of Samantha and her ex-husband all over the front page. “He could have made a deal from prison and hired someone to do it for him.”

  “Again, by injecting her with something she’s allergic to? A hired killer would have been an executioner. This person would have done it in the easiest way possible.” Jack smiled at Val. “She would have been shot in the back of the head.”

  She felt her face grow hot as she remembered the victim from this afternoon.

  He continued to smile and his eyes never left hers, until he winked and said, “No, to inject Samantha with a drug means something entirely different, if she’s connected.”

  They continued their conversation and as Val watched Jack describe his suspicions, she grew more excited about the case.

  The dishes were mostly empty when Jack announced, “I’d like for the two of you to meet Thomas. We’re going to re-examine the evidence found in Julia’s bedroom, that’s if Detective Gavin allows it. If you’re free the day after tomorrow, you should join us.”

  22

  Julia’s bedroom had an unsettling feeling to it. When Val first entered, she relived the shocking reality of being in a place where such horror occurred to her friend. She tried hard not to think about how much terror and pain Julia mu
st have suffered. Instead, she focused on why she herself was here. It helped. She needed to find the bastard who was responsible for this.

  Gavin agreed to let Thomas and Jack examine the crime scene. All of the evidence had been collected and photographed, so technically, this scene was cleared. But still, he and Warren stood close by, watching everything. Val sensed that this was more out of want than need. If anything was found that hinted at Colin being innocent, Gavin was going to be here for it.

  As soon as she saw him, Val begged him not to tell Dr. Blythe or anybody else that she was here today. He reluctantly agreed, lecturing her on how inappropriate it was, but Val shot back that she needed to do this. “Julia was my friend. This is important to me.” She was pleasantly surprised when he agreed to keep things quiet, and allowed her to stay.

  For the medical examiner’s office, she had a great excuse as to why she needed to be away. Part of the job of death scene investigation involved getting out of the office to re-examine scenes for evidence, or talk with family members of victims, getting information that would be helpful for the medical examiner. She was still following up on Samantha’s medical records, all which were dead ends so far. Samantha had been prescribed high doses of Percocet for her back pain. According to her doctors, she received nothing else. Val used this as her reason to get out of the office today. Following up on leads. No one questioned her.

  Gwen didn’t need an excuse. Her shift didn’t start until tonight.

  Thomas Hayden walked up to Val and handed her a spool of white kitchen string. The string would aid in determining angle of impact and point of origin of the blood, giving them an idea of where Julia was when she was being attacked. Since the killer removed almost all of the visible blood during the cleanup attempt, they were using the crime scene photos showing the luminol reaction as a guide in positioning the string. Some of the patterns weren’t making sense until now. They had been in the bedroom for nearly two hours taping pieces of the string from the blood spatter patterns that were once on the wall, to those once on the carpet. There were only a few more left to do and he suggested that Val and Gwen give it a try.