A Simple Lie

by Mary Bush

  “Maybe Jeanne Coleman is why Francine was in Eastville to begin with. She knew Jeanne. Jeanne’s personal documents were in her ceiling. They were hiding them from someone. Jesus, they themselves appeared to be hiding in the Eastville Projects,” Gwen said. “They all had to have been afraid of someone.”

  “Whoever wanted them dead knew a lot of personal information about them too. Old information. Well, Francine and Samantha, at least,” Val blurted, finally getting the chance to tell them what she learned from Eddie. “Samantha’s boyfriend told me that they used to play in Chestnut Ridge Park, the same place where the first victim’s skull was found, Jeanne Coleman’s skull.”

  Both Gwen and Jack stared.

  “And that’s not all,” Val said, and then told the rest of the story. “Francine and Samantha’s parents eventually moved to Niagara Falls and when they got older they hiked in Devil’s Hole Park.”

  “So, remains of victims are found in places sentimental to Francine and Samantha,” Jack said. “We still don’t know who was in Devil’s Hole but at this point, we have to assume it was someone they knew.”

  “No one can find any trace of Lorelei Sebastian. She’s still missing. Her skull could be the one sitting in the medical examiner’s office,” Gwen said.

  “The skull found in Devil’s Hole would belong to the earliest victim. The first victim always puts a crime in motion. It sets the stage.” Jack grew excited. “I asked you before if we could get another look at this skull. Can we do that? Do you have access to where it’s kept?”

  “Yes. We all do. Our swipe cards open all of the rooms,” Gwen said.

  “Good. I need to see it.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Let’s go!” Gwen stood up and grabbed her jacket.

  “Wait a minute,” Val protested. “We can’t just break in.”

  “If you have a key how is it breaking in?’’ Jack asked plainly.

  “If we get caught, Dr. Blythe will fire me immediately,” Val said.

  Jack scoffed at the man’s name. “Val, Blythe’s going to fire you anyway, maybe not today, but soon. Ask yourself why is he trying so hard to get rid of you. You need to get him before he gets you.”

  Jack had a point, but still this was too risky.

  “I just don’t know about this,” Val said.

  “Five minutes. That’s all I need.”

  “But what if we get caught?”

  “You worry too much. Now how do we get in?” Jack was out of the door before she had a chance to answer.

  The drop-off bay around the back of the hospital was the best way to get Jack into the morgue undetected. At this time of night there would be only one security guard on duty and he would be at the employee entrance.

  The only problem was that given the late hour, the drop-off bay doors would be locked. They had to be opened from the inside. In order to do this, Val and Gwen needed to enter the morgue legitimately, which wasn’t a big deal. They didn’t need to sneak in. In fact, it was best if they didn’t. But this meant that they would have to walk through the entrance in full view of the guard. He’d wonder why they were there.

  “Just wait outside here and stand away from the door. We’ll open it from the inside and let you in,” Val said.

  “Don’t leave me out here too long.” Jack looked around at the surroundings. The houses in the area were barely standing. Many had trash on the lawns. A group of teenagers sat on the porch of one building. Two of them pointed in Jack’s direction. “I’m beginning to wonder how long it’ll take before I’m mugged.”

  “We’ll get you as soon as we can,” Val said without compassion. She had her own worries at the moment and getting caught in this little escapade ranked at the top. Leaving Jack to fend for himself, she ran around to the side of the building. Gwen was waiting for her.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” Val said. “I can’t feel my legs anymore and I think I’m going to throw up.”

  “It’s going to be fine.” Gwen’s voice faltered. She sounded less than convincing. “Come on, let’s go.”

  They walked in and waved to Ken, the night security guard. He peered over the top of his newspaper and waved back.

  “See, this is going to be easy,” Gwen whispered.

  Val said hello to Ken each night she came to work and he knew her well. But for some reason she felt as if she was wearing a neon sign stating she was up to no good. They were nearly through the door and out of Ken’s sight when he yelled, “What brings you ladies in? It’s Howie’s shift tonight.”

  Val’s chest lurched at the sound of his voice and she stared at him, her mind blank. They were going to get caught if she didn’t come up with an answer immediately. She forced herself to say something, anything plausible. “Gwen and I were getting some dinner and I remembered there’s a couple of files I really need to have. I forgot to complete a report that Dr. Blythe’s been on my ass about. If I get it now and finish before morning, maybe he won’t put me through hell tomorrow.” Val fought hard to keep her voice steady. Her heart banged fiercely as she added with a smile, “You won’t blow me in, will you?”

  Ken smirked knowingly. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  Val winked. “Thanks, you’re the best.”

  Val and Gwen walked through the doors and into the morgue. As the doors closed behind them, Val took a deep breath. There was one more person they needed to be worried about. Howie. He was around somewhere. She looked up and down the halls for him.

  “If we see Howie we’ll use the same excuse that you gave Ken,” Gwen said. “How did you come up with it? God, it was so plausible you even had me convinced that’s why we’re here.”

  “Lying is a skill I’ve been developing. It tends to come in handy.”

  “I should take some lessons. Convincing someone of something I’m not would be a pretty good talent to have.”

  Val almost laughed at the irony of the statement. “I’ll let Jack in. Go to autopsy room one and meet us in there,” she said, quickly walking down the corridor, heading to the drop-off bay. There was an odd stillness in the morgue. The night shift was always quite a contrast to the hustle that occurred during the day. Now, it was just eerily quiet and Val felt her skin prickle. No one was around.

  As she was about to turn the last corner that would lead her to the doors, her motions grew slow. She thought she heard a series of pattering noises. Standing still, listening carefully, she heard it again. It sounded like someone walking, sneakers squeaking on the tiles. And it was coming towards her. Before she could do anything, Howie came around the corner and nearly collided with her.

  “Val?” he asked, staring.

  “Hi, Howie. I need a report for Dr. Blythe. I have to get it to him by tomorrow,” she rambled. As soon as she said the words, she wished she hadn’t.

  “What brings you down here then?” He looked confused.

  Her excuse, at this point, could only backfire—her office was down a different hallway. If she needed to get a report, there was no reason for her to be where she was. Val’s eyes shifted past Howie. As she scrambled to think, she saw her answer. Pointing to a bathroom door that was about ten feet away, she said, “Ladies room. The one by my office didn’t have any toilet paper.” Her gaze went back to him and she waited to see if he bought her story.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, staring again at her. “You look really pale.”

  “Just scared that’s all. The morgue is scary at night.”

  “It’s not the dead you have to be worried about, it’s the living. You couldn’t be safer here,” he laughed. “You should know that by now.”

  Val crossed her legs and bounced up and down. She needed to get rid of Howie as fast as she could. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I have to go.”

  “I won’t keep you.” He patted his pocket, the rectangular outline of a cigarette pack obvious. “I have to go too.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Val said as she entered the bathroom. She waited a few seconds
and then slowly looked back out. Howie was gone and she ran to the drop-off bay to grab Jack. The two slipped back into the main morgue area and made it to autopsy room one undetected.

  “Hurry, let’s get inside,” Val said. She picked up her ID card with shaky fingers and quickly ran it through the swipe pad. The red light on the pad refused to turn green. It was still locked. She repeated the motion a second and then a third time. She could barely say the words. “It’s not working. Gwen should already be inside. If she made it in, why isn’t she opening the door?”

  “Try it slower,” Jack said.

  Val ran the card again, slowly. This time the red light turned to green. She pushed on the handle, and as she did so, the door opened. Gwen was on the other side.

  “Thank God,” Gwen said. “I thought that was you, but I wasn’t sure, otherwise I would have opened the door. What took so long?”

  “Howie. But don’t worry. I think he believed the excuse I gave him.”

  As soon as they were inside, Val turned on the lights. It was safe to do so. The door was sealed to keep any odors from escaping. It would also keep any light from shining round the perimeter. Unless someone walked in, no one would know they were in here. Her jaw dropped when she noticed what was sitting just a few feet in front of her.

  Three skulls were on a small table. One was labeled Francine Donohue, the other Jeanne Coleman, and the third was marked as undetermined. Several containers, each holding human teeth, also sat on the table. Val couldn’t believe what she was looking at. She had wanted to inspect the evidence with this case since her second day on the job and here it was. All of it within grabbing distance.

  “Why are these still here?” Gwen asked, pointing to the ones belonging to Francine and Jeanne. “Shouldn’t these have been released for burial?”

  “Good question,” Jack said.

  All three of them put on a set of latex gloves. Gwen picked up the unknown skull found in Devil’s Hole. “What do you think, Val? Were these teeth taken out or was this caused by the head being smashed on the rocks?”

  Val reached for the skull, inspecting the part where the teeth would have been. “It’s hard to tell. They could have been forcefully extracted. It looks like someone grabbed both the tooth and bone and pulled forward. But, it’s so broken around this area I can’t be sure. The damage is pretty bad.” She turned it around, trying to get a good look from every angle. There was quite a bit of destruction to the bone. Multiple large cracks were evident and large pieces were missing, mostly around the region where the upper teeth once were. “There are no broken roots in the sockets, though. Rocks couldn’t have caused this. I saw the same thing with Francine’s skull. No broken roots.”

  Val tilted the skull and grew excited. “Look at this, the shape of the break here. The rectangular outline is obvious on these two sockets. It looks like the outline of the nose of a set of pliers.” She remembered that Francine also had this kind of damage to her upper jaw and she quickly picked up Francine’s skull, pointing out several patterns that were consistent in size and shape. “It’s identical,” she said.

  “This one has to be connected to this case. It would be far too coincidental if it wasn’t,” Gwen remarked.

  “I agree. A head bouncing around on some rocks could have easily caused the rest of this damage, but not in these two places. There is no rock in the world that would make such a perfect rectangular pattern or dislodge roots from the sockets,” Val said.

  Jack reached for Jeanne’s skull. “There are rectangular patterns on this too.”

  Val grew quiet. A unique opportunity was right in front of her and she couldn’t afford to lose it. Oh my God. Zoe told her that if she had a piece of the skull, she could test it for the drug pancuronium. Well, here they all were. Proof that they may be connected.

  “If I wanted to take a piece of this bone, how could I do it in a way that Dr. Blythe wouldn’t notice?” Val asked. Jack and Gwen looked at her oddly, eyebrows raised and faces blank as if they hadn’t heard correctly. Val explained why she wanted this and they both eagerly chimed in.

  “The best way to do it is to take it from an area that has a break already. That way, it’ll blend in,” Jack said.

  “What do I cut it with?” she asked.

  “With those.” Gwen walked over to a table that held an array of instruments. She picked up the garden loppers. “Would you like to do the honors?”

  Val took the lopper. She was getting fairly acquainted with this tool, surprised by its many uses. One day she’d have to actually use one in a garden.

  Gwen held the skull in place and Jack pointed out where to cut. Val placed the handles close together, wrapped the blades around the bone and in a quick push of the handle, a small section of the skull was free.

  “Here.” Jack handed her a paper towel. “Wrap it in this.”

  “I need to get a piece of Jeanne and Francine’s too,” Val said. The sequence was repeated and a small section of bone was removed. She grabbed a specimen bag and labeled each. After they were done, Jack was eager to get back to inspecting and comparing the skulls. So was Val, but the skulls weren’t the only things in the room that caught her attention. The teeth did too.

  Eyeing them, she opened the containers and took them out with a set of tweezers. She examined each tooth and root surface. Quite a few had portions of the jaw bone still attached, making it hard to view the entire tooth. But for the most part they were in good condition, especially given they had been ripped out of the victim’s mouth. Surprisingly, none of the roots were broken.

  Val picked Francine’s skull back up and placed one of her teeth back in the appropriate socket. She continued with the rest, one by one. They all fitted neatly back into place. She smiled. This was something she had wanted to do from the beginning and now she had her chance.

  “Can I have that for a second?” Jack asked Val. “I want to see something.”

  “Sure.” She pulled out the teeth and handed him the skull.

  Val picked up Jeanne’s skull, repeating the same process by placing Jeanne’s teeth into the sockets. No matter how she tried to get them in, none of them fitted. That’s odd. For the hell of it, she picked up the unknown skull and tried to slip Jeanne’s teeth in, only because some of the shapes appeared to be the right size.

  After she placed the first one in, she tried another and then another. She thought for a long moment, trying to absorb what she was seeing and then stated, staring at the skull in her hands, “I have something to tell the two of you.”

  “What?” The statement obtained little interest.

  “Jeanne Coleman’s teeth fit into the sockets of the unknown skull. I don’t care what the DNA or post-mortem interval results say. This skull, the skull from Devil’s Hole, belongs to Jeanne Coleman.” Val pointed at her find, her hands shaking with excitement.

  Both Jack and Gwen snapped their heads in Val’s direction.

  “If that skull belonged to Jeanne, then it was detached from her body more than one year ago. How on earth could she have left an insurance policy to Lorelei Sebastian? That policy was written only six months ago,” Jack said.

  “Let alone apply for a passport recently,” Gwen added.

  “That’s not all,” Val said. “If the skull that was found in Chestnut Ridge Park doesn’t belong to Jeanne, who the hell does it belong too? And who forged the DNA results?”

  28

  Val’s first instinct was to go to Gavin and tell him about the discrepancy with Jeanne Coleman’s skull.

  “No,” said Jack. “Don’t. I advise you not to tell anyone—especially Detective Gavin—that we believe the unknown skull belongs to Jeanne Coleman.”

  “But this finding is huge!” protested Val.

  “The finding is huge,” said Jack, “but the evidence is shaky.”

  Val realized he was right. If exposed prematurely, it could easily be dismissed and ultimately lost. The fact that the teeth fitted into the sockets wasn’t enough to make a
claim that the skull was Jeanne’s, especially with DNA stating the contrary. If they jumped too fast both Val and Gwen would certainly get fired. Dr. Blythe would know they broke into the autopsy suite. There was still so much to do and a connection to the medical examiner’s office was key. Val saw Jack’s point and agreed to keep her mouth shut. Particularly since the DNA could have been tampered with.

  “If you were committing this crime, why let Jeanne’s skull be found at all? Why risk it?” Val asked Jack. “What do you gain from that, even if DNA says otherwise?”

  “Someone is way too confident about the crime they’re committing.” Jack said. “With no other leads at this point, and though it’s a long shot, I want to visit Devil’s Hole Park and see why this resting place was chosen for this skull, maybe find something of significance with the site since it had relevance to Francine Donohue and Samantha Ritcher.”

  Jack’s phone buzzed and he pulled it out, glancing at his text messages. “Val, I have a favor to ask of you. When you were a dentist you prescribed medication, correct?”

  “Yes.” She wasn’t sure where he was going with this.

  Still staring at the screen, he said, “I want you to find out why Francine Donohue was taking the antibiotic doxycycline. I want you to call her doctor.”

  “Sure Jack, I can do that. Professional courtesy allows us to discuss mutual patients candidly. I’ll just say Francine was my dental patient. Though I’m wondering why you want to know about this.”

  “It might be nothing but Thomas just let me know that he found out that Julia DeHaviland was taking high doses of the same drug six months before her death.” He put away the phone. “But first, we need to take a trip to Niagara Falls.”