Dark Web (9 page)
Doctor Janine Poehler watched the woman in the adjoining room with a heavy heart. It was just before eight o’clock in the morning, and Janine’s understanding was that the woman had been woken up in the middle of the night to be informed of the death of her son. She couldn’t imagine a moment more tragic than this, a more horrific way to deliver such terrible news. Some part of the woman’s mind must believe she was still dreaming, and soon she would awaken and the nightmare would be over.
The woman’s name was Callie Simpkins. She was being comforted by two state troopers, one male and one female. The female trooper looked up and her gaze met Janine’s through the glass that separated them, an unanswerable question blazing in her eyes.
The body lay behind Janine on the table, covered in an evidence sheet.
No way was Janine going to perform the autopsy with the mother watching. Simpkins was beyond grief; she was hysterical. Yet she refused to leave, and the troopers were pulling their hair out trying to figure out what to do with her. What the woman needed was a crisis worker, a mental health therapist from the County, who was supposedly on the way. Janine wanted to know who the hell had made the call to let the woman ride in the van in the first place. Simpkins had just spent forty minutes driving from New Brighton to Plattsburgh with her dead child in a body bag. She was out of her mind. Her eyes were locked on the body in the next room. Her mouth was open in a yawing, soundless scream, giving her face an eerie misshapen look. Her eyes were haunted.
Janine turned her back on the viewing room. It was supposed to be there so that medical students and law enforcement officers could observe the autopsies. Janine did work with the college, but she also had her own practice in anatomic, clinical, and forensic pathology. Most of the referrals she got came from law enforcement, and sometimes medical students and criminal justice students were permitted to observe, depending on the circumstances. In fact, the local state university had just recently dispatched several students to witness a perinatal autopsy, during which two of them abruptly left. Imagine a bereaved mother witnessing her own flesh and blood child undergoing a postmortem examination. Even seeing the external examination would be devastating. She needed the troopers to get that woman out of the room.
The lead investigating officer was John Swift, a man she had known for many years, ever since she had been a medical student. She’d gotten his number from the female trooper and was now ringing him, keeping her back to the woman. God help him if he was the one who’d let the woman ride here with her dead child.
Janine put the phone to her ear.
After a couple of rings, he picked up. “Swift.”
“Detective Swift. This is Doctor Poehler.”
She heard some noise at his end, as if his phone were being jostled. “Yes, Doctor Poehler. How are you?”
“I’m in a bit of a situation?”
“Yeah, this is one for the books alright.”
She glanced at the body on the table. “That it is. Very, very unfortunate.” Then with emphasis, “Made more unfortunate by the presence of the victim’s mother.”
Swift hesitated. “I appreciate you responding so quickly, Doctor.”
“I’m an early riser,” Janine said, letting it pass for the moment. “Autopsies are best performed within twenty-four hours of death. Organs deteriorate, embalming interferes with blood cultures and toxicology. But, Detective, I’ve never had to perform an autopsy with the family looking over my shoulder.”
He was silent for a moment. She heard a door open and close at his end. Then he spoke, his voice low. “I know. This thing went off like a daisy-cutter. I made the call and let her go; she was so volatile . . . I’m sorry. I’ll have my troopers get her out of there right away.”
“Anything I’m looking for?”
“What’s your initial perception?”
“I only glanced. Nothing obvious. No bruises, no blood. Normally developed white male measuring sixty-two inches and weighing a hundred and eighteen pounds and appearing generally consistent with the stated age of thirteen. Lividity is fixed in the distal portions of the limbs. There is one small scrape on the right cheekbone.”
“Suggesting he fell to the ground?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“Let me ask you — could this be some sort of illness? Something undiagnosed?”
“Of course that is possible. I have no idea at this time.” She paused. “You know how this goes, Detective, I need time to . . .”
“I know. I just . . . I’ve got a suspect in the box right now. I really like him for this, but the crime scene was a wash and all else is pending.”
Janine understood. Swift wanted something right now that he could turn around on whoever he had sweating in a small room beneath the lights. But she didn’t have that for him. She didn’t have medical history, nothing. “Best I can tell you that’s pertinent right now, Swift, is that the kid is deceased. And my hunch — and I hate hunches — is that it’s not from natural causes.”
“Okay. Thank you, Doctor. I’ll have the troopers escort the mother out of there.”
“That would be very helpful. I’ll call you as soon as I finish the external examination.”
“Perfect. Thanks again.”
“You’re welcome.”
Janine hung up. She turned around and looked into the observation room.
The mother was standing right at the window, her hands up on the glass. The troopers were behind her, attempting to gently but forcibly pull her away. The woman’s mouth was moving. It looked as though she was saying something over and over again. Janine could just hear her voice, muffled, through the glass.
Please
, she seemed to be saying.
Please.
A moment later the male trooper took his phone from his belt and put it to his ear. Likely he was going to cry for Mental Health to please come and medicate this woman. Janine had half a mind to do it herself, at least it would ease the poor woman’s suffering. Or she could call the hospital and get her taken in to emergency care. Her anger had diffused somehow during her brief discussion with Swift. She found herself wondering if, before she was even aware of it, he had charmed her out of her righteous indignation.
Swift had just put his phone back in his pocket and turned to re-enter the interrogation room when Trooper Bronze came walking briskly down the corridor, white snow still melting on his shoulders. Close at his heels followed Assistant District Attorney Sean Mathis.
“Detective Swift!” called Bronze.
Swift raised his eyebrows.
Mathis pushed in front of Bronze, slightly out of breath. “Sasha Bellstein. Your third from the car. He called a lawyer in New Jersey; he’s advised the kid not to talk to you. Told him to sit tight, doesn’t need to talk to anyone, ‘they’re not going to charge,’ he says, ‘and they’ll have to let you go.’”
Swift held out his hand. “You’re the new ADA. I’m John Swift.”
“Yes, I know.” They shook. Mathis was unsmiling and looked tired despite his crisp suit.
“We talk?”
“I’m in the middle of an interrogation, Mr. Mathis, and—”
“Really need to talk urgently,” Mathis said. Swift saw a speck of sleep still left in the corner of the man’s eye, and could smell the cologne rising from him in a fog.
“Of course,” Swift agreed, and something sank in the pit of his stomach.
Swift looked at the trooper, who understood that the two men needed another room where they could have a private conversation. He glanced at the door to the interrogation room, and then back at Swift.
Swift winked. “He can sweat a bit longer. Good for him. Builds character.”
Bronze smiled.
* * *
Swift and Mathis could watch Robert Darring through the one-way glass in the adjoining room. Mathis sat on the edge of the table, his hands folded in his lap. Mathis was young, still in his twenties, which, as far as Swift was concerned, was diapers. Mathis looked unhappy, like most young ADAs. They spent their time either preening for the cameras or reading the riot act in small, claustrophobic rooms like this one. Mathis didn’t disappoint.
“The hell is going on?”
Swift blinked. “Come again?”
Mathis jerked his thumb at the next room, where Darring sat looking down at the table in front of him. The kid seemed almost meditative, Swift thought, not sweaty at all. Eerily inactive. Normally you had a suspect in a box like that, even if they were innocent, they became nervous and began fidgeting. Everyone had some dirt on them, everyone had lied about something. Whether it was taxes or unpaid parking tickets or the porn collection tucked away in the basement, everyone carried some measure of guilt. Being in an interrogation room with police breathing down your neck was like being in a sauna, it leached the poison out of you. Didn’t matter if whatever you felt guilty about related to the investigation or not. Or, you had your zealots, your self-righteous types who talked about their rights being violated, and police harassment. Young men who drove drunk, let’s say, got arrested, refused to be handcuffed, got pepper-sprayed, then turned around and started alleging use of “excessive force.” Darring acted like none of these. He didn’t seem nervous, nor was he claiming police abuse. In fact he did nothing at all. As if he were on pause. Barely there.
“You got this kid in there,” Mathis growled, “you got a dead body, three suspects, two of them juveniles, in custody with, from what I hear, paper-thin stories — were you going to call me at some point? Gonna charge them with a crime, maybe?”
“We pulled these three in for questioning on probable cause for a felony, a good faith belief that they’re involved, or, at the least, they know something about it. I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time reviewing the case until we had charges that would stick.”
“Are you . . .?” Mathis gave Swift an incredulous look, as though he had just landed from another planet. “Are you presenting me the steps in a criminal case as if I’m your nephew at some family reunion, bouncing on your knee?”
Swift pointed at the one-way glass. “I had one of these kids in tears less than an hour ago, saying he was sorry, and the other one was just about to get the news from my pathologist that the victim’s death was unnatural.”
Mathis’ expression suggested Swift was the dimmest bulb in the light factory. “I’ll never understand cops. You want a suspect to talk, you charge them with a crime. Scare them, get them talking, put some muscle behind it. You make charges and then amend as you go. Let the law work for you.”
“You charge them right off, they clam up, get lawyers, and you get nothing out of the interrogation. Right now, that’s all we’re subsisting on. What that kid in there has to say, and what the dead kid on the table has to say.”
“Anyone thinking hit and run? Pathology look that way?”
“No. And to come from three different states, drive for hours through the middle of the night, to hit this teenaged kid with their car?”
Now Mathis dropped the look of long-suffering incredulity. His forehead creased. “They came from three different states?”
“Yes, Mathis. They car-pooled up here. And they first
arrived
and
then
drove away from the scene while the witness, Duso, was there.”
Mathis closed his eyes for a second and massaged the bridge of his nose. “So it was Duso who gave the witness statement? Jesus. Okay. So, far as we know they arrived at the scene after the fact.”
“Wait, what do you know about Duso?” Swift felt the hair on the back of his neck stiffen.
“Nothing. Relax. I know you and his son, Frank, have had a past beef, that’s all.”
Swift let it go for now. “Well, anyway, that’s what we got from the witness. They arrived, they turned around, they drove away. Hence the probable cause, hence the questioning, but that’s it for now.”
“What about tire tracks? We’ve got the vehicle in impound?”
“It’s dumped almost a foot of snow out there overnight. No tracks. We can impound the car if I make the call that there is evidence which couldn’t be readily removed at the scene.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“The nephew bouncing on the knee.”
“Jesus . . .” Swift waved a hand in the air. He wanted to get back into the box. Why was the frigging ADA hounding him now?
“Who’s the CSI? Silas?”
“Correct.”
“What do her logs show so far?”
“I left her at the scene. She found some snow. And some more snow.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“And on the body? In his pockets? Anything?”
“He’s dressed in pajamas. Nothing in his pockets.”
Mathis turned and looked into the interrogation room again. Darring hadn’t moved. “God.” Then he looked back at Swift. “What else? What about the kid’s home? Parents? Anything unusual?”
“We’re going to go through the kid’s things. His laptop.” Swift nodded toward Darring. “So far two of them admit to knowing the decedent online only. They’d never met in person. This was their first rendezvous.”
“Huh. Who do we have for that?”
“We have Kim Yom from the Cyber-crimes Division. She’s got a bit of a journey to make, but she’ll get here in a few hours. Meantime, Silas will pick through the kid’s room when she’s done with the core scene; she’ll retrieve the laptop, hand it off to Yom. We’ll keep good track of the chain of evidence.”
Mathis looked down between his shoes and blew out a breath. Someone wasn’t much of a morning person, Swift thought. The young new ADA was likely used to late nights in the city watching his money slide across the counter and come back as exorbitantly priced drinks. The only bar around here was
The Knotty Pine
. Probably not in Mathis’ style. He seemed to be simmering down now, having come in on the boil.
“You know we’ll have to kick these kids loose if we can’t come up with something. You’ve got to formally charge suspects eventually, detective.”
“Now you’re bouncing me on
your
knee.”
Mathis frowned. “Funny. And yanking the body out of there so quick? You think that was the right call?”
“You can’t have it both ways, Mathis. You can’t ride me for not calling you sooner so you can slap on charges and at the same time ride me for moving the crime scene along too fast. Plus, without a confession, these guys are going to ask for a grand jury, and you know it.”
“You better hope not.”
Swift turned on a smile. In his younger days he would have fed those diapers he was wearing right back in the young ADA’s face. But his lack of control had gotten him into more trouble than it was worth.
Besides, Darring could wait a little longer. Swift decided he’d make a quick detour to Plattsburgh. Check on the mother. See what Janine Poehler had to say about the body.