Killing Hope (Gabe Quinn Thriller) (31 page)

‘Seriously?’ I shook my head. ‘Better keep them for later. Just in case.’

I was mindful of the fact that Benedict had proposed a possible link with veterinary training and the killer. We could cross-reference these results with any suspicious flags showing on the veterinarian search Jan was running.

The counter dropped below twenty.

‘Let’s tighten the search criteria.’ I said. ‘Keep only the reports that mention chloroform, superglue, injection through the peritoneum membrane and the three chemicals used in lethal injection.’

I heard Jamie tapping keys. Saw the list on the screen crumble to a handful of entries. Jamie read them out loud:

‘The suicides in DC of three Med students from the George Washington University. A female psychiatrist from Philadelphia. Two women in Chicago. And one woman from New York.’

‘Forget the suicides.’ I said. ‘Bring up the police reports on the others.’

Four separate windows opened up. Each taking up an equal quarter of the screen.

I peered closer.

The two police reports from Chicago came with photos. The other two didn’t. The photos attached to the Chicago reports were standard booking pictures taken against a grey height chart. A black woman and a white woman. Dolled up in trashy make-up. Bad hairdos. Risqué clothing. Both women were holding up arrest ID number boards at chest level. Priors for prostitution. Both women had been found in rented motel rooms on separate nights and on opposite sides of the city. Ten years ago and a full year apart. Both had been overcome with chloroform. Beaten to within an inch of their lives. Then injected with the lethal drug combo through the peritoneum membrane. Sexual assault indeterminable. Rafts of DNA recovered at both crime scenes. Including semen, epithelial cells, hair and saliva from dozens of paying clients. Nothing that had led to a murder conviction.

Superglue had been used to seal their lips.

I looked at the third report: a murdered psychiatrist from Pennsylvania. The woman had been attacked in her home. Savagely. Beaten to a pulp. No signs of sexual assault. The Philly coroner had found traces of inhaled chloroform. Plus the lethal injection ingredients in her blood injected through the abdomen. Again, superglue had been used post mortem to seal what remained of her lips. The report was dated almost fifteen years ago.

‘They could be him.’ I heard Jamie say.

‘It’s possible.’

‘But there’s no mention of rose petals or ash crosses.’

‘That’s because he wasn’t making a statement back then.’ I said. ‘He was honing his craft, Jamie. There’s probably more than this out there. Not all coroners are as thorough as Benedict. It’s possible the chemically-induced heart failures were misdiagnosed. These are just the few that made it through.’

I looked at the fourth police report. Issued by the NYPD five years ago. Again, a woman had been overcome by chloroform and attacked in her own home. But this one was different than the others.

‘The fourth victim wasn’t killed.’ I realized.

‘No.’ Jamie said. ‘And she wasn’t beaten either. No statement of sexual assault. But she did have a puncture wound on her abdomen and her blood work showed traces of Flunitrazepam.’

‘Rohypnol.’ I said. The date-rape drug.’

‘But he didn’t rape her.’

‘Flunitrazepam is a strong sedative, Jamie. He used it to keep her docile. Compliable. To cause amnesia after the event.’

‘So she couldn’t ID him.’

I read on. Two syringes had been found at the scene: one containing
sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide, the other p
otassium chloride. Both full and unused. No fingerprints. No DNA.

‘Perhaps something spooked him.’ Jamie mused out loud.

‘Or he changed his mind.’ I said. ‘Says here he handcuffed her to the headboard the whole weekend. Then left empty-handed.’

For a moment I wondered who the handcuffs had belonged to. Wondered if the NYPD still had them in their evidence lock-up.

‘Gabe?’

‘Still here.’

‘If she was a victim of The Undertaker, she could be his only survivor. I think this it’s worth looking deeper into.’

I remembered Bill’s premonition.

‘Okay. But you’ll need your wits about you, Jamie. This woman’s name and contact details have been put under a protection order. Which means they’re invisible, even to us.’

‘Witness protection?’

‘Not always. Courts can conceal personal information for various reasons. Including to preserve a victim’s anonymity if there’s a chance they may be the target of a repeat attack. Either way, it means she has relocated and maybe even changed her name. But if you think it has legs, Jamie, by all means run with it.’

‘Okay. I’ll also contact the Coroner offices in Chicago and Philadelphia. See if any more details match.’

‘Good. And while you’re at it, let Jan and the team know what you’re doing. Any luck with the rose retailers?’

‘None doing mail order.’

‘What about online?’

‘Just one. I spoke with a supervisor. He says he’ll fax a list of transactions once he’s okayed it with the company lawyer.’

86

^{___________________________}

I don’t know how long I dozed in the recliner in the basement. Long enough for the trickle of blood coming from my head wound to dry crusty on my cheek. There was a missed call on my cell: Carl Benedict from the Coroner’s Office. I climbed creaking stairs. Threw water over my face. Rinsed out my mouth. Then called him back. It was just after 4 p.m..

Benedict sounded excited. Refused to go into detail over the phone. Not unusual. So I met the pathologist at an unmarked side door of the Coroner Facility thirty minutes later. The sun was going down. Casting long shadows under my eyes.

We made a beeline for the morgue. Along a corridor lined with narrow metal trollies pushed up against the walls. Plastic-covered cadavers. The sweet odors of disintegrating sugars nosing through the sterile smells. Blank eyes staring up through the thick, fogged plastic.

Over the years I’d come to recognize that it wasn’t death I had a problem with, it was decay. Death was sudden. Momentary. Decay went on for years.

‘So what’s all the cloak and dagger about?’

‘Patience is a virtue.’ Benedict said as we entered the cold morgue.

More plastic-wrapped cadavers stacked high. Bodies laid out wherever there was room. One whole wall given over to an array of grey metal drawer fronts. Not the fancy glass-and-chrome ones you see in the movies, with their nice internal soft-glow lighting – like those well-publicized Japanese hotels. These looked like a stack of fifty filing cabinets seen end-on. Very
Staples
. Everything well-worn.

‘She was brought in Tuesday evening.’ Benedict said as he pulled out a drawer at chest height. ‘No immediate suspicious circumstances. The on-scene paramedics put the initial cause of death down to natural causes. Luckily, I noticed something iffy on the prelim exam.’

Dramatically, like a magician, Benedict threw back the sheet to reveal the upper half of a near-skeletal body.

My stomach curled into a fetal position.

A woman lay on the plinth. She was old. Late eighties, maybe early nineties. Thinning grey skin drawn loosely over fragile bones. Like damp muslin draped over driftwood. Xylophone ribs. Arms as thin as gnarled rope.

‘Here lies one of my screen idols.’ I heard Benedict breathe. ‘Meet Helena Margolis. She starred in a few black-and-whites back in the mid-twentieth century. Just when the horror genre was really beginning to come alive. Believe it or not, she was quite a stunner in her time. Did you ever catch Teenage Fang Club with Gustav Graves?’

‘No.’

He let out a long and mournful sigh. ‘See the purple freckling around her lips? That’s what alerted me to take a closer look.’

I peered at her slack face. Saw a circle of indigo stars surrounding her slit of a mouth.

‘See how it’s darker than his other victims?’

I straightened up. ‘More pressure?’

‘Correct. Perimortem bruising darkens with time. Becomes more distinct. Much of what you see here is heavy bruising. It’s what you’d expect if she was asphyxiated.’

‘He suffocated her?’

‘Well, yes, no and maybe.’ Benedict rolled back one of the woman’s papery eyelids to expose a yellowy-blue eyeball. It looked like a sparrow egg gone bad. ‘If you look closely you won’t see any major signs of ruptured capillaries. Although he smothered her, asphyxiation didn’t kill her. My guess is he was trying to keep her quiet.’ He let the lid droop back down.

‘Any trace of chloroform?’

‘No.’

‘So why is this one mine?’

‘Because she had superglue in her mouth. And this ...’ he drew back the rest of the sheet to reveal the woman’s lower torso.

I followed Benedict’s finger down to her deeply-sunken abdomen. Saw a familiar ring of purple spangles surrounding a central splotch – just south of her elongated navel – much darker and larger than the others I’d seen on the other victims.

‘It’s ecchymosis.’ Benedict explained. ‘The passage of blood from ruptured blood vessels into subcutaneous tissue. It’s characteristic of greater pressure. Especially in knife attacks.’

‘He stabbed her?’

‘With a needle. Hard.’ He mimicked the act: pretending to stab himself in the gut. Even pulled a face.

‘Let me get this straight. You’re saying he smothered her without chloroform, then stabbed her with a syringe?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

‘It doesn’t sound like our killer’s pattern.’

‘Want to know my theory?’

‘I’m all ears.’

‘This killing was unplanned. Spontaneous. That’s why the MO’s different. He had to kill her quickly. Without time to set up all his fancy trimmings. And with whatever he had with him at the time.’

‘You think something forced him to kill Helena – like an act of self-preservation?’

‘That’s what I’m thinking.’

‘So why not snap her neck or strangle her?’ It wouldn’t have taken much pressure to do either.