Umbrella Man (9786167611204) (46 page)

Before he could decide, she closed the file,
adjusted its position on her desk in an unconscious gesture of
tidiness, and smiled at him with what seemed to be genuine
warmth.

“I’m glad you could manage the time,
Inspector.”

“It wasn’t time I was short of.”

“Oh, I see.” Dr. Hoi readjusted the position
of the file, although it was obviously unnecessary. “Actually, no,
I don’t see.”

Tay nodded a couple of times while he was
trying to decide what to say. He could make some kind of idiotic
excuse, he supposed. Or perhaps he could just tell her the truth.
If he did that, he would no doubt either get high marks for honesty
or come off as a complete jerk. Unfortunately, right off the top of
his head he couldn’t think up a convincing lie so it looked like he
was stuck going with the truth by default.

“It’s just that I don’t like looking at dead
bodies,” Tay said. “The sight of them makes me nauseous.”

“But you’re the investigating officer in a
homicide.”

Tay nodded in resignation.

“Oh, I see,” she said. “This must be your
first.”

“No, I’ve been in CID-SIS for nearly fifteen
years.”

“Fifteen years? And you’re still avoiding
dead bodies?”

“Yes.”

He waited for her to fill in the rest. It
didn’t take long.

“So you’ve never attended an autopsy,” she
said.

“No.”

“Or examined the deceased after the autopsy
was completed.”

“No.”

“I see.” Dr. Hoi folded her arms over her
chest and made a little clicking noise with her tongue. “Well,
then. What shall we do here?”

“May I make a suggestion?” Tay asked,
shifting his weight on the chair.

“By all means.”

“Why don’t you just tell me about what you
wanted me to see? You could even draw some diagrams if it would
help, or you know…”

Tay trailed off into silence, feeling like an
idiot.

Dr. Hoi nodded slowly. “All right. That’s
fine, I guess.”

She reopened the file she had been working on
when Tay came in, glanced at it briefly as if to refresh her
memory, then leaned back in her chair and steepled her fingers,
unconsciously tapping the points of her forefingers against her
lips.

“The deceased is a healthy, well-nourished
Caucasian woman in her early to mid-forties. My guess is that she’s
probably an American. I can’t be certain, of course, but both her
dental work and the polish on her finger and toenails are
consistent with an American origin. On the other hand, perhaps
she’s French but gets her dental work done in the US and wears
American nail polish.”

“That sounds pretty unlikely to me.”

“As it does to me.”

Dr. Hoi glanced down at her file again.

“From the temperature of the deceased, and
taking into account the setting of the air conditioning in the room
where she was found, my best guess is that the time of death was
between eighteen and twenty hours prior to the discovery of the
body.”

“That means she was killed…” Tay paused to
calculate, “between five and seven Monday evening.”

Dr. Hoi nodded in acknowledgment of Tay’s
mathematical acumen.

“Fingernail scrapings produced no organic
matter and the body was relatively unmarked, except of course for
the destruction of the face. There were, however, marks on her
wrists and ankles that in my view are consistent with restraints
having been placed on her in some fashion. At first I thought that
might suggest the deceased had engaged in sadomasochistic sexual
activity.”

Dr. Hoi glanced at Tay and in embarrassment
he flicked his eyes to the blank wall just over her shoulder.

“On the other hand there was no evidence of
recent intercourse, certainly no semen in the vagina, the anus, or
the mouth. Of course, that’s not conclusive. The vagina was badly
mutilated by the flashlight and I can’t be absolutely certain no
penetration occurred, but the anus was intact and I saw no signs of
penetration there. And, of course, her attacker might have used a
condom.”

Dr. Hoi glanced at Tay again, but he was
studying the wall with intense concentration.

“There’s also something else to keep in
mind,” she went on when Tay wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Sadomasochism
frequently doesn’t entail intercourse, at least not in the usual
sense, so we can’t rule out the possibility of sexual activity
based purely on the lack of any evidence of intercourse. She had
been restrained, that we can say for certain, but the killer may
have snapped the handcuffs around both her wrists and ankles simply
for the purpose of killing her, not because they were engaged in
some form of sexual activity.”

“Handcuffs?”

“Yes, definitely handcuffs. My guess is they
were the plastic disposal type.”

“You mean like police cuffs?”

This time Dr. Hoi’s response came after a
short but perceptible pause.

“Yes,” she said. “Quite similar or even
possibly identical to police cuffs.”

A silence fell as Tay processed what he was
hearing. Somewhere in the distance some sort of machinery whirred
to life emitting a low-pitched humming sound.

“I gather you’re aware of the cause of
death?” Dr. Hoi asked after a few moments had passed in
silence.

“I assume it must have been the beating.”

“Certainly not. The woman was shot.”

Tay’s mouth dropped open.

“She was shot with a .22 caliber hollow
point,” Dr. Hoi continued, “fired from a revolver with its muzzle
placed in contact with her right ear.”

She made a little gun with her thumb and
forefinger and then reached up and placed her forefinger into her
ear.

“One shot,” she said. “Like this. Straight
into the ear. Bam!”

It took Tay a moment to regain the power of
speech, but when he did the words spilled out involuntarily.

“You’re shittin’ me.”

Dr. Hoi couldn’t suppress a smile. “No,
Inspector, I shit thee not. This was why I wanted you to come over
and look at the deceased yourself. Very unusual thing to see here
in Singapore. Are you sure you won’t change your mind?”

“I’m sure.” Tay’s mouth was dry and he tried
unsuccessfully to swallow. “Thank you.”

“Pity. As I said, very unusual thing.”

Dr. Hoi pursed her lips as if she was trying
hard to recall something, although what it might be wasn’t clear to
Tay.

“In any event,” she continued after a moment,
“the entry wound is very small and completely hidden inside the
ear. That’s probably why you missed it when you examined the
deceased at the scene.”

“Probably,” Tay mumbled.

“The stippling is apparent once you find the
point of entry and it leaves no doubt at all that this was a
contact wound. The bullet took a downward path, entering through
the primary motor cortex. There was extensive subdural hemorrhaging
that ripped linear fractures through the entirety of her skull,
then extended down to her neck. The consequential shock wave
brought about major tissue trauma, which brought her nervous system
to an immediate halt causing her blood pressure to drop like a
rock.”

Dr. Hoi abruptly stopped talking.

“I’m sorry, Inspector. From the look on your
face, I’m not sure you’re staying with me here. Is something
distracting you?”

“Is something distracting me?” Tay rolled his
eyes. “Jesus Christ, does a cat have an ass?”

Dr. Hoi burst out laughing. “You do have a
very colorful way of expressing yourself, Inspector.”

“My father was an American. He willed me his
vocabulary.”

“That must come in handy in your line of
work.”

“Particularly now. I’m bowled over.”

“Yes, firearms deaths in Singapore are
unexpected, aren’t they?”

“I can’t think of one in years.”

“Well, you have one now.”

“There was no blood,” Tay said.

“What?” Dr. Hoi asked.

“There was no blood around her ear. None on
the bed either.”

“Ah,” Dr. Hoi said. “I see what you
mean.”

“Wouldn’t there have been bleeding? If she
was shot?”

“Some perhaps. Not very much. As I said, the
damage to the brain would have caused her blood pressure to drop
very quickly and the entry wound was quite small. You didn’t see
any blood at all?”

“No. The bed had been stripped.”

“Well, there you are. There wouldn’t have
been enough blood to soak through the sheets to the mattress. It
would have been easy to clean up the body as well. Although,
offhand, I’m not sure why a killer would—”

“Did you recover the bullet?” Tay cut in.

Susan Hoi opened the center drawer of her
desk, removed a clear plastic vial that looked like a pill bottle,
and placed it on the desk in front of Tay. When he picked up the
vial, it rattled loudly in the quiet office. Tay saw it contained
nothing but some flecks of vaguely yellowish metal that looked more
like pieces of glitter than a bullet.

“A hollow point,” Dr. Hoi said. “It exploded
just like it was meant to. Then it pulverized her brain. I have
nothing for you but these fragments.”

“A hollow point,” Tay repeated, still trying
to process what he was hearing. “So you don’t think this could have
been a crime of passion, the result of some kind of—”

“Inspector, this was an execution,” Dr. Hoi
interrupted. “The killer chose a .22 revolver loaded with hollow
points, a weapon that is useless for anything
except
an
execution. Whoever this woman is, her killer came prepared to
murder her and then coldly did so.”

“Then why did he beat her so badly
first?”

“He didn’t.”

`”What are you talking about?” Tay asked.
“Her face looked like hamburger.”

“The beating occurred postmortem,” Dr. Hoi
said. “As you have already pointed out, there was relatively little
bleeding. If the decedent had been alive at the time she was
beaten, she would have bled a great deal.”

Dr. Hoi paused for Tay to frame another
question, but when he didn’t she continued.

“Your killer handcuffed this woman’s wrists
and ankles, put an assassin’s handgun against her right ear, fired
one shot, and then used some sort of club to crush her face. The
facial marks are consistent with the butt of a gun so I’d guess her
killer shot her in the head and then used the same revolver to beat
her face in.”

“Why would the killer beat her after she was
already dead?”

“Rage?” Dr. Hoi shrugged. “That would be my
guess, but you’re the detective here, Inspector. I just cut up dead
bodies and try to find out what made them dead.”

Dr. Hoi leaned back and waited a few moments
for Tay to speak again. When he didn’t, she fiddled briefly with
her pen, then abruptly pushed herself away from her desk and stood
up.

“That’s about all I have now, Inspector. I
should get back to the report. I ought to have it completed by
Monday and I’ll see that you get it immediately. Now unless there’s
something else…”

“No, I don’t think so,” Tay said as he rose
slowly to his feet. “Nothing else. Thank you.”

Dr. Hoi offered her hand and Tay took it. It
was cool to the touch. He was suddenly seized by a wild impulse to
pull it toward him, open her fingers, and press her palm to his
forehead, but he resisted.

“Take a left outside and go through the
door,” Dr. Hoi said.

“Follow that corridor all the way to the end
and you’ll be back in reception.”

“Thank you, yes,” Tay said.

Tay sensed Susan Hoi was waiting for him to
say something else, but he couldn’t think what it might be.

“Have a nice weekend,” she eventually said
when he remained silent.

“Thank you.”

And then he left, closing the door behind
him.

Tay followed Dr. Hoi’s instructions and
before long found himself outside the mortuary, standing on a
concrete walkway next to a lawn that was mowed as smooth and tight
as a putting green. He got his bearings and began to walk back to
his office, taking it slow.

That’s the ticket, Tay thought to himself.
Take it slow. Take it all slow.

The afternoon was hot and clear and the sky
was a dense, crystalline blue. It looked as perfect as the inside
of a ceramic bowl.

The book that introduced Inspector Samuel
Tay

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The Jack Shepherd Legal Thrillers

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