body like that.”
David frowned. The latest John Doe had been dumped
on the front steps of a house undergoing renovations less than five hundred
yards from the Northeast station. So far no one inside or outside the station
had reported seeing anything. Brazen wasn’t even the word.
Lopez used sterile water and the first of many
clean swabs to wipe the blood off the damaged face. The morgue assistant
captured the results of her work on film. David knew he’d be heading back to
the Nosh Pit with those pictures. His stomach rolled over at the idea.
“Interesting,” Lopez muttered. “What do we have
here?”
She used a pair of forceps to tease something out
of the bloody folds of skin around the victim’s throat. From where David stood
it looked like dark strands of gore-covered linguine.
“What is that? Film?” David leaned in to get a closer
look.
“VHS stock, if I’m not mistaken.” She continued to
work the material out one inch at a time, taking care not to break it.
“He wasn’t strangled with it, was he?” Martinez
asked.
“Not strong enough,” Lopez said. “I suspect the
ligature strangulation was performed by something else, and this was wound
around before the actual strangulation occurred.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The material’s all but embedded in the skin. That
could only occur if the force of the ligature material acted to drive the tape
under the skin.”
David leaned forward. “Can it be cleaned?”
“We’ll isolate any latents, and test for DNA, but
sure, I think it can be cleaned up.”
“Haven’t been to a good movie in ages,” Martinez
said. “Think this is a blockbuster?”
“I think it’s a message.”
“Original,” Martinez muttered. “Why can’t he be
like everyone else and send badly composed poems?”
Lopez slid the bloodstained film into a steel bowl
and handed it to the morgue assistant. “Check into cleaning this. Carefully, we
don’t want it damaged.”
The morgue assistant nodded and carried the bowl
toward the sink where racks of chemicals were stored.
Lopez patiently continued to clean the corpse,
exposing a face that had probably been handsome, though it now bore the
unmistakable marks of someone else’s rage.
“Does this one seem more personal to you?” David
moved around to study the body from another angle. He kept rubbing his temple,
where a headache lurked. “Another question: Was he drugged?”
“Something eating you?” Martinez asked.
“He’s decompensating fast.” Psychiatric jargon for
falling apart. Their killer was losing it. “Getting sloppy.”
“Sloppy is good. We can use sloppy.”
David thought of Chris. Psychopaths were cool,
until they decompensated, but as cool as Chris was? If he was guilty, then he
was a veritable iceberg and his lies were Oscar quality.
He stared down at the ruined body on the slab. Who
was he to the killer? Had Chris known him?
As soon as possible David got them to roll the
body’s prints and run them through the Automated Fingerprint Identification
System, but no hits came back.
Returning to the station, David and Martinez went
over what they knew. Not much. It was back to legwork. David already had a pair
of newly assigned D’s canvassing the area where the body had been dumped. He
couldn’t find out anymore here; it was time to hit the Nosh Pit again.
He told Martinez as much.
After several minutes Martinez picked up the
nearly empty murder book that had been started for the latest victim and
flipped through it. He met David’s gaze.
“You want me along?”
Technically David knew they should go together. It
was a solid lead he had developed on his own, but now it should be worked by
both partners. Only, he didn’t want his partner around for this one.
“It’s a no-brainer, so if you got something you
want to work on your own...” he murmured.
Martinez kept worrying the murder book as though
he wished he could produce answers out of it. “I’m thinking that
David frowned. The latest John Doe had been dumped
on the front steps of a house undergoing renovations less than five hundred
yards from the Northeast station. So far no one inside or outside the station
had reported seeing anything. Brazen wasn’t even the word.
Lopez used sterile water and the first of many
clean swabs to wipe the blood off the damaged face. The morgue assistant
captured the results of her work on film. David knew he’d be heading back to
the Nosh Pit with those pictures. His stomach rolled over at the idea.
“Interesting,” Lopez muttered. “What do we have
here?”
She used a pair of forceps to tease something out
of the bloody folds of skin around the victim’s throat. From where David stood
it looked like dark strands of gore-covered linguine.
“What is that? Film?” David leaned in to get a closer
look.
“VHS stock, if I’m not mistaken.” She continued to
work the material out one inch at a time, taking care not to break it.
“He wasn’t strangled with it, was he?” Martinez
asked.
“Not strong enough,” Lopez said. “I suspect the
ligature strangulation was performed by something else, and this was wound
around before the actual strangulation occurred.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The material’s all but embedded in the skin. That
could only occur if the force of the ligature material acted to drive the tape
under the skin.”
David leaned forward. “Can it be cleaned?”
“We’ll isolate any latents, and test for DNA, but
sure, I think it can be cleaned up.”
“Haven’t been to a good movie in ages,” Martinez
said. “Think this is a blockbuster?”
“I think it’s a message.”
“Original,” Martinez muttered. “Why can’t he be
like everyone else and send badly composed poems?”
Lopez slid the bloodstained film into a steel bowl
and handed it to the morgue assistant. “Check into cleaning this. Carefully, we
don’t want it damaged.”
The morgue assistant nodded and carried the bowl
toward the sink where racks of chemicals were stored.
Lopez patiently continued to clean the corpse,
exposing a face that had probably been handsome, though it now bore the
unmistakable marks of someone else’s rage.
“Does this one seem more personal to you?” David
moved around to study the body from another angle. He kept rubbing his temple,
where a headache lurked. “Another question: Was he drugged?”
“Something eating you?” Martinez asked.
“He’s decompensating fast.” Psychiatric jargon for
falling apart. Their killer was losing it. “Getting sloppy.”
“Sloppy is good. We can use sloppy.”
David thought of Chris. Psychopaths were cool,
until they decompensated, but as cool as Chris was? If he was guilty, then he
was a veritable iceberg and his lies were Oscar quality.
He stared down at the ruined body on the slab. Who
was he to the killer? Had Chris known him?
As soon as possible David got them to roll the
body’s prints and run them through the Automated Fingerprint Identification
System, but no hits came back.
Returning to the station, David and Martinez went
over what they knew. Not much. It was back to legwork. David already had a pair
of newly assigned D’s canvassing the area where the body had been dumped. He
couldn’t find out anymore here; it was time to hit the Nosh Pit again.
He told Martinez as much.
After several minutes Martinez picked up the
nearly empty murder book that had been started for the latest victim and
flipped through it. He met David’s gaze.
“You want me along?”
Technically David knew they should go together. It
was a solid lead he had developed on his own, but now it should be worked by
both partners. Only, he didn’t want his partner around for this one.
“It’s a no-brainer, so if you got something you
want to work on your own...” he murmured.
Martinez kept worrying the murder book as though
he wished he could produce answers out of it. “I’m thinking that
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