Up before dawn, Cecil was on the case, visiting the Medical Examiner, a cheerful womanizer and a clothes horse, who drank heavily. He was performing an autopsy on Mary Donovan’s body, when Cecil came in to have a look.
Another man in a white coat was taking photographs of all the marks on Mary’s carved up remains.
Cecil was so focused on the dead body, he didn’t notice the ME was three sheets to the wind. The detective was too busy inspecting the lacerations all over the mutilated corpse. “Cause of death?” He asked.
“Strangulation,” the ME answered, wavering and smiling at the same time.
Taking a closer look at the marks around her neck, Cecil saw the bruises he missed the first time he saw the body in the poor light of the basement. “She died of strangulation? No blunt force trauma to the head?”
“No skull fracture, and there was petechial hemorrhaging in both eyes, leaving no doubt in my mind… as to cause of death.” The doctor burped and his stomach groaned.
Cecil took off his glasses and examined the lacerations up close. His face was an inch or two away from the surface of her skin.
The cameraman had to stop and back away from the area.
“Oh, sorry,” Cecil turned quickly, then resumed his close inspection of the corpse, “are you saying all these injuries were post mortem?”
“Yes, someone cut into her flesh after she died.” The ME’s smile froze his blood.
On her right facial cheek, Cecil saw where someone carved a swastika and cross bones into the flesh on her neck, an ominous looking runes symbol on the side of her abdomen: the SS, insignia reminiscent of the Nazis and Hitler. His face reddened when he thought of another horror this woman may have endured.
“Did someone… rape her?”
Drifting, Marvin seemed tired and it took him a moment to collect his thoughts, then he simply said, “Inconclusive.”
“What do you mean, inconclusive?”
The ME’s finger wavered over the victims thighs and torso. “She had some bruises around here, although… that may have been post mortem. I didn’t find any bruising on the genital area or vaginal tearing, so… (burp) although there was penetration and she definitely had intercourse shortly before she died, and while rape is a possibility, I can’t rule it out. It’s clear our female victim showed signs of forced trauma shortly before her death and was clearly assaulted physically, that much is certain, however, beyond that, I cannot say any certainty at this point time.”
At headquarters in the homicide division, Detectives Woodman and Carlos wouldn’t wear a tie to work, sometimes they wore a t-shirt and Blue Jeans, they knew what pleased them, whether it be gambling, or drinking, or womanizing, these two men liked to party.
Without endorsing their lifestyle, George Moore, a committed family man, who would never admit he envied all the action they got, thought he would set aside his strict moral code for once and tell them one of his stories, where he may have crossed over the line, the legal line, so they would know, he was cool too. “I wasn’t a straight arrow my whole life. I took some chances.” He was nodding yes, but they weren’t buying it.
“You? Come on.” Woodman was thinking, a lame ass milk toast like you?
They stopped by the coffee and doughnuts table and helped themselves, while Detective Moore casually said, “Did I tell you about the time I worked for Townsend labs? An animal research laboratory, cleaning out cages while I made my way through college?”
Carlos and Woodman nodded no.
“Well, these poor Recess Monkey’s... locked in their cages 24/7, wire mesh floor, living in their own filth and waste, until I came around to clean their cages once a day. As I did, I got to know each and every one of them, giving them all different names and these cold hearted scientists, they didn’t care. To them they were just lab animals, an object you inject poison into, so detached and inhumane. Every cage had an ID tag to identify the monkey, and the scientists would come by their cages, look at tag, never the monkey, collect their data and make a mark on their clipboard, so one night when I was working late, and I was all alone in lab, I switched all the monkey’s out of their cages and put them in different cages.”
They didn’t seem to get it.
“To screw up the scientific data, don’t you see?” Moore was smiling, sure his story was funny, maybe even a little heart warming.
Woodman and Carlos finally got it and chuckled.
Carlos patted Moore on the back affectionately and said, “You shit disturber, you.”
Within earshot, Detective Stuart was sitting down, a dignified woman with a somewhat haughty air, who resented his humorous attitude and scorned Moore with a sneer. Plus she thought he probably committed a criminal act and should be in jail. She sat arms akimbo, staring at the suspects on the white board, and thought, “We’ll never know if his act resulted in one less cure for cancer.”
Moore noticed her uptight attitude, her annoying way of talking and sitting all closed off from the world, so judgmental and rule bound. Chuckling, he remembered the birthday gift he gave to her, a pair of thongs, for removing the huge stick she had up her ass. That’s what he told her and everyone had a good laugh then too.
When Cecil walked in the room, followed by a man in a lab coat, everyone got quiet and listened to the lead detective. “What I’m about to reveal to you stays in this room. For now, the press is not to know about it. While we recovered only one body from the house, it appears we have a double homicide on our hands and for all we know, Nigel Mann is the second victim.” A room full of people were murmuring and Cecil said, “Conner can tell you more.”
Conor collected evidence and ran all the lab tests, the forensics, the fingerprint evidence; he was an Irish guy with average intelligence, a receding chin and a lab coat, a quiet voice, almost afraid to speak louder. Clearing his throat, he spoke with some difficulty.
“Ah, the murder weapon that was used to kill Mary Donovan was a tie-”
Someone leaned in closer to the speaker, looking perplexed.
Conner’s voice got softer still, “A man’s tie was found near the couch on the floor, along with a beer bottle; skin and hair fibers were collected…”
One detective turned to another, mouthing the words, “I can’t hear him.”
“A small envelope containing trace amounts of cocaine was found in the living room. Fingerprints were taken…”
Detective Stuart was having a hard time hearing him. She thought she heard “the cocaine found in the living room fingerprints,” which didn’t make any sense.
Conner continued, unaware anyone was having trouble hearing him, “We recovered prints in the basement on the pick ax and the shovel, which was clearly used as a murder weapon. We found skin and hair fibers on the butt end of the shovel. Mary's purse was found in the living room. Only her fingerprints were on it and a partial that could be anyone’s. Blood found in the basement and blood recovered from the shovel did not belong to Mary Donovan, which means we have a second unknown victim.”
Someone next to him asked Moore, “What did he say?”
Moore told him, “A second unknown victim.” He said it too loudly and everyone was looking at him.
“Shhh…” Stuart said admonishing him.
Conner continued in his normal voice. ”We believe the first female victim died in the living room and her limp body was carried down to the basement, where someone cut into her flesh with a knife. While the murderer was doing this, a second victim surprised him and the killer had to improvise and use whatever was handy to murder the second victim: the shovel was that tool. On the cellar floor we found a bloody shoe print-”
“What?” Someone asked, having trouble hearing.
“A BLOODY SHOE PRINT!” Moore shouted.
“You mean like the one you left in the basement?” Carlos jibbed and everyone laughed.
They were all looking at Moore, being the only one who stepped in blood, and now he had to endure some laughter and his cheeks reddened.
“Hey, lets all give Conner our attention,” Cecil said.
“Um,” Conner began, “we found scrawl marks in the hard dirt floor that appeared to be made by a sharp narrow instrument: perhaps a knife.”
“Any idea what the meaning of these bloody marks in the floor?” Cecil asked.
“Some kind of Rune symbols, that’s all I can tell you for now.”
Cecil missed these floor scratches the first time he searched the crime scene. He would have to take another look in that basement.
By the end of the morning briefing, Cecil told Carlos and Woodman, that he wanted them to investigate the drug angle. “You were on the drug task force, right? Well, Mary’s fingerprints were found on the cocaine envelope. We need to find out where she got those drugs and if this crime is at all drug related.”
After the meeting, they went out in the field, Carlos leading the way, saying, “Let’s have a chat with our old friend, the candy man.”
They took an unmarked car to a small Spanish style home on Lytton Avenue, near Middlefield and knocked on the door.
A hippy long hair opened up and tried to close the door on them, saying, “Oh no, not you guys.”
The cops pushed their way in and the hippy backed up into the darkened room.
Carlos pulled out his weapon and put the barrel under the hippy’s chin, while Woodman held his piece on everyone else in the room.
Several people froze up on the couch, sitting around a coffee table, glass top, lined with cocaine, big joints in the ashtray.
“What I see here is enough to put you away for about five to ten, so you’re going to tell me who has been dealing coke to one Nigel Mann. Was it you?”
“Who?”
Carlos took his face in hand and slammed the back of his head against the wall. “What are you, an owl? You can do a whole lot better than ‘who’!”
People in the room began to protest, “Hey man, you can’t do that.”
“Shut up!” Woodman shouted and the protester put up his hands, when he saw the gun.
After his head stopped spinning, the drug dealer said, “What’s the matter, I don’t pay you guys enough protection money?”
“I’m not on the Anti-Drug Task Force, asshole. I’m from homicide and you better have some answers, because I don’t care what kind of deal you made with some other cop.”
“But I told you everything I know.”
“Not everything.” Carlos started turning up the heat, forcing the gun muzzle into the hippy’s esophagus.
“All right, all right,” the drug dealer shouted and the cop backed off with the gun. “A guy, this big spender, with plenty of money, says his name is Nigel and throws down a thousand dollar bill, like I’m going to give him change for that.”
“What did he do?”
“Last I heard, he was going to Jennings place on Woodland.”
Carlos holstered his gun and patted the hippy’s cheek. “There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Walking over to the coffee table he picked up all the bags of drugs and put them in his pocket.
“Hey, no way!” All the hippies protested. “You can’t do that!”
“Shut up! Be glad we don’t arrest you!”
Carlos walked out of there with one once of cocaine and at least that much in high grade marijuana, while Woodman held a gun on the druggies.
In the car, Carlos stuck a straw in the cocaine bag and sniffed it in, handing the bag to Woodman, he pounded the wheel and went whoopee, tearing out of the parking lot. He was headed back to the station.
“Where are we going?” Woodman asked. “That other drug dealer is on Woodland, that’s in the opposite direction.”
“We just have to make a little detour first.” Carlos had that crazed look in his eyes… wild man.
Copyright 2016 William Leslie
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