"Nothing's been disturbed. Aside from the body, you'll find a horde of drugs in there."
Nick turned to leave, stopped, and added, "I assume you have all the details down?"
David didn't like the comment nor the answer he was about to give, but he gave it anyway. "You assume right, as usual."
Nick stormed away with his two assistants and entered the van just as Kathy emerged. She walked over to David and pulled out a handkerchief from the pocket of her fleece-lined jacket.
"Not at all pleasant in there," she said. She blew her nose without regard to daintiness.
David bent over and kissed her on the lips. "Happy birthday," he whispered.
"What? Oh, that? Isn't this a nice way to spend it?"
"We still have tonight. Dinner out, okay? Olivio's? Let's not break the string." They had celebrated their birthdays in elegant style for the past five years.
"Of course, where else? Pick me up at six." She pointed to the EMS entrance. "That's where Spritz hung out, you say?"
"That's the place."
"You hanging around or what?"
"No, I'd better scram before your boss and I tangle out loud. I'll interrogate some people later." He lowered his voice as if he were speaking decisions. "Like Foster … and Bernie … and Robert. Maybe even Dr. Corliss"
"Corless, the psychiatrist? You suspect the psychiatrist?"
"At this point, I don't know who to suspect." He rubbed his decision scar. "And even whether Spritz killed the others. And, if you want to know the truth, whether those stupid drugs in there have anything to do with them."
Kathy appeared disappointed. "Really?" she said. "Let's talk about it tonight."
"On your birthday!" David said in disgust, not as a question.
"David, my beloved, if I were you about to phrase this, I'd say, `Bleep my birthday, we've got trouble, big trouble, and I don't mean in River City.'
Kathy barely enunciated the last word before David shot back, "I don't say `bleep.'
"You know what I mean."
"I'll still sing you Happy Birthday."
Kathy teased out a smirk.
"Incidentally," David said, "what's Nick know about narcotics?"
"Sparky said he worked in the San Diego Unit for a while."
"Sparky? How'd he know?"
"They go back. That's why Sparky recommended him."
David did little to hold back a scowl. "You never told me that." He gave each word equal emphasis. "And what do you mean `they go back'?"
"I heard they met at some national law enforcement convention and they've kept in touch."
David ironed out his face. "I see," he said. "How long ago?"
"Twenty years. I think that's what I heard." David knew Kathy sensed his bad vibes.
"What's wrong?" she said. "You worried about something?"
"No. Curious; that's all."
After this latest murder-now five in all-David felt like a fledgling engineer on a runaway locomotive. What to do? First, take a shower.
Before leaving the scene, he had reluctantly approached Nick to inform him of the gloves, tape and wig in the EMS room. Without hesitation, Nick theorized that maybe they had been planted, something David thought strange, yet conceivable. The gloves, the tape? Maybe. But who would know a wig might be important except maybe old man Razbit, the pawnbroker? David would have congratulated anyone else for proposing the theory but, in this case, he ignored it and asked how long it would be before the body could be released for autopsy.
Nick responded, "Released? I'd say by noon. Autopsy? That's up to what's-his-name. Tanarlde's replacement."
At 10 Oak Lane, David took a longer shower than usual, shampooing his hair over and over again. Another one of his "things" was that odors had a special affinity for hair, which accounted for nostril hairs perpetuating the sensation of a smell. Both in and out of the shower, he blew his nose nonstop.
He contacted Dr. Jake Reed at his home and learned the postmortem was scheduled for three p.m.
At three-ten, David walked into the autopsy room with the single purpose of obtaining the findings in the region of Spritz's neck. Especially the condition of the hyoid bone whose fracture would most likely indicate strangulation. No light filtered through the elevated windows as was the case during Charlie Bugles' autopsy, and the corpse looked less waxy overall. David observed purplish lividity confined to the lower body and the head and neck above its straight-line bruise were dark red.
Dr. Reed was decked in surgical cap, gown, gloves, but no mask. He greeted David warmly and turned off the power supply to the microphone attached to the gown.
"Good to have company, David. Lots of bullet wounds here. I counted six-all entries in front, exits in back. And since three slugs were found in the floor either beneath or behind the body, I'd say he was shot after he hit the floor."
The Acting Director of the Department was considered a superb forensic pathologist in his own right. He appeared in his early thirties and, up on his toes, would rival David in height, but he was as thin as his name. He had the gravelly voice of a smoker and David often asserted he should know better, inquiring of Reed when he would flatten his chest, a reference to the rectangular shaped breast pocket where he kept his Marlboros.
"Dead about twelve hours, Jake?"
"Yes, I'd say about that time." Reed was preparing the neck dissection and had not yet gotten to the "Big Y," as David called it.
"And strangled first?"
"Strangled first. Not by a cord or anything like that though. The linear bruise there, the satellites? Bare hands. The satellites indicate quite a struggle and I'll wager there's plenty of internal damage. But that's usually the case-they use more force than is necessary to kill the victim." He spread open Spritz's eyelids. "And here are the hemorrhages."
David informed the pathologist that he would stay only until the neck dissection was completed. During the procedure, Reed pointed to the extensive deep bruising which he had predicted.
"And here's the hyoid, David. Fractured, see it?" Reed extended the exposure downward in the neck. "And also the thyroid cartilage. Plenty of force-there's the evidence." He cut deeper and ran two fingers up and down the cervical spine. "Feels aligned. It's a wonder he didn't snap the vertebrae apart, though."
David thanked the pathologist and hurried home to take another shower.
For four days, David had not uploaded any summaries into his computer; nor had he used his notepad. He had an hour to kill before leaving to pick up Kathy and sat alternately thinking and typing as he brought his entries current:
Saturday, January 24 MURDERS, continued-
Victor Spritz-strangled and shot in his own defib. van. Drugs all over the place.
Wild-goose chase to Recycling Center. Nick there: got same call or did he do the calling?
Sniper at cemetery.
Spritz: Spent time at psych. hosp. Has 4+ gun collection. CARCAN and CANCAN.
House vandalized.
Botulism vial missing.
He added some narrative summaries in contrast to past entries, a symptom, he thought, of a brain bathed in shreds of detail and speculation, too fluid to compress.
He typed one item-"I found Spritz both strangled and shot in his cardiac van. There goes our murderer."-with the frustration of a child who had just lost a coin down a drain.
This time, he decided to include comments on suspects from the standpoint of motive, opportunity and means, but his inclusions presupposed Spritz had murdered the others before he himself was killed. "Yet," he wrote, "it's entirely possible this was not the case, that we have a single cunning killer on the loose and he set Spritz up, for whatever reason."