“So, what are you saying?”
Ottoman grinned full teeth. “I’m saying that the killer was creating an alibi.”
7
“It still doesn’t feel right,” Neil said. “Got a sex scene without sex.”
“You’re still thinking accident?” Steve asked.
“Because I’m having trouble with someone she knows showing up for sex, strangling her instead, then setting up an asphyxia scene. It’s too much of a stretch. Plus there’s no physical evidence another person was there.”
They were back in the squad car with Neil driving back to headquarters at One Schroeder Plaza at the corner of Ruggles and Tremont near the Northeastern University campus.
“The champagne and lights are circumstantial. Same with the ligature trauma. She could have twisted. Nylons stretch. Plus I don’t see any motive.”
“That’s what we have to work on.”
The traffic was light at this time of the day. The plan was that Neil was going to make calls to the victim’s credit card and telephone companies plus follow-ups on neighbors of the deceased while Steve would question Farina’s colleagues at the Kingsbury Club on the North Shore.
“You seem pretty convinced.”
Steve could hear an edge of accusation. “Because Ottoman made a convincing scenario.”
“Hell, you were convinced from the get-go.”
Steve didn’t know what Neil was getting at. “Only after I looked things over.” They didn’t say anything for a while as Steve could sense Neil turning something over in his head. The rim of his ear was red and he chewed away on his stirrer.
“I don’t know,” Neil finally said. “You seem to have all the answers is all.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m saying. You walk in an hour late, and one-two-three you put together a whole fucking homicide theory, and now you got the M.E. and D.A. in agreement.”
“I’m not sure what’s bothering you.”
“I don’t know either.” Neil rubbed his face. “Maybe I’m feeling a little put out is all. Mangini, C.S.S.—I thought we’d pretty well figured it out. Then you bring up the ligature inconsistencies.”
Steve felt his throat begin to tighten. “Yeah?”
“I don’t know. Mangini should have picked up on that. Me, too…and the lights thing. It’s just that I’m feeling like the south end of a mule.”
“I get it. You’re feeling bad only because you’re an inferior criminal investigator.”
Neil made a humphing chuckle. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Look, how many hangings have you had?”
“Not many.”
“Course not. You’re up in Gloucester where they throw themselves in the water. Besides Boston’s got more rope and stockings.”
Neil smiled and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Hey, man, we’re partners. We’re working this together, okay? There’s no one-upsmanship bullshit.”
Neil nodded. “Maybe you called it.”
“And maybe not. We’ve got lab stuff still to come. We’ve got an investigation to mount.”
“Yeah.”
Steve felt himself relax a little in whatever reconciliation had been established. But he wasn’t sure if Neil was sitting on something else.
“You seem to have all the answers is all.”
They had been partners for less than six months, so Steve was still getting to knowing Neil, who had been rehired from Gloucester on the North Shore. He had said that low pay, boring assignments, and minimal overtime made him leave. So he took the civil service tests, scored high, got hired, did time on the streets, and was eventually promoted to homicide. But the real reason for the move was his wife’s death three years ago.
Neil wanted to be out of Gloucester and all reminders of his loss. Also, he wanted a fresh start for his sixteen-year-old daughter, Lily, who had behavioral problems. So part of Neil’s emotional makeup was family baggage. That and a fierce competitiveness which sometimes surfaced as pit bull finesse.
Neil pulled the stirrer out of his mouth and tossed it out the window. Unconsciously, he began to finger the crucifix chain around his neck. It was another one of his tics. For several minutes, neither of them said anything as they proceeded toward headquarters, Neil looking as if he had put behind them any resentment that Ottoman had corroborated Steve’s murder theory. But Steve was not convinced. Neil was a quiet brooder.
“I don’t care how good a pathologist he is,” he finally said. “He gives me the fucking creeps is all. I mean, how many guys say, ‘Let’s talk strangulation,’ and grin like that?”
“You’d be creepy too if you spent your days cutting up cadavers.”
“Yeah, but I think he gets off on it. I mean, when he was a little kid instead of a fireman or baseball player, did he say he wanted to be a coroner?”
Steve laughed. “He probably made that decision in medical school.”
“That’s what I’m saying. He’s got a whole list of medical options—psychiatry, neurology, cardiology, gynecology, pediatrics, whatever. So, what kind of person decides he’s going to make cadavers his specialty?”
“I don’t think he sees dead people the way most people do. They’re more like scientific problems to be solved. And what about us opting for homicide?”
Neil shrugged. “Maybe we’re a little weird, too. Not like we’ve got lots of cool options—traffic, public safety, cyber crime, domestic violence, harbor patrol. Administration. I think I’d die an early death if I had a desk job.”
“Yeah, me, too.” Only on movie or TV screens was homicide cool—cops rolling into crime scenes in shiny black Hummers, wearing Armani suits, spouting hot-shit platitudes, finding conclusive DNA evidence, getting the bad guy IDed the next day. The real thing is not like that. Nor is the crime sanitized. In Steve’s experience it was a daily confrontation with human depravity: bodies found in a basement, their brains exploded for a fistful of dollars; young kids dead in a playground over sneakers; a wife and child bludgeoned in a moment of madness because of mounting bills; a pregnant woman murdered, her fetus cut out of her. Or shooting dead some kid zonked out on OxyContin and coming at you with a gun. All in a day’s work.
But one never quite gets used to it. You cope for a while, maybe seek counseling for the stress and horror. But eventually it comes back up like a clogged toilet. That’s when you go for the unhealthy solutions—cigarettes, booze, drugs—whatever it takes to anesthetize your emotions to the constantly unfolding human tragedies. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they fail and you find yourself gripped by nightmares and crying jags, overcome by fear, depression, and cynicism.
The occasional blackout.
And then you have to go home to loved ones expecting emotional comfort, intimacy, and normal family life. At least medical forensics is science.
“What about you?” Neil asked. “Why’d you want to become a cop?”
“I just wanted to get out of the house.”
“That bad?”
Steve nodded. “My parents had a rotten marriage, fighting all the time. By the time I went to college, they were dead and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I thought maybe I’d be an actor. Then it was an English teacher. Then in my junior year I changed to criminal justice. I think it was all those cop shows. They made it look easy. Maybe I should have been a TV cop.”
“Yeah. But I can’t see you as an English teacher.”
“Me neither. The funny thing is when I was a kid I never felt comfortable around cops. They’d look at me twice and I’d feel like I’d done something wrong.”
“Sounds to me like you were paranoid.”
“Yeah. I always felt guilty around them. Pretty weird, huh?”