At three o’clock Harry stood before the team and began handing out assignments. It was basically grunt work for now, much of it going over ground already covered in the initial investigation, looking for anything that might have been missed. Nick Benevuto and John Weathers were sent to interview Darlene’s parents and Clint Walker’s friends and family. Uniforms were assigned to verify the husband’s and boyfriend’s alibis. Others were sent out to interview the men whose cars were parked in Darlene’s driveway in the months leading up to her death. Jim Morgan was told to do another canvass of Darlene’s neighbors. The Tarpon Springs detectives, the two D’s, were sent to canvass the residences around Frank Howard Park, where the “cowboy’s” body had been found. Vicky, because of her background in sex crimes, was told to dig up whatever information she could about the boy Darlene had molested, his family, his friends, along with any psychological treatment he may have received. Harry would take on the unpleasant task of Darlene’s autopsy, as well as reviewing all forensic evidence that had been collected. The following day he was scheduled to meet with Jasmine, the dancer from the Peek-a-Boo Lounge, to view driver’s license photos of men who had visited Darlene’s apartment. It was a massive amount of work, but Harry was convinced he had the manpower to get it done quickly and efficiently. It was now a question of finding that one key piece of evidence that would break the case open.
Darlene’s autopsy was scheduled for four p.m. It was originally planned for early that morning, but had been delayed when Mort Janlow, the assistant M.E. assigned to the case, was sent out to the Tarpon Springs crime scene. Now Janlow stood before the body, snapping on a pair of latex gloves. Harry stood across from him, watching a grin spread across the medical examiner’s face.
“Still don’t like these slice-’em-and-dice-’em jobs, eh, Harry?”
Harry gave Janlow a flat stare and held it until the assistant M.E. was forced to look away. “Not my favorite part of the day,” he finally said. What he didn’t say was that it made him think of his six-year-old brother Jimmy lying on a similar autopsy table twenty years ago. He had never seen his brother then, of course, but that had been the overriding image he’d had as a young deputy witnessing his first autopsy, and it was one that rushed back at him each succeeding time. He believed then, as he believed now, that no one who had ever witnessed an autopsy would want one performed on someone they loved.
He stared into Darlene Beckett’s dead face, the slightly opened eyes, the parted lips. But most of all he stared at the single word that someone had carved into her forehead, denouncing her as evil. Was she? Or was she a woman fighting her own inner demons. He wondered if he’d ever know the answer, or any part of it.
“Let’s get to it,” Janlow said, picking up a scalpel for the initial cut. Then he paused and looked at the body. “She was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, wasn’t she?” The question wasn’t directed at Harry, even though he was the only other person in the room. Now Janlow looked at Harry as if embarrassed by the comment. “Most people, even the ones who are extremely attractive in life, don’t carry their looks to this table. The muscle tone is gone; the clear, glowing complexions have turned pale and gray, the eyes are clouded. It makes you realize that it’s not the superficial exterior that we all work so hard at getting right, it’s that spark of life that makes people truly appealing.” He paused. “But every so often there’s one who’s beautiful even in death.”
“Maybe it’s because that’s all they ever had,” Harry said.
Janlow inclined his head to one side. “Never thought of it that way. Maybe you’re right, Harry. Maybe you’re right.”
Janlow reached up and turned on the overhead microphone that would record his observations. He gave the date and time, followed by routine statements. “We are about to begin the postmortem examination of Darlene Beckett, a twenty-six-year-old white female. The body is well developed, and shows no identifying scars or tattoos. There is bruising about the arms and shoulders indicating that she struggled before death. There is only one exterior wound, a deep cut across the throat that severed the thyroid cartilage, the trachea, and the right carotid artery, causing a massive loss of blood, which would have continued until the heart stopped beating. The wound appears to have been administered from behind in a right-to-left motion, indicating the killer used his left hand.”
Harry noted Janlow’s caution. He had avoided stating flatly that the killer was left-handed. Several years earlier Janlow had performed an autopsy on another of Harry’s cases. It involved a young woman who was beaten to death with a metal softball bat owned by her husband. The blows had come from left to right, and Janlow had declared during the autopsy that the direction of the blows indicated that the killer was left-handed. At trial the defense ripped into Janlow’s report, demonstrating beyond doubt that the husband-the man Harry had arrested-was right-handed. The case seemed certain to fail, until Harry went back into the field and came up with several softball teammates of the accused, each of whom testified on redirect that the husband, though signing his name and throwing a ball with his right hand, always batted left.
“The wound goes back to the spine and caused a nick in the third vertebrae, indicating a heavy-bladed knife, possibly a hunting knife,” Janlow continued. He paused again, thought over what he had said and then nodded to himself. “Okay, let’s open her up,” Janlow said, bringing himself and Harry back as he began the Y-shaped incision that went from each shoulder to the sternum, then ran in a straight line to the pubis.
Harry always handled the early stages of an autopsy well. The opening of the body cavity never bothered him. There was Vicks to dab under the nostrils to keep the odor of putrefaction at bay, and the inner organs, when explored and removed, never seemed quite real to him. His difficulties came later when the craniotomy was performed. It began with the sound of the scalp being ripped away from the skull; then pulled down over the face, followed by the buzz of the small electric saw as it cut around the skull; then the popping sound as the skull cap was pulled away, exposing the brain. It was at this point that Harry was always forced to think about what he had just witnessed. And he always came away with the same conclusion: it was the final indignity one human being could force upon another, not much more than a cruel joke, a stripping away of the last vestige of humanity, even if it’s done with a noble intention, a search for the final truth of that person’s life.
Darlene Beckett’s autopsy took an hour and a half to complete. There would still be microscopic analyses of various organs, and subsequent toxicology reports, but the initial evidence was fairly clear. She had died because someone slit her throat.
As he prepared to leave the autopsy suite, Harry paused and looked back at the body. It was the last time he would see Darlene Beckett. He would see her in photographs, of course. They would fill his office until the case was solved. But this was the last time he would see her. He stared at her face. The look of surprise and terror were gone now, as if washed away by the autopsy, and Harry again realized how little sympathy he felt for this woman; how much he truly disliked her, even in death. But as he stared at her profile he offered an unspoken promise, just as he had to all those who had come before her: to find her killer and bring that person to trial. It’s what I do, he thought. It’s what I am, what I was made to be. He continued to stare at Darlene Beckett for several drawn-out moments until he realized that Mort Janlow was watching him. Then he turned and briskly walked away.