He looked at the house again and said slowly, as though thinking out loud, “The only thing that would explain the facts is if they were killed somewhere else twenty hours or more before they were discovered by me, and kept in extremely cold conditions in an enclosed container, like a freezer, so the bodies wouldn’t commence undergoing rigor and the insects couldn’t get to them. Once the bodies were taken out of that enclosed environment the process of rigor would begin. And that would also account for why the local ME’s body temp gauge was throwing off wacky numbers, and also the peculiar stiffness of the limbs. It wouldn’t be due to the chemical reaction of dead muscles in rigor, but a frozen body thawing out. And the blowflies detect dead bodies based on things like scents from the corpse’s release of fluid and gases. If the bodies were frozen, that might have inhibited those scents from being released. And if the bodies were only there for a short while, the insect infestation wouldn’t have been all that much, which matches the facts of the crime scene.” He paused. “But if that was the case there wouldn’t have been foam on the guy’s lips. It would have long since disappeared.”
“Not if they placed a concocted residue there when they laid the body out, because they knew the tox tests would show the drugs in his system and that the foaming would probably be present if he’d just been left there right after he died.”
“Does your ME think the bodies were moved after death?”
“She knows at least one of them was. The livor mortis staining showed that.”
“The guy hanging, right?” Decker nodded. “I saw that the staining was on his back. No way that could have happened if he’d been strung up and left there.”
“Exactly what my ME said,” noted Kemper. “And there were actually two sets of ligature marks. The local ME either missed that or just didn’t note or understand the difference. The marks made by the rope were clearly done postmortem.”
“So whoever did this was sweating the details and maybe hoping for a less than crackerjack medical examiner doing the posts. And they almost got their wish. How’d your person figure the freezer scenario?”
“It was really the only way to explain the forensic inconsistencies. And there was evidence of an abrasion on the shoulder of one of the vics.”
“We saw that. They were speculating it might have been from a medical patch of some kind.”
“My ME believes it was a freezer burn on the skin from where it was left exposed. She said she was pretty certain it occurred postmortem. But she made a point of telling me that her TOD was a guess, really, because if the bodies were placed in a freezer right after death and then put in that house, that precludes making an accurate calculation for the time of death.”
“So whoever did this wanted to make sure that we would not be able to show precisely when the guys really died.”
“And by doing that they take away a key tool of any homicide investigation.”
“Alibis or a lack thereof become pretty much meaningless,” said Decker thoughtfully.
“Exactly.”
“The bodies had to be transported here at some point, relatively close to the time that I discovered them. There was no deep freezer in that house, so the bodies were kept on ice somewhere else before being brought here.”
“You said you heard a car?”
“I did. I also heard a noise.”
“What kind of noise?”
“It was more like a series of sounds. Scraping and clunks.”
“Nothing else?”
“A plane flying over. Other than that, nothing. So how does someone carry two corpses into that house and no one sees a thing?”
“Well, I understand there aren’t many people left in this neighborhood.”
“But the killers couldn’t be sure a car wouldn’t drive down the street. Or someone wouldn’t look out their window. I mean, it only takes one pair of eyes.” He fell silent for a moment. “Now, do you want to tell me what your men were doing here? And why they were undercover? If they were hanging out with a bad crowd, I think we can narrow our list of suspects, especially in a place like this.”
She pursed her lips and stared at him. “This goes no farther.”
“No farther,” repeated Decker.
“Will Beatty and Doug Smith, they were the two dead men in that house. Beatty was in the basement. Smith was the one hanging.”
“And they worked undercover for the DEA?”
“Yes and no,” was her surprising reply.
“How exactly is that possible?” asked Decker.
“They did work undercover for us. And then they went rogue.”
“How do you know they went rogue? Maybe their cover just got blown.”
“We entertained that possibility until something happened to disabuse us of that notion.”
“What was that?”
“They were working with a guy named Randy Haas.”
“Was he DEA too?”
“No. He was a bad guy who we had on a short leash feeding us info. He was working with Beatty and Smith. If he screwed us, he was going to prison for life.”
“What happened with Haas?”
“He was given a fatal dose of morphine. But with his dying breath, he pointed the finger at Beatty and Smith as his killers.”
“Did he say why?”
“No. Just that it was them.”
“Why would they kill him?”
“Don’t know.”
“And you believe Haas’s statement?”
“Dying declaration. What reason would he have to lie? And on top of that we’d been unable to get hold of Beatty or Smith.”
“Whoever killed Beatty and Smith knew they were cops. They dressed one as a cop and poured pig’s blood around the other one.”
“But the fact is, they’d gone over to the dark side.”
“Well, some folks just aren’t very forgiving,” said Decker. “Especially those already on the dark side.”
Chapter 23
After only three hours of sleep, Decker went downstairs to find Zoe finishing her breakfast in the kitchen before going to school.
He poured himself a cup of coffee and accepted a toasted bagel from Amber, who was rushing around the kitchen packing Zoe’s lunch and also handling the laundry in a small room adjacent to it. Frank, he was told, had already left for work.
Decker wearily sat down across from Zoe and drank his coffee and munched on his bagel while she spooned cereal into her mouth.
When he looked over at her, he found the little girl staring at him.
“You went out last night,” she said. “I saw you from my window.”
“I couldn’t sleep, like I told you. But why were you still up? I thought you went back to bed?”
Zoe shrugged and tapped her spoon against her bowl.
“Zoe, hurry up,” said her mother from the laundry room. “We have to leave in five minutes and you still need to brush your teeth and comb your hair. And do you have your book bag, young lady? And your flute?”
Zoe rolled her eyes and took another mouthful of cereal, her gaze still on Decker. “Have you found the bad people yet?” she asked.
“Not yet, no. Still working on it.”
“Your hair looks funny.”
“It usually does.”
“No, I mean it’s all stuck up in the middle.”
“I, uh, accidentally got some glue there.”
Zoe perked up at this. “I put glue in my hair one time. But it wasn’t an accident. Mom was really mad. She had to use scissors to cut it out. Want me to cut it out for you?” She lowered her voice. “Mom doesn’t really like me to use scissors when she’s not around, but we don’t have to tell her.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll just let it grow out.”
Zoe returned to her cereal, clearly disappointed.