The commissaris raised his hand. "How far away from the corpse, Doctor, please?"
Russo checked his notes. "Four feet from the body."
"Do you have prints from the robbers' feet?"
"No," Russo said. "I was hoping for that but there was too much disturbance. The animal tracks blotted out all human prints. The feeding frenzy must have made the varmints hyperactive. Pity. Human footprints can be conclusively identified." He shook his head. "But we could get no clear impressions." He looked at the commissaris. "You have a special interest, sir?"
The commissaris said he was looking into a complaint.
"I remember," Dr. Russo said. "Chief O'Neill mentioned you. You're from Amsterdam, right? Call my office anytime, we'll be happy to be of assistance. I think we can reassure your complainant that the unfortunate incident was an act of God or rather"-Dr. Russo smiled-"an unfortunate combination of a number of divine doings."
The audience laughed, like a taped background on a sitcom, the commissaris thought, as he found himself smiling assent politely.
The Seattle policeman spoke up. "Couldn't it be that whoever took the subject's clothes and possessions murdered him first?"
"Aggravated or even caused the heart attack by pushing the victim around, you suggest?" Russo said. "But there would have been no need. I can't show you all the scars of the bypass operation, because part of the chest area is missing, but the marks are there. We also have testimony from a neighbor that the subject was operated on within the last two years and told to take it easy. It seem that he did not do so. We have reports of the man running about the park."
"Thank you," the Seattle chief said.
"A subtle point," Russo said. "Morally, of course, we can argue that manhandling a dying person is a criminal act, especially when the activity involves robbing that person, but in such an instance it's hard to come up with a charge of murder."
"Suspect will say that he thought the victim was drunk," a voice said.
"Criminal negligence or recklessness," another voice said, "very hard to make that stand up in court."
"We have no suspects," a voice, which the commistsaris recognized as O'Neill's, said clearly. "Whoever robbed the victim is now hidden somewhere in a shelter. We tried but it would take too many hours to check all the homeless people in Manhattan."
"More questions?" Dr. Russo asked. "No? Then let me tell you about Maggotmaid."
"The commissaris's leg pains had come back in full strength but he forced himself to listen to Dr. Russo's lecture, knowing that the pain would be reduced to an inconsequential throb for as long as he could keep his mind focused on another subject.
The slide shown was the cover picture of the leaflet that had announced this police convention in New York. It showed the still, dead face of a young attractive woman. The slide was in full color. A white substance showed in the corners of the mouth. Spitde? No. Maggots. Russo seemed to take professional pleasure in clicking on other slides, magnifications of the whiteness. Each slide's higher magnification made clearer that the audience was looking at living matter: crawling maggots.
"The gal was found in the trunk of a brand-new Cadillac, parked in the hot sun in front of a deli."
The police chiefs listened as the pathologist enthusiastically described the smell of rotten flesh wafting steadily from the luxury automobile. The deli's owners, concerned about their business-their store window showed a display of choice meats-alerted the police. Uniformed officers forced the trunk with a crowbar.
People gasped when they saw a dead female human body, soon to be known as "Maggotmaid," stretched out in the car's ample trunk. There were no signs of violence but small pieces of broken glass and wood splinters were found in the dead woman's clothing during a painstaking investigation by forensic criminologists. Meanwhile, detectives traced the owner of the Cadillac, a vehicle with Texas license plates, to a nearby Upper West Side apartment. The subject, described by Russo as a Texan named Trevor, claimed ignorance. Yes, he vaguely knew the woman, a prostitute who could be picked up in Central Park, but he hadn't invited her to that weekend's party.
"But," the detectives said, "she was there." Splinters and glass matched a broken door inside the apartment. Trevor proposed that if Maggotmaid had been at the apartment rented in his name, a guest, friend or associate- a gate-crasher maybe?-might have brought her in. Any of Trevor's friends had access to his car keys. The keys hung in the apartment's hall. Several of his associates took turns changing the vehicle's parking spot, in obedience to alternate-side-of-the-street parking rules in the neighborhood. These associates also fed the parking meters, which would explain why the vehicle hadn't been towed away by traffic policemen. None of these associates happened to be around right then, but they did show up later. They confirmed having moved the Cadillac around and fed parking meters with coins. Nobody remembered having put Maggotmaid in the Caddy's trunk. Nobody had smelled the body. Which could be true, Dr. Russo said. Tests indicated that Maggotmaid had died during a Saturday night. She was found Wednesday afternoon, when the weather suddenly changed from fairly cool to hot. The Cadillac had been baking in the sun all that day.
"Maggotmaid died of an overdose of heroin," Russo said. "We ascertained that much. We also found that her body had penetrated a glass door in Trevor's apartment. Did she fall? Was she pushed?" He wobbled his eyebrows. "A small quantity of heroin was found in the main sitting room. There were a few grams of cannabis products here and there, and many empty bottles. Trevor claimed to have no knowledge of any drug use. Nobody came forward to admit ownership of the heroin and cannabis products."
There were questions.
No, no arrests had been made, Dr. Russo said, but the investigation was still ongoing. He checked his notes. "Under the guidance of Detective-Sergeant Earl Hurrell, assisted by Detectives-First-Class Tom Tierney and Jerry Curran."
Yes, Trevor was a suspected dealer of note, allegedly in charge of several retail salesmen who worked the park.
Had investigators come up with a theory so far? Well, it was quite simple. Maggotmaid had been brought in to entertain Trevor's guests. She overdosed and died. A dead body does little to improve a party. Trevor, or an associate, probably stoned and/or drunk, had carried the body down and dumped it in the Cadillac's trunk for the meantime. There must have been a plan to get rid of the body later, which wouldn't have been a big deal-there are the rivers, there is Central Park-but, as the partying went on, Maggotmaid was forgotten.
After the lecture the commissaris attended a luncheon offered by the NYPD to its distinguished guests and colleagues. He kept shivering through the speeches and toasts. He was reasonably sure he was running a high temperature. He felt faint. It seemed his glasses had fogged up again, which was strange for he had just blown and spat on them and rubbed them clean with his necktie.
"You look tired," O'Neill's voice said. "I'll drive you to the Cavendish. Tomorrow's lecture is by a bigwig from the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Crime Laboratory on physical evidence relating to hit and run cases." O'Neill's elbow nudged the commissaris's arm. "I hear you have more cars in Holland now than there are in all of Africa. Five million cars in such a small country." O'Neill whistled admiringly. "Hit and run must be a common occurrence there. I'm sure your comments will be worth hearing tomorrow."
Chapter 7
The query the commissaris faxed off late that afternoon from the Cavendish desk, before consuming the hotel's nouvelle cuisine dinner specials, caused surprise in Amsterdam Police Headquarters.