Richard Montanari (17 page)

    As
with many who were on their way to Le Jardin this day, his interests ran to the
morbid, the darker sides of human nature, the bleak and terrifying landscapes
of the sociopathic mind. His specific interests were the kidnapping and murder
of young girls, the mindset of the pedophile.

    He
would be renting Room 1208. The room had a history, a sinister fable with which
the man was intimate.

    Room
1208 was, of course, on the twelfth floor.

    Lucinda
Doucette's floor.

    At
just after ten o'clock Jessica and Byrne got a call from the Medical Examiner's
office. The Kenneth Beckman autopsy had been scheduled for nine o'clock that
morning, but Tom Weyrich's message said there was something he wanted the
detectives to see before the doctor started the cut.

    On
the way to the ME's office Jessica made a call to the Department of Human
Services. She was told that Carlos had slept through the night - for the first
time in two weeks - and was up and playing. Jessica hung up, revisited by the
feeling of paralysis, the feeling that, if she didn't make a move on this,
Carlos would slip into the system. She had wanted to discuss adoption with
Vincent but with the upcoming move on top of them and all the stress involved
with that, she had not seen an opening.

    Maybe
she would bring it up tonight, she thought. Maybe she would soften Vincent up
with a night of inebriated, lamp-smashing sex.

    In
recent years, the MEO had investigated an average of six thousand cases of
death annually, of which almost fifty percent required a post-mortem
examination. Other functions of the MEO included positive identification,
preparation of autopsy reports, and expert testimony in court, as well as grief
assistance for family members.

    While
Jessica and Byrne waited in the intake room next to the autopsy theaters, they
were serenaded by the constant zap of insects, courtesy of the large
rectangular blue bug light on the wall. The continuous drone of bugs, mostly
blowflies, being flash-fried was maddening.

    Jessica
checked the schedule on the wall. It included the autopsies performed the
previous week. Tom Weyrich approached them.

    'I
don't get it, Tom,' Jessica said. 'There're twelve autopsies and only eleven
names.'

    'You
don't want to know,' Weyrich said.

    'See,
now I
have
to know,' Jessica said. 'It's my naturally curious nature.'

    Weyrich
ran his hand over his chin. Jessica noticed that he had cut himself no fewer
than four times while shaving that morning. 'You sure?'

    'Dish
it.'

    'Okay,
last week we get a call from Penn. It seems someone threw an internal organ
onto the front steps of Tanenbaum Hall.'

    The
Nicole E. Tanenbaum Hall was on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania
and contained, among other things, the Biddle Law Library.

    'Somebody
threw body parts?'

    Weyrich
nodded. 'What a world, huh?'

    
'What
a
city.''

    'We
still had to treat it like normal John Doe remains. We ran all our standard
pathology tests, did a standard cut.'

    'I
still don't understand why there's no name on the sheet. Is it because you
haven't been able to make an ID on the remains?' Jessica asked.

    'Yes
and no.'

    'Tom.'

    'It
was a cow stomach.'

    Jessica
looked at Byrne. Byrne smiled, shook his head.

    'One
question,' Jessica said.

    'Sure.'

    'Is
it still a John Doe, or is it now an Elsie Doe?'

    'Laugh
it up,' Weyrich said. 'This job put both my kids through Villanova.'

    Jessica
lifted both hands in surrender.

    'I
have something to show you,' Weyrich said.

    He
wheeled a body into the center of the intake room.

    Weyrich
directed the overhead light to the victim's right hand. He slipped on a glove,
gently pried back the fingers.

    'I
wanted you to see this,' he said.

    There,
on the pad of the right index finger, was a small drawing, measuring
approximately half an inch by one inch.

    'What
is that?' Jessica asked.

    'It's
a tattoo, believe it or not.'

    'On
his finger?'

    'On
his finger,' Weyrich said. 'When they cleaned him up to print him they found
it.'

    Jessica
berated herself for not seeing it at the scene. She put on her glasses, looked
closely. It looked like a highly stylized drawing of a lion. The colors were
bright and primary, the outlines thick, the overall effect not unlike that of
an illustration in a child's coloring book.

    'I've
read this guy's sheet,' Jessica said. 'He didn't strike me as the cartoon
type.'

    'It
takes
all
types,' Weyrich said. 'I've taken a sample and sent it to the
lab. They should be able to tell us the type of ink fairly soon.'

    'You
took a sample?' Jessica asked. 'A skin sample?'

    'This
is not a regular tattoo. It's a temporary tattoo.'

    Jessica
looked again. At this distance, and with skin art this size, she really
couldn't tell the difference.

    Weyrich
handed her a large magnifying glass. Jessica looked again at the image of the lion.
The ink, and its rich color, stood in bright contrast to the blood-leached
pallor of the dead man's skin.

    'It's
not still wet, is it?'

    'No,'
Weyrich said. 'But it is new. I'd say it's been there less than seventy-two
hours.'

    When
Jessica had been small, she used to go to a variety store in South Philly and
buy little tattoos that she could apply simply by getting wet and pressing them
on her skin. They usually washed off with one or two runs through the
sprinkler, or a single dip in a pool.

    'Does
he have any other tattoos?'

    'Surprisingly,
no,' Weyrich said.

    'Why
do you think this is relevant?'

    Weyrich
directed Jessica to look with the magnifying glass at an area on the victim's
left shoulder. Jessica repositioned the glass and saw a slight smudge there, a
smear no more than a quarter-inch square or so in size. It was the same color
as the yellow in the lion tattoo.

    'I
think this was done at the same time,' Weyrich said. 'I think the doer may have
applied the tattoo, then made this smudge when he turned the body over.'

    Jessica
looked closely There were no ridge marks. It was not a fingerprint, indicating
that the killer might have worn gloves.

    'Which
brings us to the two other pieces of artwork on the body,' Weyrich said. He
pulled down the sheet to reveal a section just above the rib cage on the right
side. There were the two unmistakable marks left by a Taser, deep purple
bruises looking like a vampire's bite.

    'He
was Tasered,' Jessica said.

    Weyrich
nodded. Jessica calculated the planning involved in this homicide. The cutting
of the man's forehead, the measured puncture wound, the shaving of the entire
body. It removed the crime from any heat of passion, certainly. This was cold,
deliberate, calculated.

    'What
about the shaving?' Jessica asked.

    'I
think it was done pre-mortem, without benefit of any emollient or shaving
cream.' Weyrich pointed to a few areas where the skin was deeply abraded. 'I
believe it was done quickly with a hair trimmer, as opposed to a rotary-style
shaver, which means he had to press a little harder. Still, he didn't get it
all.'

    Jessica
made notes. Byrne just listened. This was their usual routine at the ME's
office.

    Weyrich
then moved the glass to the victim's forehead. He pointed to the lateral
laceration at the top. In the brutal light it looked like a mortal wound, as
though the killer had been attempting to take off the top of Kenneth Beckman's
head.

    'This
was done with a straight razor or a scalpel,' he said. 'Our guy took care not
to cut too deeply. There is some level of skill here. The cut on the right ear
was not nearly so clean.'

    Jessica
looked at the victim's ear. It had congealed into a scabrous brown mass. 'Can
we tell if the cutter is right-handed or left-handed?' she asked.

    'Not
from this wound, I'm afraid. If he is right-handed, he would most likely start
at the left side and draw right. That would be the most natural movement. But
only if he was straddling the body.' Weyrich leaned over the cadaver and
mimicked the motion of drawing a blade over the victim's forehead from left to
right. 'Now, if he was up here . ..' Weyrich moved to the head of the table,
putting the top of the victim's head near his waist. 'He could achieve the same
result as a left-hander, drawing the blade right to left.'

    'And
this was done while the victim was still alive?' Byrne said.

    'Yes.'

    'How
did he keep him still?'

    'As
well you might ask.' Weyrich pointed out four areas where there were small
plum-colored bruises. On either side of the forehead, just above the temple,
were contact marks in a circular shape, about a half-inch in diameter. There
were also marks on either side of the lower jaw. 'His head was held in place at
these four points.'

    'With
some kind of vice grip?' Byrne asked.

    'A
little more finesse than that, I believe. And a lot more expensive. I think it
may have been a device similar to a surgical clamp. Whenever there is any cranial
surgery performed, it is imperative, of course, that the patient be
immobilized. Fortunately, we do not have that problem in
this
office.
Our patients tend not to fidget much.'

    'Do
you think our boy has some medical training?'

    'Could
be.'

    Jessica
studied the bruises, thought about the horror of having one's head locked into
a device. 'Where do you get an item like that?'

    'It's
pretty specialized. And expensive. I'll get you a list of medical suppliers.'

    Jessica
made a note to follow up.

    'One
other thing,' Weyrich said. He pointed at the puncture wound in the forehead.
He handed back the magnifying glass to Jessica. She looked at the wound. 'What
am I looking for?'

    'See
the area right around the puncture? The coloration?'

    Under
magnification the puncture did not look like such a clean wound, but rather
twisted, shredded tissue, exploding outward like a tiny lava eruption. Jessica
saw a small ring around the puncture that appeared to be red. An unnaturally
bright
shade of red. 'This is not dried blood, I take it.'

    'No,'
Weyrich said. 'That would be much darker. This was made with a Magic Marker of
some sort. Maybe a felt-tip marker.'

    Jessica
looked up at Byrne, then back. 'A Magic Marker?'

    Weyrich
nodded.

    'You're
saying the killer marked the spot first?'

    Weyrich
nodded, politely smug in his findings. 'I've seen stranger things.'