“Any guesses?”
“In the absence of gunshot wounds, knife wounds, evidence of beating, bludgeoning, or strangulation, I’d guess suffocation by something like a plastic bag, or maybe poison.” He paused and bent over Lizzy’s face again. “Usually forced suffocation causes capillary breakdown around the face, especially the mouth and nose. I don’t see that.” He began searching her body again but he seemed to focus on her arms. He pulled at the skin on her shoulder. “Bingo!”
“What?” West said.
Egan reached for the magnifying glass again. “Take a look at this.” West rounded the metal table. Egan put a finger on Lizzy’s shoulder, then handed the glass to West. “Looks like an injection mark. Could be a bite. After a night in the water, it’s hard to tell.”
“I see that. It’s high on the arm, not likely to be self-inflicted.” West turned to me. “Was Mrs. Stout a diabetic?”
My first attempt at words came out like a croak. I cleared my throat and said, “Not that I know of.”
“Diabetics don’t shoot insulin into their arm,” Egan said. “Usually they insert the needle in the thigh. It could be nothing more than a flu shot. We won’t know until the toxicology report comes back. I’ve already sent the blood in.”
“When do we find out?” West wondered.
“I put a rush on it. Of course, everyone puts a rush on these things. I let them know that other lives might be in danger. That should get it on the top of the list. With any luck, I’ll be calling you this afternoon.”
“That would be great.” West handed the glass back to Egan, who set it on the counter. He then stepped to one side, where a metal tray was resting on a wheeled cart, and pulled the cart close. I had paid it no notice when I first came in, because I could barely take my eyes off Lizzy’s form. Now I took more notice than I wanted. The oblong tray held several scalpels, and tools that looked more suited for the garden than for a medical procedure. I had to remind myself that this was no medical procedure. There was nothing curative about it.
Egan snatched up a large scalpel, placed his index finger on the back of the blade, and positioned it just south of Lizzy’s left collarbone. My blood chilled and my stomach roiled. I wanted to close my eyes, but I had told West I could take it. Now I had serious doubts.
West grabbed Egan’s wrist. “Hang on a sec, Doc.” The detective studied me for a moment. I tried to appear calm and strong. “You need to leave, Mayor. You do not need to see this. Lizzy was your friend. The last thing you need is the image of her autopsy burned into your brain.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. Dr. Egan is about to cut open someone you know, and that’s the easy part. It gets worse from there. Trust me on this, Mayor. I’ve been to more of these than I can count and I still can’t sleep at night. You need to go. Wait in the waiting room.”
“But—”
“No. No buts or pulling rank. You can order the chief to fire me if you want, but I’d much rather explain why I kicked you out than why I let you stay until you tossed your cookies or passed out. Go. Get out.”
There was nothing harsh in his voice, no anger in his words, but the determination was unmistakable.
“He’s right, Mayor,” Egan added. “Truth is, you’re making me nervous.”
I shook my head, turned, and exited without a word. I was ashamed at the relief I felt. Thirty steps later I was seated in the lobby, having placed myself under the closest air-conditioning vent. I felt hot on the outside and frozen on the inside. It was all I could do to hold down breakfast.
I picked up a
People
magazine and tried to lose myself in the lives of the famous, but the only image my mind would allow was that of Lizzy strapped to the pier, the water covering her lifeless body.
West emerged a half hour later. “Ready to go?”
“Done already?”
“Dr. Egan is still working, but I’ve seen all I need to. Now I wait for his report.”
I rose from my seat and walked with him into the parking lot. After a few moments I said, “You can be pretty bossy, you know.”
“It’s a character flaw.”
“Thanks.”
He opened the car door for me and waited until I was safely in before closing it. One minute later we exited the lot and headed back to City Hall.
“Did you learn anything new?”
He shook his head. “The real evidence will probably be in the blood.”
I hoped he was right.
L
et me ask you something,” West said as he pulled the car onto the freeway.
“Sure.” I was glad to be out of the coroner’s building. I wanted to shake the image of Lizzy on the table, which seemed to be flash-burned into my brain.
“Was Mrs. Stout a . . . difficult woman?” He made a face. Apparently, the words failed him.
“Difficult?”
“Bad word choice.” He drove in the far right lane, slower than the rest of the traffic. “What I mean is, was she headstrong, determined?”
“Oh, she was that, all right, and some more. She was a savvy businesswoman and didn’t take guff off anyone. At the same time she was kind and considerate. Still, if she had an opinion, it was destined to see the light of day.”
West pressed the issue. “If someone had threatened her, how do you think she would have responded?”
“I don’t know. I imagine she wouldn’t have taken it lying down. I once saw her chew the ear off some guy who suggested that her commission was too high. It was at a Chamber of Commerce meeting. The man left knowing how the cow ate the cabbage.”
“How the what did what?”
“Something my grandmother used to say. It means she let the man know how things were. I don’t have details; I wasn’t party to the discussion—just in earshot.”
“I see.” West fell silent.
“Oh no, you don’t. Don’t clam up now. Why ask such an odd question?”
He sighed. “Just thinking. Why is Mrs. Stout dead? She was taken second, not first. I would have guessed that if our abductor were a murderer—”
“If? Of course he is.”
“You want to hear this or not?”
“Yes.”
“Then let me finish before passing judgment. I’m just thinking out loud. I go back to the question: Why did we find Mrs. Stout first? Serial criminals work with some degree of logic—granted, it’s twisted logic, but it’s still there. Lisa Truccoli was abducted first, then Mrs. Stout. It’s possible we just haven’t found Ms. Truccoli’s body yet, but somehow that seems too simple an explanation.”
“You’re thinking that maybe Lizzy made too much of a fuss or was too hard to handle.”
“Yeah, but it’s just conjecture.” His eyes darted to the rearview mirror, lingered, then returned to the road ahead. “There have been other serial abductions, but they usually involve young women who are kidnapped and kept as sex slaves.”
“That’s an image I don’t need.” It was a sickening thought.
“It’s beyond horrible, but my point is that our women are middle-aged businesswomen, not the type associated with those kinds of cases. To make things more complex, the third person abducted was a man. Add to that the one thing we really know: they’re all associated with you.”
“I’m not following.”
“Your friend wasn’t beaten and so far there’s no evidence of a sexual crime. Why is she dead? There are no visible signs of murder except an injection mark in the shoulder—if it’s an injection mark. Everything is so clean: the places where the abductions took place and now Elizabeth Stout’s body. I’m thinking that her death may have been unintentional.”
“What!” This was too much to take in. “She was tied to a pier and left in the rising tide.”
“After
she was dead. That’s important. It also tells us the perpetrator is still in the area, which means his captives can’t be too far away. I doubt he would cart a dead body up and down the freeway.”
“But how does that make Lizzy’s murder accidental?”
“Unintentional, not accidental. It’s too early to tell. The blood work will tell us more, but I can’t help wondering—and that’s all I’m doing here, wondering—if the abductor was trying to sedate Stout, who may have been giving him grief, and overdid it. Then he unloaded her body.”
“Why put her in the ocean, tied to the pier?”
“The water’s colder than the air; he’s probably thinking that it would make it difficult to assess the time of death. He’s partly right, but the forensics folks and the medical examiner are sharp people. They know how to adjust the calculations. Putting her in the ocean also makes it very difficult to gather clues. This guy is a thinker.”
“It sounds like you admire him.”
He looked at me and frowned. “Not admire, Mayor. I respect his intelligence. If I don’t, he’ll outthink me and everyone else on the case. I have to get into his head. This is part of the process.” His eyes went back to the rearview mirror and lingered longer this time.
“What?” I asked and started to turn.
“Sit still. I think we have company. A blue van has been behind us and has had plenty of opportunity to pass.”
“Oh no. A blue van followed Randi and me yesterday.”
“You might have told me.”
“I’m sorry. When you came over last night and gave me the news about Lizzy and Allen, I was overwhelmed.”
“Fix your lipstick,” he said flatly.
“What? Now?”
“There’s a mirror on the back of the visor. Lower it and pretend to fix your lipstick. Tell me if the van behind us looks like the one you saw.”
Pulling down the visor, I touched my lips and fussed with my hair. I could see the van in the mirror. “It’s the same one.”
“Interesting.” The corner of his mouth rose slightly and his eyes narrowed. He pulled out his cell phone, dialed a number, and asked for the watch commander.
“Chet, it’s Judson. I have Mayor Glenn in the car with me. I think someone is following us. I need two patrol cars.” He gave our location and direction, then fell silent. He glanced at me. “He’s having dispatch put out the call. In a minute we’ll know how soon they can be here.”
“You’re going to stop the van?”
“That’s the plan. I want to talk to the driver and—” West turned his attention back to the phone. “Yeah, I’m here.” He listened. “Great. Make it a felony stop, okay?”
“Felony stop?”
“It simply means we’re going to be more cautious.”
“How come you didn’t use the radio?”
“It might alert the driver. I’m guessing he doesn’t know he’s following a detective’s car.”
Almost on cue, the radio came to life and I heard the dispatcher send out the call and give our location. A few minutes later the radio revealed that two patrol cars had just pulled behind the van. West kept the cell phone to his ear. I heard him say, “Good. Light ’em up.” He switched off the phone and set it on the seat. “Okay, Mayor, here’s what is about to happen. The patrol cars are going to turn on their lights. If the guy in the van is smart, he’ll pull over; if he runs, the units will give chase.”
“We will, too, right?”
“We’ll follow but I’m not putting your life at risk. It’s the patrol officers’ job to run him down.”
In the passenger-side mirror I could see one of the black and white cars. Suddenly its lights went on. I turned to see the driver’s response. The sun reflected off the windshield, obscuring his face, but I could see his head snapping back and forth. Then he slammed a hand against the steering wheel and moved to the shoulder of the road, slowed, and stopped.
West also pulled over. A second later he said, “Stay here,” then threw his door open. He had drawn his gun before his feet hit the pavement. Immediately he took charge.
“Driver, turn off the vehicle!” West pointed his gun at the van’s windshield. “Driver, throw the keys out the window.” I watched as the man lowered the driver’s-side window and tossed a set of keys to the asphalt. “Driver, put your hands outside the window.” The man who had been following us took direction well. West gave one command at a time in a loud don’t-make-me-shoot-you voice. Seconds later the driver was facedown on the shoulder and two uniformed officers were cuffing him. It was like an episode of
Cops.
I left the car and walked toward the crowd of four men. I wanted to know who had been dogging my steps. The man in cuffs, who by this time had been pulled to his feet, was large, with a thick neck and a round, very unhappy face. He looked Hawaiian. He wore jeans and a T-shirt that read, “Bounty Hunters Do It for Money.” Swell.
“I can explain, officers,” the man said.
“That’s good, because that is exactly what you’re going to do.” West was hot.
One of the officers pulled the man’s wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and handed it to West.
“My name is Melvin Horn. I’m a private investigator. My ID is in the wallet.”
“Why are you following us, Mr. Horn?” West asked. He rifled through the wallet. At the back he found the PI license.
“I was following the Mayor.”
“Who’s your client?”
“I can’t reveal that. That’s privileged information.” Horn tried to sound cocky but was having trouble pulling it off.
“I’m investigating a serial abduction and murder case,” West said. “You may think you’re a private detective protecting your client, but you look like a suspect to me. Do you know what obstruction of justice is?”
“Yeah. But I ain’t obstructing justice.” The big man shuffled his feet. “I don’t have to answer any questions. You can ask me for my driver’s license and registration and that’s it.” He grimaced. “These cuffs are a little tight.”
“Like I said, you look an awful lot like a suspect to me. Let’s see, I can hold you for a day or so before your arraignment, and then you could post bond—assuming no one loses the paperwork. You have some cash stored away for bail? The mayor is under police protection, and since you won’t tell me who your client is, I have to assume you don’t have one. That makes me think you might be a danger to her.”
“Okay, okay. I was hired by Christopher Truccoli to follow the mayor.”
“Why?”
“To see if the guy’s daughter was with her, then let him know.”
“Did you tell him?”
“Not yet. I was going to follow you a little farther, then call him.”
“Good,” West said sharply. “Tell him I take exception to being followed, especially by someone as lousy at it as you. Clear?”