Grave Situation (29 page)

With a heavy exhalation, he went to
the morgue. Doctor Coulter and Sodero were preparing for the
autopsy. Allan stared at the swollen, blanched wreck lying
uncovered on the gurney.

“Are you attending, Lieutenant?”
Coulter asked him.

“No, but I do have some questions
before you get started.”

Coulter finished slipping on a pair
of latex gloves. “Okay, shoot.”

Allan took out his spiral,
referring to his notes.

“Miss Ambré was found missing
certain articles of clothing—her jacket, tank top and panties,
assuming she had been wearing any. Do you think the currents in the
harbor buffeting the body around could’ve somehow removed those
articles of clothing?”

Coulter puffed his cheeks. “I doubt
it.”

“How long was she in the
harbor?”

“A week. Maybe more.” Coulter
moved to the body. “If you look at the victim’s hands and feet,
you’ll see the maceration is well established. There are signs of
early skin separation in the big toes. It takes roughly a week to
reach that stage.”

Reflexively, Allan’s eyes shifted
to the opaque, wrinkled skin in those areas. The time frame seemed
right to him—Trixy had gone missing eight days ago.

“Any idea as to the cause of
death?”

“Nothing until the autopsy,
Lieutenant,” Coulter said. “But if she drowned, it’ll be tough to
determine.”

“What about the missing
eyes?”

“They could’ve been removed by
marine life,” Sodero cut in as he laid out an assortment of
surgical instruments on a metal cart. “Crustaceans, especially
crabs, are known to attack the soft parts of the face—the eyes,
nose and mouth.”

Allan considered this. “Both eyes
though?” He threw a question to Coulter. “Could that be possible,
Doctor?”

“I haven’t seen it in my
experience,” he answered. “But yes, Lieutenant. There are abrasions
around the eye sockets and lips indicating that something in the
harbor was nibbling at the body.”

Allan glanced at his watch. It was
nearly two-thirty. He’d barely slept the night before and was
beginning to feel exhaustion taking hold of him.

“How long will this take?” he
asked Coulter.

“Come to my office at five,
Lieutenant. I should have some better info for you by
then.”

“I’ll do that,” Allan said, and
left.

He grabbed a
coffee and muffin at a local
Robins
and then returned to his office. His desk was
cluttered with a six-day compilation of the Brad Hawkins
murder—handwritten notes, canvass, supplementary, lab and autopsy
reports.

A corkboard hung on the wall behind
the desk and a map of Halifax was pinned to it. A red circle marked
where Brad had been murdered. Below the map was an array of aerial
and crime scene photos.

Allan emitted a troubled sigh. He
had no suspects. No clues. No witnesses. The case was just over a
week old and already it seemed hopeless.

He sat down, took a sip of coffee,
a bite of his muffin. Then his gaze fell on the manila envelope
containing the autopsy photos of Cathy Ambré. Allan
inhaled.

I’m so deeply sorry about your
sister. I wish I could’ve found her sooner for you. Sometimes the
wheels of justice move much too slowly than we’d like. At least we
got Bernard Potter off the streets. If there can ever be any
measure of justice in your death, that was it. You helped us save
many lives.

Had Trixy not disappeared, Allan
concluded, Cathy might not have died. She might’ve beaten her
addiction and went on to live a prosperous life. The whole tragedy
left him with a deep sadness that infested his soul.

At five, he went to Coulter’s
office. It was spacious and well furnished—a U-shaped desk with
family pictures, two plants, bookshelves, and filing cabinets.
Doctorates showcased inside expensive frames adorned the
walls.

Coulter sat at his desk, typing on
his computer. His gaze didn’t move from the monitor as he said,
“Lieutenant, please have a seat.”

Allan did so.

“I won’t have my report ready for
you until tomorrow,” Coulter went on. “But I know you’re a man who
wants information as soon as you can have it. I can give you the
pertinent details of my findings today.”

Allan leaned back, steepling his
fingers to his lips. “So what are we dealing with,
Doctor?”

Coulter stopped typing.
“Homicide.”

Allan expected as much. “How was
she murdered?”

“Miss Ambré was struck with a
blunt, cylindrical instrument. I found a single impact injury to
the side of her head. When I examined the skull, I found a linear
fracture in the temporal region.”

“Was the blow hard enough to cause
death?”

Coulter shook his head. “Varying
levels of unconsciousness, yes. But not death.”

“How much would a wound like that
bleed?”

“Most scalp injuries bleed rather
profusely.”

“What else did you
find?”

“Hemorrhaging in the eardrums. The
lungs were heavy and voluminous. On dissection, there was fluid in
the alveoli. There was also a large amount of silty water in the
stomach.”

“So she was alive when she entered
the water?”

“Yes.”

“Conscious?”

“I can’t say,
Lieutenant.”

Head bent, Allan
rubbed the bridge of his nose.
So Trixy
might’ve been knocked unconscious and then dumped into the harbor?
By whom?

“There’s something else,
Lieutenant,” Coulter said. “I could be way off base, but when I
examined the optic nerves, I noticed that they’ve been
cut.”

Hearing this, Allan’s eyebrows shot
up. He felt a strange frisson.

“Jesus
,” he murmured. “How sure are
you of this?”

Coulter fell quiet. For the first
time in Allan’s career, he thought he saw self-doubt appear in the
medical examiner’s eyes.

At length, Coulter said, “I’m quite
sure. Certain, in fact. The wounds on the optic nerves were
clean-cut. I didn’t see any ripping as one would expect to find,
especially if a crab or some other ocean scavenger had been trying
to tear out the eyeballs.”

“It would require some skill or
training for someone to remove a person’s eyes, wouldn’t
it?”

Coulter gave the slightest of
shrugs. “Not really. You’d be surprised how easy it is. You can pop
out a person’s eyeball with your thumb or finger.”

For a few moments, Allan sat there,
mulling everything over. Then he got up, thanked Coulter, and
walked outside. He stopped at his car and brought out his spiral
and pen. On a blank page, he wrote:

1. Was Trixy with a john prior to
her murder? Would that explain the missing clothing?

2. Why the missing eyes?

3. Homicidal
drowning—uncommon.

4. Alive when entered the
water.

5. Where and how did she enter the
water?

For a long time, Allan stared at
his last remark. Then, closing his spiral, he took out his cell
phone and called the serology department at the forensic
lab.

“What can I do for you,
Lieutenant?” a female’s voice asked.

“There are some blood samples
being sent over from the medical examiner’s office under the name,
Ambré. That’s A-m-b-r-é. First name, Trixy. I need those samples
compared to the blood we found on the Eastern Canadian Tugboat
wharf on May ninth and I need the results ASAP.”

“We’ll do our best,
Lieutenant.”

“Thank you,” he said, and hung
up.

If the blood on the wharf belonged
to Trixy, then whoever killed her also killed Brad
Hawkins.

More determined than ever, Allan
returned to his office to work.

33

Halifax, May
18

10:13 a.m.

Allan read over the report
again.

At 1805 hrs on May 16, 2010,
Constables Samuel Patterson and William Frieson of the Acresville
Police Service, responded to a radio call to Timbre Road for a body
discovered on the bank of Deer Creek.

On arrival, the officers located
and observed the male victim, believed to be in his 60’s, deceased
at the scene. He was lying on his side with his head pointing in a
northward direction. Officers noted that the victim looked to have
been stabbed or shot repeatedly and was also missing his hands. The
body was in an advanced stage of decomposition and there was insect
infestation present.

A subsequent search of the area
did not turn up the weapon/s involved or the victim’s
hands.

The victim was later identified as
a John Baker, 58, a homeless resident of Acresville.

There is no suspect in the
case.

Allan set down the report, propped
his elbows on the top of his desk, and lowered his face into his
hands.

Missing hands. Is this related to
my case?

Intuition told him that it was.
Nova Scotia’s murder rate was too low for it not to be.

Serial killer? Where is
he?

When Allan considered the victims,
he couldn’t see any similarities between them. The only unifying
pattern that connected the murders of Trixy Ambré and John Baker
was the missing body parts. Brad Hawkins didn’t count, at least as
a premeditated victim. He was simply in the wrong place at the
wrong time.

Allan rose and walked to the
window. A combination of facts, instincts, and doubts ate away at
him. For a moment, he watched the light traffic on Gottingen St.
The morning was sun-washed. Just over the top of Citadel Hill were
finger-like wisps of cloud.

A prostitute and
a homeless man.
Two easy victims. Was that
why they were chosen?

He yawned, cracking his jaws. He
was tired, he realized, his concentration drifting. Returning to
his desk, he picked up the phone, dialed the Acresville Police, and
asked for the Police Chief.

“What can I do for you?” David
asked him.

For the next few minutes, Allan
explained his concerns and suspicions about the murders. On the
other end of the line, there was a brief silence.

At length, David said, “I can see
why you think they’re connected.”

“Do you have any
witness in
your
case?” Allan asked.

“No.”

“Evidence?”

David’s voice sagged with
disappointment. “Nothing.”

Allan winced inside.

Great.
That makes two of us.

“Who found the body?”

“Two local men,” David answered.
“Roland Grant and Thomas Cussons. According to Grant, he and
Cussons were out to his cabin for a weekend of fishing and
drinking. The cabin’s located half a mile from where the body was
found.

“Just after five o’clock on the
evening of the sixteenth, Grant stepped out to call in his dog. He
could hear it barking somewhere in the woods, but it wouldn’t
return for him. Grant feared it came upon a porcupine, so he and
Cussons went out to bring the dog in. They found it sitting next to
the body.”

Allan considered this. “Were the
background checks clean?”

“Yes they were. Roland Grant is a
married, forty-two year old with two sons. He works as an
electrician for a local contractor. Thomas Cussons is thirty-nine
years old, who is also married with one daughter. He runs his own
welding company here in town.”

“How was Baker
murdered?”

“He was stabbed multiple
times.”

Allan sat up straighter in his
chair, feeling a tingle on his skin. “Has the autopsy report come
in yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Has the body been released to the
mortician?”

“No. It’s still in Doctor
Fitzgerald’s care,” David said. “Council hasn’t decided on what to
do with John’s body.” His speech slowed. “The poor man will
probably end up in a pauper’s grave somewhere.”

“Acresville is a small town,”
Allan said. “Do you have any Johnny Weirdos there? Local men who
are known to exhibit odd behavior but have never really bothered
anyone?”

“No one that I can think of
offhand. At least, no one capable of murder.”

Allan paused a moment,
thinking.

“Do you want to come here and
check things out?” David asked. “I could really use your
help.”

With sudden regret, Allan stared at
a picture of Brian smiling at him from the edge of the
desk.

Shit. This can’t be
happening.

“I have a funeral to attend
tomorrow, but I’ll head to Acresville after that,” he said
unhappily and put down the phone.