Twisted Reason (9 page)

“Because he told me what happened. And he didn’t do it.”

“Oh. And so now you believe him. A couple of years ago, you wanted me to arrest him and charge him with murder. You blocked his departure from the country on a mission of mercy. And now, you believe him.”

“I came to believe him back then, if you recall, Mr. Reed. His cooperation led us to his brother.”

“I can’t keep track of all your flip-flopping, Pierce. I run for office every six years and I flip and flop less than you. Forget about it. Charges are filed. The victim is pressing forward. We’ll let a jury decide.”

“Sir, at least take the time to thoroughly investigate the woman’s claim before doing anything further.”

“Right now, my staff is busy with more important things – like murder. You want to look into it, fine. But I can only give you one week.”

“But, sir, I am in the middle of—”

“That’s not my problem, Lieutenant. You want to look into it, look into it. But bring me something conclusive in seven days or leave me alone. Now if you’ll excuse me, my wife is waiting.”

She watched his back as he walked down to the hall and stepped into the elevator. Turning around to face forward, he saw her looking at him and gave her a toodle-oo wave as the doors closed. She knew he was a good prosecutor but sometimes she wanted to kick him down all five floors of stairs and out the front door.

She walked down the two flights to her office and in the center of her desk she found a note weighted down with a tape dispenser. “Come see me as soon as you can. Interesting developments. Jumbo.”

The message light was blinking on her phone. She decided to play them back before going down the hall to Jumbo Butler’s office. One of them was from Vicki Humphries: “I have some information you wanted, Lieutenant Pierce. I’m at work now but feel free to call me here.”

Lucinda flipped out her notebook and punched in the numbers to Vicki’s direct line.

“Vicki Humphries.”

“This is Lieutenant Pierce, Mrs. Humphries, returning your call.”

“I overheard what Dr. Nelson said to you yesterday so I went by his office and got a copy of my father-in-law’s medical records for you. I thought it might save you some time and trouble.”

“Thank you. I really appreciate that. I hadn’t gotten around to making a request yet for a subpoena – this is really a time saver. Can I come by and pick them up this evening? Will you be home?”

“Yes, Lieutenant. That would be fine. I’ll see you then.”

She hung up and walked down to the Missing Persons division. “Hey, Butler. What’s up?” she called out as she stepped through the door.

“Back here, Lieutenant,” Jumbo shouted.

Unlike the new cubicle layout in her work area, the city hadn’t gotten around to redesigning this department. New desks and file cabinets had just been set up in any space available making the path to anywhere full of more twists and turns than a rabbit warren.

She maneuvered through the maze, reaching Jumbo’s office at last. He introduced her to Karla Dunbar, the administrative staff who’d assisted him with his file by file search. With her wire-rimmed glasses, short skirt and wide Afro, the young woman seemed as if she’d escaped from an earlier decade.

“I was right, Lieutenant. We went through five years of files. There’s been a real uptick in missing elderly in the last 18 months that’s disproportionate to the increase in population in that age group,” Jumbo said.

“Okay. And?”

“And?” Jumbo asked.

 “And, Butler, you said you had new developments – with an s.”

“Oh right. I forgot I hadn’t told you yet. Early today, I called the Missing Persons division at the state police. I told them about my concerns. They said that they’d already been a bit alarmed by the numbers coming out of my office recently and said they’d red flagged us to do a follow-up investigation but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Anyway, the captain there told me to keep her informed on what me and Karla found in our file search.

“Then about an hour and a half ago, she called me back and said that two unidentified bodies of elderly folks were found in Dinwiddie County that morning. No missing people in the county matched the descriptions but since we were the nearest major city, they just might belong to us.”

“Really? Are the bodies here?”

“Nope. They’re in Norfolk.”

“Why’s that? We’re a lot closer – and Dinwiddie is in our district, isn’t it?”

“Ah, I guess you didn’t hear the news. There was a massive explosion followed by a fire at a large apartment complex in the south of town just minutes before noon. Doc Sam’s not accepting any out of town bodies until he can deal with the fatalities that are pouring in to the morgue as we speak. So they transported the two Dinwiddie bodies down to the Tidewater district. Can’t ever make it easy for the investigators, can they?”

“Doubt if they give us a thought.”

“Anyway,” Jumbo continued, “me and Karla have been going through the files of the last year and a half. Here’s how we’ve divided them up. This bin –” he said, laying a hand on a blue plastic crate – “has all the files of missing elderly where there is no report of dementia.” Moving on to the red container, he said, “And this one has all the files with dementia.” He moved over to the third crate. “Here we separated out the files from this past month – most of the files are from the past few days, probably folks that are just lost and will be found any minute now.

“The captain said that if we can bring down dental records for any possible matches, they can have a forensic odontologist there this evening.”

“So what are you waiting for?” Lucinda asked.

“We were just getting ready to cull the herd a bit. We know the dead woman is 5223 and the dead guy is 52113. Figured we’d pull out any folks that aren’t within an inch or two of those heights and I’d take the rest down to Norfolk.”

“I’ll help and drive you down there if you like.”

“You sure? We’ll probably hit some dense drive time traffic.”

“I’ve got lights in the grille of my car. And I’m not afraid to use ’em.”

“Great. Let’s get through these files and get going,” he said with a grin.

Lucinda couldn’t help thinking he looked even more like a leprechaun when he had a smile on his face.

They pulled all the documents they needed and double-checked to make sure the dental records were enclosed. As they headed for Lucinda’s car, she remembered her promise to visit Vicki and pick up the medical records. She called Ted who agreed to pick them up for her and offer apologies.

She pulled onto the highway wondering if she was investigating three homicides or going on a wild goose chase driven by the ghosts of her past.

Fifteen

The traffic grew much denser as they approached the Norfolk, both because of the higher population and the timing of their arrival in the area. But, true to her word, Lucinda was not shy about using her lights and forcing their way through the bottlenecks. At just under two hours on the road, she pulled into the parking lot; Lucinda was pleased – just a few minutes over the MapQuest-indicated time.

Inside, the odontologist had not yet arrived and the forensic pathologist was still busy with the bodies. They paced the floor outside the autopsy suite waiting for one of the two to be available. The doctor greeted them first.

“What were the causes of death?” Lucinda asked.

“The John Doe died as a result of cerebral edema – brain swelling – brought on by a skull fracture from blunt force trauma. He had contra-coupe injuries to the back of his skull but the real damage was to the front. And here’s the thing that doesn’t make sense to me yet. There is repeated trauma to his forehead – but all in approximately the same spot – and it seems to have been caused by a flat surface, like a floor or a wall. Now, I’ve seen someone beaten to death that way but you usually find other indicators: bruising on the arms, shoulders, or neck and strikes that land on the sides of the skull because the victim struggled. But this one’s strange – either he was unconscious when he was beaten or he did this to himself.”

“In other words, no clear signs of foul play?”

“You got it. But considering where he was found, there had to be foul play. Someone must have dumped the body – he’s too far from a wall or floor out there to have injured himself that badly and then gotten to the pond by himself, where he just happen to stumble and fall into the water. Besides, there’s no water in his lungs so he couldn’t have been breathing then.”

“Are you doing a tox screen?”

“We’ll run the standard toxicology but unless we learn who he is, we don’t know what else to look for.”

“Hopefully we can help with that. What about the woman?”

“The Jane Doe did die from drowning. However, once again, I’m suspicious because of where she was found. On the other hand, there are no signs of the bruising you’d expect if someone held her underwater. Still, the water in her lungs bothers me.”

“How so?”

“I put some of it on a slide and looked at it with a microscope, comparing it to the water sample retrieved from the site where her body was found. There are different organisms in the two that troubled me. But that isn’t my area of expertise. I sent samples off to the FBI lab to see what they can determine. And before you ask, my response to the tox screen is the same. I suspect you asked because you had something in mind. Care to enlighten me?”

“Of course, Doctor. We’re investigating a case where we suspect that a heart attack was brought on because the victim didn’t have access to his medications for five months. I’m wondering if these two had been cut off from their prescriptions as well. And if that played a role in their deaths.”

“Well, Dr. Tooth should be along soon and maybe you can get an ID.”

“Dr. Tooth? That’s his name?” Jumbo Butler asked.

“No,” the pathologist said with a laugh. “That’s just what I call him. And, look, here he is now.”

“Hey, Dr. Guts,” the newcomer shouted up the hall.

“See, the nickname I gave him is thoroughly justified,” the pathologist said to Butler and Pierce. “Dr. Tooth, welcome to my parlor.”

“Did you remember to do X-rays for me this time or are you going to make me stick my hands in dead mouths?”

“I won’t even dignify that remark with an answer. Here are the detectives. They’re all yours. He nodded his head, turned and walked away. He stopped just before leaving the room and said, “Lieutenant, there was something odd. It probably doesn’t mean anything but I thought I should mention it.”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“The man – his pockets – they were full of acorns.”

 “Thank you, Doctor. I don’t understand it either but it’s not the first acorns we’ve run across in this case,” Lucinda said.

After the pathologist left the room, the forensic odontologist said, “To set the record straight, my name is Dr. Krasnik. What have you got for me to examine? How many files?”

Jumbo held out the folders. “We’ve got six women, nine men.”

“You couldn’t narrow it down more than that?”

“Sorry,” Jumbo replied with a shrug.

“Well, have a seat. This may take a while. At least the state pays me by the hour, so I can’t complain too much.”

Lucinda and Jumbo chatted about the department, working conditions in the separate divisions and people they both knew. They ran out of conversation long before they had answers from Dr. Krasnik. They were both dozing in the hard plastic chairs when he finally emerged from the back.

“The good news is that I made positive identification on both the bodies. The bad news is that two of your people are dead – and I know those family notifications are a bitch. Can’t say I envy you.”

“Thank you,” they said in unison. “We really appreciate your time,” Lucinda added.

Jumbo took the files and they walked out to Lucinda’s car for the long ride home. Lucinda turned on the overhead light and Jumbo read to her from the documents. The woman, Adele Kendlesohn, had been missing since Halloween day. The man, Francis DeLong, hadn’t been seen by his family since last summer. Both suffered from dementia. Additionally, DeLong had shown symptoms of psychosis off and on for decades.

“It’ll be eleven or so by the time we get back to town,” Lucinda said.

“After all this time, no sense in bothering the families tonight, is there?”

“First thing tomorrow, then?”

“First thing? Like seven, seven thirty?” Jumbo asked.

“Let’s make it six thirty. I’ll meet you in the parking lot behind the Justice Center.”

Sixteen

Sherry sat on the edge of the bed with her arms folded tightly across her chest and her right index finger tap-tap-tapping a spot on her arm just above her left elbow. “I already had supper, they said. Humph. Not likely. I would have remembered eating supper,” she said out loud to the empty room. “And, oh, that Don, all nice and sweet, he sidles up to me, with his bag full of tricks and make nice and says, ‘You already had two chocolate puddings, Miss Sherry. You can’t have any more tonight.’ Ha! As if I wouldn’t remember eating chocolate. I’m not that stupid. Sonsabitches. They were trying to starve me to death. That Don, he’s the worst of all of them. And is he gonna pay. I’ll see to that.