Wrong Chance (13 page)

Perfect.

A single mat was front and center. That's where Chance found Anderson sitting in the lotus position with his back to the entrance. He was deep in meditation and chanting: “Om namah shivaya.” Translation:
I honor my own inner self, that part of me that is the unchanging witness of everything I do, think, and say.
Ocean sounds poured from a CD player. For crying out loud, Chance thought, this is fucking absurd. Anderson was just as Chance remembered: rail thin, skin blotched with exanthema, long face, teeth bucked and gapped like a claw-headed hammer, all capped off with a bald head. He was barefoot and wearing a pair of sweat pants and a loose-fitting white T-shirt. By Anderson's fifth Om mantra, Chance was so close, he cast a shadow on Anderson.

“Appointments only, and I'm not open until ten.” Anderson never opened his eyes.

“Dude, a Smith & Wesson forty-four magnum doesn't need an appointment.”

Anderson's eyes popped open. He found himself looking down the wrong end of a gun.

J
ohn Doe lay dead with a Y incision cut into his torso. The hieroglyphics cut into his skin looked like a tribute to the ancient pyramids in Giza, Egypt.

Mr. Doe's physique, however, was the result of years of hard work in the gym. Every muscle was defined and pronounced. Ghostly X-rays of Mr. Doe's skull and teeth were clipped to an exam box near the autopsy table.

Chavez turned on a fluorescent exam light that hovered above Mr. Doe. “Got some prelims in before breakfast. All the blood evidence found at the crime scene belongs to Mr. Doe here. An examination of his teeth puts him at approximately thirty-two, thirty-three years old. Still waiting on toxicology. Since I'm certain of my conclusion, toxicology won't provide any new evidence. And I sent the hair sample to the lab for a DNA profile.”

Hakeem said nothing. Aspen considered what was said.

“The hair sample my criminologist collected, I can definitively say doesn't belong to Mr. Doe. It has a bulb, but most I believe we'll learn from it is race. So don't count on it to break the case.”

“What was the cause of death?” Aspen said, studying the Anubis cut into John Doe's forehead.

“Be patient, Detective Skye,” Chavez said. “We'll get to that. Let me walk you through this.”

Hakeem started sweating. He felt it happening again.

“No semen and no tearing or bruising of the anus.”

Interesting, Hakeem thought as he tried to calm himself. Serial killers who mutilated their victims were usually sexually motivated. So what inspired John Doe's killer if not sexual gratification?

And then it happened. The body haunting him flashed in Hakeem's mind's eye. The tag hanging from its toe. Its thin legs and scarred knees. Hakeem stumbled into a tray, knocking over Chavez's tools. He gasped for air, unloosening his tie.

“Hakeem…Hakeem.” Aspen went to him.

“Detective Eubanks, are you all right?” Chavez said.

Hakeem took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I'm…I'll be fine. I'm all right. Please forgive me.” He started picking up Chavez's tools with Aspen's help. “Please continue.”

“Are you sure, Detective?”

“He said he's good,” Aspen said, shifting into defense mode.

Chavez shook her head. “No alcohol or any type of drugs in John Doe's blood or urine.” She pulled a specimen bottle from her lab coat pocket and held it up to the light. Inside was a tiny bug that looked part crab-part beetle. “This was found in Mr. Doe's hair. It's a grieter, a predatory bug that belongs to the Heteroptera group. But what on God's green earth is it doing here in Ohio? You have to ask yourself that when we don't have these here. They can't survive here.”

Aspen shrugged. “No biggie. Someone unknowingly carried it here, but from where?”

Chavez smiled, a gold tooth front and center. “I've always admired your inductive reasoning skills, Detective Skye. They're keen. The grieter is a native of Colorado that thrives in the high altitudes of the Rocky Mountains. Every April it leaves the mountain and goes to the banks of the Colorado River to breed.”

Hakeem said, “Then we're not dealing with a copycat murderer. The Hieroglyphic Hacker is from Denver.” But why did he switch his pitch now? Hakeem thought.

Aspen hugged herself tight in Hakeem's suit jacket.

“Now that we've got that established,” Chavez said, “here's where things start to stink worse than a dead body.”

A
spen highly doubled that. Nothing real or figuratively she ever experienced stunk worse than dead human flesh. So she wasn't buying into that hyperbole.

Chavez said, “There are no ligature markings or defensive wounds. With the condition of Mr. Doe's body, you have to ask yourself, why is that?” She moved down to Mr. Doe's thighs. “Detective Skye, you were right in part with your assessment last night. The hieroglyphics are postmortem, but he didn't bleed to death from the stab wounds.” She stuck a latex-gloved fingertip in a stab wound. “Yet this man was stabbed
three
different times before he died.”

Hakeem jotted some notes in his Mont Blanc day planner. “A guy built like this—anyone really—would have fought his attacker during and/or started fighting after the stabbing.”

“There isn't a sliver of evidence to support a struggle.” Chavez paused. Aspen knew it was to let them absorb that tidbit. “That baffled me but not for long.”

Aspen played it out in her head. “Maybe John Doe had a strong incentive not to fight. Someone else's life might have depended on his compliance.”

“Nothing is stronger than self-preservation,” Hakeem said. “Let's say you're right, Aspen. Someone else's life was being bargained with. Even then, at the bare minimum, you'll raise your hands to
block a knife coming at you. It's a natural reflex. Just like you'll raise your hands and beg for your life if someone threatens you with a gun.”

•  •  •

Anderson threw his hands up. “Please don't shoot me. Chance, think about this. You don't want my death on your conscience.”

“Dude, if I don't kill you, it'll be on my conscience.”

“But…but why do you have a gun in my face? I haven't seen or spoken to you in over ten years.”

Chance clicked the hammer in place. “You took part in ruining my family.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” Anderson started sobbing. “But whatever you're thinking, I don't deserve to die. Please don't kill me.”

“Stop your sniveling, you prick. 'Cause I got a soft spot, I'll do you a solid.”

Anderson eagerly nodded. “Anything you want for my life.”

“Tell me everything about February third of ninety-nine and I won't punch your clock, shithead.”

•  •  •

“My point exactly. Self-preservation,” Chavez said. “I began wondering if this was a cult killing and Mr. Doe offered himself as a sacrifice until I found this.” She moved to the upper part of the corpse. She pointed to a series of vertical scratches, fine scratches. They stretched from the left side of John Doe's chiseled face to the bottom of his chest. “You're probably thinking these scratches run from the face downward, which is a logical assumption, but it's the exact opposite. They begin below his pecs and end here on his face.”

Hakeem said nothing.

“Someone dragged him,” Aspen said.

Lady Gaga's “Born This Way” replaced Bruno Mars.
Who was next,
Aspen thought,
Justin Bieber?

“Correct. He was dragged indeed,” Chavez said. “But what concerned me was what he didn't
instinctively
do while being dragged.” She pronounced
IN-STINGK-TIV–LY
very deliberately so it would hit its mark. “Mr. Doe was on his stomach. The Hieroglyphic Hacker lifted his legs leaving only his chest and face on the ground, and dragged him from outside the synagogue to where he was found inside. Found gravel particles and soil in the scratches consistent with the gravel and soil composition outside the crime scene.” Then: “But you have to ask yourself, why are there only scratches on one side of Mr. Doe's face? Why aren't soil and gravel particles under his nails?” She looked from Hakeem to Aspen. “Because he was unable to turn his head or claw the ground in an effort to stop himself from being dragged to his death.”

“Okay,” Aspen said. “He was unconscious.”

“We factually know Mr. Doe wasn't drugged unconscious because his urine and blood work says so. There's no scientific evidence to prove he's been hit with anything. No contusions or hemorrhaging. You have to be physically struck with a fist or an object to be knocked out without the aid of drugs, right?”

Aspen wasn't going to dignify a rhetorical question.

Chavez moved to Mr. Doe's face, pulled his eyelids back, and shined a penlight into what was left of his black irises. There appeared to be red dots around his eyes and inside the eyelids. “The red hemorrhage specks you see are called petechiae, which occur in death when a person is strangled or suffocated.”

Hakeem leaned in to get a closer look. “Scientifically you ruled out strangulation.”

“There are no cloth fibers in Mr. Doe's mouth or nose. Nor was there any adhesive substance on his face.”

Aspen said, “So the Hieroglyphic Hacker didn't tape John Doe's mouth or smother him with something or put a plastic bag over his head because there's no ligature markings around his neck, which there would be because he would naturally struggle against the bag. Self-preservation.”

“You got it, kiddo,” Chavez said with a smile, clearly pleased with her teaching skills.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Hakeem said. “Petechiae can only happen when someone is strangled or suffocated to death.”

“Correct, Detective Eubanks. Yet this man still died of suffocation, respiratory failure.” Chavez zipped the body bag and handed Aspen and Hakeem each a copy of her autopsy report. “Mr. Doe's fingerprints are along with my findings. In light of all the evidence, there are only two ways I know Mr. Doe could have died of respiratory failure under these circumstances. He was either injected with an anesthesia such as succinylcholine, but there are no injection markings on his body that I can find, or he was bitten by a Hapalocheana maculosa.”

Hakeem said nothing.

“Now you know damn well we don't know what the hell that is.” Aspen rolled her eyes.

“A Blue-ring octopus. But rule that out because they are only found in Australia. Both, however, render a person totally paralyzed but fully conscious. Both, if not treated immediately, will kill a person via suffocation. And both vanish from the system in the matter of minutes. Sometimes traces of sucs can be found but never the toxins of a blue ring.”

Aspen thought about John Doe's stab wounds. “Can a person talk under the influence of sucs or a blue ring?”

“It's difficult, very painful, but yes.”

“Painful?” Hakeem said. “They can still feel pain?”

Chavez nodded. “Every bit of it.” Then: “And let me leave you with this: There's a difference in cutting and being professionally trained to cut, Detectives. The wounds on Mr. Doe are not regular cuts made with a nonserrated blade; they're surgical incisions that cut through the skin and into the superficial fascia. The methodical sequence of incisions wasn't learned by practicing to cut on his victims. He has experience. The hieroglyphics on Mr. Doe's body were cut with a scalpel by the hand of a professional.” She gave them a plastic bag with John Doe's UPS shirt in it. Through the bag they saw the blood-stained shape of a scalpel blade on the shirt.

Anesthesia? Scalpel? Aspen knew what type of person they were hunting.

S
cenario Davenport enjoyed her view of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame from her office in the county courthouse. She was finally moving forward with her life without having to worry about the person she used to be. She leaned back in a high-back leather chair and spoke into the phone. “Detectives Eubanks and Skye.”

“What about them?” Sergeant Morris said.

“Detective Eubanks hasn't been tight-lipped.”

“Haven't spoken to him yet, but I'm sure there's more to it.”

“From a legal standpoint, I hope this isn't the level of professionalism he'll give to the investigation. I've never worked with him or Detective Skye, so I don't know their MO. I'm concerned because their investigation is what I'll use to prosecute this case should it ever go to trial.” Then: “It has to be solid.”

“Mayor Balfour handpicked them,” Sergeant Morris said. “I'm sure that tells you a lot.”

“That tells me nothing, Sergeant Morris. The mayor's selection has nothing to do with my job description. This is a high-profiled murder so I need to be certain that I have competent investigators working on this. And I'm just not convinced judging from this morning's paper.” Scenario tossed the paper in her wastepaper basket. “I'm not being a bitch, Sergeant. But because of the tragedy
this morning, this situation was dropped in my lap and it's my responsibility to see it through.”

“I know you're new and all and it must be hectic over there in the DA's office with Jefferson being gone, but let me tell you something about my detectives, Ms. Davenport.”

“I'm listening.”

“Detectives Eubanks and Skye have a hundred percent case clearance because their hard-wiring makes them the perfect combination.”

A hundred percent? Excellent, Scenario thought.

Sergeant Morris continued: “They clear cases because Eubanks needs answers and Skye needs to set things right. They're expert trial witnesses. Eubanks is a grade-three detective who has worked on every multijurisdictional task force you can name. Skye used to be an FBI profiler. She was taught by the nation's leading serial killer investigators. And she worked on the FBI-LAPD unsolved murder team. If this guy is nabbed in Cleveland, they will hand you everything to send him to death row.”