Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

Jamie

“ Y ou’re cutting it fine, Detective.” Sharon laughed as I stepped into the foyer at the coroner’s office.

“I think you’ll find that’s called right on time and prompt and efficient, Sharon.” I smiled. “Also known as there was more traffic than I anticipated, and I made it here by the skin of my teeth.”

Sharon smiled at my honesty.

“Well you haven’t missed much. Dr. Karloff is just getting started,” she said. “Go on through. You know where you’re going, right?”

“Right,” I said, giving her a final smile and moving past her desk and into the carpeted hallway.

I had attended enough autopsies to know exactly where I was going. The room where the autopsies took place was at the end of the hallway. It was a cold room, clinical and bare, and even after all this time, it made me shudder to think about it. Stepping into the room from the warm hallway was like stepping into another world. And yet, Dr. Karloff always seemed most at home in that room. I reached the door to the cold room, as I called it, and tapped on it.

“Come in.” Dr. Karloff’s voice floated out to me, his Russian accent coming through slightly in his speech. His accent wasn’t strong enough to make his words difficult to understand, but it was strong enough to leave no question as to the fact that he had grown up in Russia.

“Hey,” I said as I pushed the door open and stepped into the cold room.

I felt goosebumps race over my body with the intense coldness of the room. Dr. Karloff looked up from the metal tray he was examining as I entered and grinned at me, his gray eyes sparkling above his face mask. His bald head caught the bright lights above him and shone.

I bit back the comment I wanted to make. Dr. Karloff was good-natured about the teasing he suffered at my hands about his looking like the typical mad scientist in his white coat and mask, but it didn’t seem right to stand laughing and joking over the body. Even after all these years, I wasn’t exactly comfortable making light of anything while I was in the autopsy room.

“Let’s get started then,” Dr. Karloff said.

I nodded, signaling to him that I was ready, and he pulled aside the sheet that covered Candy where she lay on a metal table in front of him. I swallowed hard at the sight of her blue-tinged skin and lips. Dr. Karloff was whistling a tune as he rolled his sleeves up, exposing arms covered in scars from the Cold War. He pulled a metal trolley loaded with instruments closer to himself, making me jump as the instruments clanged together. He caught me jumping and laughed softly.

“Relax, Jamie. It’s not like she can hurt you,” he said with a soft laugh. His eyes twinkled mischievously as he went on. “Unless, of course, she’s possessed or something, but that’s pretty rare.”

I ignored the comments and stepped closer to the body, steeling myself for what was to come. Dr. Karloff switched on the voice recorder that was positioned above his table, and he began narrating what he did as he looked over the body.

“The cause of death has been established as blunt force trauma to the back of the cranium, a result of falling from a second-story window,” he said. “Now let’s see what secrets Candy’s body holds.”

He started on her head, cutting away the skin and peeling back her scalp. I had to look away, but I could still hear the slurping sound of flesh being pulled back from bone. The whirring of a power saw started up, ran for a few seconds, and then stopped again. Dr. Karloff was still whistling, stopping only to announce the weight of Candy’s brain as he plonked it on a metal scale.

“Normal weight for her age,” he announced.

He replaced the brain in her now open skull, closing it back up as casually as if he were closing a suitcase, and then he moved his attention further down her body. He looked up at me and smiled.

“You’re looking a little queasy there, Jamie,” he said with a wink. “Do you need a glass of water or something?”

“No. I’ve seen worse,” I said.

It was true. I had, but this still turned my stomach. Candy was just so young. Her death seemed like such wasted potential. And although autopsies often proved crucial in homicide cases, it always felt to me like desecrating the dead. I guess that was my abuela’s influence .

“Here’s something you’ll want to see. I promise it’s not too gory, even for the delicate eyes of a sensitive little flower like you,” Dr. Karloff said with a grin.

I frowned at him as I stepped forward, but I refused to take the bait and bite. He pointed to Candy’s hand, all business as I got as close as I needed to get to see Candy’s hand. I breathed through my mouth, not wanting to smell any hint of blood, or dead flesh, or most likely, formaldehyde.

“See this cut here?” Dr. Karloff said, pointing to Candy’s right palm.

I looked where he was pointing. The cut was ragged looking, and it was almost black around the edges. I nodded my head, not trusting my voice to sound entirely even and knowing Dr. Karloff would never let me live it down if he heard a tremor in my voice.

“A knife wound,” he said. “And I’ve cross-referenced the blade that made this cut with what was found at the scene. This cut wasn’t made by any of the knives in the house.”

I felt my eyes open wide, and I looked up at Dr. Karloff in surprise. This meant there was a weapon somewhere that we had missed .

“What kind of knife are we looking for?” I asked.

“Perhaps a standard kitchen knife. Perhaps something a little bigger. But the blade would be serrated. And none of the knives found in the house had a serrated edge,” Dr. Karloff replied.

“Noted,” I said, making a mental note to have someone go out to the property and find that damned knife.

It was probably too late now, but if the amnesia that William and Carlotta claimed to be suffering from was true, then there was every chance that it could be hidden somewhere in the house or garden without either of them remembering hiding it. And if we found prints on it belonging to only one of the couple, then it could be a breakthrough for us.

Dr. Karloff carried on with his grisly work, making a T-shaped cut on Candy’s chest. He began pulling out each of her internal organs in turn and weighing them on the scale. As he worked, he talked to me, interrupting himself now and again to call out a weight.

“Candy’s blood work came back this morning. At the time of her death, there was alcohol in her system. Perhaps not enough to make her blind drunk, but certainly enough to impair her judgement,” he said.

And perhaps enough to make her unsteady on her feet to the point where a defensive push could send her sprawling out the window , I thought.

“And she also tested positive for methamphetamines. Looking at the black spots on her liver and kidneys, she was no stranger to meth, although her teeth are all still in place and show little to no signs of rotting, so she hadn’t been taking it for a long time or in large quantities,” Dr. Karloff said.

I nodded my head. There was no real way of knowing at this point, but it sounded to me like Candy had gone off the rails and turned to meth, of all things, when William had ended things between them. It was consistent with Carlotta’s stalker story. The meth would have affected Candy, making even the most trivial things seem bigger than they were and making her paranoid. It might explain why she had thought that breaking into the Aldens’ house in the middle of the night was a good idea, if nothing else.

“And now for the big finale.” Dr. Karloff grinned. “You’ll like this one, Jamie.”

I winced at both his words and his expression. He rolled his eyes .

“Relax, Jamie. If I didn’t keep this stuff light, I would have been locked away in the nuthouse years ago,” Dr. Karloff said.

“Maybe that wouldn’t have been such a bad thing.” I grinned.

Dr. Karloff laughed and shook his head.

“But then you wouldn’t have me as your coroner. You’d have someone middle of the road, boring even. And that just wouldn’t do, would it?”

“I guess not.” I smiled. “So, what’s this big finale, then?”

I had a feeling I was going to regret asking the question, but I also felt like this was going to be something important. Dr. Karloff wouldn’t have made such a big deal out of this moment if there wasn’t something unexpected to be seen.

“What, no drumroll?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes and he shrugged.

“Can’t blame a guy for trying,” he said.

He leaned over Candy and made an incision.

“As I suspected,” he said to himself.

He reached into Candy’s open body and plucked something out. He held it out on his palm for me to see. It was small, kind of withered looking, and it took me a second to place it. When I did realize what it was, I couldn’t unsee it and I had to take a deep breath to stop myself from retching.

“Oh, my God. Is that what I think it is?” I said, feeling my stomach cramp and the room lurch around me. I swallowed hard, willing the nausea in my stomach to pass.

“An unborn baby,” Dr. Karloff said, serious now. “Around fourteen weeks would be my best guess.”

Shit. This changed everything. Maybe Candy wasn’t a crazy stalker type. Maybe she just wanted to know William would be there for her and the baby. But then again, she had been drinking and taking meth, so she wouldn’t exactly be up for any mother of the year award. And while I had no direct experience in this, I would hazard a guess that showing up in the middle of the night and breaking into someone’s house weren’t the actions of a normal person who just wanted some support for her child.

Candy’s pregnancy gave both William and Carlotta a stronger motive for murdering Candy. For William to hide from the inconvenient truth of his affair and Carlotta because she knew there was no way to hide this from the world and continue to play the part of the happy couple in public. At once, both motives seemed plausible and yet too weak to warrant killing a young girl. I’d seen flimsier reasons for killing, but not from a professional with the lifestyle of William and Carlotta.

My mind was working overtime as a hundred scenarios passed through it. Of course, it was possible that the baby wasn’t even William’s. He was playing away. Was it such a stretch to think Candy might be sleeping with more than one person? It was even possible that Candy didn’t know about the pregnancy. Both of those things were solvable.

“Take a DNA sample from the baby, please,” I said. “I have to make a call.”

I stepped into the corridor and pulled my cellphone out. I called Officer Stanford. She answered on the first ring.

“Hi,” I said. “Listen. I’m at Candy’s autopsy. She was pregnant.”

“Well, shit. I didn’t see that one coming,” she said after giving a low whistle.

Me neither , I thought, remembering the way Dr. Karloff had presented the baby to me.

“I need you to get a warrant for us to take a sample of William’s DNA so we can see if the baby was his. And I also need access to Candy’s medical records. There’s a chance she didn’t know she was pregnant,” I said.

“On it,” Officer Stanford said.

The line went dead, and for a second, I didn’t know whether I should be pissed off that she’d hung up on me or impressed by how efficient she was. I settled on being impressed by her efficiency. I stepped back into the autopsy room. Dr. Karloff was sewing Candy’s body back up with a fast, neat stitch.

“All done,” he said as he put in the last stitch and snapped off the suture thread. He nodded to a test tube on the metal instrument table. “That’s the DNA sample. I take it you want it cross-matching against the suspect?”

I nodded my head.

“Yeah. I’ve just put the wheels in motion to obtain a sample from him.”

“I’ll make it a priority. As soon as the sample comes in, I’ll run the tests. You’ll have the results the same day I get the sample. I know I like to joke around, Jamie, but that girl and her baby deserved better than what they got.”

“Thanks,” I said. “And yeah. They really did.”

Dr. Karloff and I went back to his office and sat down in comfortable chairs where he poured us both a drink. I was officially off duty, and I didn’t think one drink would hurt. Dr. Karloff was talking about last night’s game when my cellphone rang. I pulled it out and glanced at the screen. It was Officer Dumont.

“Sorry, I have to take this,” I said, holding my cellphone up where Dr. Karloff could see it.

“Aren’t you off duty?” he said.

“Yeah, technically, I am, but are we ever off duty?”

“True. It would be so much more convenient if criminals only operated in business hours, wouldn’t it?”

Dr. Karloff grinned.

I nodded my head. Damned right, it would. I slipped back out into the hallway again and took the call.

“Detective? I’m sorry to bother you, but Morrie Xavier is on his way to the precinct. He called up and demanded to speak to you, and when he was told you weren’t here, he got a bit aggressive, yelling at the front desk sergeant who took the call and saying you’d better be here by the time he gets here. I’m cool to deflect him, but I just wanted to give you a heads up. ”

“Hang on, slow down. Who the hell is Morrie Xavier?” I said.

It dawned on me as soon as the words left my lips. Candy’s father. Officer Dumont and I both said the words at the same time.

“Yeah,” Officer Dumont added.

I thought quickly. Normally, I would let Officer Dumont handle him, but if he was getting aggressive, I figured I should be the one to deal with him. And after losing his daughter, he deserved to at least be heard by me.

“I’m on my way back in now. If Morrie gets there before me, explain to him that I’m not in the office because I’m trying to find his daughter’s killer and bring them to justice, but assure him that I’m on my way and that I’ll be happy to speak to him.”

I ended the call and stuck my head back around the door to Dr. Karloff’s office.

“Duty calls.” I sighed.

“Where the hell is Batman when you need him?” Dr. Karloff grinned.

I laughed. “Knowing my luck, he’s probably helping a waitress who's being harassed or something.”

I drove to the precinct as quickly as I could without breaking any laws. The roads where quieter now, and I made it back in good time. I stepped into the precinct and went up to the front desk.

“Is Morrie Xavier here yet?” I asked.

“Yes,” said a voice from behind me before the desk sergeant had a chance to respond.

I turned in the direction of the voice and found myself face to face with Morrie Xavier. He looked to be in his early forties or late fifties, with thinning red hair and a matching mustache which was a whole lot thicker than the hair on his head. His eyes looked slightly unfocused, and I could smell the alcohol fumes coming off him in waves. I ignored the potent smell of whisky coming off him and stepped forward, extending my hand.

“Mr. Xavier. I’m Detective Del Rey,” I said. “I’m the lead detective on your daughter’s case.”

Morrie looked at my outstretched hand for a moment as if debating whether to shake it or smack it away. In the end, he settled for a shake. He squeezed my hand harder than was necessary, but I let it go, reminding myself that the man was grieving, and sometimes grief could do funny things to people.

“Let’s go to my office,” I said when Morrie saw I wasn’t going to react and released my hand from his death grip .

I turned and walked through the security door, holding it open for Morrie to come through. I led him along the mostly quiet hallways and into my office. I gestured for him to sit down, which he did.

“Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?” I asked.

“No, I fucking wouldn’t. I would like some answers,” he snarled.

I raised an eyebrow, a little surprised by his aggressive manner. I tried not to show my surprise. I moved around to my side of my desk.

“Let me just bring up Candy’s file,” I said.

I opened a file on my computer, subtly looking up the information Officer Dumont had found on Candy’s family. It was short and somewhat unsettling. No sign of the mother. Father is an alcoholic ex-army ranger and a PTSD sufferer with priors for assault. Great. Just the sort of guy I wanted to be in a confined space with. I turned my attention back to Morrie.

“Before we begin, I’d like to offer you my deepest condolences, sir,” I said.

“Yeah, well, your condolences aren’t going to bring Candy back, are they? Now what exactly are you doing about any of this?” he replied. “Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re not doing shit.”

“I can assure you that we’re doing the best we can, Mr. Xavier,” I said. “We—”

He cut me off before I could get any further. “Bullshit. If you were doing the best you could do, that fucking prick would be behind bars by now,” he snarled.

“We have—” I started.

Again, I was cut off, this time by Morrie slamming his large fist down on my desk hard enough to knock over my pen cup and send pens and pencils scattering across the floor. I resisted the urge to chastise him. It seemed counterproductive to anger him further.

“I want that fucker behind bars, Detective,” he shouted.

He said the word Detective like it was an insult. Coming from him, I somehow felt that it was.

“You think you know who killed your daughter?” I asked.

I didn’t expect any major insight. I just hoped that talking about this would calm Morrie down a little. I knew he was grieving and had every right to be angry, but the sheer level of anger coming off him was enough to set off alarm bells in my head. It was clear from his rolling eyes and his overall demeanor that he was as mentally unstable as it was beginning to seem that Candy was.

“I don’t know who was the one to physically push her out that window, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “But that guy she was supposedly seeing. He’s a predator, Detective. A dirty old man who uses young girls and then tosses them aside like dish rags when he’s done with them. My Candy, she was a sensitive girl. Shit like that could break her. She never would have been at that damned house if it wasn’t for him. So I don’t much care what you think. He was responsible for my daughter’s death, and I want something done about it. And I don’t mean you running around with your little notebook, asking questions. I mean I want something real done about it. Fast. I’m not a very patient man, Detective, and this has dragged on long enough now.”

This was going to be harder than I had thought. Morrie wasn’t really after answers. He was after an instant solution, regardless of whether we had the right person.

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way, Mr. Xavier. I understand your frustration, but it’s not illegal to end a relationship, and I can’t arrest anyone for that alone,” I said.

“So you’re saying you’re not going to do anything about this?” Morrie shouted.

He got to his feet and headed for the door.

“Mr. Xavier, please calm down and wait a moment. I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying we’re doing everything we can to get to the bottom of this, and you have my word that I won’t rest until I find out what happened to your daughter and see her killer brought to justice.”

“You know what I hear when you say that? I hear someone who isn’t taking this seriously. That monster’s actions led to my daughter’s death. And one way or the other, he’s going to be brought to justice.”

“What are you saying, Mr. Xavier?” I said calmly, hoping he would think through his words and retract what I could only take as a threat on William’s life.

“I’m saying, Detective, that if you won’t bring that monster to justice, then I will find out who he is and I will take care of him myself,” he said.

He stormed out of my office, slamming the door hard on his way out. I went to the door and stepped out into the corridor and saw him making his way through the security door and then out of the precinct. I stepped back into my office and closed my door quietly. I sighed again, then I began picking up the pens and pencils from the floor.

I didn’t want to go after Morrie. It was clear to me that anything I said to him at this point would only make things worse. I just had to hope he had gotten some of his anger and frustration out of his system and that he could start thinking a little more clearly now.

He didn’t know who William Alden was, and I didn’t want to make this any harder for him by detaining him for the threat he had made. It was just words. And I hoped we would have some progress soon. Once we had Candy’s killer behind bars, even if it turned out not to be William, I was sure Morrie would be a whole lot calmer.