Time of Death (3 page)

“So if it turns out to be Scarman, where’s he been for four days?” PJ asked.

“He might have been killed right away and stashed someplace cool to slow down decay,” Anita said. “Or maybe he really was alive all that time, and the killer took four days to do that damage.”

The conversation fizzled as everyone considered what Anita said. PJ tried not to turn her vivid imagination loose on what could have happened to Scarman during four days of captivity.

“I don’t think he was killed immediately,” PJ said. “I noticed enough stubble on his chin that I think he’s been alive for a few days without shaving.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Anita said. “The skin shrinks after death and exposes more of the hair shaft that was buried in it. So hair appears longer, especially in the beard area, but there hasn’t been any real growth.”

Noises from the men’s room across the hall intruded. Four people in the converted utility closet that served as PJ’s office overtaxed the space’s air handling capability. There was a layer of cold, uncirculated air at floor level. Starting about knee height, the temperature gradually increased. At the level of her face, it was enough to bead sweat at her hairline. She hated to think how hot it was at the ceiling. Smells were trapped at different levels, too. Doughnuts past their prime—long past. Stale coats tossed on a folding chair in the corner. Mud and something else of questionable origin on Dave’s shoes. Remnants of sausage biscuits imported from Millie’s Diner by Schultz. On the positive side, there was a clean soap and herbal shampoo smell drifting over from Anita’s spot.

PJ wished she could say the same for herself. She’d gotten up, tossed cold water on her face, thrown on yesterday’s clothes, left a note for her fourteen-year-old son Thomas, and yes, fed the cat before leaving. She was suddenly conscious that others would be picking up the room’s odorous mix, and she might be a contributor to it.

“Flip on that fan, would you?” she said to Dave.

“Officer Leeds had something to say about that scar business,” Schultz said.

So that’s who was on the phone. The buddy network.
She was relieved that her boss hadn’t bypassed her in favor of Schultz.

“He was there with Wall at the morgue. Mrs. Merrett said they had taken pictures of each other’s bodies, all over. They’d have a little champagne, then take turns flipping through the photo albums, paint melted chocolate on whatever part showed up in the picture, and lick it off.”

“She actually told Wall that?” Anita said.

“Scout’s honor. How about that, Doc?”

“Not too surprising,” she said. “Lots of couples have sex rituals that get them in the mood. In some cases, the ritual becomes so much a part of the act they might have trouble separating one from the other.”

“Shovel on the shrink talk. Transgendered. Sex rituals.”

She narrowed her eyes at Schultz, but he was unfazed.

“Get this. Mrs. Merrett offered to show the rest of the photos to the lead detective in the case. Wall told her that would be me, Dee-tective Leo Schultz. You think she’s gonna come on to me?” Schultz said.

Dave burst out laughing.

“Hey, is that so funny? I hear she’s not a bad-looking broad.” Schultz ran his hand over the top of his head, a gesture left over from when there was some hair there to smooth.

Dave said, “Take along a camera. She’ll probably want to get started on a new album.”

“Damn straight.”

“Could we get off this subject? Schultz, you and Dave get with Missing Persons and see what information they’ve got on Arlan Merrett. Also, check out the results of the door-to-door in that hotel and see if any witnesses have turned up. Anita and I will take on June and her body photos. Come back to my office when you’re done. Wall’s going to want an update. After that, I’ll want to get started on some simulations.”

“No fair about the photos,” Schultz said. “June asked for me first.”

S
CHULTZ SWUNG THE DOOR
closed with a satisfying bang on his way out and headed off down the hall without a word to the others. Talking things over was useful—sometimes—but he needed time to process his own thoughts. He had a little time before meeting up with Dave, who was going to make the calls to check on possible hotel witnesses.

PJ sometimes complained about her office, but at least it was better than his situation. Three decades of mostly-devoted work and he didn’t have an office to call his own. Maybe if he’d gone the administrative route, he’d be sitting in an office with a view of the Arch or at least the parking lot of the Municipal Courts Building. His work area was in a large room, desks bumped edge to edge, and there was no privacy. Worst of all, he shared his desk with a detective who usually worked nights. The man’s name was Samuel Vinnert, but his strong southern accent and good-looking ass—or so the women said—tagged him as Rhett Buttler, with two t’s.

Rhett accused Schultz of getting the whole “Buttler” thing started, which was true. It was his way of retaliating because Rhett left behind the scent of his aftershave on everything he touched on the desk.

Schultz settled into a wooden swivel chair that was a tight fit. There were shaped indentations in the seat for someone’s posterior, but that someone wasn’t Schultz. The chair screeched whenever it swiveled, discouraging use of that function. Each man who shared the desk had a drawer reserved for his exclusive use. There were no locks, so it was done by the honor system.

Yanking open his private desk drawer, he checked his box of Little Debbie Zebra Cakes. Sure enough, one cellophane-wrapped package was gone. It was a classic example of Locard’s Exchange Principal: “When two objects come in contact with each other they exchange trace evidence.” Rhett left aftershave and took Zebra Cakes.

Morally freed by the man’s transgression, Schultz opened Rhett’s private drawer and pawed through the magazines.

Crap. Nothing new. What’s a guy to do when he has to take a dump?

He slammed the drawer loud enough to draw the stares of the younger detectives in the room.

“Nothing to see here. Go back to your petty feuds and back-stabbing.”

At the age of fifty-five, Schultz was a dinosaur to the up-and-coming, who wanted little to do with him.

CHIP swept all that away. He worked with a team where his contribution was appreciated and nobody patronized him as though experience equated to obsolescence.

He closed his eyes and let the images of the morning’s events flow across the screen behind his eyelids. Schultz had a way of working that presented a logical front, but on the inside, he relied on hunches taken one step further: he was often able to sense a connection between himself and the killer he sought. He pictured it as a shining cord making its way from him toward a sinister, unknown destination. Each hunch he made, each fact he gathered, extended that golden cord out further into the darkness until one final connection made the cord shoot forward like an arrow straight through the killer’s heart. Then all Schultz had to do was slide along the cord and he would land in a vat of evil masquerading as a human.

He told himself it was only a visualization of detecting techniques, but he knew there was more to it.

He tested the cord and found it coiled near his heart. Nothing to go on yet, so he reviewed the morning’s events.

Driving downtown, mind clear, ready to work. Swirling fog, then the first glimpse of the body.

As he got closer, he could see that the body was male, muscular, with well-developed arms and chest, trim waist, and a washboard abdomen. The raw flesh where the genitals used to be raised gooseflesh on his arms and made his own balls crawl up a little higher in their sacs. The face was a mess from the eyes down. Fingers that at first glance appeared to be painted with red nail polish turned out to be missing the tips of the phalanges.

The killer trying to eradicate fingerprints to slow identification? The torn face could have resulted from a clumsy attempt to remove the teeth to prevent comparison with dental records.

Sitting at his desk in the overheated room, Schultz felt a chill of the heart.

He pulled a notebook from his back pocket and flipped it open to a clean page. He sketched a timeline and jotted down questions as he thought of them.

A rage killer who had the presence of mind to cover his tracks by making the body hard to identify?

Unless what appears to be a rage killing was cold and deliberate.

The wife’s bullshit about licking chocolate—why wave that scar photo around if she was the one who tried to make the body hard to identify with specific mutilations?
Another piece that didn’t fit.

And another: where had Arlan Merrett been for the four days before he turned up on the levee?

“Looking good, Ernestine,” Schultz said. He’d taken a walk over to Missing Persons to exert a little personal charm and make sure he got his hands on everything they had about Arlan Merrett. He was dismayed to see that Ernestine Bradlock was on duty, but it was too late to back out. She’d already seen him.

“Uh, huh, where’s that book you borrowed?”

Shit. She remembered.
He’d borrowed an expensive textbook from a forensic science class from her.

“Still reading it.”

“You bastard, you lost it. I just know it. You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I …”

“That book cost a hundred and ten dollars and you’re going to pay every fucking penny of it.”

“Hey, if I could just get a word in here,” Schultz said. He leaned heavily on the corner of her desk. Most people would have shrunk back, but Ernestine held her ground. She’d worked in the Department of Corrections for fifteen years, until her back went out. A desk job hadn’t sweetened her disposition. She was solidly built and could probably arm-wrestle Schultz to a draw. Even the short frizz of gray hair that topped her elegantly shaped head broadcast, “Don’t mess with me.”

“Get off my desk,” she said. “Never know where those hands of yours have been. Somewhere filthy, no doubt.”

“I lost the book, okay? I lost it. You happy now?”

“You’re a careless son-of-a-bitch and a liar on top of that. Probably never read a page of that book.”

True.

“I was halfway through with it. Look, I’m sorry. I’ll pay you out of my next check.”

“Fine.” She flashed him a smile that was anything but welcoming. He recognized it because he saw one just like it frequently in the mirror. “Now, can I help you?”

Yeah, like a snake can help a mouse.

“I’m working on the riverfront homicide,” Schultz said.

“Oh, the guy with no dick? Arlan Merrett? Don’t see that every day. Whoever did it must’ve hated that man’s guts.”

“Thanks for the insight.”

She pursed her lips, wrinkling the fine hairs of a barely-noticeable moustache, trying to decide if a retort was worth it. Schultz was spared. “If you hang around for a few minutes, I’ll get you a copy of his file. I have to make a phone call first.”

The phone call turned out to be making hotel reservations through a travel agency. She didn’t try to hide the fact that her vacation plans took priority over his legitimate work request. Schultz kept his face neutral, but wondered what a woman like her did in Cancún, anyway.

Spend my money, I guess.

Ten minutes later, he was on his way back to his desk, a plump manila folder in his hand, and it had only cost him a hundred and ten bucks and downing a slice of humble pie.

When he got back to his desk, Dave was already there. He’d pulled up a chair and was looking over Schultz’s notes.

“Remind me not to leave my diary out where you can get to it,” Schultz said.

“There’s nothing in your diary that I’d be interested in reading,” Dave said.

“How do you know? There’s some hot shit in there. Anyway, I got this file on Merrett. They love me over in Missing Persons.”

Dave snorted derisively. “Didn’t you borrow something from Ernestine? That woman probably hasn’t forgotten her 1976 grocery lists.”

Schultz slapped the file on the desk, ignoring his comment. “I’ll take the front half,” he said. He studied the photos Mrs. Merrett had provided, which included a couple of vacation shots with the two of them. Typical tourist photos, the happy couple in front of Old Faithful and in a tropical bar, sharing a drink from a coconut that had sprouted two straws. Seeing them together, he would have to say that based purely on looks, it seemed that Mrs. Merrett had married up.

They worked in silence for a time, as though Schultz’s desk had a bubble around it that filtered out the noise and general commotion in the room.

Schultz came up for air fifteen minutes later. “White male, six feet two inches, two hundred pounds, thirty-nine years old, muscular, brown hair, brown eyes. Routinely jogs a fixed route at six in the morning seven days a week and works out with weights at a gym four days a week with a varied schedule. Born in Lawrence, Kansas, parents middle class, divorced when he was eighteen. Formed his company, Green Vista Properties, in 1996. The company renovates homes in marginal areas of the city.”

“I have more info on that company,” Dave said. “Profits were off the last few years. Merrett took on a partner last year, Fredericka Chase. She brought in an infusion of cash and some new ideas. Green Vista was one of the first to latch onto the loft district along Washington Avenue downtown, and they settled into renovating for the upscale market, half a million dollars plus. Lately Arlan did a lot of traveling, looking into taking the idea to other cities.”

Schultz whistled. “I suppose June Merrett inherits her husband’s share of the partnership.”

“Nope. Fredericka gets it all, net worth about four million.”

They mulled that unexpected bit of information over.

“Fredericka’s dripping motive with that sole ownership of Green Vista. June might have motive if there’s a lover lurking,” Dave said. “Think either of those women could maneuver that solidly-built victim around?”

“June’s less than average height and I’ll bet her only exercise is opening her mouth,” Schultz said. “Probably no powerhouse. What about Fredericka? I’m getting an image of a Swedish masseuse with biceps like pythons that just ate, the kind of woman you don’t mess with if you know what’s good for you.”