Chapter 6
Chapter
Time stretched.
Milo and Alicia grew antsy but when he said, “Gotta let Basia do her thing,” she nodded and returned to her phone. Confirming the victim’s warrant and the availability of Detectives Moses Reed and Sean Binchy for the toss of the house.
Milo said, “Good, tell them to head over.”
His phone-work had been less productive. Trying to access Martha Matthias’s retirement papers and coming up against multiple-choice voicemail at human resources that ended nowhere.
He growled. “Don’t these bastards ever work?” Glanced toward the house, like a kid wondering whether to broach the cookie jar. Tapping his foot, he walked a few feet away and paced for a while. Had just returned when two crime scene techs arrived.
Alicia told them to hold off until the pathologist was through.
One of them said, “Pathologist? Must be a juicy one.” Unperturbed, they returned to their van, phones out, fingers clicking.
Milo returned, left, paced some more. Alicia looked grim.
The waiting game. Crime Scene 101.
—
Twenty minutes in, information began to trickle in from the canvass. Three other neighbors had noticed the staggering woman on their block but none had paid her much attention or had linked her to Martha Matthias.
The common belief: The homeless were everywhere, city government was useless, ignore the mess.
Closed-circuit cameras were located on eight homes over a two-block stretch. Five were focused narrowly on entrances and failed to cover the street, one was a dummy, and two were inoperative due to computer glitches.
Just as that had settled in, Gloria Mendez came out and said, “Want to take a look?”
—
I followed Milo and Alicia toward the rear of the house, wondering if what I was about to see would stay with me.
Sometimes terrible stuff does, etching mental pictures in my brain that come back from time to time during unexpected moments.
Sometimes, though, the pictures don’t register.
I haven’t found any correlation to anything and I’m not sure what the inconsistency says about me.
Nor do I care. Introspection’s the enemy of getting the job done.
—
When Milo and Alicia saw the body, they winced simultaneously.
Removed from its plastic sheath and laid out on a white forensic tarp, Martha Matthias’s corpse was small and shriveled and beyond sad, with long but wispy white hair fuzzing the peripheries of her sunken face and trailing to frail, bony shoulders.
At first glance, looking considerably older than seventy-two, but death was a sadistic stylist.
Her eyes had frozen to vacant dark disks. Pale-pink liquid seeped beneath her and had begun to pool in the upturned corners of the tarp created by the C.I.’s.
This one probably would stay with me.
Especially the arms, lying to the left on a smaller tarp.
Cut cleanly, still frozen into L-shapes.
Basia, white-garbed, hooded, gloved, and bootied, said, “We have to thaw her anyway, might as well start early. Obviously the arms are the only disarticulated limbs. And they were staged on top of her. It’s the first time I’ve seen that, generally dismemberment focuses on disposal of hands and head in order to obscure identification. This is strange.”
She looked at me.
I shook my head.
“Well,” she said, “it certainly seems psychopathologic to me. Some kind of message, maybe the arms have special meaning to this maniac. In terms of clinical guesswork, there’s no apparent evidence she’s been thawed and refrozen but I can’t say for certain until I examine her blood vessels.
In terms of the instrument used to sever the arms, I’m going to wait until my tool-mark guy weighs in to give you an educated guess but I see small serrations. ”
Alicia had been looking away. Now she forced herself back to the arms. “A saw?”
“Most likely,” said Basia. “But nothing with big teeth—not a chain saw or a circular saw or even a band saw. All of those would inflict a lot more ripping damage.”
Milo said, “A jigsaw?”
Basia considered that. “Something along those lines. Have you found anything like that in the house?”
“We haven’t tossed the house yet,” he said.
“So no definitive death scene.” She looked back at the garage. “It certainly wasn’t here.”
“We’re assuming it’s in there but who knows?”
Alicia said, “We just got the victim’s warrant, will get started once we’re out of your way. It could take time, the interior’s crammed just like the garage.”
“A hoarder,” said Basia. “Do we know anything else about this poor woman?”
Milo looked at Alicia. Alicia nodded.
He told Basia.
It takes a lot to shake her. She blinked, stared at the body, shook her head, blinked some more. “A detective. Wow. She must’ve deteriorated mentally. How old is she? I’d guess at least eighty.”
Alicia said, “Seventy-two.”
“Rapid aging could be consistent with dementia,” said Basia. “Which isn’t to say there aren’t plenty of fully functioning people that age or older…a detective. Oh my. Did either of you know her?”
Milo raised a finger.
When he didn’t add more, Basia said, “Well, enough of my questions, it’s answers you want from me.”
Her Apple watch beeped a text. “Drivers are here, let’s get her to our place.”
—
A pair of burly crypt attendants marched forward with a gurney. One of them looked unimpressed by what he saw. The other stared wide-eyed and openmouthed before a nudge by his partner blanked his expression.
As they carted away the remains of Martha Matthias, Milo eyed her house’s rear door. “Time to get in there. Sorry, Alex, this one’s too complicated, I’ll have a uniform take you home.”
I said, “I’ll see if Robin’s free to pick me up, save your troops for the canvass.”
Robin answered after one ring. “Of course, baby. He’s protecting you? Must be bad.”
“It’s different.”
“That terrible word,” she said. “Well, at least your karma’s good on a small scale. I was just leaving House of Hardwood so I can be there in ten.”
“Great, thanks.”
“Can’t remember the last time I drove you anywhere,” she said. “Guess different has spread its wings.”
—
I waited at the northern perimeter of the yellow tape, a block up from the murder house. Robin’s truck pulled up nine minutes later. Gorgeous woman behind the wheel of a starkly utilitarian vehicle, her auburn curls loose.
The truck’s bed was empty. Unproductive search for exotic wood?
Then I saw the bag on the passenger seat, next to Blanche. I lifted and deposited both in my lap, leaned over and kissed Robin. The bag rattled. Inside were small, dark rectangles.
She said, “Ebony and rosewood leftovers, perfect for bridge blanks. They call me when they have stuff no one else can use.”
“Good karma for both of us.”
She eyed the squad cars. “As opposed to whatever happened here.”
—
I kneaded Blanche’s neck as Robin drove.
A few minutes in, she said, “Is it something you feel like talking about?”
I gave her basics.
She said, “A cop he knew. That’s got to be tough for Big Guy. Not to mention the rest of it.” She shuddered. “It does sound like the work of a crazy person so maybe that daughter or whoever she is will be the one and he’ll wrap it up quickly.”
I said, “Hopefully.”
I thought: Even so, the relief will be short-lived. There’s still Sophie Barlow, a quick solve that’s turned into anything but.
A mile later, Robin said, “After seeing that, don’t imagine you want to talk dinner.”
I said, “I’m pretty hungry. What’re you in the mood for?”
She shot me a quick sidelong glance.
Been with this guy for years and he still surprises me.
She said, “Sushi.”