CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kate might no longer be comfortable in hospitals, but she was surprisingly at home in morgues. Fourteen years as an FBI agent had desensitized her to the presence of dead bodies. It was the nearly dead, the sense of life slipping away, that disturbed her.
So, though she was looking at the dissected corpse of Gerald Mace, naked and cut open without thought for his dignity, she felt no turn of her stomach and no restlessness.
Which wasn’t to say she was completely unaffected.
It was sad to think that this man had only a few days ago been a breathing, living human with a life, with likes, dislikes, knowledge, and experiences.
Perhaps at his age, hopes and dreams had given way to memories and regrets, but he was alive to reminisce and consider those.
Someone had decided that he didn’t deserve that.
Someone had taken that from him, then, when he was no longer present to have any effect on the world of the living, they had sewn his mouth shut and carved encrypted Akkadian into his table to send the message they wanted.
“I can confirm that the sutures were chromic catgut,” the medical examiner, a short, wiry man with profoundly hairy arms and profoundly thinning hair informed them in a voice that seemed too resonant for his thin chest. “Pretty interesting stuff. It was a Greek physician who first recorded the use of fiber from the lining of sheep’s intestines to suture wounds.
That would be Galen, an icon in the medical world. ”
He smiled to let them know that he knew he was rambling about something they didn’t care about and to thank them for their indulgence. Then he looked down at their victim.
“You can get catgut just about anywhere except for a hospital in the United States. It’s common in the third world, but here it’s a niche item usually purchased by survivalists or conspiracy theorists who believe the healthcare industry is an arm of the deep state or a tool of the Devil or both.”
“Why wouldn’t survivalists just buy normal surgical thread?” Marcus asked.
“Well, treated catgut is actually very easy to store. Very stable, very sterile, and not as sensitive to harsh environments. That’s another reason it’s preferred in a lot of first world countries.
Personally, I think survivalists just like pretending that they’re using only things they can find, hunt, or harvest.”
He moved on, placing two fingers to the left of the wound in Gerald’s chest and pulling it open slightly. “As you can see, this wound is circular and rather narrow in diameter. He was stabbed through the heart, but not with a knife.”
“Screwdriver?” Marcus asked.
“No, although that’s a good guess. No, our friend here was stabbed with an awl.”
Kate’s brow furrowed. “That’s a leather-working tool, right?”
“Sometimes. It’s more commonly used for sewing and woodworking.
Clothiers will use it to stitch materials like thick canvas together while woodworkers will punch holes with it, sometimes for decorative purposes, sometimes to fit pegs, and sometimes to create a hook on which they can hang an item.
” He flipped his hand. “Well, you guys can Google it.”
Marcus looked at Kate. “Any religious significance to an awl?”
Kate shook her head. “Nothing that I know about.” She looked at the ME. “What about defensive wounds?”
The ME shrugged. “Well, not precisely.”
He moved to Gerald’s left foot and lifted it off the table, gingerly grasping the dead man’s big toe. The movement revealed a large purple bruise just above Gerald’s ankle.
“He received this backing into an object in his haste to flee. The injury to his forehead and right shoulder were received when he fell unconscious.”
“But that’s it? No skin or hair under his fingernails? No fibers that don’t belong to his clothing?”
“I’m afraid not,” the ME replied. “Based on his injuries, I’d say he was stabbed too quickly to realize what was going on. He stumbled backwards, hit his calf, then turned around and ran for his phone. He fell dead before he could reach it.”
Kate nodded and tried not to let her disappointment show.
The awl was an interesting angle, but if it was the tool she was thinking of, then it sold for four-ninety-nine at any hardware store or fourteen-ninety-nine if you bought the fancy one from an arts and crafts store.
It wasn’t unique, and it wouldn’t lead them to their killer.
“Thank you for your time, doctor.”
“Of course,” the ME replied, offering them each a firm handshake. “I’m sorry I couldn’t hand you your smoking gun.”
“If only it were that easy,” Marcus replied, giving the doctor a smile on their way out.
Darnell called them with more bad news as they exited the building. “I just confirmed that Donna Frick was never seen by any Philadelphia court or contacted by any Philadelphia law enforcement officer. It appears that Carol was telling the truth. Our two victims never met each other.”
“What about Daniel Avery?” Kate asked. “Did she know Daniel Avery?”
“Doesn’t look like it,” Darnell said. “Mr. Avery never lived in Wilmington, and none of his relatives ever attended the school Donna taught at. I’m afraid this also appears to be a dead end.”
Kate sighed irritably. Had they been wrong to make the connection to Daniel Avery?
No, they hadn’t. Gerald Mace had undoubtedly born false witness in the Daniel Avery case. Perhaps Donna Frick hadn’t, but she had spoken poison into willing ears and called it truth.
Now they needed to figure out exactly what that meant.
“Keep digging into their past, Darnell. Look for anything that might suggest a connection between them. I’m not ready to give up the Daniel Avery angle yet.”
“I’ll keep looking, Kate, but it’s time to accept the possibility that I was wrong and there’s something behind this other than Daniel Avery’s wrongful conviction.”
“You weren’t wrong,” Kate told him. “Gerald Mace was punished for his part in the Avery case. It just so happens that Donna Frick was punished for a different reason.”
“Very well. What do you two plan to do in the meantime?”
Kate looked at Marcus. Marcus tilted his head and said, “I think I’m going to track down some of Gerald’s old coworkers and see what they have to say about him.”
“Those memories would be thirty years old, Marcus,” Darnell reminded him.
“Then let’s hope they’re noteworthy.”
Darnell didn’t seem too convinced. “All right. And you, Kate?”
“I’m going to look into Donna Frick.”
“So, we’ll be duplicating efforts?”
Kate frowned. “Well, I was hoping you would look specifically for a connection between Donna and Gerald. I’m going to look at her specifically to see if there’s another transgression she may have committed to earn punishment.”
“Ah. Very well. Good luck to you both.”
“And to you.”
He hung up, and Marcus turned to Kate. “That was odd.”
“What was odd?”
“Just now between you and Darnell. I sensed tension there.”
Kate’s shoulders tightened a little. “He’s just a tough personality type for me.”
“Quiet, serious, and dedicated to his job? Respectful to both of us and willing to defer leadership to us despite his comparable experience and success?”
Kate rolled her eyes. “He’s a good agent. We just have personality types that butt heads.”
Marcus kept his eyes on her. “I think it’s something more than that.”
Kate sighed heavily and turned to him. “You want to focus on me right now, or do you want to focus on the case?”
Marcus watched her for a long moment. Kate held his gaze, and eventually, he sighed. “All right. Just remember that I’m on your side, Kate. No matter what.”
“And I’m grateful for that,” Kate said, “but I don’t want to deal with my personal issues right now, none of which have anything to do with Darnell anyway. I just want to find the person who killed Gerald Mace and Donna Frick and bring them to justice.”
Marcus nodded. “So do I.”
They continued in awkward silence for a moment, standing in front of the car and wondering how to close this brief scuffle. Marcus eventually took the initiative, handing her the car keys. “Take the car. I’ll walk.”
“I’m just going to the hotel,” Kate said. “You might need to drive. You take the car. I’ll call an Uber.”
Marcus didn’t look happy about that. Kate knew he liked to walk to clear his head when he was frustrated. “Just walk around until you have a reason to drive,” she said, “But I’ll be sitting on my tail doing nothing in the hotel. Just digging into old records.”
Marcus tilted his head. His jaw worked again, and he looked past Kate’s shoulder as though searching for answers on the facade of the medical examiner’s office.
“Better idea. We stay together. I call about Gerald’s old coworkers—and let’s face it; they are thirty years old.
I probably won’t get anything. Meanwhile, instead of digging through records, we drive back to Wilmington and talk to Donna Frick’s former coworkers at the school.
Their memories will be far more recent.”
Kate’s lips thinned. Marcus was reaching for a legitimate investigatory reason, but the real reason was that he didn’t want to leave Kate alone. Kate’s evasiveness about Darnell confronting her about Cox had set off alarm bells. Now he didn’t want Kate out of his sight.
It annoyed her a little that the reason he’d reached for was sound. She didn’t have a good reason to refuse. “Fine. Then you can call Darnell and tell him the change of plans.”
“I’ll text him,” Marcus said. “He’s a big boy. If he has a reason to protest, he’ll call us back.”
“Works for me.”
The air had cooled noticeably between them as they pulled out of the parking lot of the medical examiner’s office.
They weren’t arguing, and they weren’t so tense as they were during their last assignment when Marcus questioned nearly every decision Kate made, but it was clear that not every wound had healed between them.
She wondered if they ever would. Maybe they were both fated to carry scars from their last encounter with Elijah Cox.
Don’t give him that much credit. Those scars are all yours.
And with that depressing thought echoing in her head, Kate pointed them toward Wilmington and hopefully to an answer.