Chapter 11 Rose #2
“All the chickens were grossly disfigured. Body parts chopped off, organs missing.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
I scanned Carl from limb to limb. “Well, he looks intact.”
Andrew’s gaze narrowed. “All of the chickens found—every single one—had been electrocuted… just like this. All of them had remnants of the same gel used to stick the electric pads on their skin.”
I blinked. “Who the hell would do that?”
“A mad man.”
I stared at the burns that speckled Carl’s legs, my stomach twisting. A mad man, indeed.
“Is that how he died?”
“No. Unfortunately. Like I said, he was tortured before he officially died. The TOD, or estimated time of death, was about seventy-two hours ago.”
“Three days.”
“That’s correct, Rain Man. The burns happened at least twenty-four hours before he was murdered.”
Twenty-four hours of torture.
“He also had gel in his head, although no burns.”
“Gel? In his hair?”
“Ever seen an EEG helmet? My guess is something like that.”
“That’s so creepy.”
“Agreed. I’ve seen some sick things in my life, but this is up there.”
“How’d he officially die?”
“The cause of death is myocardial infarction, or, a heart attack. His body couldn’t take any more electrical shock.”
I shook my head, gaping down at the man who, a few weeks earlier, had spent hours watching me from his car. We’d had four appointments to discuss his anxiety and panic attacks. What had Carl gotten himself into?
“Where was he found?”
“A shallow grave in the woods. As naked as a newborn baby. Dr. Buckley found him two mornings ago while checking his deer cams on his property. Called the cops. Record says the rain had washed out most of the sand and his foot was sticking out of the ground. Can you imagine walking up on that? Heck of a way to start his day.”
A horror story indeed.
Andrew moved up to the head of the table. “Looks like we’ve got a murderer on the loose in Berry Springs.”
“A psychotic murderer,” I muttered.
He frowned down at Carl’s head, then swapped his glasses for a pair of intimidating magnifying lenses—equal parts science and supervillain.
My curiosity shifted from the open chest cavity to his face—specifically, to the wound I hadn’t noticed before.
There, at the temple, was a jagged hole.
I instinctively covered my mouth and leaned in.
“Was he stabbed? In the head?”
Andrew didn’t answer. Just tilted his head, adjusting the lenses for a better angle, completely absorbed.
“There’s two,” I said.
“Two what?”
“Lacerations.”
“You’re incorrect. Not lacerations. Puncture wounds.”
“Puncture wounds on the side of his head?”
“Directly in his temple. The softest and most lethal part of the head, yes.”
“His killer cut his head open?”
“I said, puncture not laceration. Big difference.”
A sick fascination began to replace my uneasy stomach. “But you said he was stabbed.”
“He was stabbed, but not with a knife. Try to keep up.”
“What’s the difference between a puncture wound and a laceration?”
“There’s a huge difference. A laceration is a tear in the soft tissue, usually jagged and uneven and open in a V-like shape.
Kind of like his chest here. There’s significant loss of blood with lacerations.
These are most typical with knife wounds.
A puncture wound, on the other hand, closes back up and doesn’t bleed excessively.
Big difference, and very important to be able to tell the difference. ”
“Because this difference can help you determine how the victim was killed?”
“Not only that, it helps us to determine the murder weapon that was used—which is gold in a homicide investigation.”
“But you said Carl died of a heart attack?”
“That’s right, but this was done moments after he died. He wouldn’t have survived this wound. It punctured his brain.”
“Oh.” I bit my lip. The thought—the image—was terrifying.
“Yeah, like I said, a mad man.”
“That’s so sick. And you don’t think it was done with a knife?”
He shook his head. “Like you noticed, there are two, very similar wounds less than a half-inch apart. Both penetrating into the skin at almost identical lengths.”
“So he was stabbed with something twice. By someone with good aim.”
“That could be one theory. But with what, Detective Floris? That is the question.” He winked.
I leaned-in closer. The body was no longer a ‘gross, dead man,’ but someone with a story to tell.
Someone who had been brutally tortured and murdered.
Someone who deserved justice. It was like my own little CSI case.
Perhaps it was my personal connection to Crazy Carl but I felt an immediate need to help solve his case.
I squinted in deep thought, my brain flooding with theories of what could have happened to the man in his final moments of life.
“Ice pick?” I asked. “Maybe he was stabbed with an ice pick?”
“No, the wounds aren’t wide enough.”
“Letter opener?”
“What is this? The eighteen hundreds? Who uses a letter opener anymore?”
I rolled my eyes, then watched him work for a minute, fascinated, and forgetting why I was there in the first place.
“That’s all you got, Detective?” He asked. “An icepick or a letter opener?”
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking…”
Another minute slid by.
“Andrew.” I gasped.
“What?”
“You said two puncture wounds, close together, both blades the same length?”
“That’s right.”
I spun on my heel, jogged to the long counter that lined the side of the room and began pulling open drawers.
Once I found what I was looking for, I jogged back and raised my hand, excitement pitching my voice.
“Scissors.” I wagged the shiny pair of small, silver scissors in my hand.
“Carl was stabbed with a pair of scissors.” My nose wrinkled in disgust. “Stabbed in the head with a pair of scissors.”
Andrew didn’t look up, didn’t move, his concentration remained on the hole in the man’s head where he was poking around. Finally, he appeared to pull something out of Carl’s head. He straightened his back and raised the tweezers. Clamped into the end was a tiny, blue speck.
“You’re right, Doctor Floris. Scissors. But scissors with a blue, plastic handle.”
My jaw dropped, a zing of excitement shooting through me. “That’s an actual piece of the scissors used?”
Andrew nodded, staring at the tiny object. “Takes a lot of force to penetrate the brain. A piece of the handle must’ve broken off.”
The image of a man brutally stabbing someone else’s head sent my stomach swirling again.
Andrew continued. “We now have a piece of one of the tools used to torture this poor guy. Pull on some gloves and hand me an evidence baggie.”
Elated, I did as I was told. He slid the object into a plastic bag, then pulled his mask down. “Nice work, Floris.”
I grinned. “All in a day’s work.”
“Okay, big shot, you get your five minutes now.” He pulled off his gloves and grabbed his coffee. “Let’s head to the office.”