Par Four, page 11
part #2 of Jake Hines Series
Ray Huckstadt held a coiled length of nylon line with a grappling hook on the end. As I climbed down the bank he dropped the rope onto the sand beside him and uncoiled several loops of it. Balancing himself with spread legs and his left arm extended forward, he leaned back and threw the hook as hard as he could. The sun glinted off it as it turned, flying far out across the water. When it splashed in midstream, Huckstadt tugged a couple of times on the line. When it went taut he yelled, “There! I think I got it!” Halvorson helped him haul in the line. I saw something red in the water; then a shadow of blue as it turned. By the time I reached the edge of the stream, the two men were hauling a multicolored bundle onto the sand bar.
“Oh, hell, that’s what I was afraid of,” Halvorson said as I walked up to him. “It’s a person.”
“Holy shit,” Huckstadt said. “It’s got feet on both ends.” They both straightened up at once, spooked, and looked at me as if I owed them an answer.
“Lemme see,” I said. Pulling on gloves, I stooped and pulled some of the soaked clothing out of the way.
“Dammit, I know this kid,” I said. “It’s Randy Thorson.” Thin nylon cord was wrapped and knotted many times around the whole length of his body. A pair of naked feet stuck up on either side of his drowned face.
“Will you help me roll him?” I asked Halvorson. “I don’t want to mess up anything, just–If we can get a look at the other…”
We rolled him on his side. I knelt and looked a minute at the body Randy was tied to, then got up and walked away, to the wet gravel at the edge of the stream. I stood squinting into the brightness reflected off the moving water, listening while a bird sang the same three notes, over and over, from the bushes on the opposite bank.
“Jake?” Huckstadt said softly behind my elbow. “You sick?”
“No.” I swallowed. “I know that woman, is all.”
“Come to think of it so do I,” Huckstadt said. “That’s Babe Krueger, isn’t it?”
6
✜
Pokey gunned his old ragtop jeep across the bridge as if the tires were on fire. He made a highly illegal but elegant U-turn to park nose-to-nose with Halvorson’s squad car and opened the driver’s-side door before the wheels had quite stopped moving. Carrying his little black coroner’s bag, he appeared at the top of the slope, saw me, and began skidding down the bank on his heels.
I went to meet him. “Pretty good time,” I said. “You leave a skin cancer in mid-burn?” Rutherford can’t afford a full-time Medical Examiner, so Pokey combines part-time coroner’s chores with his dermatology practice. The arrangement doesn’t usually stretch his work days much; mostly he certifies death by natural causes for old people in rest homes.
“Eight o’clock patient no-showed,” he said. “Was headin’ out for second coffee when you called. Perfect timing, already peed even.” Pokey learned English while he was on the run from a work camp in the Soviet Union. You have to fill in the blanks. “You found drowned guys?”
“A woman and a boy. Mother and son, actually. And they’re tied together.”
“You ID’d them yet?”
“I know them. Talked to both of them this week, believe it or not. Their bar was robbed day before yesterday.”
“You mean Rowdy’s Bar? This the lady got all taped up? Saw story on TV. Shee. Some lousy week she’s havin’, hah?” We crossed the sand bar to the soaking muddy bundle by the water. “Hoo, boy, these two really tied, hah?” Pokey made a couple of clucking noises while he looked them over, set down his bag and pulled on latex gloves. He knelt on the hot sand, peering into eyes, ears, mouths, taking temperatures. He pushed gently at Randy’s jaw and neck, then got interested in his hands, looking carefully at his fingernails and comparing them to Babe’s.
“How long ago you pull ‘em out?” he asked me.
“Huckstadt was just getting a line on them when I got here. Quarter to eight.”
“So. Half an hour. Sun’s warmin’ up fast, huh? Any cover around?”
“I got it. Here.” Huckstadt came puffing back down from his car, carrying a black plastic sheet and a roll of crime scene tape. “Halvorson’s gonna stay up topside,” he said. “People are startin’ to ask questions up there. We’ll have a crowd down here in a minute if we don’t move ‘em along.” He set to work marking off the area with tape.
“You got gloves on?” Pokey asked me. “Ah, good…I’d like to–” He rolled his hands like a flight instructor demonstrating yaw. “–wanna get better look at her.” I helped him roll the bodies a quarter turn. The corpses picked up sand with every move, and they were beginning to draw flies. I knew Babe didn’t care any more, but she had been a much-admired woman and I felt bad about leaving her lying there, getting uglier every minute.
“Her face more messed up than his, huh?” Randy’s cheeks and forehead were scraped from tumbling across gravel, but Babe’s face had two deep horizontal cuts, running from cheekbone to jaw on the right side, and a slash across her nose. Pokey gently brushed some sand off her face and pulled the tangled collar of her red robe away from her throat. When he did, we saw another long slice on her neck.
“Don’t look like rock cuts,” he said, pulling at the tattered front of her robe. “More like knife wounds, huh?” He found the zipper on her robe, slid it open to the waist and groped aside the wispy nightgown underneath. The flesh of her bosom was covered with cuts; she had been stabbed repeatedly all over her chest and upper arms. One nipple was sliced open.
I must have made a sound. Pokey sat back on his heels and squinted up at me. “This woman mean something to you, Jake?”
“Not like that,” I said. “We worked together once. She was nice.”
“Ah.” Pokey has a quiet generic sigh that wonderfully shortens sad stories. His adolescence was supervised by murderers, so he’s hard to surprise. He bent over Babe again, briefly, then asked me, “How long since you seen her?”
“Um, Tuesday morning. Just about–not quite forty-eight hours ago.”
“Looks like she died soon after.”
“Well…I don’t think so, Pokey. I had accounts of her whereabouts all Tuesday afternoon. And yesterday, far as I know, she was back at Rowdy’s. Must have been. She had employees, customers; she couldn’t be missing all day without somebody saying something.”
“Mmm.” He looked at his watch. “Hearse comin’?”
“Not yet. I called BCA. They say they’ve got a new rule, they’re gonna transport the bodies to St. Paul and do the autopsy there.”
“Hell you say,” Pokey snorted. He pushed up his glasses with the back of his gloved hand. “Whose bright idea is that? Huh? I’m supposed to sign death certificate without seein’ autopsy? Don’t think so.”
I knew how he felt. The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has more scientific gizmos than we can possibly afford in Rutherford, and it’s great to have their help on major crimes, especially homicides. But we do lose some control.
“They said it’s their price,” I told him. “They take the case, they take the body. We have to pay for the transportation and lab work, too. I checked with the chief, he okayed it.”
Pokey flounced around some more, muttering “numskull diffugilty,” and then something in Ukrainian, followed by “buncha jerkoff bozos.” He learns his American slang from three generations of patients and uses it with freewheeling disregard for what’s in and what’s out. Under stress, he flings in snippets from two or three of his native tongues. Some basic laws of language must govern the mix, because I usually get most of it. Finally he asked me, “How long we gotta wait for big time St. Paul weenies?”
“I called them just before I called you. They said they had their vehicles clean and loaded; they’d get on the road right away. So, eighty miles, and they never heard of a speed limit… They’ll be here all too soon. Let’s do as much as we can by ourselves before they get here. What made you think Babe died Tuesday? Show me.”
“Rigor mortis nearly gone, see? Boy’s different, see how stiff his whole body is? Here…and here…Feel. Like marble. But woman’s tissues already breaking down. See how loose fingernails are?”
“So you’re saying they didn’t die at the same time?”
“Or even in same way,” Pokey said. “Look at his hands.”
“What–so dirty, you mean?”
“Uh-huh. Fingernails full of dirt and gravel. Hands scratched up bad. Like he struggled, tried to push off bottom or grab stuff. Now look at her hands. Just lying at her sides, almost clean. Should have some defense wounds, though…” He pulled at the loop of rope over her left arm till he could turn her hand over. It was unmarked. “Help me,” he said, and we rolled her body again and slid the loop of line around till it was loose enough to let him look at the inside of her right hand and arm. “Oh, yah,” he said, “see here?” There was a long slash down the inside of her right arm, and a deep cut in the palm at the base of the thumb.
“Almost anybody, getting attacked by knife, will put hand up…” He illustrated, conveying a dreadful picture of Babe fending off a knife with her soft white arm. Pokey went on staring down at the bodies and presently added, “Clothes funny too.”
“What? She’s in a long red…bathrobe, I’d call it. And Randy’s wearing what most of the kids in town have on today, cutoffs, some old T-shirt, ratty sneakers. What’s funny about any of that?”
“She got nightgown on under robe. No panties. Dressed for bed. He’s in daytime clothes.”
“Seventeen year old boys usually stay up later than their moms. He probably–” I looked up from note-taking suddenly, distracted by a big new sedan honking on the bridge. It parked in front of Pokey’s Jeep, legally, headed the other way, and two people got out. One was a small young man in nondescript clothing. I gave him scant attention because the other person on the sidewalk was Trudy Hanson, BCA’s expert photographer and fingerprint technician. Seeing her no-nonsense yellow braid dangling down her back, I felt my heart pump faster, sending blood to all the parts of my body that had just demanded re-supply.
I met her last May during a difficult and scary murder case. She was so good at her job and so totally professional in her demeanor that it took me a while to diagnose my onset of rapid breathing. She was not a woman to be understood in one afternoon; her CD collection included Arnett Coleman, Flatt & Scruggs, and Yo-Yo Ma. She was fun to be around because she never struck a pose; she climbed rocks or made fudge brownies with the same intense absorption she brought to her work. I had seen her tuck a bag of crocheting into the duffel she was taking on a white water rafting trip.
I began longing to touch her almost as soon as I saw her, but was at pains to figure out an approach that wouldn’t seem presumptuous. She responded generously to my plea for help with some camera work, and then one lucky night a mutual passion for dancing carried us along to lovemaking. We had shared a few blissful weekends since then, but I was still making very careful moves. She seemed to like her space. I was hoping to show her I could add pleasure to her life without foreclosing any options.
Mindful of working decorum, I gave her a sedate wave and climbed the riverbank at a sensible pace. By the time I reached the sidewalk she was halfway into the interior of the car, sorting through the equipment heaped in the spacious back seat. It occurred to me to tell her that her jeans gave new meaning to the phrase “properly fitted,” but there were people all around so I just said, “Hey, great car. Where’s the van?”
“Right behind us,” she said, backing out. “Ted Zumwalt, this is Jake Hines.” He was little and wiry, with round wire-rimmed glasses on a baby face, and blunt-fingered hands a little outsize for the rest of him. “Ted’s our new sketch artist.”
“No kidding,” I said. “You’re going to draw pictures of this mess?”
“Yes I am.” He had a nasal twang and a wry way of speaking, like a country judge twice his age. “I will make quite a number of drawings, with precise measurements and many notes.” He used his odd vocal mannerisms to create an impermeable shield of humorous irony, behind which he sheltered.
“And the next time you come up, Jake,” Trudy said, raising my respiration rate another notch, “I’ll show you the new computer software that translates Ted’s pictures into three-dimensional drawings.”
“Wow,” I said, “too cool.” I didn’t care if he turned his pictures into balloons and flew away in them. In fact I wanted him to do just that, and leave me alone with Trudy Hanson.
“So…you brought two vehicles so Ted could have a seat?” I asked her.
“Oh, Ted’s the least of our problems,” Trudy said. When Ted winced she laughed and said, “Well, sorry Ted, I didn’t mean it that way…” She waved at the back seat. “Look at the gear in this car! We’re carrying a video camera now, as well as all the 35 mm. stuff I had before. Plus all the exterior fingerprint equipment…” She squinted down toward the riverbank. “Guess we don’t have any use for that today, huh? And Ted’s got all his sketching tools, and an easel…”
“This is your bigger, better BCA crew,” Ted intoned, “and we’ve got the hernias to prove it.”
I stuck my head inside the car door beside Trudy, brushing against her discreetly, and said, “Help you with any of that?”
She smiled her big toothpaste-ad smile and said, “Oh, thanks. Just grab these bags right here, will you?”
“What is this vile crime, anyway?” Ted asked, opening the trunk and pulling out his own stuff. “Couple of drowning victims? Why are you calling it homicide? Drowning’s almost always accidental,” he told me, doing the kindly sage to perfection.
“They’re tied together.”
“Don’t see what that proves,” he said, wrestling with his easel.
“You ID’d the victims yet?” Trudy asked.
“I know them.”
Trudy looked up in consternation and said, “Oh, hey…”
I shook my head, “We weren’t really friends. I worked with the mother for a while, years ago. But earlier this week her bar got robbed, so I’ve talked to both of them in the last couple of days. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but it feels kind of weird.”
“I should think so,” she said. We started down, skirting past Halvorson and his crowd of curiosity seekers. The extra weight made it hard to stay upright on the steep slope, and the sun beat down on us out of a cloudless sky. We concentrated on maintaining a controlled slide while staying erect and hanging on to our burdens, which quickly grew slippery with sweat. All three of us were red-faced and panting by the time we reached the sandbar.
“Hey, Trudy,” Pokey said, getting up, grinning all over his foxy face. He shook her hand about twice as long as necessary. Trudy turns his crank big-time.
“Ted Zumwalt, Dr. Adrian Pokornoskovic,” she said, getting the whole mouthful right. “Everybody calls him Pokey, but trust me, he is not slow.” Pokey looked as if he might be going to roll over and wag his tail. His long-standing turf issues with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension are set aside when he’s dealing with Trudy Hanson, whom he once described to me as “Cat’s pajamas, that girl, totally rad.”
Ted walked over now to the bodies on the sand. “Wow,” he said. “I see what you mean. These two are really all tied up together. Wow. Tied up good.”
“We’ve tentatively ruled out suicide,” I said, waggling my eyebrows at Trudy. She ducked her head to hide a grin and began pulling cameras out of bags. She made a sand-free beachhead out of containers and pulled film and filters out of the labeled compartments that keep everything straight for her. One of the many pleasures of watching Trudy Hanson work is the serene mastery she maintains over the tools of her trade.
Alternating 35 mm color slides with video, she did distance shots first. When she was ready to shorten the focus, Pokey began to follow her around the disordered bundle, asking for close-ups of Babe’s head and chest, and helping her get good pictures of the hands. Ted, meantime, had set up his easel and was making quick outline sketches, placing the bodies in their surroundings and noting distances and elevations. Then he, too, moved closer, making detail drawings of hands and feet, and several pictures of the knots in the rope that held the bodies together. He worked his tape measure as hard as his pencil, and his pictures had the quality of architectural drawings, very precise, with all the dimensions noted.
Another horn sounded in the street above, and I climbed back up to meet the BCA van. It paused by the squad cars, while the front-seat passenger rolled down his window and leaned out to speak to Halvorson. He was evidently negotiating for a parking spot, because Halvorson left his crowd of sightseers long enough to move his squad car down the street. The BCA van took two tries to jockey into the tight space, and Jimmy Chang got out on the passenger’s side, looking at his watch.
Time is never long enough for Jimmy Chang. He’s a tense Chinese-Hawaiian workaholic locked into a horrendous schedule that combines state lab work with study and teaching at the University. I’m waiting to see if he finishes his Ph.D. in forensic pathology before he flames out. “You made good time,” I said.
“Yes, well, this woman,” Jimmy said, nodding at his driver, “should be wearing a cape and a big red ‘S’. She leaps whole suburbs at a single bound. Jake Hines, Megan Duffy.” Megan was an athletic-looking brown-haired girl, wearing a Toronto Blue Jays T-shirt and a backwards baseball cap. She laughed, showing a full set of braces on her teeth, and shook my hand, saying, “This guy’s a regular fuss-budget on the highway.” Underneath the needling they seemed to be hitting it off; Jimmy looked marginally less tense than usual.
Megan opened the big rear door of the van, revealing a densely-packed interior that was saved from chaos by scrupulous organization. Jimmy climbed in and began pulling gear out of drawers and cupboards, once consulting an alphabetical list of contents that was stapled inside a door. Megan followed him in and began to disappear under the heap of parcels he hung over her shoulders and heaped in her arms.
