The Killing Song, page 7
I spent the rest of the day curled in the La-Z-Boy, the TV tuned to the Home Shopping Network with the sound off to be sure I wouldn’t get any news.
It was past ten when I heard a knock at my door. The emails of condolences from coworkers had flowed in, but tonight I had made a decision not to answer computer, phone or door. Then I heard Nora’s voice.
“It’s me, Matt. Open up.”
I moved on stifflegs to the door, taking my scotch with me. Thirty-eight hours had passed since Mandy’s body had been found and Nora looked as if she’d worked every minute of it. Limp jeans, smudged mascara and dull hair. She held a thin manila folder and a small paper bag.
“You’re drunk,” she said.
“I’m medicated.”
She came in and took the glass from my hand. I didn’t protest, slumping back down into the La-Z-Boy. I saw Nora staring at it. I knew she was remembering the day she had given it to me for my twenty-ninth birthday.
I was remembering a lot of things about us in that moment. Good things. Like squeezing into the La-Z-Boy together to watch the Dolphins. Like making love with such ferocity that I could barely walk after. Like the routine we had every time I was coming home from assignment. I always called from the airport and asked if she would pick me up. And she always answered, “I’ll be there.”
Then, after one too many betrayals, one too many times when I backed away from the intimacy, she had answered my airport call with, “I can’t be there for you anymore, Matt.”
Nora looked down at me, then drained the glass in one long gulp. The sudden fire of straight scotch flushed her face with color. Even exhausted and irritated, she was still beautiful.
I had to look away.
“I’m on thin ice here,” she said. “I only have this information because I know people at the Miami Beach PD. It’s not my case. It belongs to Detective Molina.”
“I know.”
“I have her permission to share some things with you but I won’t be able to answer many questions about where the investigation is at.”
I nodded, my eyes going to the file in Nora’s hand.
She opened it and handed me stapled papers. My premed classes had given me just enough knowledge to understand most of the medical jargon, and I had seen other autopsy reports from my days on the cop beat. But my mouth went dry as I read one detail: The only wound was a small round hole just under the sternum, where something long and narrow had been thrust in and upward to puncture Mandy’s heart.
I cleared my throat and looked up at Nora. “Jeannie’s story in the Times said it was an ice pick.”
“An ice pick or something like it,” Nora said, sitting down across from me.
I looked back at the report. The illustration of the human body had been marked with two other circles. One was around the figure’s pubic area, along with the words “SEVERE TRAUMA TO VULVA AND VAGINAL AREA.”
Horrible images exploded in my brain but I forced myself to stay detached and professional. “She was raped?”
“Yes, but he left no semen,” Nora said.
“He used a condom?”
“We don’t think so,” Nora said. “It looks like he ejaculated outside of her body. They found semen on the floor near her body.”
“So you have DNA from him?”
“Yes, but he’s not in the system.”
I was disappointed that there was no instant match, but having the DNA was something. When they did find a suspect, the match would make a conviction a slam dunk. And the bastard would fry.
I refocused on the autopsy report, studying the other small circle. It was drawn on the figure’s left arm and labeled as a needle mark. I knew Mandy had never done an illegal drug in her life.
“Do they know what she was injected with?” I asked.
“Gamma hydroxybutyrate.”
“The date-rape drug?”
“Yes, we did a rush tox screen. Based on your statement and the injection point, the ME thinks she was stuck with a needle on the dance floor.”
“But wouldn’t the effects of injected GHB be almost instantaneous? Wouldn’t she have passed out right there in the bar?”
“Not necessarily,” Nora said. “It’s possible she was given just enough to make her drowsy. In that case, she would’ve appeared drunk and could have easily been led away.”
God, why hadn’t I watched her more closely?
“Any leads on the Dolphins man?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Nora said. “Officers canvassed the clubs last night with the sketch you gave us, but so far, nothing.”
I stared at the faceless drawing for a few more seconds, then handed the report back to Nora. I knew enough about GHB to know that Mandy was probably out of it by the time the bastard raped her and may not have felt much. Maybe she hadn’t felt much fear, either. And hopefully, she never saw the ice pick in her killer’s hand.
I could not imagine sharing any of this information with my father, even though I knew he would find out eventually. If not from the medical examiner, then from some jerk with a microphone who would ask him how he felt about his daughter getting stabbed with an ice pick.
“Does Jeannie Laughlin have the autopsy report yet?” I asked.
“I don’t know what’s been released,” Nora said. “But my guess is they’ll release the rape, the fact she was posed naked and, of course, the sketch of the black man.”
“Do you have any crime scene photos with you?” I asked.
“Some, but none of Amanda,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d want to see her that way again.”
I nodded slowly. “Can I see what you have?”
Nora pulled out a short stack of eight-by-tens and held them out to me. They were exceptionally sharp and vivid in color, picking up the blue and green of the terrazzo floor, a faded mural of a beach scene on one wall, the glint of the old chandelier. One photo, which caught the shades of the rainy morning sky through the dusty windows, looked grotesquely beautiful.
I continued to sift through the photos, stopping at a shot that included a partial photo of Mandy’s head and another that captured her pink toenails. But for the most part, there was nothing to see in the pictures but fast-food trash, crumbling plaster, broken glass, loose screws, bent nails and torn plastic sheeting.
“I have one other thing for you,” Nora said. “As you know, we haven’t found her purse or her clothing but we found this near her body.”
Nora was holding Mandy’s pink iPod and I just stared at it. Somehow, for a split second, seeing it brought Mandy back into the room for me, back to life. Then, like a punch to my chest, her spirit was gone.
“We think it might have fallen from her purse or her killer dropped it in his rush to get out,” Nora said. “Detective Molina said it’s been processed and that I could return it you. If this were my case, no way would I release a personal effect like this so soon, but it’s not my case. So, this is yours, if you want it.”
Of course I wanted it. I took it in my hand as if it was the most precious thing on earth, and at that moment, it was. It was still covered in black fingerprint dust and I rubbed it on my sleeve to clean it. It didn’t help.
“I need to go,” Nora said. She stood and held out a hand for the photos.
I gathered them up as I rose. “I’m keeping them.”
Nora’s eyes snapped with annoyance. “Those are the property of the department,” she said. “The last thing I need is for them to fall into the hands of a reporter who’s lost his objectivity.”
I wondered if she knew that Darcy had ordered me to take time off. “That’s a cheap shot, Nora, even for you. What, you think I’m no better than some asshole blogger?”
“Give me my photos.”
“No.”
“I can get fired if I let you have those.”
I considered that. If the district attorney was going to come after me, I’d take my chances. But I wasn’t going to cause Nora any more grief. Before she could say anything else, I went to my office and locked the door. I slapped the first picture on the scanner glass and hit PRINT.
“I know what you’re doing, damn it!” Nora called from the hall.
She pounded on the door for almost a minute, then gave up. When I had copied all the photos, I hid them in my desk drawer and took the originals back to Nora. She was standing by the front door, arms crossed, eyes so dark with anger they brimmed with tears. I felt like shit but I didn’t care.
“I won’t tell anyone where I got them,” I said.
She snatched the pictures from my hand and left my cottage. I stayed at the open door until I heard her start her car. I knew she could have arrested me and as I went back inside, I wondered why she hadn’t.
I poured myself another scotch and sat down with Mandy’s iPod. When I touched the dial, the screen lit up, showing the main menu.
I took a long drink of scotch, my thumb light on the iPod dial as I called up the playlist. I just wanted to see something that had been part of my sister’s life, because I’d always felt that music was part of us all. It was something people discovered a preference for early on, like finding the right beat to complement their inner rhythms. For me, it had started with the punk rockers of the eighties, bands like The Clash and the Sex Pistols. They had led me backward to Zappa, the Velvet Underground and the Stones.
Mandy’s music was as foreign to me as Irish sea chanties. As I scrolled through the songs by the likes of Shakira, Ke$ha and Lady Gaga, I was struck with a strange pang of sadness, different from the profound grief I had been feeling.
It took me a second to understand what it was. It wasn’t just the loss of my sister. It was the loss of things she would never know. Like seeing Venice with someone she loved. Holding her squirming newborn. Finding her place in the world.
I wiped my eyes and started to turn the iPod off so I could finish my drink and go to bed. But a final impulse had taken hold of me.
I twirled the dial to see the last song that had been played. It was sick, this need to know the last song she had heard. But I couldn’t help it.
The display came up.
“Too Much Blood” by the Rolling Stones.
I stared at it for a second, started to turn the iPod off, then stopped. It didn’t make sense. My sister hated old rock. She had told me a hundred times in the car to turn it off, and just this past week she had rifled through my CDs and made fun of my “old fart music.” I wasn’t sure she could even name any of the Stones.
I wasn’t familiar with “Too Much Blood,” but suddenly I needed to hear this song that was older than Mandy was. I grabbed my headphones and stepped out onto the patio.
Seconds later, I was listening to Mick Jagger. For a few stanzas it didn’t sound much different than most of their other stuff, Jagger shout-singing against a ragged beat. But then suddenly he wasn’t singing about dancing and making love anymore.
A girlfriend in Paris … cut off her head … took her bones to the Bois de Boulogne.
I shut my eyes, feeling sick. But I had to hear it all. Jagger finally wrapped up the song with a repugnant refrain.
Too much blood.
I ripped off the headphones and stood there, the night air cool against my wet face.
10
Byte Me was an electronics store on South Dixie Highway, tucked between a pawnshop and discount shoe store.
I discovered the store when my old Dell laptop crashed and took three weeks’ worth of work with it. A tech named Andy had managed to salvage my notes from the infected hard drive and save my investigative piece. I had been back to the store several times since, once to have Andy talk me into buying a new Mac and at least five times after that whenever I needed help learning to use the thing. He was the best geek I knew.
Now I was hoping he was smart enough to figure out how the Rolling Stones song had gotten onto Mandy’s iPod.
Andy was behind the counter, bent over the guts of a PC. On the shelf above his head was a television playing a Three Stooges movie with the sound off.
He heard the bell on the door and looked up at me. He wore magnifying goggles and his hair was gelled up in the shape of a fan and sprayed with a rainbow of colors.
“Heya, Matt,” he said, pulling off his goggles. Then his face sobered. “I read about your sister online, man. I’m sorry, really sorry. That’s just so, so sad, man.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
I pulled out the iPod and laid it on the counter. “Can you get into the hard drive of this thing and tell me anything about the downloaded songs?”
“Most guys couldn’t, but I can,” he said. “What do you need to know?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Can you just print me out a report or something that tells me where the songs came from and when they were downloaded?”
“I can try.”
Andy picked up the iPod and started toward the rear of the store. Then he turned back. “What’s all this black stuff?”
“Fingerprint dust.”
“Oh wow. This belong to your sister?”
“Yeah.”
He gave me a tight nod, then disappeared behind a beaded curtain. I stood at the counter, watching the Stooges for a moment. Then I pulled a folder from my pocket.
It was a Delta ticket to Raleigh for tomorrow morning. My father had given it to me at lunch an hour ago. The fact that he had bought it for me pissed me off. I had planned on going home, of course. But Dad buying me a ticket seemed his way of making damn sure I was.
I looked at the departure time. It was ten thirty, the same flight Mandy would have taken home. Then with a stab to my heart I realized she would be on the flight with us.
I stuffed the ticket back in my pocket. Looking for something to think about besides the funeral, I studied the gadgets in the display case—MP3 players, iPods, iPads, Kindles, CD players, refurbished iPhones, paper-thin battery chargers, BlackBerrys and other shiny things that jumped to life with the touch of a finger or the sound of a human voice.
“Here we are,” Andy said.
He came back to the counter with the iPod and a sheet of paper. It was a printout of the file structure on the iPod’s hard drive. It listed every song Mandy had downloaded in the last year. The last song was “Too Much Blood.”
Date downloaded: October 21, 5:22.
I stared at it. October 21 was two days ago, the day Mandy disappeared.
“Is this time A.M. or P.M.?” I asked Andy.
“It’s listed in military time, so that makes it 5:22 in the morning.”
At five in the morning, Mandy was already in the hands of her killer.
“This has to be wrong, Andy,” I said.
“I suppose the internal clock could’ve been screwed up at the time,” Andy said. “But that would be pretty weird, since it’s accurate now. Someone would’ve had to mess with it before downloading that song, then reset it after. That would take an expert tech. Plus, why would anyone want to disguise the time they downloaded something?”
I showed the printout to Andy, pointing to the Stones song. “Is there any other way this could be wrong?”
“Not that I can tell.”
Five twenty-two in the morning. Mandy was unconscious or dead. The only person who could have downloaded this song was her killer.
I looked again at the printout. “This doesn’t tell me where the song came from,” I said.
“You mean like an iTunes account name?” Andy asked.
“Yes.”
“There’s no way to tell from the download who owns the original music account,” Andy said. “All I can tell you is this iPod was connected to a computer at 5:22 A.M. and the song was added.”
I was thinking that if the killer transferred the song while in that ballroom, there might be a traceable wireless connection. “What about an IP address?” I asked.
“I doubt it,” Andy said. “Plus, you got to understand, Matt, you don’t need to be on the Internet to download a song from a computer to an iPod. That song could have been on the source computer for weeks or years.”
“You’re sure about all this?” I asked.
“Well, maybe there’s an expert who could tell you more, but I can’t. The iPod is a great little gadget but limited in its internal intelligence.”
I rubbed my eyes and sighed. Andy looked disappointed that he hadn’t been more of a help.
“Whoever downloaded this song killed my sister,” I said. “I can’t believe with all this technology there’s no way to trace him.”
Andy nodded in sympathy. “Even if we could trace a music account, if your guy is illegally ripping music, you’ll never find him. He might as well be invisible.”
I picked up the iPod. If I turned it over to Nora or Detective Molina, they would have access to the techs in the FBI, who might able to expose more data. But if Andy was right, no amount of fancy technology was going to lead anyone to Mandy’s killer.
I was quiet, looking now at the ugly black smudges on the pink iPod. “Do you have anything that will clean this?” I asked Andy.
Andy quickly produced several iKlear towelettes. I carefully cleaned the black fingerprint dust from the iPod. I knew I’d have to tell Nora what I had learned. But right now, I wasn’t going to let go of the only piece of Mandy I had left.
11
The scent of gardenias filled the room, so thick I could taste the sweetness on my tongue. Someone had mentioned to someone else that Mandy loved gardenias, so that’s what people had sent. I had no idea if Mandy liked gardenias or not, but I did know her favorite flower was the white rose.
It had been her favorite since she was seven years old and saw Princess Diana’s funeral on TV. I had gotten a letter from her when I was at college telling me that when she died she wanted white roses around her, too. I remembered this too late to stave off the onslaught of gardenias, but when I ordered my arrangement, I made sure it was white roses, a blanket of them to cover her casket.
I took a sip of my water and looked around the visitation room.
There was organ music coming from somewhere. It was vaguely familiar, but I had long ago forgotten most of the hymns I’d learned as a child. What I could remember were the walks home from church, Mandy in her ruffled baby dresses, me in my clip-on ties. Mom and Dad would stroll ahead and I would drag Mandy along next to me. Sometimes, she would tire and whine and Dad would ask me to carry her. I complained, but secretly I didn’t mind. Mandy liked being on my shoulders. She said it made her feel big. I never told anyone it made me feel big, too.
