Milo said, “Tell me you’re assigned to the limo case and my faith will be restored. Tell me you’ve already got scientific factoids and I might even go to midnight Mass.”
She laughed. “Another lapsed Catholic? You are so kind. I have been assigned one of your victims, the woman. It’s rather frantic here so we’re splitting up the splitting up.”
“What’s the big deal with the boat, Basia?”
A beat. “Keep this to yourself, okay? The owner of the charter is a friend of the governor and there could be serious liability issues.”
“Sealed lips, kid. How much longer before things settle down?”
“I hope a few days—we’re talking extreme putrescence, Milo. Shreds and globs. We know who these people are but actual scientific identification is necessary for insurance purposes and it’s a nightmare. We’ve stopped answering the phone because attorneys are calling so frequently. On top of that, even with a gas mask the smell is unbelievable. Okay, on to more pleasant things: I completed the autopsy on your female victim but put that aside for now, something very interesting came up before I began cutting. The copious blood ranging from her knees to the floor of the car isn’t human. It’s canine. And turns out the same applies to all four victims.”
“Dog blood?”
“Theoretically, at this point, it could be any type of canid—coyote, wolf, hybrid of either. But domestic dog would obviously be the most probable.”
“Jesus,” he said. “Any human blood mixed in with it?”
“That I’m not able to answer yet. I requested that the crime lab keep the limousine in their auto bay and exhaustively sample seats and carpeting. We’ll be doing the same for clothing. That’s a lot of analysis, a definitive answer will take days.”
“How’d you discover it?”
“No precipitin had been done at the scene, which isn’t breach of procedure, with a multiple the obvious assumption is going to be human blood, why wouldn’t it be? But the pattern was off. Too much contrast between the relatively sparse amounts of low-caliber gunshot blood near Mr. Alvarez’s and Mr. Roget’s wounds and the volume below. Making it even odder, the woman had no obvious wounds at all but was still drenched in blood at the lower extremities and the same went for Mr. Gurnsey. I ran an ABO to see if we had admixtures among the victims and it came back no ABO, just DEA—that’s a canine grouping. I was shocked so I repeated and got the same result. Followed up with a precipitin, again not human. I then took a look under the microscope and sure enough, there were a few scattered nucleated erythrocytes. That can happen in canids but not humans, our red blood cells never have nuclei. I went to my colleagues and they tested their victims. Same results. Everyone’s astonished.”
“Someone murdered four people then threw pooch blood on them.”
“I wouldn’t describe it as a lusty throw, Milo. That would have created more spatter. This appears to be more of a careful pouring. By the amount of blood, perhaps from a sizable receptacle.”
“Bucket of blood.”
“The phrase did come to mind,” she said. “As to what it means, perhaps you’ve got something psychopathological that Alex could help you with.”
“Alex is right here.”
Basia said, “Oh. Hello. Anything come to mind?”
I said, “First for me, too, Basia.”
“Thisisa strange one, guys. Including variety in cause of death. The driver and Mr. Alvarez were shot by the same .22 but turns out Mr. Gurnsey was stabbed three times in the upper torso with a thin, double-edged bladed instrument. It wasn’t spotted until we disrobed him because there were no defects in his clothing. So he was cut either while wearing something else or while naked. Either way, he was re-dressed postmortem.”
I said, “Costumed.”
“Hmm…interesting thought, yes, there is a theatrical quality to it, the ostentatious car, the sexual posing.”
Milo said, “What killed the woman?”
“That remains undetermined though I’m leaning toward asphyxiation. I’ll be doing more tissue dissection and microscope work but so far all I’ve found are a few ocular hemorrhages. That’s suggestive but not definitive, a small quantity of burst blood vessels can be caused by all sorts of things, including lifestyle issues. And this body gives up plenty of evidence of that: congested lungs, boggy hypertrophied heart. Both are present with asphyxia but also in chronic drug use and alcoholism. She certainly presents as a likely longtime abuser: that outdoor skin you see on the homeless, liver almost completely cirrhotic, gallbladder dangerously enlarged, both kidneys are disasters. There are also changes that could be compounded by age and/or substance abuse: vascular deterioration of the brain, her thyroid gland isn’t much to speak of, and her esophagus displays several highly erosive splotches, probably cancerous.”
Milo said, “Not a paragon of health.”
“An orthodox conclusion would be she didn’t have long to live,” said Basia. “But who knows? I’ve seen people with brains like Swiss cheese and hearts enlarged to the size of a bull’s who survive far beyond expectation.”
I said, “Would her brain damage affect her consciousness and make her easy prey?”
“Her being intoxicated obviously would and I suppose if she had chronic brain damage that wouldn’t help. If nothing shows up on the tox, Dr. Krishnamurti agrees asphyxia will be the ruling by process of elimination. One more thing: We haven’t been able to identify her because her fingerprint ridges are abraded and shallow. You see that with various skin diseases but some people just don’t have good ridges, especially as they age. On top of that several of her fingertips are scarred—old wounds, most likely burns. The computerized system failed so I inked her by hand and that produced a bit more definition. But not enough for AFIS. I’ll try moisturizing and if that doesn’t bring up the ridges, we can slice off the skin, plump it up with saline, make a glove, and see if that works.”
“Thanks for everything, Basia. Any idea how long the bodies sat in the car?”
“I was told no blowflies were spotted outside because the car was a closed environment. Still, if the car had been sitting in sunlight for a prolonged period, even with temperate spring weather, I’d expect more tissue deterioration. So probably no sooner than Saturday night.”
