Nor do I care. Introspection’s the enemy of getting the job done.
—
When Milo and Alicia saw the body, they winced simultaneously.
Removed from its plastic sheath and laid out on a white forensic tarp, Martha Matthias’s corpse was small and shriveled and beyond sad, with long but wispy white hair fuzzing the peripheries of her sunken face and trailing to frail, bony shoulders. At first glance, looking considerably older than seventy-two, but death was a sadistic stylist.
Her eyes had frozen to vacant dark disks. Pale-pink liquid seeped beneath her and had begun to pool in the upturned corners of the tarp created by the C.I.’s.
This one probably would stay withme.
Especially the arms, lying to the left on a smaller tarp.
Cut cleanly, still frozen into L-shapes.
Basia, white-garbed, hooded, gloved, and bootied, said, “We have to thaw her anyway, might as well start early. Obviously the arms arethe only disarticulated limbs. And they were staged on top of her. It’s the first time I’ve seen that, generally dismemberment focuses on disposal of hands and head in order to obscure identification. This is strange.”
She looked atme.
I shook my head.
“Well,” she said, “it certainly seems psychopathologic to me. Some kind of message, maybe the arms have special meaning to this maniac. In terms of clinical guesswork, there’s no apparent evidence she’s been thawed and refrozen but I can’t say for certain until I examine her blood vessels. In terms of the instrument used to sever the arms, I’m going to wait until my tool-mark guy weighs in to give you an educated guess but I see small serrations.”
Alicia had been looking away. Now she forced herself back to the arms. “A saw?”
“Most likely,” said Basia. “But nothing with big teeth—not a chain saw or a circular saw or even a band saw. All of those would inflict a lot more ripping damage.”
Milo said, “A jigsaw?”
Basia considered that. “Something along those lines. Have you found anything like that in the house?”
“We haven’t tossed the house yet,” he said.
“So no definitive death scene.” She looked back at the garage. “It certainly wasn’t here.”
“We’re assuming it’s in there but who knows?”
Alicia said, “We just got the victim’s warrant, will get started once we’re out of your way. It could take time, the interior’s crammed just like the garage.”
“A hoarder,” said Basia. “Do we know anything else about this poor woman?”
Milo looked at Alicia. Alicia nodded.
He told Basia.
It takes a lot to shake her. She blinked, stared at the body, shookher head, blinked some more. “A detective. Wow. She must’ve deteriorated mentally. How old is she? I’d guess at least eighty.”
Alicia said, “Seventy-two.”
“Rapid aging could be consistent with dementia,” said Basia. “Which isn’t to say there aren’t plenty of fully functioning people that age or older…a detective. Oh my. Did either of you know her?”
Milo raised a finger.
When he didn’t add more, Basia said, “Well, enough of my questions, it’s answers you want from me.”
Her Apple watch beeped a text. “Drivers are here, let’s get her to our place.”
—
