Alex Delaware: Evidence Part 25

Milo said, "How much of that was real?"

"Who knows?"

A woman exited the staff parking lot, crossed the street, and brushed by us, setting off a zephyr of Chanel No. 5. Thin, pinch-featured, with a well-styled mop of flame-colored hair sharpened by a deep green suit and a yellow scarf patterned like a rattlesnake. She carried a bag even larger than Lindstrom's, maintained a high-stepping walk as she flung the station door open.

I said, "It probably is in Lindstrom's best interests to cooperate. You clear Doreen, she makes headway on her pile of punishment."

The station door opened and the redhead charged toward us, bag swinging, hair bouncing. "Lieutenant Sturgis? Clarice Jernigan, from the coroner's."

"Doctor."

"I was testifying around the corner, thought I might as well talk to you in person. The receptionist told me I'd walked right by you." Khaki eyes studied me.

"This is Dr. Delaware, our psych consultant."

"We can sometimes use help on suicides. Would you mind if I talked to the lieutenant in private?"

Milo said, "Anything I know, Dr. Delaware's going to know."

"There's nothing psychological about what I have to say, Lieutenant."

"Sorry, Doc. It ain't done that way."

Dr. Clarice Jernigan slid her bag to the sidewalk. "Sure, what the hey. I opened Mr. Backer's head and retrieved bullet frags. Definitely .22s, lab's trying to rea.s.semble so if you get a weapon, they can run a match."

"Thanks-"

"I also decided to do an autopsy on your Jane Doe, after all. As I'd a.s.sumed, no big surprise in terms of COD. Manual strangulation, the finger marks are obvious, but no prints or DNA, so maybe your bad guy gloved up. This was a healthy young woman who met a rather unpleasant demise literally at the hands of another."

"We've got a name for her, now, Doc. Doreen Fredd. Two d's."

Jernigan whipped out a BlackBerry, entered the information. "My report will be forthcoming. Meaning whenever I can get to it."

Milo said, "That's what you needed to tell me face-to-face?"

Jernigan threw back her shoulders. "What I need to tell you is I made an error and preferred not to address that fact over the phone." Looking at me. I settled my gaze on the parking lot and pretended to be elsewhere.

Milo waited.

"I don't see it as a major faux pas, but you might as well know, in case it impacts how you direct your investigation. As I told you, the rape kit was negative and my initial evaluation was no s.e.xual a.s.sault. But after opening her up, I did find an abrasion in the v.a.g.i.n.al lining, just under five inches in."

She tossed the snake scarf over her shoulder. "So why didn't I spot it initially? Because it was on the roof of the v.a.g.i.n.al vault, kind of tucked away. A smallish but rather nasty snag wound consistent with insertion of a hard object-no jokes, please. Something with a pointed extension on the upper surface. My guess, confirmed by my tool-mark a.n.a.lyst, is the barrel of a handgun with a sharp sight. Initially, I a.s.sumed a .22 because of Backer. But after checking barrel lengths, I can't see any .22 entering that deeply without inflicting serious external damage to the l.a.b.i.a. So we're leaning toward a larger-caliber revolver with a longer barrel and a prominent sight, such as a Charter Arms Bulldog. In fact, we tried out a Bulldog and it fit quite nicely with the abrasion."

"Two guns," said Milo. "Little one for shooting, big one for raping."

"To me, Lieutenant, that smells of intimidation, rage, or maybe just plain sadism. And, of course, now you need to consider two offenders. Do you concur, Dr. Delaware?"

"Makes sense."

"Then we're all on the same page." Jernigan checked her watch. "Needless to say, my initial hypothesis will not appear in the report and I'd appreciate if the same goes for yours."

"Absolutely, Doctor."

"Just to rea.s.sure you, I took another look at Mr. Backer as well. Examined his a.n.u.s and his mouth for any sign of a.s.sault by firearm or anything else. Pristine on all counts, so whatever additional psychopathology was at play seems to have been reserved for Ms. Fredd with two d's. Have a nice day, gentlemen."

"How's it going on Bobby Escobar?"

"So far, Lieutenant, it's going nowhere." Angry smile. "Are you volunteering your services? That deal still stands."

"I don't think the Sheriff's would appreciate my meddling, Doc."

"No doubt," said Jernigan. "Then again, things get bad enough, everyone wants a bailout."

When she was gone, he said, "When she admitted goofing, I was expecting something about the vanished sperm stain."

I said, "Maybe there's just so much she can own up to."

"Gun rape," he said. "Two offenders or a single dominant blitz artist who managed to cow Backer and Doreen all by himself."

"Someone with big bucks could afford to hire a team."

"Teddy and/or the sultan dispatched a hit squad." He pressed his palms together, looked up at the sky. "What did I do to offend you, Herr Kafka?"

Sean Binchy showed up at Milo's office brandis.h.i.+ng a list of felons culled from Beaudry Construction's subcontractor list.

Nine names, no Montes or close. Binchy had run down seven of the miscreants, ruled them out, was headed to Lancaster to check out the last two-a pair of cement-worker brothers arrested for stealing tools from a previous job.

Milo said, "How's Ricki Flatt doing?"

"Got her set up in the Star Inn, paid for full cable, all the movie channels."

"That should do it, Sean."

"One question, Loot: My dad used to be a contractor before he got into Amway, I worked summers for him. Nothing fancy, just remodels, room additions. But whenever the residents weren't living on the premises, Dad fenced the job tight, it was my job to check at the end of each day. But that place? Anyone could walk right in, it was like asking for trouble. Not that there's anything left to steal, but still."

"I agree, kid. Any theories about why?"

"It's almost like whoever owned it had lost interest in the place," said Binchy. "But then, why not just sell it, make some money? Maybe they're rich enough not to care about a few million, but I just don't see the point of letting it sit there. Anyway, I'm sure I'm not telling you anything new, let me go check out those two thieves."

When he was gone, Milo said, "Like we never thought of it. Still, obvious doesn't mean irrelevant."

I said, "Maybe there's a body buried there and it has something to do with Sranil's culture."

"As in?"

"Letting nature take its course, something akin to Zen."

"They're Muslims, Alex."

"There could be something like that in Islam."

"Letting a body rot to the point where it can't be I.D.'d? The lot's worth eight figures. Even for a billionaire, that ain't Lehman stock."

"The sultan's a religious man," I said. "Articles of faith can go a long way."

He faced his computer, pounded keys.

Five hits later, we were both reading an essay by a Yale scholar of "emergent and divergent cultural forces" named Keir MacElway, citing the sultanate as an example of a postmodern society where relatively enlightened Islamic mores and laws, including a liberal and flexible interpretation of sharia, have supplanted a centuries-old, nature-based tribal animist religion. However, vestiges of prior beliefs and rituals remain, sometimes melding with the modern Muslim approach. Among these are sun and water rites, the wors.h.i.+p of specified trees and shrubs, and fis.h.i.+ng calendars based on astrologic configurations preserved as nostalgic folktales but revered, nonetheless. In some cases, such as sutma, contracted from the animist sutta anka enma-literally was.h.i.+ng away mortal sin-ancient customs persist in Sranilese society.

The origins of sutma remain unclear. McGuire and Marrow (1964) hypothesize that a pa.s.sive approach to the treatment of "deserved death" arose as a reaction to cannibalism, specifically as a means of preventing the consumption of enemy flesh following battles, because illness had been observed following cannibalistic victory feasts.

Ribbenthal (1969) attempts to link sutma to Buddhist influence, though evidence of any extensive interface between Sranilese animism and Buddhism remains evasive. Wildebrand (1978) attributes the belief to a generalized idealization of nature and presents as proof the ascendency of Salisthra, the guardian spirit of the forest, to the top of the animist pantheon.

Whatever its roots, sutma has proved resilient, impressively so in an age where other animist elements have ceded dominance to monotheistic religions. In contrast with Western norms advocating quick burial, and the Hindu belief in purification through immolation, sutma insists upon unfettered exposure to the elements of any organic material construed as being linked to maliciousness, insincerity, or sinfulness, in order for the sinner to gain access to the afterlife. Though not practiced as extensively as it was by Sranilese island tribes, when the merest accusation of immorality could lead to prolonged, often demeaning public postmortem displays, sutma occasionally emerges when a violent crime has taken place, most commonly in remote villages, when inhabitants seek out the comfort of maranandi muru, The Old Way.

Milo saved, printed. Sighed. "Teddy kills a girl in that house so the sultan sees that G.o.dd.a.m.n pile of wood as sinful organic material."

I said, "He's making sure his brother reaches the afterlife."

"Teddy met up with some family justice?"

"Justice in this world, compa.s.sion for the next."

He looked up Professor MacElway's Yale extension, talked briefly and amicably to a startled scholar of emergent and divergent cultural forces.

MacElway confirmed it: In some animist cultures, murderers' huts were left "fallow."

Milo said, "Guess the sultan's a traditionalist. So where do Backer and Doreen figure in, to the tune of fifty G's?"

"What if Backer and Doreen were paid by someone to burn the place down in order to jeopardize Teddy's celestial journey? They couldn't get to him directly because he's either dead or under royal protection back home in Sranil. But knowledge of sutma would present a partial alternative."

"Keep the b.a.s.t.a.r.d out of heaven. Someone who believes in the old ways?"

"Or doesn't, but knows the royal family does. With no ability to exact physical revenge, keeping Teddy in perpetual limbo could be a potent psychological second choice. And it would explain why Doreen hacked into Masterson's file."

"Pinpointing Teddy's real estate so he can dangle over the pits of h.e.l.l forever. That's the case, they'd have to know something about Sranilese culture."

"Didn't take you long to get the basic facts."

"The information age ... okay, let's go with this for argument's sake: Someone pays Backer and Doreen fifty G's to whip up some vegan Jell-O. Then why didn't they just do the job? Why keep visiting and using it as a love-nest?"

"That could've started as scoping out the job," I said. "Figuring out where to stick the explosives, time their escape. But once there, they decided to mix business with pleasure. Because that was Backer's thing: love under the stars in the company of plywood and drywall and rebar. That might go back to his adolescence. If he started early as a teenage firebug, s.e.x and kaboom could've formed an interesting mix."

"Coupla ex-delinquents warming up the grill with a little body heat."

"Delinquents who got away with something spectacular," I said. "That's a huge high, and people who go through tremendously arousing experiences young often develop intense bonds to those experiences."

"Pheromones and accelerant," he said. "Then ten years of G.o.d-knows-what. What do you think of the fact that Backer turned outwardly respectable but Doreen ended up selling her body?"

"Maybe he was less burdened by guilt and she had enough conscience to want to punish herself. Or he was smarter and better educated, came from an intact, supportive home, and made smarter decisions. Whatever diverged them, they reunited here in L.A."

"Chemistry." Smile. "Organic chemistry."

"For all we know, despite Backer earning a degree, he never abandoned his sideline and someone out to avenge Teddy's victim made contact. Unfortunately for him and Doreen, the sultan found out. Their bodies left in the turret could be a warning to anyone else considering messing with sutma."

He stood, raised his arms, touched the low ceiling. "Desi and Doreen play with the big boys, pay for it with a bullet and a choke-out. With time taken out to jam a bigger gun where it was never meant to go. What's that got to do with the old ways?"

"That was intimidation, just as Jernigan suggested, to control the scene-or to obtain information. What Doreen and Backer knew, who else was involved. The element of surprise was a big part of the hit: That sperm stain on Doreen's thigh suggests Backer was pulled off her just as he came. They were both overpowered, he was interrogated, shot, leaving a cowed, terrified Doreen. And just in case that didn't impress her, out came the big gun."

"You have that way," he said. "Drawing ugly pictures."

Perfectly put. Thousands of sleepless nights proved it. I smiled.

He got on the phone. "Moses? Busy? Good, c'mere. And start working on your charisma."

CHAPTER.

22.

Moe Reed said, "Sure."

Accepting the a.s.signment to revisit the Indonesian consulate without emotion.

As he headed for the door, Milo said, "Don't you want to know why?"

"I figure something came up on that dead-girl rumor, you want me to press my source for details."

"Nothing came up, Moses. That's why I need you to press."

"Consulate closes at four, I'll be there by three. She comes out by herself, I'll try to get some face-time. She doesn't, I'll tail her till I get a clean opportunity."

"What's your source's name?"

"She wouldn't say, Loo, and I didn't push, figured her telling me anything was more important."

"Okay, Moses, like I said, charisma. If you need to buy her a few drinks, tab's on me. If it's a dim, cozy place I promise not to tell Dr. Wilkinson."