Double Homicide Page 7

  “No, Mama, everyone don’t need a college education. But everyone needs a plan and I got a good plan. And I want you to support me on this.”

  Dorothy was silent.

  “Or . . .” Spencer cleared his throat again. “Or if you can’t support me right now, at least think about it.”

  “That seems fair,” Marcus said.

  Dorothy glared at him. To Spencer she said, “You don’t know what you’re getting into. Being a cop is very serious stuff. It’s hard, it’s stressful, it’s long hours, and it isn’t the least bit glamorous.”

  “I think I know what it is, Mama. This isn’t something that just popped into my head. I been thinkin’ about this for a long time. And that’s all I have to say. Now, if you excuse me, I got studying to do.”

  The boy picked up his pencil and started doing some computations.

  Marcus and Dorothy exchanged looks. The young man shrugged, sat back down, and picked up his text.

  So now Spence wanted to be a cop: her son’s flavor of the month. Teens changed their minds as often as they changed their socks. But the shooting did seem to add a new sobriety to Spencer’s demeanor. He had a plan. He seemed motivated. He spoke passionately and assuredly. Maybe it would last longer than three days, but Dorothy had her doubts.

  10

  Because Dorothy had seen the body riddled with bullet holes at the crime scene, watched it pulled out on its slab from the meat locker drawer, she had a visceral aversion to seeing the corpse yet again. Sliced and diced and reassembled—a human jigsaw puzzle.

  This boy had been her son’s age, his teammate. It hit way, way too damn close to home. She asked the pathologist to speak with Micky and her in his office rather than around the cold steel table.

  John Change was a fifty-year-old Harvard-trained forensic pathologist, born and raised in Taiwan. When applying to school thirty-two years ago, he’d thought the odds for acceptance greater with an Anglo name. Hence the e added to his surname. A modification that formed the basis for Change’s entire comedy repertoire: “Change is good. Look at me.”

  He was a Boston fixture, did well in the marathon, had maintained the same height and weight for twenty-five years. The only visible signs of aging were silver streaks threading his sleek black hair.

  The ME lab and his office were located in the basement of the morgue on Albany, clean, frigid, windowless, filled with a harsh bright light the sun wouldn’t deem worthy of reproduction. The office was a spacious room, but Change had stuffed it with books, notebooks, magazines, and jars of tissue preserved in formaldehyde. Most of the specimens were teratomas, which, Dorothy had learned, were bizarre tumors that stemmed from undifferentiated cells. Change’s favorites contained hair, bone fragments, and teeth; if you looked at some of them in a certain light, they appeared to be grinning gargoyles. Standing amid the anomalies were snapshots of Change’s pretty wife and two bright-eyed children.

  Dorothy had been the last one to arrive, but Micky told her that he had gotten there only a few minutes before. He was looking worn around the seams; the kind of drawn expression that comes from lots of stress, very little sleep, and no resolution in sight. He sat in one of two chairs opposite Change’s desk, drinking coffee out of a paper cup. She took it from him, sipped, made a face.

  “This is awful.”

  “You didn’t give me a chance to warn you. Sit down.”

  Dorothy debated whether to hang up her coat, then nixed the idea. The ambient temperature was worse than a frozen food aisle.

  McCain said, “Delveccio was released a few hours ago.”

  “What was the bail?”

  “Fifty thou.”

  “Who posted?”

  “Ducaine, like we guessed.”

  “Where’s the doc?” Dorothy asked.

  “Change is changing.” McCain smiled at his own wit.

  “Actually, I’m here.” Change stepped inside and shut the door. He was wearing a suit and tie, but his pant legs were rolled up and his feet were encased in rubber-soled work shoes. “My good shoes are upstairs. Lizard. It’s a bitch to get the smell out. The leather absorbs the odors, and reptilian hides seem more porous, which is counterintuitive, no? Not that I smell anything anymore, but my wife sure does. It’s our anniversary tonight.”

  “Happy anniversary,” McCain said.

  “How many years?” Dorothy asked.

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “Long time.”

  “Denise puts up with a lot,” said Change. “Long hours and I’m a ghoul. Still, she knows where I am and that my profession doesn’t lend itself to cheating.” He sat down and placed his folded hands on the desktop. “I expected to find something routine. Instead, I found something interesting. Julius Van Beest bled to death but not from the gunshot wounds. By my estimation, none of them were fatal.”

  Change spread four Polaroids on his desktop. “These are the gunshot wounds: two that coalesced into each other and skimmed the right temple region, the two holes in the arm, and one through the shoulder. The last one had the highest probability of being fatal until I saw that the bullet went through muscle only.”

  He laid out two more Polaroids, both of them gruesome. Dorothy drew her head back.

  McCain screwed his lips up in disgust. “What’re we looking at, Doc?”

  “The interior of Mr. Van Beest’s thoracic cage. This is what I saw when I opened him up. There’s nothing discernible anatomically because the entire region is swimming in blood.” Change looked up from the photographs. “After I cleaned up the area, I can say with authority that the boy died of a burst in the subclavian artery where it comes off the arch of the aorta. And by my estimation, the cause of the burst was an aneurysm, which is a fancy word for a weakness in the vessel wall. Because the wall is weak, it eventually forms an out-pouching—a sac, if you will. It’s like a balloon. And you know what happens when the balloon inflates. The walls get thinner and thinner until you blow too much air in and, bingo, it pops.”

  The detectives were speechless. Finally, McCain said, “How’d that happen? The aneurysm?”

  “Usually, it’s a preexisting condition. But I could postulate that the paramedics may have inadvertently brought about a vascular accident as they attempted CPR. A real Greek tragedy, when you think about it.”

  Dorothy couldn’t draw words from her throat.

  “From your point of view,” Change went on, “you need to keep in mind that you may not be able to charge your suspect with premeditated murder. Only attempted murder, because the gunshot wounds weren’t the direct cause of death.”

  “But”—Dorothy cleared her throat—“why would the paramedics do CPR unless his heart had stopped?”

  McCain picked up on her question. “There you go: Shock from being shot stopped his heart in the first place. So you could give us a direct link to Delveccio, right, Doc?”

  “His heart had to have stopped,” Dorothy insisted.

  “It’s a thought,” Change admitted. “Even so, the defense could argue that the gunshot wounds combined with a preexisting arterial defect might have been enough for a precipitous drop in blood pressure. He could’ve had a pulse, but a very faint one, and the EMTs missed it.”

  “But still, there’s a direct link to the gunshot wounds.”

  “Unfortunately, Detective Breton, that’s all theory. In a medicolegal context, the gunshot was not the cause of death. Mr. Van Beest expired due to a burst artery. And we have no way of knowing precisely when that occurred. The defense could even argue that the paramedics made it worse, that without their compressions the victim would’ve survived. Each downward motion against the sternum could have caused the wall to stretch wider and wider until it ripped open. The area is right below the clavicle near where the aorta splits into the carotid artery that feeds the head and the subclavian artery that feeds the upper body. These are major vessels that transport lots of blood.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said McCain.

  “Perhaps, but it�
��s more than reasonable doubt.”

  The room fell silent.

  McCain cleared his throat. “The stress of getting shot had to make his heart beat faster, which would put stress on that sac, right?”

  Change didn’t speak.

  “Isn’t that so, Doc?”

  Change picked up a pencil and waved it like a wand. “Yes, the sympathetic nervous system kicks in under stress. I’m sure at some point his heart was beating very rapidly.”

  “So would that increase the likelihood of the aneurysm tearing open?”

  “That’s more than speculative. I could surmise, but I wouldn’t know how fast his heart had been beating. The defense would seize on that. If I were Delveccio’s lawyer, I’d keep focusing on the compressions.”

  Dorothy said, “There is no way the burst artery could have been caused by one of the gunshot wounds?”

  Change shook his head. “No hole was found in the area.”

  “What about a deflected bullet?”

  “That’s not what happened, Detective.”

  “Julius fell on his chest when he was shot,” Dorothy said. “Maybe the thump on his chest burst open the aneurysm.”

  Change thought about that. “It’s a possibility. But then again, I heard he got hit pretty bad across his chest at last night’s game. The defense could argue that that was the triggering event.”

  “We were there,” Dorothy said. “It looked to me like he got hit in the neck.”

  Change said, “A long arm fouling him like that probably impacted his neck, face, and chest. Must’ve been a severe blow to knock such a large man down. I hear he was out on the floor for quite a while.”

  “He came back and played the game of his life,” Dorothy said.

  “That doesn’t mean damage wasn’t done. Perhaps the fouling did exacerbate an arterial tear. Combine that with chest compressions . . .” Change threw up his hands.

  McCain said, “Defense this, defense that. How about giving us something to work with?”

  “I just want to tell you what you could be up against—what the DA will consider when you plead your case. On attempted murder, Detectives, you’ve got a cakewalk. But I couldn’t say beyond a reasonable doubt that the aneurysm burst because of anything the shooter did.”

  “That’s crazy,” McCain said.

  “Attempted murder is still jail time,” Change said.

  “It’s not the same as premeditated murder,” McCain said. “That would be life without parole, and that’s what the asshole deserves—shooting up a club like that.”

  “Can I go back to something?” Dorothy said. “You said you thought it was a preexisting condition.”

  “Almost certainly. If it was an aneurysm.”

  “If?”

  “Theoretically,” said Change, “it could have been a stress tear. But I’d consider that highly unlikely, and I’d have to say so on the stand.”

  “Still,” said Dorothy, “it’s not impossible, right? And couldn’t a stress tear have resulted from a bad fall onto the table after he got shot? Which would put us right back to the shooting as the main cause.”

  “I don’t think a fall on the table would do it.”

  “But how about if it wasn’t a preexisting condition?”

  Change said, “But how would you know that unless you had prior X-rays of the region?”

  Dorothy smiled. “At Boston Ferris, all athletes are required to have yearly checkups, including chest X-rays. I know that from my own baby. Since Julius was on the team going on his fourth year, that means four X-rays. This aneurysm, it would show up on a chest X-ray, right?”

  Change nodded. “If it was large enough, yes.”

  “And the doctor seeing this . . . they certainly wouldn’t have let him play with it, right?”

  Again, Change nodded. “If it was big enough and if someone saw it. The artery runs behind the clavicle. The aneurysm could’ve been hidden by bone.”

  “But maybe it wasn’t. And they let him play. And he played for four years with no problem.”

  Change shrugged.

  “I think Dorothy’s onto something,” McCain joined in. “It’s worth taking a look at the X-rays. ’Cause if it didn’t show up, maybe it was hidden by bone, sure. But maybe it just wasn’t ever there in the first place. Meaning that maybe falling on the table caused the artery to burst, Doc.”

  “Detective, arteries don’t just explode.”

  “But you can’t tell me what did happen at a hundred percent certainty, right?”

  “I can tell you that a bullet hole didn’t cause the artery to burst,” Change said. “There was no puncture wound from any external cause. Nor were there any bone fragments that could have pushed through. Ergo, the cause has to be idiopathic—something internal, unique to Mr. Van Beest.”

  “See, Doc,” McCain said, “I’m thinking that if no one saw anything on all the chest X-rays that Julius took for four years, this aneurysm musta been pretty tiny. Then maybe we can make a solid case for his heart going haywire during the shooting.”

  Dorothy said, “I still like the fall on the table. His blood pressure, like you said, nosedived and his heart stopped.”

  “Exactly,” McCain said.

  Dorothy moved closer to Change’s desk. “He was a goner even before the paramedics got to him.”

  Change listened to their routine and smiled faintly. “I couldn’t state any of that as definitive, Detectives.”

  “But you couldn’t state that it didn’t happen that way,” said Dorothy. “And with nothing showing up on any X-ray . . .”

  “First you’ve got to get the DA to buy it.”

  “You take care of the medical angle,” McCain said. “We’ll worry about the DA.”

  “I can’t promise I’ll be able to say what you want.”

  “Doc, you do your job and we’ll do ours. I’m sick of letting these thugs get away with a slap on the wrist!”

  “Attempted murder isn’t a slap on the wrist,” Change said.

  “If we charge premeditated and it’s pled down to attempted murder, I’ll be okay with it,” McCain said. “Otherwise you know what we got? We got attempted murder that’ll be pled down to a misdemeanor discharging a firearm in a public place and inciting panic. Which carries jail time but not what this bastard deserves.”

  “That seems a bit pessimistic,” Change said. “The victim was shot.”

  “And the bastard will say he didn’t mean to shoot him, he was just horsing around, had a couple drinks too many. I know how it works with thugs, Doc. Especially athletic thugs. The lawyers stack the jury with fans. We need the maximum charge and work down from there.”

  Change sat back in his chair. “It’s your call.”

  “Damn right!” McCain was working himself up.

  Dorothy broke in. “If I get you a recent X-ray, Doc, you’ll read it, right?”

  “Of course,” Change said. “Actually, now you’ve got me curious.” He paused. “Getting an X-ray—that’s clever.”

  “She’s a clever woman,” McCain said. “That’s why they call her detective and you doctor.”

  11

  The product of a merger between Boston Electronic and Technical and Ferris Fine Arts Academy, the college was a solution that had pleased both financially strapped institutions back in the fifties. Pooling dual resources, the new BF board bought a defunct prep school and modeled its hybrid after New York’s Cooper Union: an Athenian meld of fine arts, practical arts, and science.

  But with a twist. Boston Ferris had been chartered to serve the town portion of Boston’s town and gown dichotomy. The college admissions committee went out of its way to select its own. The academy with a heart.

  Athletics hadn’t even been part of the curriculum until the board discovered that many locals, brought up in the streets, clocked beaucoup hours shooting hoops. Soon afterward, Boston Ferris began to actively solicit athletes, and its enrollment ballooned. The school built a state-of-the-art gymnasium, workout room, a
nd pool and sauna and began offering sweetheart majors like Applied Electronics and Practical Waterway Services—a fancy name for plumbing. The subtle switchover didn’t concern Micky McCain and Dorothy Breton. What did matter was that the college’s Human Health Services hadn’t been updated since the merger.

  That was never as in never ever.

  The place was a morass of bureaucracy rivaled only by the Boston Police Department, and like BPD, every request had to be made in writing. The dogmatic stupidity was driving McCain over a wall. Dorothy wasn’t doing too much better.

  “This is a homicide investigation,” she said. “We can’t get the patient’s permission because he’s dead!”

  They were talking to Violet Smaltz, a sixty-three-year-old crone with a perpetual scowl and a face like a paper bag. She narrowed her eyes and snorted.

  “I know the boy is dead, Detective. And it wouldn’t make a difference if he were alive. If the medical examiner’s office wants the medical records, then let the medical examiner’s office put in a request of transfer for the medical records and send it in with the correct paperwork. Medical documents are transferred from physician to physician.”

  “This is bullshit!” McCain blurted.

  Violet glared at him. “No need for foul language, Detective McCain.”

  “I could get a subpoena—”

  “Then get one!” Violet folded her hands across her chest. She was wearing a long gray skirt and a gray cardigan sweater that hung on her bony frame. She looked like a faded scarecrow.

  Dorothy gave up. “Well, could you at least get us the correct paperwork?”

  Violet didn’t budge. She continued to glare at McCain.

  “Please?” Dorothy begged.

  Another snort. “One minute.”

  As soon as she was gone, Dorothy said, “Getting nasty won’t work, Micky.”

  “Yeah, it works. It works for me.”

  Smaltz came back a few minutes later. “There are three copies here. Be sure all three are filled out legibly.”

  McCain snatched the papers from Violet’s grasp. “I bet I wouldn’t have to go through this rigmarole if I was President McCallum.”