“I can see you’re up to your ears today,” I say as he initials what I’m receipting to his lab. “I apologize for adding to it.”
“Another unfortunate story that may get even more unfortunate.” Ernie indicates the mangled Jaguar as he takes off his goggles. “A psychiatrist has a fight with his wife and heads to the pub, which is about to get sued for serving him alcohol when he was impaired. Supposedly. Luke says his STAT alcohol is below the legal limit. What killed this man is somebody punctured his tire and he swerved out of control into a guardrail and an autopsy’s not going to tell you that. The skid marks do. And the hole in the tire. Question is, did the damage occur while he was parked at the pub or while his car was at his house? Who had access? Or did someone puncture his tire and then follow him to add an extra shove, explaining the paint transfer?”
“Juveniles, typically gangs,” Lucy says. “There have been a number of tire slashings in the Cambridge area of late. Kids stab the tires of half a dozen cars in a lot and hide out and watch the fun. Then they tailgate one of their victims to have the extra fun of watching the tire go flat and rob the person when he finally pulls over. A car like this would cost you more than a hundred grand if it’s in mint condition. The assumption would be if they caused him to crash he might be worth robbing.”
“Well, now their little prank may have just killed someone.” Ernie mops his forehead with his Tyvek sleeve.
“Why do you think I have run-flat tires?” Lucy walks around the wreckage, peering inside at what looks like the original saddle leather interior, the rosewood gearshift and steering wheel, blood and gray hair everywhere. “The question’s going to be whether other cars parked at the pub last night were similarly damaged.”
“I’ll pass it along because it’s a very good point,” Ernie says. “What else can I do for you?” he asks me.
I tell him about the fibers and fluorescing residue and the ointment that smells like a mentholated vapor rub.
“If you could check the residue in SEM because I have a hunch about the elemental composition. It may be something that’s showed up in an earlier case in Maryland. There’s also a fence post that might have been damaged by a tool coming in,” I add.
“Who’s doing what?” He wants to know the order of examination.
“You’re the first stop for everything except DNA. I’m hoping to get lucky with the vapor rub and then it will be your turn,” I answer. “Possibly we’ll be able to tell by the chemical composition exactly what it is.”
“Maybe not the brand,” he considers dubiously, “but menthol for sure. An alcohol found naturally in mint oils, plus eucalyptus, cedar leaf, camphor, turpentine, to mention a few. A home remedy that’s been around forever and people can be extremely creative what they use it for.”
“Have you ever had it show up in a case?” I ask.
“Well, let’s see. Anal swabs were positive for it in a possible sex crime, this was years ago. It turned out the victim was using a vapor rub to treat hemorrhoids. We recovered it from someone’s scalp, which the police thought might be part of some kinky ritual or maybe the decedent was demented. A treatment for dandruff, we found out. I once had a case of a homemade vaporizing lamp with an open flame. Unfortunately it exploded and a toddler was killed. And then there are people who apply the stuff on open wounds and to chapped lips, and camphor can be toxic.”
I explain the petroleum-based ointment was found in the grass of an athletic field and that one theory is it could be a muscle rub and unrelated to Gail Shipton’s death.
“Certainly it would be a similar composition,” Ernie ponders. “Although pain-relieving ointments tend to be more potent with higher levels of certain oils. I’m not sure we’ll be able to tell.”
“It might not matter. Maybe we’ll get lucky with DNA,” I reply. “But I’m having a hard time envisioning why someone would be digging into a jar of a vapor rub outside in the rain.”
“It depends on what he was using it for,” Ernie explains. “He might not have been wiping it on himself or on his skin.”
“Then on what?” I ask.
“Some people saturate nasal strips with Vicks to help their breathing, snoring, sleep apnea.”
“That would be a weird thing to do outside in the middle of the night,” Lucy comments as I recall Benton’s dark ramblings, what struck me as a disturbing non sequitur about the depraved killer Albert Fish.
Inhaling a sharp odor to block out distractions, to focus. Pleasure laced with pain, a fragrance that contains methyl salicylate, and Benton worries about the influence he’s had. He fears that the Capital Murderer may have read journal articles that reference Les Fleurs du Mal, the flowers of evil. What I remember about Baudelaire’s poetry from my college years is its cruel sensuousness and his view that human beings are slaves toiling through their uncertain, fleeting lives. I found him as depressing as Edgar Allan Poe at a time when I still held the belief that people were inherently good.
I peel off my gloves and ask Ernie to let me know when he has anything and then my phone rings.
“Nothing for you to do about right now,” Bryce tells me as Lucy and I leave the evidence bay. “Just a heads-up. Marino overheard a call on that channel he loves to monitor constantly on his radio? When he scans for other area frequencies — you know, like he’s always done? What I call snooping?”
“What kind of call?” I ask.
“Apparently a Concord PD dispatcher mentioned NEMLEC. It sounds very secretive, whatever it is, nothing on the news so far. I’ve been checking every other second. Marino asked if I knew if anybody’s dead and I said only everybody in this place. Beyond that, he wouldn’t give me any information, but I’m assuming it’s probably something big if the local troops are being called out.”
“Is he responding?”
“Well, you know he will now that’s he’s Sherlock. Maybe they need a K-nine, one that rides around in the car all day.”
Marino must have volunteered his services to the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, comprised of more than fifty police departments that share equipment and special expertise such as motorcycle units, SWAT, bomb techs, and crime scene investigation. If NEMLEC mobilizes, the situation is serious.
“Make sure one of the scene vehicles is gassed up and ready to go just in case,” I tell Bryce.
“No offense but who’s supposed to do that these days? Harold and Rusty are busy with autopsies, I can’t ask the scientists or the docs, and I wouldn’t think of asking Lucy. Is she standing right there? I hope she hears me. Until we hire Marino’s replacement, and even then there’s no guarantee…Wait. Are you asking me to play gas station attendant?”
“No worries. I’ll take care of it myself.” I don’t need another reminder that Marino’s quitting has changed everything for me. “I’m off to find Anne. See if Gloria can drop by x-ray so I can turn over DNA evidence to her.”
28
Through a cloud of soft lighting we follow gray walls and recycled glass tile glazed a grayish-brown called truffle. The acoustical ceiling conceals RFID trackers and miles of wiring while hushing our progress as we bend around a floor that eventually will run into itself. Every corridor in my building is a circle.
Life stops where it starts and what is straight becomes round and I define my facility as a port not a terminal. I illustrate the work in this place as part of a journey that redefines and re-creates and not the endpoint or final destination. The dead help the living and the living help the dead and I find the seven round corridors inside my round building to be a metaphor for hope or at least a springboard for a less morbid conversation.