Scarpetta had been acting too much like Oscar’s goddamn doctor. She’d made the mistake of caring about him, of feeling compassion. She should stay away from suspects, restrict herself to people who can’t suffer anymore and therefore are easier to listen to, to question, to examine.
Berger returned to the bedroom and stood at a sensible distance, because she was experienced with crime scenes and wasn’t wearing the disposable protective clothing that covered Scarpetta from head to toe. Berger wasn’t the sort to allow her curiosity to override her coolheaded judgment. She knew exactly what to do and what not to do.
“Marino and Morales are with the only person currently at home,” Berger said. “A guy you’d never want for your family doctor, whose apartment, as I understand it, is about fifty degrees because the windows are open. You can still smell the pot in there. We’ve got officers outside to make sure nobody else enters the building, and Lucy’s dealing with the computer in the living room.”
“The neighbor,” Scarpetta asked. “He didn’t notice the damn roof hatch was open and all the lights were out? When the hell did he get home?”
She was still surveying before touching anything, the body slowly twirling in the uneven light of the lamps.
“What I know so far is this,” Berger said. “He says he returned home around nine, at which time the lights weren’t out and the roof hatch wasn’t open. He fell asleep in front of the TV and didn’t hear a thing, assuming someone entered the building.”
“I’d say it’s a safe assumption that someone entered the building.”
“The ladder to the roof hatch is kept in a utility closet up here—same scenario as across the street. Benton says the ladder is definitely on the roof. It appears the assailant was either familiar with this building or with buildings set up like this one, like Terri’s, and found the ladder. He went out through the roof and pulled the ladder up after him.”
“And the theory about how he got in?”
“Theory of the moment is she must have let him in. Then he turned out the lights on his way up to her apartment. She must have known him or had reason to trust him. And the other thing. The neighbor says he didn’t hear any screams. Which is interesting. Possible she didn’t scream?”
“Let me tell you what I’m seeing,” Scarpetta said. “And then you can answer your own question. First, even without moving any closer, I can tell by her suffused face, her tongue protruding from her mouth, the sharp angle of the noose high under her chin and tightly knotted behind her right ear, and the absence of any other apparent ligature marks, that the cause of death is probably going to be asphyxiation by hanging. In other words, I don’t think we’re going to find that she was garroted or strangled by a ligature first, and then her dead body was suspended by a drapery cord from a light-fixture chain.”
“I still can’t answer my question,” Berger said. “I don’t know why she wouldn’t have screamed bloody murder. Someone straps your wrists behind your back, your ankles—tight as hell with some sort of flex-cuff. And you’re nude. . . .”
“Not flex-cuffs. Looks like the same type of strap used on Terri Bridges’s wrists. And also like Terri’s case? The clothes were cut off.” Scarpetta pointed to what was in the tub. “I think he wants us to know the chronology of what he does. Seems to go out of his way to make it pretty clear. Even left the lamps where he’d set them so we could see, since the only light in here, in the bathroom, is the one he removed and placed in the tub.”
“You’re conjecturing he set up the lamps like that for our benefit?”
“For himself first. He needed to see what he was doing. Then he left them. Made it more of a rush for whoever found her. The shock effect.”
“Sort of like Gainesville. The severed head on a bookshelf,” Berger said, looking past her, at the body slowly twirling in its infernal, mocking pirouette.
“Sort of,” Scarpetta said. “That and the body winding and unwinding, which may very well be the reason the window’s open. I’m guessing it was his final brushstroke on his way out.”
“To artificially speed up the cooling of the body.”
“I don’t think he gave a damn about that,” Scarpetta said. “I think he opened the window so the air blowing in would do exactly what it’s doing. To make her dance.”
Berger silently watched the body slowly dance.
Scarpetta retrieved her camera and two LCD chemical thermometers from her crime scene case.
“But since there are buildings everywhere around us,” Scarpetta said in a hard voice, “he would have, at the very least, had the blinds shut while he was doing his handiwork in here. Otherwise, someone might have seen the entire ordeal. Maybe filmed it with a cell phone. Posted it on YouTube. So he was callous enough to draw up the blinds before he left, to make sure the wind blew in and created his special effects.”
“I’m sorry you had to encounter Marino like this,” Berger said, aware of Scarpetta’s anger but not the reason for it.
Scarpetta’s mood had nothing to do with Marino. She’d dealt with that drama earlier and felt quite done with it for the time being. It wasn’t important right now. Berger was unfamiliar with Scarpetta’s demeanor at crime scenes because she had never worked one with her, and had no clue what she was like when confronted with such blatant cruelty, especially if she was worried that a death might have been prevented, that maybe she could have helped prevent it.
This had been an awful way to die. Eve Peebles had suffered physical pain and abject terror while the killer had his sadistic fun with her. It was a wonder and a pity she didn’t die of a heart attack before he’d finished her off.
Based on the sharp upward angle of the rope around her neck, she wasn’t rendered unconscious quickly, but likely suffered the agony of not being able to breathe as the pressure of the rope under her chin occluded her airway. Unconsciousness due to a lack of oxygen can take minutes that seem forever. She would have kicked like mad had he not bound her ankles together, which might be why he’d done so. Maybe he’d refined his technique after Terri Bridges, realizing it was better not to let his victims kick.
Scarpetta saw no sign of a struggle, just an abraded bruise on the left shin. It was very recent, but that was as much as she could say about it.
Berger said, “Do you think she was already dead when he hung her from the chain?”
“No, I don’t. I think he bound her, cut her clothes off, placed her in the tub, then slipped the noose around her neck and hoisted her up just far enough for the weight of her body to tighten the slipknot and compress her trachea,” Scarpetta said. “She couldn’t thrash but so much because of her bindings. And she was frail. At most she’s five-foot-three and weighs a hundred and five pounds. This was an easy one for him.”
“She wasn’t in a chair. So she didn’t watch herself.”
“This time, I don’t think so. That’s a good question for Benton as to why. If we’re talking about the same killer.”