Joan said, “They would have flailed then, Doctor. There’s a certain symmetry in the way they’re posed on the couch.”
Ashida tugged the Mexican’s left biceps. He got no flex and no give.
“The approximate time of death, sir?”
Dr. Nort said, “I took rectal temperatures the moment I got here. I’m calling it 2:00 to 4:00 a.m.”
Ashida deployed Man Camera. He panned the couch and framed the three men. He studied their clothes first.
The Mexican wore slit-bottom khakis and black leather oxfords with crepe soles. Plus a white undershirt and striped zoot coat. Crepe-sole oxfords were burglars’ shoes.
Rice wore brown wingtips and gray flannel slacks. He wore a cross-draw belt gun on his left hip. Plus a blue sport coat and loud Hawaiian shirt.
Ashida extrapolated. The Man Camera revealed this:
No wedding ring on Rice’s left-ring finger. An indentation where wedding rings normally sit. Rice was married. Rice removed his ring to hide the fact. Rice was a tomcat.
Kapek wore a green cardigan and navy dungarees. His footwear seemed anomalous. He wore patent-leather pumps.
Ashida extrapolated. The Man Camera revealed this:
They were dancing shoes. The klubhaus adjoined a jazz strip. Officer George B. Kapek was a jitterbug.
Dr. Nort said, “Our Hideo’s worked himself into a trance.”
Joan said, “It’s a study technique. I learned it in grad school.”
Ashida stepped back and aimed off the couch. He framed a coffee table and strafed a glass ashtray. It was filled with spent matches and cigarette stubs.
Ashida extrapolated. The Man Camera revealed this:
There are more matches than stubs. The ashtray appears freshly wiped.
Ashida said, “I’ve spotted an inconsistency. We have a freshly washed-out ashtray, filled with cigarette butts. I’ve counted twenty-four butts and twenty-seven expended matches. That’s three more than we have butts for, and we have three potential homicide victims.”
Joan examined the ashtray. “I’ll extrapolate. The killer wants to remove incriminating evidence, yet retain what I’ll call ‘forensic normalcy’ here in the klubhaus. He removes the three butts and washes the ashtray. Now, I’ll hazard a guess. Our victims, who might not be victims, but just inadvertent bunglers, smoked liquid terp in hand-rolled cigarettes. It’s the butts themselves that appear anomalous. The killer removed the hand-rolled butts and wiped the ashtray to eliminate all traces of liquid terpin hydrate.”
Dr. Nort cracked a smile. Ashida balled his fists. Reckless Girl usurped his thesis.
“There’s a terp still here on the premises. We should determine the molecular makeup of the drug that remains in the feeder vats. Dr. Layman can check it against any terpin hydrate he might find in the victims’ bloodstreams.”
Dr. Nort whistled. He went Whoa, now.
“Let’s not jump the gun. We don’t know for sure that they’re victims. And we don’t know that smoked terpin hydrate killed them.”
Joan approached the couch. She reached down and turned out Wendell Rice’s front pants pockets. They were empty. Imperious Girl. Ashida balled his fists.
Dr. Nort said, “You’re looking for rolling papers.”
Joan nodded. She turned out the Mexican’s front pants pockets. They were empty. She turned out George Kapek’s front pants pockets. She pulled out a cigarette-paper deck.
Dr. Nort went all gaga. Reckless Girl did that to men.
Ashida rearranged the corpses. He turned out their back pockets and got lint balls and nothing else.
Joan said, “We confiscated a still from that man Don Matsura’s apartment. Remember, Dr. Ashida? He committed suicide at the Lincoln Heights Jail.”
Dr. Nort shook his head. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves. They could have bought terp at any one of the clubs half a block from here. Let’s have this discussion after my postmortem.”
Ashida leaned over the couch. He worked three across. He grabbed the dead men by the hair and looked in their wide-open mouths. The room light was just right. He saw inflamed lesions.
Dr. Nort leaned down. He adjusted his headband light. He close-up lit the mouth cavities. He stepped back and stretched.
“Precancerous lesions. All three men. Similar levels of inflammation, of a type common to habitual terp smokers.”
Thad Brown and Buzz Meeks walked over. They’d huddled up to watch.
Meeks said, “What about maryjane? They spray the crops with chemicals down in Mexico, then the grasshoppers up here got to contend with all kinds of medical grief.”
Brown said, “Toss the place, Buzz. Look for maryjane, and tag any contraband you find.”
Meeks clumped upstairs. Brown poked around. He had well-known eagle eyes.
He scoped a pile of hate tracts and the Hitler wall pix. He touched the sax and trombone on the chair. He went through phonograph records. He ran his hands under the couch and pulled out a matchbook.
Ashida stepped close. Brown opened the matchbook. Half the matches were gone. They’d been removed left to right.
Brown held the matchbook out. Joan stepped close. Ditto Dr. Nort.
Brown said, “Southpaw. It’s something or it’s nothing, but it’s not a bad elimination lead.”
Ashida aimed his Man Camera. He framed the dead men. He close-up shot their hands. He caught your standard size discrepancy.
“They were all right-handed. Their right hands are larger and more muscularly developed.”
Dr. Nort said, “Kapek and Rice wore their belt guns on the left. That connotes a right-hander’s cross-draw.”
Brown checked out the matchbook. Club Zamboanga/yellow-and-black type/a snarling panther motif.
“Blanchard’s out canvassing. He’s supposed to meet up with Elmer. They’ll check the Zamboanga, for sure.”
Meeks banged on the upstairs floorboards. He sent up a racket. His voice boomed down.
“No maryjane! Nothing but a whole shitload of disarray!”
Ashida pointed to the ashtray. “I’m positing a fourth man. I understand that it’s precipitous, but please indulge me. I’m thinking that he fashioned hand-rolled cigarettes but did not partake.”
Dr. Nort shrugged. “All right, I’ll play. Maybe it’s terp, maybe it’s not. It could have been a toxic level of some other inebriant that I’ll determine at autopsy.”
Joan braced the couch. She leaned close and circled it. She worked three across.
She clamped heads, three across. She studied them. She came up behind the couch. She reverse-angled the process and said, “There’s something here.”
Ashida leaned in. Dr. Nort and Thad Brown watched. Joan pointed to this:
A blood dot below George Kapek’s left ear.
Ashida look-see’d. It was less than a puncture/more than a pinprick.
Joan slid man to man. Showy Girl struts and poses. She pointed below Wendell Rice’s left ear. The Mexican, likewise. She nailed identical dots. They were less than punctures/more than pinpricks.
Thad Brown said, “Mother dog.”
Dr. Nort said, “If he came at them from behind, he had to have been left-handed.”
Joan said, “These are in no way killing wounds. They barely penetrate the skin, and they don’t correspond to visible veins at all.”
Ashida pointed three across. “It could be a coerced ingestion of a lethal substance. The killer persuaded them by the means of a sharp instrument at their necks.”
Brown wiped his glasses on his necktie. He put them back on and peered extra close.
“Here’s a guess. They were partially debilitated already. That’s the only way I can see one man taking out three. And there’s no dust on that matchbook, smack in the middle of this shitty little dust hole. That means it was shoved under the chair recently.”