Ok Fatimah , who pulled me close and whispered," Let me guess. You gave Isaiah a kiss on the nose, and all of a sudden there was this charming prince."
He works for the mayor, Fatimah," I smiled back.
They sent him here to make sure I don't faint at the first sight of blood.
In that case," she replied, pushing the heavy door to the vault open," you better hold on to that man tight.
I had been having very close encounters with dead bodies for six years now. But what I saw sent a shiver of revulsion racing through me.
The mutilated bodies of the bride and the groom were laying side by side. They were on the gurneys, their faces frozen in the horrifying momen of their deaths.
Nathaniel and Lizzy Harry.
In their stark, ghostly expression was the strongest statement I have ever seen that life may be governed by anything fair or clement. I locked on the face of Lizzy. Yesterday, in her wedding dress, she had seemed somehow tragic and tranquil.
Today, in her slashed, naked starkness, her body was snarled in a freeze-frame of grotesque horror. Everything I had buried deep yesterday rushed to the surface again
Six years in Homicide, and I had never turned away. But I turned away now.
I felt Fatimah's hand bolstering my arm, and leaned into her.
To my surprise, it turned out to be Gabriel. I righted myself with a mixture of anger and embarrassment.
Thanks," I exhaled." I'm okay.
I have been doing this job eight years." Fatimah said, and this one I wanted to turn away myself."
She picked up a folder from an examining table across from Nathaniel Harry. She pointed to the raw, gapping knife wound on the side of his chest." He was stabbed once in the right ventricle. You can see here the blade pierced the juncture between the fourth rib and the sternum on the way in. Ruptured the AV node, which provides the heart the electrical powering. Technically. He arrested,"
He died of a heart attack!" Gebriel asked.
She pulled a pair of tight surgical gloves over her hands and red-lacquered nails." Electromechanical dissociation . Just a fancy way of describing what happens when you get stabbed in the heart."
What about the weapon?" I spoke up.
"At this point, all I know is that it was a standard straight-edged blade. No distinguishing marks or entry pattern. One thing I can tell you is that the killer was medium height, anywhere from five-seven to five-ten. And right handed, based on the angle of the impact. You can see here the part of the incision is angled slightly upward. Here," she said poking around the wound." The groom was six feet. On his wife, who was five-five. The angle of the first incision was slanted in the downward path"
I checked the groom's hands and arms for abrasions
Any signs of struggle?"
Couldn't the poor man be scared right out of his mind."
I nodded as my eyes fell on the groom's face.
Fatimah shook her head." That's not exactly what I meant. Kalistus's Roth's boys scraped up samples of a fluid from the groom's shoe and the hardwood floor in the foyers where he was found, she held up a small vial containing droplets of cloudy liquid.
Gebriel and I stared at it, uncomprehending.
" urine." Explain Fatimah." The poor man apparently went in his pants. Must have been a gusher."
She pulled a white sheet over Nathaniel Harry's face and shook her head." I figure that's one secret we can keep to ourselves.
Unfortunately," she said with a sigh," things didn't happen nearly as swiftly for the bride,"she led us over to the bride's gurney."maybe she surprised him. There are marks on her hands and wrist that indicate a struggle. Here," she pointed to a reddened abrasion on her neck." I tried to lift some tissues from under her nails, but we'll see what comes back. Anyway, the first wound was in the upper abdomen and tore through the lungs. With time, given the loss of blood, she might have died from that."
She pointed to a second and third ugly incision under the left Brest in a similar location to the groom's." Her pericardium was filled with so much blood you could have wrung it out like a wet dishrag.
You are getting technical again I said.
The tissuelike membrane around the heart. Blood and collects in this space and compressed the muscle so that the heart can no longer fill with blood from the main return. Ultimately, it ends up strangling itself.
The image the bride's heart choking on her own blood chilled me." It almost as if he wanted to duplicate the wounds," I said, studying the knife entry points.
I thought of that," said Fatimah," straight line to the heart.
Gabriel furrowed his brow," so the killer could be professional,"
Fatimah shrugged." By the technical pattern of the wounds perhaps, but I don't think so."
There was hesitancy in her voice. I looked up and fixed on her grim eyes." So what I need to know is, was she sexually molested?"
She swallowed." There were clear signs of postmortem penetration. The vaginal mucosa was severely extended and I found small lacerations around the introitus."
My body stiffened in rage," she was raped.
" if she was raped," Fatimah replied,"it was a very bad deal. The vaginal cavity was wide as I have ever seen it. Honestly, I don't think we are talking penile entry at all."
"Blunt instrument?" Gebriel said.
Certainly wide enough... but there are abrasions along the vaginal walls consistent with some kind of ring." Fatimah took a breath." Personally, I'd do with a fist."
The angry schooling nature of Lizzy Harry's death shivered me again. So she had been mutilated, defiled. A fist. It had a blunt, savage finality to it. Her assilent wasn't just trying to act out his nightmare but wanted to shame her as well. Why?
"If you can handle one more thing. Follow me," Fatimah said.
She led us out through a swinging door into an adjoining lab.
On an apron of white sterile paper lay the blood-smeared tuxedo jacket we found next to the groom. Fatimah picked it up by the collar."Kalistus loaned it to me. Of course, the obvious thing was to confirm whose blood was actually on it."
The left panel was slashed though with the fatal incision and sprayed with dark blotches, of blood. Where this starts to get really interesting," said Fatimah is that it wasn't Nathaniel Harry's blood that I found on the front of the jacket."
Gebriel and I gaped in surprise.
The killer's?" He said, wide-eyed.
She shook her head.' No, the bride's"
I made a fast recollection of the crime scene. The groom had been killed at the door; his wife, thirty feet away in the master bedroom.
" How could the bride's blood get on the jacket?" I said, confused.
"I struggled with the same thing. So I went back and lined up the jacket against the groom's torso. The slash mark didn't quite match up with his wound. Look, the groom's wound was here. Fourth rib. The slashed mark on the jacket are three inches higher. Checking further, the damned jacket Isn't even the same brand as the pant. This is Joseph Abboud."
Fatimah winked, seeing the gears of my brain shift into place.
The jacket wasn't the groom's. It belonged to the man who had killed him.
Fatimah rounded her eyes." Ain't no professional I know will leave that behind."
"He could have been just trying to utilize the wedding as a cover," Gebriel replied.
An even more chilling possibility had already struck me.
"He could have been a guest."