4th of July - James Patterson [44]
I turned and she introduced me to a man in blue scrubs and a plastic apron, with a net over his gray hair. He had a slight, stooped build and a lopsided smile, as if he had Bell’s palsy or had suffered a stroke.
“Lindsay, this is Dr. Bill Ramos, forensic pathologist. Bill, this is Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer, Homicide, from SFPD. There may be a link between these murders and a cold case of hers.”
I was shaking Ramos’s hand when Chief Stark came over.
“Doc, tell her what you told me on the phone.”
Ramos said, “Why don’t I show you?”
He spoke to his assistant: “Hey, Samir, I want to take a look at the female’s back, so give me a half turn. Let’s put her on the side.”
Samir crossed Annemarie’s ankles left over right, and the doctor reached over and took her left wrist. Then the two of them pulled the corpse so that it rested on one side.
I peered at seven yellowish marks crossing over one another on the dead woman’s buttocks, each about three-quarters of an inch in width, approximately three inches long.
“Tremendous force in these blows,” said Ramos. “Still, you can barely make them out. Samir, let’s turn Mr. Sarducci now.”
The doctor and his assistant pulled the male onto his side, his head lolling back pathetically as they did so.
“Now, see,” the doctor said, “here it is again. Multiple faint rectangular patterns, pressure-type abrasions. They aren’t the red brown color you’d see if the section had been struck while he was still alive, and they’re not the yellow parchmentlike abrasions you’d get if the blows were administered postmortem.”
The doctor looked up to make sure I understood.
“Punch me in the face, then shoot me twice in the chest. There won’t be enough blood pressure for me to get a rip-roaring bruise on my face, but there’ll be something there if my heart pumps for a moment.”
The doctor took a scalpel to one of the marks on the male’s back, cutting through unmarked tissue and the pale strap mark. “You can see this light brownish color under the abrasions, what’s called a ‘well-circumscribed focal accumulation of blood.’
“In plain English,” Ramos continued, “and wouldn’t you agree, Dr. Washburn? The deep slash across the carotid artery and the vagus nerves stopped the heart almost instantly, but not instantaneously. This man had one last heartbeat when he was whipped.
“These blows were administered cum-mortem—just before or at the time of death. In the mind of the killer, the victim could still feel the lash.”
“Looks like it was personal,” said Stark.
“Oh, yes. I’d say the killers hated their victims.”
There was a hush in the room as the doctor’s words sank in.
“The marks on Joe are narrower than the marks on Annemarie,” Claire noted.
“Yes,” Ramos agreed again. “Different implements.”
“Like a belt,” I said. “Could these whippings have been made by two different belts?”
“I can’t say positively, but it’s certainly consistent,” said Ramos.
Claire looked not only focused but sad. “What are you thinking?” I asked her.
“I hate to say it, Lindsay, but this really brings me back. The marks look like what I remember seeing on your John Doe.”
Chapter 71
IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT when the Watcher headed inland from the beach. He climbed the sandy cliff, then stuck to the quarter mile of path that cut through the thistles and thick dune grasses and ran east from the cliffs. The Watcher could finally make out the serpentine bay-side road.
He was honing in on one particular house when he stumbled over a log in the path. He reached out to break his fall and went down hard, splaying on his belly, hands scraping packed sand and saw grass.
The Watcher got quickly to his knees, slapping his breast jacket pocket—his camera had flown.
“Fuck fuck fuck!” he yelled in frustration.
He crawled on all fours, patting the sand, feeling the sweat on his upper lip dry in the cool air.
Desperation clutched at him as the minutes leached away. At last, he found his precious camera, so small—lens-down in the sand.
He blew on the camera to dislodge the grit, pointed