Murder at Ford's Theatre - Margaret Truman [8]
Klayman went to a life-sized photo of Lincoln on a far wall and stood before it. Red footprints were painted into the floor; the purpose was to stand in those footprints and compare your height with that of the sixteenth president, who was six feet four inches tall. Klayman placed his shoes on the prints and looked up into Honest Abe’s face. “You were some big man,” he muttered, “both ways,” smiling and feeling shorter than his five-foot seven. “You going to help me with this one, boss?” he asked Lincoln.
He heard only the gentle whoosh of cooled air coming through a vent above his head.
Lincoln stared down at him. Did one eye move, a wink? Had a trace of a smile come and gone on his strong mouth?
“Thanks, Mr. President,” Klayman said, turning to head back to headquarters.
There was work to be done, and they’d barely started. But he felt inspired.
CHAPTER THREE
KLAYMAN STOOD NEXT to Eric Ong in the ME’s autopsy room. The detective found the autopsy process inherently fascinating, something his partner, Mo, did not. But while Klayman didn’t have any problem watching Dr. Ong work on Nadia Zarinski as the body lay naked on his stainless steel table, he was distinctly uncomfortable calling a next of kin to break the news that a loved one was dead. Mo was good at that, his deep, resonant voice calming those on the receiving end of his call or personal visit.
“What have we got?” Klayman asked Ong, a slender, edgy man wearing round, oversized glasses tethered to his neck by a psychedelic blue-and-pink ribbon.
“Cause? Subdural and subarachnoid hemorrhages. Manner of death? Blow to the head with blunt, broad object. Definitely a homicide.”
“We didn’t find anything at the scene that was broad and blunt,” said Klayman. “No sign of her being dragged?”
“No. But I’d say she spent a little time on her knees before dying. See those scrapes on her knees?”
Klayman leaned over the table for a closer look at the victim’s legs.
“She might have gone down to her knees from the blow to her face. Whoever did it finished the job with the blow to the head.”
“Or she was pleading.”
Ong glanced at Klayman. “Yes, that’s possible, but there’s no way for me to determine that.”
They went to Ong’s small, crowded office, where they removed their blue hospital smocks. “Blood and tissue samples will tell us more, of course,” Ong said, placing the cassette tape onto which he’d recorded his running comments during the autopsy in an envelope, to be transcribed later. “Sexual activity. A better approximation of time of death.”
“If she did fall to her knees from the first blow, was the angle of the second blow consistent with someone standing over her?” Klayman asked.
Ong displayed a rare smile. “Maybe her attacker wasn’t standing over her, Detective. Maybe he was very short.”
“The strange case of the murdering midget. Sounds like a Holmes novel.” Klayman smiled, thanked the ME, and drove to district headquarters. Johnson was conferring with their boss, Herman Hathaway, a short, wiry man with slicked-back black hair and a silly looking tiny tuft of black whiskers on the point of his chin.
“Charlie Chan come up with anything exciting?” Hathaway asked Klayman as he entered the office and took a chair next to Johnson.
“Not much. Whoever did her hit her twice, once in the face, once on the head. Blunt, broad object. Time of death maybe between midnight and two.”
“The press is on it,” Hathaway said. “Got a call from Senator Lerner’s office. She was an intern there.”
“Got that already,” Klayman said.
“You also got the rumor that the senator might have gotten his jollies with his intern?” Hathaway asked.
“I heard something about that,