Bones Never Lie (29 page)

I scanned the countertop beyond the island. Not a crumb or smudge. No canisters or cookie jar. Only a portable phone in a charger.

Slidell turned and saw where I was looking. “Yes. I hit redial. The last call went to Mercy.”

“Any stored numbers?”

“No.”

“Any messages?”

“No.”

“You’re right about the place being spotless.”

“The worm’s got every spray and polish ever put in a bottle.” Jerking a thumb at a pantry I hadn’t noticed before.

“Does he use a cleaning service?”

“None of the neighbors ever saw anyone but him come and go. Hell, they hardly ever saw him.”

“Yard service?”

“No.”

“What about mail?” I noticed a small white box on the wall beside the back door.

“Utility bills. Circulars. Catalogues. Nothing personal.”

“No indication he maintained contact with his family?”

“They’re in India.”

“They have phones and mailboxes there.”

“No shit.”

“Catalogues might mean he shopped online.” The box had a sticker.

“I don’t shop online, and I get the same crap.”

“Was the security system activated when you came in?” The sticker had a logo. ADT.

“Yeah.”

“Ajax gave you the code?”

“I persuaded him that sharing was in his best interest.”

“So he sets the alarm when he’s away.”

“Where you going with this?”

“If ADT keeps records, they could tell you when Ajax entered and left the house.”

“They could tell me when someone entered and left the house.”

“So this was a bust,” I said.

“You kiddin’? Double score.” Slidell stripped off his gloves. “First, this house ain’t a crime scene.”

Slidell’s phone buzzed. He yanked it from his belt. Checked the screen. Sighed and raised it to his ear. “Slidell.”

A tinny voice. Female. Strident.

“Yeah?”

The voice boiled again.

“Musta been a misunderstanding.”

More boiling.

“On my way.” Hooking the device back into place. “Salter’s putting me up for cop of the year.” Slidell looked at me, eyes bloodshot from worry and unrest. Then strode toward the door.

“And the second?” I asked.

“What?” Turning.

“What’s the second thing you learned?”

“The prick keeps another crib for his dirty work.”

While Slidell reported to Salter, I went to the MCME.

Larabee’s bones weren’t as straightforward as he’d hoped. Though far from complete, the skeleton was obviously human. A male, middle-aged, edentulous, probably white. Cortical flaking, discoloration, and adherent fibers suggested the man had occupied a coffin for many years.

Larabee was off somewhere. I wrote a preliminary report and left it on his desk. It would be up to him to investigate or not.

Slidell phoned late in the afternoon. His mood made the morning’s seem happy-go-lucky.

Salter had gotten two calls before noon. One was from Ajax’s lawyer, Jonathan Rao, accusing the CMPD of denying his client the constitutional right to counsel. The other was from the judge who’d issued the search warrant—Rao had also reamed out Her Honor.

Since neither caller was happy, Salter wasn’t happy. After laying into Slidell, she’d relented and said he could re-interview Ajax. Wearing gloves made of very young goat. The session yielded nothing. The few answers Ajax gave were filtered through Rao. At three, both walked out the door. It was the last time anyone would talk to Hamet Ajax.

Slidell had received video from Walmart and Harris Teeter that covered the day Leal went missing. So far, he hadn’t spotted Ajax or his car. He planned to continue working through the footage.

I got through two reports, knocked off at five. Back home, I ate Bojangles’ chicken with Bird and watched a rerun of
Bones.
For some reason, the cat is nuts about Hodgins.

Slidell called again at nine. “He’s on tape.”

“Which one?”

“Walmart and the Manor.” Gloomy. Obviously not wanting Ajax to be there.

“LSA for Leal was 4:15 at the convenience store on Morningside.”

“Ajax was in the Walmart on Pineville-Matthews Road. Entered at 3:52. Left at 5:06.”

“Rush hour, and those locations are at least ten miles apart.”

We both gnawed on that.

“Maybe you were right.” Slidell sighed. “Maybe this douchebag don’t work alone.”

Or maybe. Just maybe.

I didn’t say it.

That night, sleep was elusive.

The rain was back. I lay in the dark, listening to drops hit the screen and patter on the sill. To the subtle hum of my bedside clock.

And thought the thought again.

Impossible.

I reviewed what I knew about serial killers. Their victims usually conform to a type. A tall blond woman. A teenage boy with short brown hair. Cher. A hooker. A homeless codger with a cart full of trash.

The individual means nothing to the killer. He or she is irrelevant, a bit player in a carefully constructed ballet. The dance alone matters. Each battement and pirouette must be carried out with precision.

The killer is both dancer and choreographer, in control at all times. Victims enter and leave the stage, interchangeable, bit players in the corps.

I thought about Pomerleau. About Catts. About the mad tango that had left so many dead in Montreal.

I thought about Ajax. To what sick music was he moving? Did he learn it from Pomerleau? Or did he compose the score himself?

In his subconscious, who might Ajax be killing? His daughters? His wife? The babysitter who seduced him and ruined his life?

Birdie jumped onto the bed. I scooped him close. He readjusted, settled, and head-bumped my palm. I stroked him and he started to purr.

Ajax was shopping when Shelly Leal disappeared. Did he have an accomplice? Was it someone at the hospital? If not there, where? Did he have a killing place, as Slidell believed?

Or.

I thought of the home on Sunrise Court. So architecturally right and yet so wrong. Lifeless. Sterile.

I pictured Ajax working crossword puzzles in his bed. Paying bills at his desk. Watching baseball or DVDs from the chartreuse chair. Alone. Always alone. A common pattern with serial killers.

In my mind, I went back through each room. Recalled not a single thing to suggest that Ajax had a life outside his home or the hospital. No woman’s robe in the closet. No Post-it on the fridge saying,
Call Tom.
No picture of himself with friends or co-workers. No reminder on a calendar to meet Ira for lunch. Nothing to suggest anyone in Ajax’s life cared about him. That he cared about anyone.

No. That wasn’t true. He’d kept the three photos. Old photos. Of whom? Had to be his wife and daughters. Was the woman the template for his victims? One of the girls? Why?

No one at Mercy knew Ajax. No one on his street. No one in New Hampshire or West Virginia remembered him.

Again the unsettling thought.
Could we be wrong? Could Ajax be innocent?

Could we be bullying a man who cut himself off from the world out of self-loathing? A man who had made a hideous mistake and lost everything? A man unable to forgive his own actions? Unwilling to trust himself outside the confines of the workplace or home?

There was no excuse for taking advantage of a child. But had anyone followed up on that? Talked to those involved in the arrest and prosecution? The babysitter would be in her thirties now. Had anyone talked to her?

I would ask Slidell in the morning.

Outside, the rain fell softly. Inside, the annex was dark and still.

My mind refused to clock out.

Over and over, I glanced at the time.

11:20.

12:10.

2:47.

My iPhone woke me from a sound sleep. The room was dim. The digits on the clock said 5:40.

Mama!

Heart banging, I clicked on.

My mother wasn’t dead.

Hamet Ajax was.

SLIDELL PICKED ME
up with no more greeting than a sour glance. Which was fine.

He handed me a Styrofoam cup with a white plastic cover. The tepid contents bore some vague resemblance to coffee.

As we drove, the horizon bled from black into pearly pink. Trees and buildings took shape, and gray oozed into the spaces between.

The lighter it got, the worse Slidell looked. His lower face was dark with five o’clock shadow; the bags under his eyes were large enough to house small mammals. His outfit was a color-clashing, coffee-stained rumple that stank of cigarettes and sweat.

Slidell briefed me in a voice gravelly from too much smoking and too little sleep.

After collecting his car, Ajax had driven to the hospital. He’d committed to a double shift that day, a practice not out of character. Thirty minutes after arriving, he’d left. Definitely out of character.

Ajax had told his supervisor, Dr. Joan Cauthern, that he was a victim of police harassment. Said he hadn’t been home all day and needed to shower and check his house. Assured Cauthern he’d be back by seven.

The surveillance team had followed Ajax from Mercy to Sunrise Court. He pulled into his garage at 5:22. Never left.

When Ajax failed to return as promised, Cauthern began phoning. Tried repeatedly throughout the night. By early morning, she’d grown concerned. Ajax had been perspiring heavily and acting fidgety, behaviors she’d never seen him exhibit. At four
A.M
., when the ER grew quiet, Cauthern went to his home to see if he was ill.

The surveillance team observed a vehicle pull into Ajax’s driveway at 4:20
A.M
. A woman got out and rang the bell. Dialed a cellphone. Rang again. Getting no response, the woman shifted to the garage. Appeared to listen with an ear to the door. Walked to the side and peered through a window. Ran toward the cruiser, waving her arms.

The officers approached. The woman appeared agitated. Gave her name as Joan Cauthern. Stated she was Ajax’s superior at Mercy Hospital.

Cauthern said a car was running inside the garage. Said she feared Ajax was in it.

Hearing engine sounds, the officers forced open the door. Found an adult male unconscious behind the wheel of a Hyundai Sonata. Tried to resuscitate, but the victim failed to respond. Called for a bus. Called Slidell.

The ambulance was now gone, and the MCME van had taken its place. Larabee’s car was there. The CSS truck. A cruiser with bubble lights flashing. A Lexus I assumed belonged to Cauthern. The garage door was up, the overheads on. Ditto every light in the house.

A gurney had been rolled up the drive. On it lay a black body bag, unzipped, ready. Beside it were the same CSS techs who’d worked the site less than twenty-four hours earlier. One held a video camera, the other a Nikon.

Slidell and I got out. The sky had morphed to a foggy gray. The color of Ajax’s lonely rooms, I thought.

The air was cool and damp. The frost-coated lawn pulsed red and blue. As Slidell and I crossed it, my insides felt like a lump of granite.

Larabee stood in the space between the Hyundai and the garage wall. Beside him was Joe Hawkins, an investigator with the MCME. On the floor between them was the metal death scene kit. Hawkins was shooting pics.

The driver’s door was open. Through it I could see Ajax slumped over the wheel, head twisted to the side, nasal mucus and saliva crusted on one cheek. His hands hung limp at his knees. A pair of tortoiseshell glasses lay on a mat by his feet. The macabre tableau brightened every time Hawkins’s flash went off.

“Doc.” Slidell’s way of announcing our arrival.

Larabee turned, thermometer in one gloved hand. Hawkins kept snapping away. “Detective Slidell. Dr. Brennan. Gotta love a brisk winter dawn.”

“What have we got?” Slidell opened his spiral.

“Probable carbon monoxide poisoning.”

“The guy offed himself?”

“The first responders found no signs of forced entry in the house or garage. No note. I’m seeing minimal trauma.”

“Minimal?”

“Abrasions on the forehead and right ear. Probably caused by the head impacting the wheel.”

“Probably?”

“Possibly.”

“Meaning suicide.”

“I’ll know after the autopsy.”

Most carbon monoxide deaths are due to accident or suicide. A few are due to foul play. Larabee knew and was being guarded.

“The garage door was down when Cauthern arrived?” Slidell asked.

“So I’m told.”

“The car hood wasn’t raised, right?”

“Right.”

“The vic have any grease on his hands?”

“No.”

Slidell scanned the small space where we stood. “No tools lying around.”

“I agree, Detective. This doesn’t look like an accident.”

“Time of death?”

“Based on body temp, I’d put it somewhere between twelve and two this morning. As usual, that’s only a rough estimate.”

“How long’s it take?”

“Death by carbon monoxide poisoning?”

Slidell nodded.

“Not long.”

Slidell frowned.

“It requires very little CO to produce lethal levels of carboxyhemoglobin in the body.”

The frown continued.

To his credit, Larabee showed no impatience. But he kept it simple. Very simple. “Carboxyhemoglobin disrupts oxygen supply to the cells.”

“Gimme a little more than that.”

“Okay.” Larabee did some editing. “Hemoglobin is a molecule found in the red blood cells. Its job is to circulate oxygen throughout the body. But hemoglobin has a strong affinity for carbon monoxide, CO. If both oxygen and carbon monoxide are present, hemoglobin is much more likely to bind with the CO. When that happens, you get carboxyhemoglobin, which can’t do the job.”

Larabee didn’t go into the fact that hemoglobin has four binding sites to maximize the capture of oxygen from arterial blood flowing from the lungs and to expedite its release into the tissues and organs. That in the presence of both oxygen and carbon monoxide, hemoglobin is two to three hundred times more likely to bind with the latter. That this binding with CO inhibits the release of O2 molecules found on the hemoglobin’s other binding sites. That, as a result, even if blood concentrations of oxygen rise, the O2 remains bound to the hemoglobin and isn’t delivered to the cells. That, as a consequence of oxygen deprivation, the heart goes into tachycardia, increasing the risk of angina, arrhythmia, and pulmonary edema. The brain short-circuits.