Head to Head (5 page)

Bud had already gotten through to Gil Serna’s publicist. He gave me a thumbs-up as I moved into the bedroom and waited for Vicky to set up her equipment out on the deck. Bud was talking animatedly into the telephone. He’d get whatever information we needed. Bud could sweet-talk a nun out of her rosary beads.

The bedroom was a mess. Odd, considering the immaculate condition of the rest of the place. The cream-and-rose decor was splendid and expensive. The rumpled, unmade duvet was sewn from silk damask. Thousand-dollar-an-hour Nicholas Black did spend a few pennies on his bungalows.

I had to smile when Johnny Becker ambled into the room. We called him Shag because the guy looked like Shaggy in
Scooby-Doo
. Ancient gray T-shirt that might have been white once. Baggy, faded denim skater shorts that dropped past his scrawny knees. Orange-and-black Nikes like mine. Johnny was in his late twenties, undeniably a dude, a fact proven by about twenty earrings on his ears, not to mention his red dreadlocks sticking out in every direction. Charlie overlooked Shag’s eccentricities because he knew his way around corpses and was undisputedly the best criminalist south of Kansas City. He drove Charlie totally and absolutely berserk and got a real kick out of it. Born and bred in the Ozarks, he was perfectly happy doing autopsies by day and Play Station games by night.

“Hey, Claire, you seen that awesome new Bruce Willis flick?”

“Still on your Willis kick, Shag-man?”

“Yep, he’s my man.” Shag set down the aluminum case he carried and looked around. “Man, did you get a load of the babe on the bottom out there? Somebody’s really got his wires jerked loose to do something like that to a hottie like her.” He shook his head, dreadlocks wriggling like anxious, hairy worms. “Oh yeah, Buckeye says for you to come on out. Vicky’s done with the stills, and the divers are bringin’ the lady up.”

“Okay. No mistakes, okay, Shag? The media’s going to eat this one up. Peter Hastings’s already been out here snooping around.”

“Yeah, they filmed us all the way in. No sweat. I’m the best, you know? Not to worry.”

The water was clear now, and we all moved down to the lower dock to watch retrieval. It was like looking through a glass-bottomed boat at a scene from a horror movie. Three divers hung suspended under the surface around Sylvie Border, taking underwater pictures from every angle, while Vicky and Shag photographed from the deck. I couldn’t take looking at the woman’s waist-length hair floating eerily in the currents, so I watched for approaching boats instead.

“They’re ready,” Bud said.

I gave the signal to bring her up.

Nobody said much now, which was unusual at a crime scene. We all knew each other well, and sometimes it helped to make small talk, if only to alleviate the tension. The chair was sunk into the mud halfway up the victim’s calves, and the divers pulled it loose with some effort, one man holding the back and one on each side.

The body broke the surface a minute later, and water streamed down the nude torso, straggling hair like bleached seaweed over her face and breasts. Bud and Buckeye grabbed the arms of the chair with gloved hands and pulled it up onto the decking. Discarded like a sack of garbage, Sylvie’s remains now would be examined, prodded, cut open, invaded by me and my friends. Though necessary, it seemed obscene.

I squatted down beside the chair. Both the victim’s arms were taped to the chair, at the wrists and the elbows, the skin wrinkled and bluish from hours underwater. The fingernails were painted scarlet. A perfect manicure. Three nails on her right hand were split or broken. The left thumbnail was nearly torn off. “She didn’t go down easy,” I said.

Bud leaned down and studied the hanging thumbnail. “Maybe she got a coupla gouges in him before he finished her off.”

“Jeez, this guy’s the psychopath of the century.” Shag’s video camera whirred softly as he spoke. He edged around the body slowly, methodically recording everything we said and did. O.J. residual. Do everything by the book.

Buckeye went down on his haunches in front of the chair. “No visible cause of death. Probably means either drowning or strangulation. Get a close-up on those bruises,” he said over his shoulder to Vicky. “Especially the big ones on the upper arms. And there’s the tattoo of Tinkerbell I was tellin’ you about. God, she just got that put on. I watched ’em do it.”

I stared at the two-inch lime green and yellow fairy tattoo on her left breast and frowned. “Her thighs are marked up pretty bad, too. Look at those wounds on her torso that look like little half-circles. What’d you think made those, Buckeye?”

“Looks like he either hit her with something or gouged her, and some of them ain’t from no perp.” Buckeye pointed out a line of purple marks on the waxy flesh of one arm. “She was fish food all night long. Turtles probably fed on her some, too, but not as bad as they would’ve if she’d been in the water longer.”

“This is god-awful,” Buckeye said.

I said, “Vicky, get your still shots of her whole body; then we’ll pull back her hair and let you shoot her face.” Vicky stepped forward, a quiet, thick-figured woman of forty with three teenagers at home and a husband who owned a boat dock. Quick and efficient and quiet, Vicky did the job solemnly, finished, and backed away. I got out my ballpoint pen and lifted a strand of wet hair. The face had been brutally beaten; so swollen and grotesque, it was beyond recognition. A five-inch swath of silver duct tape was wrapped around her neck and the decorative iron bars on the back of the chair, holding her head tightly in place.

“The skin on the face looks a little strange, Buckeye. What’s with that?”

“Hell, nothin’s gonna look right after a night underwater.”

“Some of it’s already sloughing off.”

Buckeye said, “I suspect the fish went for the head first, so the face is more damaged than the rest of the body.”

“God, they must’ve had a real feeding frenzy. We gotta get this psycho,” Bud said, leaning back against the deck railing. He sounded as disgusted as I felt. He turned to Buckeye, all kidding aside. “What’d ya think, Buckeye? Why would he set her up at a table like this?”

“God only knows,” Buckeye said, watching Shag film while I snagged back the rest of the hair behind her ears. “She’s still got on diamond ear studs. Wasn’t no robbery.”

“It couldn’t’ve been easy to choreograph that little scene at the bottom.” I rose and frowned down at the victim. “He couldn’t have done it in one dive. That means lots of coming up for air. Or full scuba gear.”

“God, and she was so beautiful,” Buckeye said.

“Think you can get anything off her?” I asked him.

“Most trace evidence’s gonna be degraded.” Buckeye grimaced and kept shaking his head. “Guess this’ll put my fishing trip on hold for a good long time. I’ll get what I can, but don’t expect much. When Shag’s done, let’s take her in like this, and I’ll remove the tape at the autopsy. Looks like he wrapped the goddamn tape around her neck at least a dozen times. We could get lucky with a partial print, but I doubt it.”

“Guard that film with your life,” I said to Shag and Vicky. “Develop it yourself. I don’t want any ghoulish pictures showing up in the newspapers.” I snapped off the gloves, eager to get the body out of sight. “Let’s go, Bud. What’d you say the lady’s name was who found her?”

“Cohen, Madeline Jane Cohen. I got a uniform over there with her. She’s pretty shook up. She’s been waiting on us since dawn.”

Madeline Jane Cohen was sitting on her sofa in a circa-1932 black tank bathing suit, with a .22-caliber pistol atop her bare, varicose thighs. She wasn’t pointing the gun at us yet, but she looked scared enough to shoot a hole through anybody that made a wrong move.

“Ma’am, you ain’t gonna need that gun.” Bud glanced at me and then approached the old woman with a certain degree of caution. Nothing like a frightened old lady with a loaded pistol to get your attention. A trail of wet spots led across the white carpet, where the woman had probably dripped water when she’d run to the phone. “Give the gun to me, Mrs. Cohen. You don’t have to be afraid; we’re gonna leave an officer here with you till your husband shows up. Remember, I told you that. Everything’s gonna be fine and dandy.”

“He’s on his way,” Mrs. Cohen said. Her voice was quick, nervous, hoarse—so were her movements when she obediently picked up the gun and handed it to Bud. “He’ll be here by noon. He got the first flight out of LaGuardia. He couldn’t believe it, either. Why, we’ve lived in New York over forty years, and never once has anything like this happened. Mort and I’ve been married forty-seven years in December, and never have I gone off by myself on vacation. And look what happened when I did. I swear I’ll never step foot out of the city again. It’s a lot safer up there with all those people around. Oh, God, that poor little girl. She was such a nice little thing. I asked for her autograph, and she gave it to me, and another one for my granddaughter, Katerina, too.”

I said, “So you and Sylvie Border were pretty good friends?”

“Oh, no, no, I only met her a couple of days ago. I guess it was three days ago. Yes, it had to be on Tuesday because it was when I was coming out of the spa in the main lodge. I recognized her right away, because she’s been on TV so much lately. I saw her getting a tattoo on
ET
right before I left home. She and Lorenzo—that’s her boyfriend on the show—have been accused of killing her stepfather for his money. They didn’t, of course, but it just looks so bad with them finding that Ginsu knife that killed him in their apartment and everything. Come to find out it was her own brother who did it, and she turned him in. He was an evil thing.” Her words faltered, as if remembering this was real life and Sylvie was dead. Her eyes got real round.

“Sounds like you’re a big fan,” I said, trying to snap some reality back into her.

“It’s the best soap on TV, but it’ll never be the same again. Not ever, not without Sylvie. She was so good in that role of Amelia. Everybody loved her.” Madeline teared up and covered her face with her palms. She gave a little sob.

“My name is Claire Morgan, and I’m a detective with the sheriff’s department here in Canton County. You’ve already met Bud. We’re investigating Ms. Border’s death.” I glanced at the flame-stitched wing chair beside me. “May I sit down, Mrs. Cohen?”

“Of course, dear, please do. I’m just so nervous, I can’t think straight.”

“That’s understandable.” I took a small notepad out of my big leather handbag, sat down, and flipped it open. “Why don’t you tell us exactly what happened on Tuesday when you first met Ms. Border? Did you notice anything in particular about her that day, anything unusual?”

Mrs. Cohen shook her head. “She was just very nice, very sweet. She said she’d wait when I wanted to run back in the salon and grab something for her to autograph. She was gracious, very much so, just like she was a regular person. So was Doctor Black. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen him on morning shows, especially
The Today Show;
he’s on that one the most, might even be a regular. He treats me more like an old friend than a patient.”

Bud leaned in toward Mrs. Cohen. “Doctor Black was with Sylvie when you saw them?”

“That’s right. They’d had lunch together. What a handsome couple they made. She’s so small and blond, and he’s so tall and dark.”

“Had you seen them together before? Were they a couple?” I wasn’t hiding my eagerness much, but I was interested in Mrs. Cohen’s impression of that relationship.

“You mean, were they romantically involved?” Madeline made a birdlike shrug and shivered all over. Bud handed her a chenille throw off the end of the couch. It was the color of seashells.

“Thank you, dear,” she said, becoming more relaxed. Southern charm works like a charm, just like I said. “I really can’t say if they were or not. It appeared they were having a good time together, you know, laughing and enjoying each other’s company. She held on to his arm when they left, but I suppose that doesn’t really mean anything, does it?”

I nodded. “Is that the only time you spoke to the victim, Mrs. Cohen?”

“Yes, the only time I spoke to her at length. Except, sometimes when I was out swimming, I’d see her. I was a champion swimmer way back when. I won ten medals for the breaststroke back in the fifties. I still have a strong crawl.” Bud and I donned suitably impressed looks and waited. “Usually that was in the morning, when she was drinking coffee out on the deck,” Mrs. Cohen said, her voice growing hollow. “She’d always wave at me. That poor little thing, barely more than a child, and now she’s dead. And why was she sitting at that table like that? She was sitting at a table under the water, wasn’t she? I did see that, didn’t I?”

I nodded and said, “That’s what we’re trying to find out, ma’am, who killed her and why. Did you hear anything unusual last night? Any screams or loud noises? Or did you see anyone hanging around?”

“No, no, I can’t say that I did. But I take a couple of Tylenol PM every night around eight o’clock so I can get up early enough to swim before the boats get out on the lake. It’s my arthritis that acts up. It’s really quiet here, with all Doctor Black’s security. How could this have happened? Right next door. I’ll never be able to swim in that lake again. Oh, to think of her down in that water like that. Mort’s coming to take me home. I can go home, can’t I? You’re not going to hold me, are you?”

“No, ma’am.” Bud patted her shoulder. “But we’d like to take down all your personal information so we can get hold of you if we need to ask you more questions.”

“Pretty interesting how Black and Sylvie were such a cozy little twosome,” Bud said as we left Mrs. Cohen’s condo. “What’s say me and you go see if his girl Friday can really alibi her boss?”

The child sat on the bed beside the mother because she was getting over another beating. She’d failed to get the blood out of the father’s white shirtsleeve. He’d punished her with the strop until she could not walk.

She whispered to the child, “He’ll stay in the cellar until dinner. He won’t come up here.” When she reached out to him, she groaned in terrible pain. “Don’t ever leave me, and I won’t ever leave you. We’ll always be together.” She began to weep, softly so the embalmer wouldn’t hear. The child glanced at the door in alarm, afraid for her but not crying; that was against the rules. She went to sleep after a while, and the child walked to the window and looked outside. It was a beautiful spring day. The red rosebush that the mother tended on the trellis by the side gate was heavy with blooms. She loved roses more than anything. She picked them and put them in a vase beside the child’s bed, and they perfumed the room. The mother was lying still now, one forearm flung across her eyes.

Tiptoeing, the child moved out into the upstairs hall. It wasn’t scary in the house in the daytime like it was at night, when they used the candles and shadows flickered up the walls like grasping fingers and the furniture crouched in wait like dark, devouring monsters. Downstairs, the sound of the embalmer’s saw drifted up from the cellar in a distant whine, as if someone were crying. The father was busy. It was safe to sneak outside.

Once in the warm sunshine, the child breathed in fresh air, not used to being alone. The mother kept the child at her elbow at all times. It was against the rules to leave the house. Fear rose and made it hard to breathe, then receded when the sweet fragrance of roses wafted on the breeze. The mother loved roses. She would be happy if she had some beside her bed.

The child ran fast, reaching the lush rosebush and jerking off three roses before a car approached on the road. A black hearse pulled in the driveway, and the child hid behind the thick trunk of the nearest oak tree as the cellar door swung open under the porch. The father walked up the steps, and the child’s breath caught with fear as the embalmer looked around the yard. Then the man driving the hearse called hello from the front yard, and the father walked down the brick walk to meet him.

Minutes later the embalmer and hearse driver pushed a gurney down the sidewalk and descended into the cellar with a dead body. The child squatted behind the tree and waited until the man had driven the hearse away, then sprinted toward the back porch.

Racing across the porch into the kitchen, the child made it to the entrance hall before the embalmer stepped out. “You think I don’t know what you’re up to, sneaking around, breaking my rules. You think your mother can hide you behind her skirts now?”

The embalmer grabbed the child around the waist and descended into the cellar. “You broke my rules on purpose, didn’t you? You were spying on me in the cellar, weren’t you? Well, I’m going to show you what I do all day in the cellar. It’s about time you earned your keep, you lazy, ugly brat.”

The words were mouthed in the embalmer’s awful, vicious whisper, and the child was terrified. The cellar was big and dark except for bright circles of fluorescent light that shone down on two long metal tables. Naked bodies lay on both embalming tables, and one had strange black hoses snaking from the corpses into big brown bottles. It smelled terrible, like the iodine the mother put on the child’s half-moon cuts after the beatings. Another smell came from the dead bodies, a strange, unpleasant odor, and the air was so cold that the child shivered uncontrollably.

The father forced the child to sit on the table beside the body from the black hearse. “I’ll teach you to go outside alone. I’ll teach you to be disobedient. You’re just like your mother. Evil, pure evil.” He reached over and dipped his hand in the blood pooled at the end of the slanted table. He smeared it on the child’s face. “You’ve got the blood of this dead man on you, you ungrateful brat. Don’t you move. You’re not going to cry, are you? You know what happens when you cry. Go ahead, cry like a little baby.”

The child didn’t move as the embalmer began his work on the corpse; didn’t cry when the scalpel slit open the veins and the blood began to drain.

The child was seven years old.