and I’m vaguely aware of how loud the flies have gotten inside the foyer. With doors opening and shutting as cops come in and out of the house, flies have invaded, shimmering like drops of gasoline, alighting and crawling, looking for wounds and other orifices to lay their eggs.
My attention snaps back to the display of my phone. The image is the same. Lucy’s empty dorm room as seconds tick by. Two hundred and eighty-nine. Three hundred and ten. Now almost six minutes and there must be something coming. Who sent this to me? Not my niece. There would be no reason on earth. And why would she do it now? Why after so many years? I have a feeling I know the answer. I don’t want it to be true.
Dear God don’t let me be right. But I am. I’d have to be in total denial not to put two and two together.
“They have vegetarian sandwiches if that’s your thing,” one of the cops is saying to me.
“No thanks.” I keep waiting as I watch, and then I sense something else.
Hyde is pointing his phone at me. He’s taking a photograph.
“You’re not going to do something with that,” I say without looking up.
“I thought I’d tweet it after I Facebook it and post it on Instagram. Just kidding. You checking out a movie on your phone?”
I glance up long enough to catch him staring at me. He has that glint in his eyes, the same mischievous gleam he gets when he’s about to spitball another lamebrain quip.
“I don’t blame you for entertaining yourself,” he says. “It’s kinda dead in here.”
“I can’t do that. I’m too old-school,” the trooper says. “I need a decent size screen if I’m watching a movie.”
“My wife reads books on her phone.”
“Me too. But only when I’m driving.”
“Ha-ha. You’re a real comedian, Hyde.”
“Do you think it’s worth stringing in here? Hey Doc?”
I realize another Cambridge cop has appeared. He starts in about how to handle the blood evidence. I don’t know his name. Thinning gray hair, a mustache, short and squat, what they call a fireplug build. He doesn’t work for investigations but I’ve seen him on the Ivy League streets of Cambridge pulling people, writing tickets. One more nonessential who shouldn’t be here but it’s not for me to order cops off the scene. The body and any associated biological evidence are my jurisdiction but nothing else is. Technically.
Yes technically. Because in the main I decide what are my business and my responsibility. It’s rare I get an argument. Overall my working relationship with law enforcement is collaborative and most times they’re more than happy for me to take care of whatever I want. They almost never question me. Or at least they didn’t used to second-guess hardly anything I decided. That might be different now. I might be getting a taste of how things have changed in two short months.
“In this blood spatter class I went to they said you should string everything because you’re going to get asked in court,” the cop with thinning gray hair is saying. “If you testify that you didn’t bother with it? It looks bad to the jury. What they call the list of NO questions. The defense attorney goes through all these questions he’s sure you’ll answer no to, and it makes you look like you didn’t do your job. It makes you look incompetent.”
“Especially if the jurors watch CSI.”
“No shit.”
“What’s wrong with CSI? You don’t got a magic box in that field case of yours?”
This continues and I barely listen. I let them know that stringing would be a waste of time.
“I figured as much. Marino doesn’t see the point,” one of the cops replies.
I’m so glad Marino says it. That must make it true.
“We could bring in the total station if you want. Just reminding you we have that capability,” the trooper says to me, and then he goes on to explain about TSTs, about electronic theodolites with electronic distance meters although he doesn’t use words like that.
I know your capabilities better than you do and have handled more death scenes than you’ll ever dream of.
“Thanks but it’s not necessary,” I answer without so much as a glance at the hieroglyphics of dark bloodstains under and around the body.
I’ve already translated what I’m seeing, and using segments of string or sophisticated surveying instruments to map and connect blood streaks, swipes, sprays, splashes and droplets would offer nothing new. The area of impact is the floor under and around the body plain and simple. Chanel Gilbert wasn’t upright when she received her fatal head injuries plain and simple. She died where she is now plain and simple.
This doesn’t mean there was no foul play, far from it. I haven’t examined her for sexual assault. I haven’t done a 3-D CT scan of her body or autopsied it yet, and I go through my differential about what I’m seeing as I ask what was in her bathroom, on her bedside table.
“I’m interested in any prescription bottles for drugs. Any drugs including medications such as lenalidomide, in other words long-term nonsteroidal therapy that is immunomodulatory,” I explain. “A recent course of antibiotics also could have contributed to bacteria growth, and if it turns out she’s positive for clostridium, for example, that could help explain a rapid onset of decomposition.”
I inform them I’ve had several cases of that due to a gas-producing bacteria like clostridium where literally I saw postmortem artifacts similar to these at only twelve hours. All the while I’m going into this with the police I keep my eyes on the display of my phone.
“You talking about C. diff?” The trooper raises his voice and almost strangles on his next fit of coughing.
“It’s on my list.”
“She wouldn’t have been in the hospital for that?”
“Not necessarily if she had a mild form. Did you see antibiotics, anything back in her bedroom or bathroom that might indicate she was having a problem with diarrhea, with an infection?” I ask them.
“Gee I’m not sure I saw any prescription bottles but I did see weed.”
“What worries me is if she had something contagious,” the gray-haired Cambridge cop offers reluctantly. “I sure as hell don’t want C. diff.”
“Can you catch it from a dead body?”
“I don’t recommend contact with her feces,” I reply.
“It’s a good thing you told me.” Sarcastically.
“Keep protective clothing on. I’ll check for any meds myself and would rather see them in situ anyway. And when you get back from Dunkin’ Donuts?” I add without looking up. “Remember we don’t eat or drink in here.”
“No worries about that.”
“There’s a table in the backyard,”
