Arbor Hill Read online

  “We got a possible white murderer in a largely African American community. Which means the DA, and my department boss, have put a rush on this one. I’m headed to the morgue to interview the pathologist performing the slice and dice on Missy. Wanna come?”

  “I don’t think he askin’, Keep,” Blood said.

  Miller put on his jacket, buttoned his top button, straightened his tie. He was a man who took pride in his appearance and the police force he represented. I liked him, both as a cop and a man.

  He opened the door.

  “Wait, Miller,” I said. “You referred to Missy as, Missy Neal McNamee. My client’s last name is McNamee.”

  “Good ears, Sherlock,” he said. “That’s right. Jason McNamee.”

  “You know him?” I said.

  “He was her husband,” he said, turning, and walking out of his office.

  13

  We were riding in an unmarked cruiser that was being driven by a uniformed cop who resembled Lurch from the Addams Family in both size and demeanor. Miller sat in the shotgun seat. He rested his arm on the seat and positioned himself so that one eye was on the road while the other was on Blood and me in the back seat.

  “Well, Blood,” I said. “I guess that answers the question of whether McNamee is a liar or not.”

  “But his check cashed.”

  “Yup, his check cashed.”

  “His check cashed?” Miller asked, surprised. “We still don’t have a hell of a lot on him. Other than we can’t find his whereabouts. But what we do know indicates he’s broke. Broker than broke.”

  “No wonder he wanted his eight grand back,” I said. “He was willing to pay me a one-grand advance to get it back.”

  “Plus, don’t be forgettin’ that extra thousand Missy spent on the boy,” Blood added.

  “Nine grand total,” I said.

  “McNamee supposed to be employed at the state,” Blood went on. “But he don’t work there.”

  Miller nodded.

  “He owned the house Missy was living in,” he said. “And a few more just like them. Run down, rat infested shit holes. Crack dens mostly.”

  I thought about Missy’s apartment. How nice and put together it was. But then I saw the rest of the building, and how much it matched Miller’s shit hole description.

  “How long McNamee been on your radar, Miller?” I said.

  “Quite a while, in fact,” he said.

  “Your buddies, Mr. Dreads and Mr. Oakland Raider,” Blood interjected.

  “Exactly, Blood,” Miller nodded. “They’ve been watching McNamee come and go from not only the apartment building where Missy was found dead but several more. They tell me he’s running oxy and other pharmaceuticals.”

  “Much to their liking,” I said, glancing at Blood. “My guess is they’re getting in on some of that action for their Clinton Avenue clientele.”

  “Hey, Keeper,” Miller said. “You know the rule of the streets, especially when it comes to Arbor Hill. Sometimes you have to look the other way when it comes to snaring invaluable information. McNamee could be a major player. My field snitches are all minor players looking for a quick buck. But that doesn’t make them any less invaluable to me.”

  “Way of the whole world,” I said. “So, where’s McNamee getting his goods? Who’s his supplier?”

  “We don’t know,” Miller said. “Not exactly, anyway. But I have a theory.”

  “And that theory is?” I said.

  “He’s somehow involved with someone or some organization that had direct ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Maybe a buyer or a manufacturer.”

  “Or a hospital,” Blood added.

  “That too,” Miller nodded.

  “Maybe he’s a brain surgeon,” I said. It was a joke.

  Miller smiled. But the smile quickly faded.

  “Lord knows you ain’t one,” Blood said.

  “Thanks, pal,” I said.

  He patted my leg as if to say don’t mention it.

  “But you smart in your own special way,” he added.

  Speaking of the hospital, the stone-faced cop behind the wheel turned into the Albany Medical Center. He bypassed the road that would take us to the parking garage and, instead, took the access road that led to the basement morgue. It was the same road all the area morticians drove several times a day. A lonely, cold road.

  Cemetery Road, they called it. The road of death.

  14

  I was no stranger to the hospital morgue. No decent lawman, private or otherwise, was. Pathology was where crucial evidence could be had on any given homicide or suicide. It wasn’t the big things that made or broke a case, like the remains of a self-inflicted shotgun blast to the head or an abdomen sliced open with a French knife. It was the little things. Sometimes, the microscopic things. A carpet fiber that would lead CSI to a specific carpet run belonging to a specific individual. A dog hair belonging to a dog whose owner had it out for the victim. An unusual STD that was shared by both victim and murderer. Bite marks that matched the perp’s dental records.

  In this case, we would be looking at both cause of death and manner of death. We’d also be looking at the little things that might not only point to the true murderer, but that would also get me off the hook as a possible suspect.

  We made our way into the windowless morgue through a set of big, wood, swinging double doors. There was music playing. Classical music. Lush, romantic music from an era long passed. The late English composer, Ralph Vaughn Williams if I had to guess. When I saw Dr. Georgie Phillips standing at his impressive, 1970’s era turntable stereo system which took up much of one entire stainless steel counter, right away the music made sense.

  Georgie hailed from the sixties. An ex-Viet Nam vet, he used every bit of his GI Bill to help pay for med school. That and the good will of his former employee, the late Richard Moonlight of the long defunct Moonlight Funeral Services who employed Georgie immediately upon his return from Hanoi back in ‘75.

  He stood tall and slim with long gray hair tied into a ponytail. His face contained white scruff that matched his hair, and under his green scrubs, he no doubt wore a pair of worn Levi jeans. Like me, he loved his cowboy boots. His were a worn pair of brown Noconas that were probably as old as his stereo system.

  “Keeper Marconi,” he said, approaching me. “And Blood too. My lucky day. Where you cats been, man?”

  I hugged Georgie. When I let him go, he hugged Blood.

  “What, no love for the Chief homicide dick?” Blood asked.

  Georgie smiled. “I see this palooka almost every day,” he said. “We practically live together.”

  The big room was covered from top to bottom in white tile, glass wall-mounted cabinets, stainless steel counters, and four individual autopsy tables. There were blue vats for collecting bodily fluids, and ceiling mounted weight scales like the kind you find in the produce section of the local mega-mart, not to mention saws, hammers, knives, scalpels, and other tools of the trade.

  The room smelled of disinfectant and formaldehyde, but it also harbored the vague aroma of marijuana. Which made sense since Georgie was famous for his brain buds. But due to his recurring skin cancer, his buds were perfectly legal. That didn’t mean certain visitors didn’t partake with him, however.

  I wasn’t partial to pot myself since it made me more paranoid than I already was, but Blood has been known to partake in a toke or two now and again. But with Miller on the case, chances were that no splifs would be burned this evening. Besides, I wasn’t exactly in a celebratory mood.

  “You boys are right on time,” Georgie said, turning the volume down on the music. “I’ve just about finished up with Missy.” He shook his head. “Damn shame. Beautiful woman. Healthy too with a lot of years left in her. I heard she left behind a little boy.”

  Miller turned, locked his eyes on the naked body laid out on a stainless steel table. It was the first time all of us paid her our full attention. I’ve seen my share of corpses and murder
victims, but this one robbed me of my oxygen. Missy truly possessed beauty even in death. Knowing she was alive and holding her little boy only a few of hours ago made the scene seem all the more sour and tragic.

  Since beginning this case, I had it in my head that she was running an illicit prostitution scam. But now, I couldn’t help but believe she was involved in something that wasn’t her idea and that was entirely dangerous to both she and her boy. I was also inclined to believe that the person who got her involved was none other than her husband. Earlier, Miller mentioned that she was more than likely killed by one of her overzealous Johns. But what he wasn’t letting on about is that the John he was referring to had to be her own husband and my client.

  Georgie stepped up to the body.

  “Don’t be shy boys,” he said. “She won’t bite.”

  I swallowed something bitter and dry, then got up close and personal with Missy for the second time that evening.

  15

  Her skin was pale, if not white. Her eyes were still open. Looking into them gave me chills. Her neck bore the bruising of a strangulation, and the ring or necklace of black, blue, and purple felt painful to look at. While her sex was covered over with a green surgical towel, her breasts were exposed. Aside from their chalk-white coloring, they appeared entirely perfect and unmolested. By contrast, however, the thick, raw scar from the Y incision that extended the length of her sternum, from claudel to clavicle, gave the impression of a piece of rare artwork or sculpture that had been defiled. Smashed into pieces by a sledgehammer and then haphazardly put back together again, the seams sloppy if not pathetic. There was a similar but narrower scar that ran along the top of her forehead. It was the place where Georgie accessed her brain, when he pulled it out, set it on the weight scale, weighed it, then returned it to its cranial home.

  This was Missy’s body, but Missy was long gone.

  Miller shoved his hands in his pockets, his eyes focused not on Missy’s body, but on a specific portion of the body—the neck. There was no emotion in his actions. Just pure, scientific police procedure. Miller was an old cop from another era long gone, and by now he’d witnessed hundreds of Missys. Thousands. Her neck, her life, her tragedy, her semi-orphaned boy. It was all too banally routine.

  “Cause of death,” Miller said.

  “Strangulation by force,” Georgie said, crossing his long arms over his chest.

  “Manner of death,” Miller asked next.

  “Asphyxiation.”

  “She couldn’t breathe,” Blood added, pulling a small bag of cashews from his pocket, tearing open the plastic wrapper.

  “Causes the respiratory system to collapse,” Georgie said. “Painful as all hell.”

  “She would have fought back,” I said. “Any signs she put up a fight, Georgie?”

  Miller turned to me.

  “My next question exactly,” he said.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I said.

  Georgie took a step closer to the body, gently took hold of her hands which were resting atop one another on her abdomen.

  “The fingernails are clean as a whistle,” he said. “No foreign skin, no hair. Nothing. Same goes for her teeth too.”

  “Could be the way he held her down,” I said.

  “That would mean he had to put his legs into it,” Georgie said. “More precisely his knees. As if holding her down on a flat, sturdy surface like the floor, for instance, and pressing his knees against her shoulders or forearms.”

  “But there’s no bruising on her body other than her neck,” Miller said. “None that I’m seeing anyway.”

  “Injection,” Blood said. “I bet she was injected with some shit that make her paralyzed. So she can’t fight back. Seen it happen before in Gangland. You inject somebody with something that don’t knock you out, but you paralyzed all the same. You can feel it when you bein’ strangled. You feel the pain.” He popped a cashew into his mouth.

  “Blood is right on,” Georgie said. “I too suspected the injection of something like Rohypnol, Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid or what’s known as GHB, or even Ketamine—”

  “Date rape drugs,” Blood said. He finished the last nut, tossed the empty plastic bag into the medical waste bin.

  “Exactly,” Georgie said as if experiencing a eureka moment for the second time that evening. “But those drugs can be ingested orally too. So, when I examined her stomach, I looked for traces, but didn’t see anything.”

  “Back to injection,” I said.

  Georgie raised his hand as if to say, yes, I agree. But don’t get ahead of yourself.

  He turned, made his way to the counter behind us, grabbed hold of a magnifying glass, brought it with him back to the body.

  “Keeper,” he said, offering me a wave, “give me a hand.”

  I swallowed something bitter and dry for the second time.

  “Me?” I posed.

  “What are you, chicken?” Georgie said.

  “Buck buck,” Blood said.

  “All in a day’s work,” Miller said, not without a grin. “’Sides, your direct participation in this pathological investigation is liable to keep you out of jail.”

  “How comforting,” I said, knowing I had my arms wrapped around this woman earlier tonight when she was among the living.

  I stepped up to the table. Georgie placed his hands under the body’s left shoulder, lifted up.

  “Hold this for me,” he said.

  “Don’t I get a pair of rubber gloves?” I said. “She’s evidence.”

  “Oh for God’s sakes, Keeper,” he said. “The cops are present.”

  “Okay,” I said, “forget I asked.”

  I took hold of her cold, very dead shoulder. It was heavier than I would have assumed. Dead weight. My stomach churned. It made me feel vaguely sick. I wasn’t about to vomit all over the floor, but I didn’t feel like heading out for pizza and beer either.

  Georgie leaned himself over the torso and positioned the magnifying glass over the section of exposed rear shoulder.

  “You see this, Miller?” he said. “You too, Blood. Check this out.”

  Miller stood over the body, brought his face close to the magnifying glass.

  “Looks like a small puncture wound,” he observed.

  Blood bent down, gazed into the glass. “That look like a needle mark to me,” he said.

  “Precisely, Blood,” Georgie agreed, his gray ponytail trembling with excitement. He gripped the magnifying glass handle like it was a syringe, raised it up high then came down with it, fast. “Somebody came up on her from behind and plunged the sucker into her back.”

  “Can I put her down now, Doc?”

  “Yeah,” Georgie said. “Be my guest.”

  I gently put her down, went immediately to the wall-mounted hand sanitizer, and proceeded to clean my hands.

  Miller said, “Somebody snuck up on her, jammed a needle in her from behind when she was least aware of it. Assuming the drug works fast, she collapsed on the spot. He wrapped something around her and began strangling her to death. Question now is, what did he use as a murder weapon?”

  “Judging by the size and dimensions of the neck wounds,” Georgie said, “I’m thinking it was a man’s leather belt.”

  Suddenly, all eyes on me. I’m rubbing the alcohol based soap into my hands, and eyeing them back.

  “Why you all looking at me?” I said. “Blood was with her also this afternoon.”

  “But she alive when I left,” he pointed out, not without a grin. “And I careful and smart enough not to touch nothing. You the man with the prints all over her place. You the man of the hour. You it, Keeper Marconi.”

  “Keeper,” Miller said, “surrender your belt, pronto.”

  16

  Of course, I had a choice here. I could either tell Miller to go to hell. That my innocence should never come into question, regardless of the prints found at the murder scene. Or, I could just play along and prove once and for all that I had nothing to do
with Missy’s murder.

  Unbuckling my belt, I pulled it off, handed it to Miller. He, in turn, handed it over to Georgie, who placed the belt directly onto Missy’s neck.

  “Not even close, Keeper,” he said.

  “Not that it proves anything,” Blood said. “Keeper could have ditched the belt he used to kill Missy with and grabbed another.”

  I turned to him so quick I thought my neck would snap in half.

  “For the love of God, Blood,” I said. “Who’s side you on anyway?”

  Georgie pretended to cough, but what he was doing was laughing inside his hand. It was a rarity for Blood to show emotion of any kind, but even he had to laugh now. Miller, on the other hand, was busy thinking. His eyes were still glued to Missy’s body like she was trying to tell him something but not quite using the right words. At least, not yet, anyway. In this case, the old adage proved true. The dead have much to reveal.

  “Keeper,” he said. “What time did you last see Missy alive?”

  “Had to be around six thirty this evening,” I said.

  “And Doc,” Miller went on, “what did you guestimate as the time of death?”

  Georgie once more focused on the body. Reaching out with his hand, he poked her thigh.

  “Given the present state of rigor mortis and marbleizing, I’m guessing about three hours ago. Give or take thirty minutes.”

  Miller looked at his watch.

  “If I do the math,” he said, “My guess is whoever killed her did it somewhere around six forty-five.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” I said. “Could it be possible that the killer knew she had a John upstairs, and he waited for said John to exit the premises before heading into the building and up into Missy’s apartment?”

  “Possible,” Miller said.

  “But would she be opening the door for a stranger?” Georgie asked.

  “What the doc said,” Blood interjected. “She may be getting her tricks on Tinder, but I’m guessing the Missy I met this afternoon ain’t openin’ the door for no creeper who come uninvited. Not in Arbor Hill. She have to have a suicide wish for that.”