Best Laid Plans(5)
That perked up Lucy’s ears. “Wonky? Prelim said heart attack.”
“Right, and patrol cops can tell that just by looking at a corpse. I did an external exam when I got here and sure, it has all the signs of a guy getting his rocks sucked off until his heart gives out, but…” She motioned for Lucy to follow her.
Lucy hesitated, glancing around for Barry, but he hadn’t yet arrived. Her curiosity won out and she followed Julie. Yellow tape sealed off room 115, but the door was open.
Worthington was flat on his back on top of the stained brown bedspread. His pants and boxers were around his ankles. His shoes were on his feet. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned and he wore an undershirt. The man was lean and looked like he exercised regularly.
On the dresser was a half-empty bottle of cheap vodka and two plastic cups. Lucy breathed deeply. The room smelled dirty, and there was a sharp liquor aroma as well as the stench of urine. He may have thrown up, though she didn’t see any evidence of it from the doorway. His wallet was on the lone nightstand.
“Are you tired, or what?” Julie asked. “You look like you’ve been up all night.”
“Just didn’t get enough sleep.”
Julie nodded in commiseration, but said, “Look again—you’ll see it.”
Lucy looked again, taking in first the big picture, then the smaller details. “Okay—it looks too neat. A sudden heart attack isn’t instantaneous. He would have bunched up the comforter, tried to get up, maybe knocked over the lamp. Collapsed on the floor, across the bed, not laid out on his back. Called for help, maybe. But if he didn’t know he was having an attack, which is possible, he may not have reacted, especially if he was drunk or on drugs. It would be a massive coronary event, though, and the prostitute would certainly have known something was wrong.”
“True—too scared to report but not too scared to empty his wallet?”
Lucy didn’t comment. She’d worked enough cases with prostitutes to know that their psychology could be complex. The girl was more scared of her pimp than the police.
“Okay, I’m giving you a rough time because you really can’t tell unless we inspect the body up close and personal, like I did a frickin’ hour ago when I got here,” Julie said, looking over her shoulder and muttering about entitled nerds. She pointed to Worthington’s pants around his ankles. “The deceased peed in his boxers when he croaked. Bladder totally released.”
“Which would suggest that he was wearing them when he died.”
“Suggest?” Julie laughed. “Cops. All about alleged this and possible that. He was wearing them. And his pants, which are also soaked with urine.”
“Not sperm?”
“I know the difference between sperm and urine, Kincaid.” Julie rolled her eyes. “Of course I’ll test to make sure, but I’m not usually wrong.” She shrugged. “Maybe there’s nothing to it. Maybe the girl didn’t realize he was having a heart attack and thought he was just excited to screw her. But I think that a rich guy like Worthington would have found a better place to screw a whore, ya know?”
“It’s about power. Secrets. Discretion.”
“He could have bought discretion two miles from here at a four-star hotel. And why a street girl? There’s a whole business of call girls in town, you pay for discretion and a modicum of class.”
“The girl was underage, according to the witness, and that makes him a pervert. Perverts like seedy motels.” She was getting angry. Not so much at Julie’s flippant conversation, but at how her tone seemed to suggest that she condoned the whole sex business. Or if not condoned, at least tolerated.
But when powerful men like Worthington started using underage prostitutes, it wasn’t a new or sudden obsession. He would continue and eventually look at younger girls. Because it was about power and control, the need to dominate, the belief that girls were chattel to be bought and sold like animals. It wasn’t the crime scene in front of her that made Lucy’s stomach turn over uncomfortably, it was the motivation of the dead guy. She couldn’t muster much compassion for him. Maybe his death was divine retribution.
Officer Garcia called over to them. “CSI just pulled up.”
“It’s about effing time,” Julie said.
“And another fed.”
“Thank you,” Lucy said. She turned to Julie. “I’ve worked too many cases where prostitutes were beaten and murdered by men like Worthington. I don’t have a lot of sympathy.”
Julie assessed her. “Well, you’re welcome to sit in on the autopsy. Assist if you want—you have the creds. But trust me when I say this: I’ve worked in San Antonio for thirteen years, have been called to thousands of death scenes, and have performed over three thousand autopsies, everything from stabbings to strokes to heart attacks to sudden infant death syndrome. Some that looked suspicious, but were natural; some that looked natural but weren’t. Ninety-seven percent of my cases are routine, nonviolent deaths.” She paused to remove the crime scene tape so the two CSIs could go in and process the room. “My gut tells me Worthington falls in the three percent.”
*
Lucy approached Agent Barry Crawford as he was talking to one of the patrol officers. Barry was dressed impeccably, as always—pressed light gray suit, shiny black shoes, crisp white shirt. His blond hair was neatly trimmed and styled—and yes, perfect—and he looked like the stereotypical fed. He was physically fit and always wore a serious expression. Lucy couldn’t remember ever seeing him actually smile, and he never laughed. She knew very little about Barry because he rarely participated in casual conversation with the squad and never socialized after work.