Needle Work: Battery Acid, Heroin, and Double Murder(3)
Shanlian saw that it was a speckled shade of red indicating lividity; that is, a settling of the blood into that region. Since lividity had already set in, and rigor mortis, the stiffness that immediately accompanies death, had receded, it was safe to assume that she had been dead for over thirty hours. Unless, of course, someone had thrown her into a freezer to slow the whole “decomp” process down, which would completely foul things up.
Shanlian surmised that the victim’s attire was consistent with that of a waitress, someone who probably worked for a business called South Boulevard Station. If the killer was trying to make sure that identification was difficult, he never should have left the shirt on. Then again, he probably figured quite rightly that if the body burned, there would be no shirt left.
Searching through her pockets, Shanlian came up empty. No identification whatsoever. She also had no purse, no backpack, no nothing. Considering that she still had her ring on, they could eliminate robbery as a motive.
Today was Friday, casual day, and Shanlian had dressed in an open-necked sport shirt with jeans. When he had gotten the call, he had thrown on his sweater and overcoat and had raced to the scene. Now, he pulled his overcoat tighter around himself, but it did nothing to keep the chill out. Maybe he was getting too old for this work. Or maybe it was just the viciousness of the murder he was trying to keep out.
Shanlian stopped his musings. That was a luxury for another time. He reached inside his jacket to his belt, reminding himself that he had brought his gun.
He pulled out his cell phone; he always carried it with him now. It was de rigueur police equipment, a Nextel phone, broadcasting over digital lines so slaphappy hackers couldn’t listen in on the scrambled channels like they did on scanners. Most surveillance these days was done the same way and for the same reasons.
His digital call was to the county’s on-duty medical examiner, Dr. Wilys Mueller. He gave him permission to move the body. When the techies and police photographer were finished, the body would be transported to the county morgue. He also called Sergeant Ives Potrafka of his department and requested he come to the crime scene as soon as possible. Then it was a quick call to the on-duty county prosecutor, David Newblatt, who authorized the autopsy for the following morning at 11:00.
Next up was a check of missing person reports. Shanlian called the Flint Police and Central Dispatch and requested a search of all recent missing W/F reports that matched the victim’s description.
That brought negative results quickly: he could find no one missing who fit the dead woman’s description. Shanlian responded with a Statewide Administrative message, what used to be known as an All Points Bulletin (APB), requesting information on any recent missing person reports. Trying to match those to the victim also proved a negative result.
Sometimes, bad guys are captured on videotape before they commit the murder. There was one case in Tampa, Florida, where a serial killer named Sam Smithers walked into a convenience store with his victim, bought some stuff, and less than a half hour later killed her. The tape allowed the prosecutors to put him together with the victim before the murder took place. Shanlian requested that detectives retrieve any video surveillance from area gas stations.
A few minutes later, Sergeant Ives Potrafka of the sheriff’s office arrived on the scene to assist Shanlian.
“Ives, I want you to maintain the crime scene in order to free up other detectives for further investigation.”
It was a boring but important job; Potrafka had to maintain the integrity of the scene, not allow anyone to contaminate it and make sure that any evidence gathered by the Michigan Police Crime Lab found its way to Shanlian immediately. Most importantly, Potrafka would be in charge of making sure the body got transported to the morgue after the crime scene was completely processed.
Looking down at the victim’s T-shirt, Shanlian knew he didn’t have to be a Ph.D. to figure out what was next. He asked a female deputy to call all the local area codes and see if she could locate a restaurant called South Boulevard Station. She came back a few minutes later with the answer. There was a restaurant by that name in Auburn Hills.
Auburn hills. That was only an hour’s drive south. Shanlian hypothesized that maybe she was killed down there and dumped in his bailiwick. He wouldn’t know for sure until he went down there.
Two
Seated beside Shanlian’s desk at headquarters was Bobby Lee Locke. Twenty-three years old, he worked for a local cable company. Like most people, he had never been involved with violence, let alone murder. That all changed when he and his friends Del Crane, Alex Sexton and Dee Ryan had taken time off from work to go ice fishing at a county park set beside the Flint River in Flint, Michigan.
They got there a little before 1:00 P.M., he told Shanlian. As they got out of their van, their breath plumed out like smoke. The temperature was hovering just above freezing. The park was beautiful in the spring, summer and early fall. But by late fall, it was a dead place. Brown leaves that had not been covered by the white stuff lay lifeless on the snow-encrusted ground. Their boots crunched beneath them. They trekked east into the park, going toward the river, which was stocked with that delicious fish that would make an excellent dinner.
The pathway ran east from the parking lot, eventually terminating at the river. Trees bordered the trail, their naked branches hibernating against the coming winter. Across from them, running in the opposite direction, was a bicycle path, deserted and forlorn in the late-fall sun.