Bloodless (Aloysius Pendergast #20)(46)

31



COMMANDER DELAPLANE, TIRED, IRRITATED, and still covered with bug bites from the excursion the previous day, was not happy at being roused at three thirty in the morning. When she reached the scene of the incident, what a sight greeted her eyes: a body lay sprawled on the brick sidewalk, on his back—a young man in jeans and a T-shirt. The CSI team was setting up lights while McDuffie and his assistant crouched over the body. The couple who had found the body were off to one side, being questioned by Sheldrake. She could hear the husband’s voice, shaky and trembling, and the wife’s quiet sobbing. She felt a pang of sympathy for them, but it was overridden by her need for information, and she intended to wring what she could from them now, while the memory was still fresh.

Boom, the lights went on, and now the horrible whiteness of the body stood out: the skin like marble, the blue eyes staring upward, wide open in astonishment, limbs splayed as if on a torture rack. McDuffie stepped back while the CSI team surged in and began their work.

She waved McDuffie over. “What have we got?”

“Same deal,” McDuffie said. “Trocar, or big needle, to the femoral artery; same greasy lubricant; blood totally drained. Body temperature is still almost normal—I would guess this person’s been dead less than thirty minutes. His head is fractured, but the injury appears to be postmortem.”

“How do you know?”

“No bleeding—because he had no blood left to bleed.”

She shook her head. “Fractured how?”

“I’ll have to examine the corpse more closely in the lab. But from what I could see, there’s some hair and scalp on the pavement where it might have struck. Perhaps he fell.”

Delaplane looked up. There was a three-story brick building rising above the street, painted gray with white trim. The windows were all closed, but the building had a flat roof with a parapet. A light had just come on in an upstairs window, and she could see the outline of a person at the curtain, peering out at all the activity.

“Jumped or thrown?” she asked.

McDuffie nodded. “If he did fall, he must have been thrown after he was dead.”

“Anything else?”

“The individual was intoxicated. Strong odor of liquor, although it may be hard to get a blood alcohol reading, since there’s no blood left. We have other ways.”

She nodded.

“And there’s a trace of fresh vomit on his shirt.”

“Right. Thanks. I’m off to talk to the witnesses.”

The couple looked pretty destroyed, sitting on a bench while Sheldrake asked questions and took notes. Delaplane took out her cell phone and turned on a recording app.

“Commander Delaplane, Savannah Police. Mind if I ask a few questions? I’m taping, just so you know.”

The man nodded dumbly.

“Did you see what happened?” she asked.

Neither answered, so Delaplane asked the question again. “Mr. Ingersoll?”

He was a heavy middle-aged man wearing a light jacket, open collar, of completely unremarkable appearance.

He shook his head. “I can’t say. I felt this…this wind, and suddenly there was something on the sidewalk, and then…I fell over it.” He shuddered. “There was…” He halted.

“There was what?”

“Something brushed me, something horrible. A presence.”

“A presence? Like what?”

“No idea.”

“A person?” Delaplane tried to keep the impatience out of her voice.

“Not a person. A presence…”

“An animal?”

“I can’t begin…to describe it.” He put his face in his hands.

Delaplane turned to the wife. “Mrs. Ingersoll, did you see anybody?”

She shook her head wordlessly, trying to stifle a sob.

“Is it possible the body fell from above?”

More mute headshaking of uncertainty.

Neither was much help—at least not now. “Thank you,” Delaplane told them. “We’ll need to interview you tomorrow in more detail, so please don’t go anywhere.” She gave them her card. “Get some rest. Officer Rudd will see you back to your hotel.”

She gestured to Sheldrake and they stepped to one side.

“Got an ID from the wallet,” Sheldrake said. “Name’s Brock Custis, nineteen, college student, Auburn University. He was out drinking, which means there were others with him. We need to find them.”

“Christ, why don’t they go to Jacksonville and puke on the beaches like everyone else?”

Delaplane saw a shadowy figure at the edge of the crime scene. The black suit he wore made him looked disembodied, just a ghostly head and hands. There was someone else with him. They were standing back, motionless.

“Don’t look now,” she said, “but it’s Gomez Addams and his sidekick.”

The CSI team was now placing numbers on the sidewalk, marking where evidence was being collected. Delaplane watched for a moment, then turned back to Sheldrake. “I want to interview everyone, everyone, connected with this. The Ingersolls, any people the kid was drinking with, the bartender who served them drinks.” She pointed up to the house and the person at the window. “And that person. Eleven AM sharp in the precinct house. Think you can pull that together for me?”