Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry(69)
A middle-aged, balding man with a friendly smile and a folder in his hand hurried toward her. His sports jacket struggled to contain the wide shoulders beneath.
“You must be Gina,” he said, as a large hand enveloped hers.
“I am. Nice to meet you, Wes.”
“We can talk more afterwards, but I think you’re going to like what I brought,” he reported as he opened the door for her. Seeing no one, they walked down a hall. Viewing rooms were on either side. A man in a dark suit emerged from the one on the left and walked toward them. “Good afternoon. May I help you?”
“Yes. Thank you. My name is Gina Kane. Mr. Rigler and I are here to see Mr. Smith.”
“Right this way. He’s expecting you.”
Vaughn Smith looked up from his desk when he heard footsteps outside his door. He popped out of his chair, introduced himself, and shook hands with Gina. He looked at Wes and said, “You look familiar, but I’m not placing you.”
Wes smiled. “I was a detective with Durham PD. Retired now and working as a private investigator. I’m hoping we both can be of assistance to Miss Kane.”
“Me too.” Pointing to two chairs he said, “Have a seat. Let’s get started.”
Gina followed the same strategy she had chosen when discussing Cathy Ryan. Without identifying REL News, she explained that several young women had similar negative experiences at a previous employer. In Gina’s opinion the police in Aruba were hasty in attributing the death of one of the women as the result of an accident. Now a second was dead, and despite possible evidence to the contrary, her death had been deemed a suicide.
“Do you remember,” Gina wasn’t quite sure how to frame the question, “handling Paula?” she asked Smith.
“I do,” he said as he tapped on the laptop on his desk. “After the Durham police located the family, I was contacted by Swartz Funeral Home in Xavier, Nebraska. They sent me the authorization papers, which I took to the Medical Examiner’s Office to act on behalf of the family. The body was released to me.”
“Do you remember anything out of the ordinary about the injuries to her body? My understanding is that the police were investigating her death as a suicide.”
“I do. When a ligature, in this case a bathrobe sash, is used in a hanging, it generally causes contusions, broken blood vessels under the skin. I recall there was something odd about the ligature marks. Over my thirty years in the business I’ve handled a fair amount of suicides, including hangings. The contusions on her neck were not consistent with what I usually see.”
“Did you report this to the police?”
“I did, but I’m sorry to say they didn’t follow up. The opioid epidemic has kept us very busy.”
“Did the police do anything?”
“Not to my knowledge, but as I look at the date I can understand why. They had their hands full at the time. White supremacists were in town protesting a decision to take down a Confederate monument. Supporters of the decision were here in force. The police were preparing for a major confrontation that fortunately did not materialize. At a time like that, it’s easy for a case like this to not draw attention. With no family members screaming at the press for an investigation, no one wants to rock the boat. It slipped through the cracks.”
“Did you by any chance take any photos of Stephenson’s body?” Gina asked.
“No, I didn’t.”
Rigler interjected for the first time. “One of my former colleagues gave me these,” he said as he pulled a stack of color photos from an envelope.
“Are these released to the public?” Gina asked.
“Never,” he said. “I promised my friend I’d get the scene photos back to him tomorrow. I didn’t bring these up sooner, Vaughn, because first I wanted to hear what you remembered.”
Smith waved him off. “That’s fine, Wes. Let’s have a look.”
Rigler spread the photos of Paula’s nude body on top of the desk. He and Gina came to Vaughn’s side so they could look at them together. Vaughn had pulled a large magnifying glass from his top drawer and was slowly rotating it around the neck area in the photo of Paula’s upper torso.
Rigler pulled a paper from his folder and referred to it as he spoke. “The victim was found hanging from the door on the outside of the bathroom. The sash of the silk bathrobe she was wearing was tied around her neck as you can see in this picture,” he said, pointing with his finger. “The other end of the sash was tied to the door handle on the inside of the bathroom.”
Smith used a pencil to trace discolorations on Paula’s neck close to her jawline. “Contusions in this area,” he said, “are consistent with what you would find in a hanging.”
“I know I’m the novice in the room,” Gina interjected, “but isn’t the will to live very strong, even in a suicide victim? Once she started to strangle, wouldn’t she use her hands on the knot to try to save herself?”
“The process, losing consciousness and then death, happens much faster than most people realize,” Rigler responded. “The science behind it is fascinating. The rule of thumb is that after about thirty-three pounds of compression of the airway and only eleven pounds of pressure on the carotid arteries, the victim will lose consciousness and quickly die. When the ligature is pulled tight by the body weight, the victim quickly becomes unconscious due to lack of oxygenated blood to the brain. In movies and on TV shows they usually show a hanging victim that jumped off a chair or kicked aside a stool. You don’t need that. Victims often successfully hang themselves by sitting up against a door, tying the ligature to the doorknob, and leaning forward.”