“Moses called last night. No one at any of the other strip clubs knows Red Dress. Same response to Denny Rapfogel’s DMV photo, including the barkeep at The Booty Shop. I emailed the shot to James Johnson and got the same answer.”
He laid his phone on the table. Two swallows of coffee later, it played Beethoven and began jumping. He glanced at the screen, said, “The crypt,” and switched to speaker.
“Lieutenant Sturgis, this is Basia Lopatinski.” Mellow voice, Slavic accent.
“Thanks for calling back, Doctor.”
“Of course, I initiated the correspondence. As I said, I think it’s good to speak with you about your Jane Doe but maybe not over the phone?”
“I’ll come over there when it’s good for you.”
“I have just completed a two-day seminar on splenic abnormalities in Santa Monica and am about to have lunch nearby. Could you come to the Ostrich Café on Wilshire Boulevard? The internet says slow service but good food. I’m hoping they don’t cook big birds.”
I found the address and showed it to him. Just west of Tenth Street.
“See you in twenty or so minutes, Doctor. I might be bringing our consulting psychologist.”
“Very good, Lieutenant,” said Basia Lopatinski. “I may be how you say—spinning wheels—but I think it will be interesting.”
“Something not in the autopsy report?”
“I tell you when I see you.”
CHAPTER
16
Le Ostrich Café shared a block with a vegan restaurant, a high-end butcher shop, and a fish market. Nothing about the place stood out. A general practitioner among specialists.
Cramped, crowded interior with a take-out counter and a coffee bar. The fare on the chalkboard was pastries and salads. As Milo and I looked around, a woman in an oversized gray sweater and black jeggings stood up and waved.
Forties, leggy, model-thin, but half a foot short of model height. Short, wispy ash-blond hair topped a triangular face marked by a strong nose and an unusually broad, full-lipped mouth. One of those mouths that enjoys smiling and was having a grand time proving it.
Milo made the introductions, calling her “Doctor” and doing the same for me.
She said, “Basia,” and smiled even wider. Her barely touched meal was sourdough bread, cold string beans topped by sesame seeds, and a discouraged green salad.
She said, “I made an unfortunate choice. The only protein they have is chicken breast and that’s like blank white paper.”
Milo said, “We can go over to the butcher shop and get you some charcuterie.”
“It is tempting, Lieutenant. Please sit. Unless you want something here. Then you have to go there for order and pickup.”
Milo pointed to a jar on the counter. “And they expect tips.”
“Ha,” said Basia Lopatinski. “It’s better than Soviet Poland but not as good as America should be. Do you want something?”
“No, thanks, Doctor. We’re intrigued by your call.”
“I am intrigued as well, by your strangled Jane Doe. I requested to meet you away from the crypt and didn’t put what I’m going to tell you in the report, because recently we have instructions to adhere to observed facts and avoid theory. I, especially, need to behave myself because I am not full-time staff.”
“Freelancing?”
“That’s one way to put it, but really probation,” she said. “In Warsaw, I was a professor of forensic pathology. Here, I’m considered barely out of training. I just took my California and national boards.” She crossed her fingers. “Meanwhile, I am supervised and my current supervisor is the guy who wrote the no-theorizing rule.”
“Who’s that?”
“I’d rather not say, Lieutenant. Not that what I have to tell you is controversial. It’s merely outside the scope of my job description.”
“Got it.”
“Okay, then.” Another generous smile. “Initially, there were three things about your Jane Doe that stood out to me. First of all, the use of what was most probably a wire garrote in such an unusual manner. As you know, ligature strangulation is a comparatively rare cause of death. Even then, most ligatures are cloth—rope, shoelaces, clothing. A garrote fits more with a gangster execution—I saw a few when I did some training in Italy. In those cases, a strong, thin, band of metal was used and the wound was far deeper, generally close to complete decapitation. What we have here is basically a subcutaneous wound that only grazes underlying muscle. Yet enough pressure was exerted to bring about asphyxiation.”
I said, “Someone taking their time.”
“Someone exercising precise control,” said Basia Lopatinski. “If this was a musical matter, we might say a virtuoso performance in lento tempo.”
“That’s interesting. Maybe we’re dealing with a musician.” I told her about the guitar string gauges.
“Yes, I thought of that as well. But as I said, theory is not encouraged.”
She buttered a slice of bread, nibbled a corner. “The second initial point of interest is consistent with the first. As I’m sure you know, fentanyl is fatal in extremely small doses. I know you policemen wear gloves because even a subcutaneous dose can be dangerous. And when combined with heroin, the danger of a lethal overdose is significant. And yet we don’t have that. Not close. We have a cocktail with just enough to incapacitate, perhaps to the point of unconsciousness, perhaps only to the point of semiconsciousness.”
Milo said, “A sadist prolonging the process.”
Lopatinski took three more bites. “Yes, sadism makes sense. The third factor isn’t supposition, it’s correlation. Whether or not it’s a causal correlation—I’m being too abstract, sorry.”
She took a sip of tea. “The third factor is another homicide. A case I handled in Warsaw.”
Milo sat forward. “Unsolved?”
“No, solved. That’s what makes it even more interesting. I’ll summarize. Eight years ago I was a professor of pathology and deputy chief medical examiner at the Warsaw morgue. A victim came in, a prostitute dumped in a public latrine in a bad part of town. The murderer was caught—a career criminal who also played folk music on the street for gullible tourists. Ignacy Skiwski. I will spell that for you.”
Milo copied. “A latrine.”
Basia Lopatinski said, “Exactly, the first similarity. The others involved modus. Pre-injection—with heroin alone, fentanyl was not widely available then. Initially, the injection was believed to be in the antecubital fossa where an addict would inject.”
She patted the inner crook of her arm. “This victim was an addict, no one thought anything of it. But then we shaved her head and found the wound in the neck and I realized the arm puncture had already begun to scab so it was older. I informed my superior and he told me to concentrate on the strangulation because it was the true cause of death. I did, but what stood out to me was exactly the same as your case. No deep wound, just enough pressure with a metal garrote to cut off oxygen fatally.”
I said, “Folk music. A guitar string.”
She nodded. “The police recovered a cheap instrument from Skiwski’s room that was missing a string—I don’t remember which one. I termed the gauge consistent with the wound. As I wrote in your report, skin is not static, it moves around, so one can never be sure.”
I smiled. “That theory made it into Jane Doe’s summary.”
“Ah! You have found me out, Dr. Delaware. Yes, I slipped it by. In any event, Skiwski was apprehended and bound over for trial.”
Milo said, “How’d he get caught?”
“Another prostitute saw him leaving with the victim and the victim’s blood was recovered from his clothing. He never confessed but he had no alibi or explanation. Also, he had a criminal record.”
“For what?”
“Theft, drunkenness. More important, aggressions on women.”
“What kind of aggressions?”
“Beatings, intimidation.”
I said, “Sounds like low impulse control. When he graduated to murder he got sophisticated?”
“All I know is what I saw on the table. In any event, a month or so after Skiwski’s arrest, he hung himself in his cell.”
“Did he use another guitar string?”
“Towels,” she said. “For himself, he was gentler.”
I said, “How old was he?”
“Thirties—late thirties if I recall correctly. Why do you ask?”