“Or dom or domme, who knows yet?” Lauren was right. It could have been from foul play but just as easily from a practitioner with a cut from the torture session who stashed the clothes and ran in panic. “We’ll also ship that down to Twenty-sixth Street for DNA testing.”
Next Lauren called in one of the orderlies, who helped her roll the priest’s body on its side, exposing his back. It was a thatch-work of whip welts and bruises, the sight of which caused Nikki to draw a deep breath through her nose, which she immediately regretted. She held it together, though, and leaned close when the ME pointed to a geometric bruise pattern on the small of his back. “One of these contusions is not like the others,” said Lauren. Her eye for those details had helped Heat on numerous cases. Most recently, by spotting the marks left by a ring worn by a Russian thug who killed a famous real estate developer. This lower-back bruise was about two inches long, rectangular, and with evenly spaced horizontal lines.
“Looks like a mark made by a small ladder,” said Heat.
“I took some stills that I’ll e-mail you with my report.” Parry nodded to the orderly, who gently returned Graf to lie faceup and then left the room.
“Sweet anomalies,” said Nikki.
“Not done yet, Detective.” Lauren picked up her clipboard again. “Now, cause of death. I’m going with asphyxia by strangulation.”
“You hesitated this morning, though,” Nikki reminded her.
“Right. The signs were there, as I told you. The obvious being the circumstances, the leather collar, eyeball hemorrhaging, and so on. But I balked because I saw other indicators that could mean acute myocardial infarction.”
Heat said, “The bluish color I saw near his fingertips and on his nose?”
“Excuse me, who’s the ME here?”
“I get the significance, though. A heart attack could eliminate homicidal intent.”
“Well, guess what? He did have a heart attack. Turns out it wasn’t fatal, he was choked before it could be, but it was a hell of a footrace to see which would kill him first.”
Heat looked at the sheeted corpse. “You did say you smelled cigarettes and alcohol.”
“And his organs proved all that. But.” She gave Nikki a look of significance and raised the sheet. “Take a look at these burns on his skin. These are electrical burns. Probably from a TENS,” said Lauren, referring to a transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulator, a portable electrical generator used in torture play.
“I’ve seen TENS,” said Nikki. “I came across them in Vice.”
“Then you also know they warn against ever using it near the chest.” She lowered the sheet to expose Graf’s torso, where the electrical burns were intense, especially near his heart. “Looks to me like someone wanted to put a big hurt on him.”
“The question,” said Nikki, “is why?”
* * *
They rode up together to the first floor. Heat said, “Got a question for you. You ever seen anything like that before?”
“TENS burns as severe as those? Not like that.” As they reached the door to the NYPD office, Lauren said, “Know who I hear had some? That actor’s kid who was always in trouble and got killed in ’04 or ’05.”
“Gene Huddleston, Jr.?” said Nikki.
“Yeah, him.”
“But he was shot to death. Some drug deal, right?”
Lauren said, “Right. It happened before I started here, but conversation was that he also had TENS burns all over. He was one wild kid. They figured it was part of his freak.”
The NYPD office was empty. Nikki got her coat off the hook, but before she left, sat down at one of the computers. She logged on to the department server and requested a digital copy of the case file for Gene Huddleston, Jr.
* * *