“More to my point,” she said. “The mayor didn’t want a guy like Grimes running wild in his column with every crime story he could get his hands on. Politically, it was too risky.”
Suddenly the idea of plausible deniability was looking good to me. Was Grimes right? Do I truly want to know all this?
“If you’re about to tell me that the mayor bought off Grimes, don’t tell me,” I said.
“No, it’s not like that,” she assured me. “Besides, you could never silence a guy like Grimes, not for money. What you can do, though, is call on him first at press conferences, let him be photographed with you on the golf course, and make sure that when unnamed sources from the mayor’s office are giving quotes, it’s his number they’re dialing.”
“And in return?” I asked.
“Grimes treats Deacon with kid gloves,” she said. “That, and when a strange package shows up on his desk in the middle of a reelection campaign with your book and a bloody playing card in it, he calls the mayor’s chief of staff.”
“Who in turn gets you assigned to the case without its actually being a case yet,” I said. “It’s not public.”
“Not yet, at least,” she said. “As you saw firsthand, though, even Grimes has his limits when it comes to this arrangement.”
“Which leaves you stuck in the middle.”
“Stuck I’m okay with. Compromised is something else,” she said.
She didn’t need to elaborate. So far what was in the public’s best interest was aligned with the mayor’s interest. Meaning it didn’t serve anyone to have the public panicking about a serial killer on the loose. Not yet. But if the murders continued…
“You’re getting a lot of pressure from the mayor to catch this guy,” I said. “Before it gets out of hand.”
“More than you could possibly imagine.”
“Then we’ve got a medical examiner to go see,” I said.
“So you do think he missed something?”
“It’s a hunch,” I said.
She reached for her blazer on the back of her chair. She was up and ready to go. Meanwhile, I hadn’t moved.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked.
“Who else knows?”
She flinched. It was all I needed. That’s why she was acting different around me.
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind,” I said. “Let’s get going.”
Chapter 29
THE FORENSIC biology laboratory on East 26th Street, part of New York City’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner, reeked of antiseptic. And that was outside the building.
Inside, there was even more of a reason to hold my nose.
“Does he have a badge?” asked Dr. Ian Wexler.
That was his welcome to me when Elizabeth introduced us, straight past a hello and a handshake and directly into a massive attitude. It was classic Freudian displacement. He didn’t like a detective questioning his work but couldn’t kick Elizabeth out. I was the next best thing.
“No, Ian, he doesn’t have a badge,” Elizabeth said calmly. “I told you he’s a professor assisting the investigation.”
“If he doesn’t have a badge, he can’t be in here,” he insisted.
The “here” was the autopsy suite, where Wexler was setting up a full body X-ray on a cadaver. It was the second dead body I’d seen in as many days, and there was no shaking the horrible feeling that there were more to come.
For sure this room could accommodate them. There were at least half a dozen other examination tables—slabs—along with a series of deep-basin sinks and hanging scales that could’ve easily been mistaken for the kind you see in the produce section of your local supermarket. Although these particular scales were never going to be used for weighing bananas.
“C’mon, Ian, play nice,” said Elizabeth. “He doesn’t need a badge.”
Wexler stared at her. Then he stared at me. Up and down, a real good once-over. I figured maybe I could break the ice.
“Badges? We ain’t got no badges…I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badges!” I said.
“Yeah, ha-ha,” said Wexler, stone-faced. Not even a hint of a smile. “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Overrated movie, if you ask me.”
But it was enough for him to drop it. “What did you want to talk about?” he asked.
“Jared Louden,” said Elizabeth.
“The hedge-fund guy,” said Wexler, nodding. “Did you read the report?”
“We did,” said Elizabeth.
“Then what is there to talk about?” In other words, My shit don’t stink, and neither do my autopsy reports.
It was as if we barely had the doctor’s attention as he resumed fiddling with the X-ray machine. Whatever caused the death of the elderly man on the table in front of us—his otherwise naked body covered only by a small towel across his midsection—it wasn’t from an external injury.
As opposed to Jared Louden.
I chimed in again. I was, after all, the one who led Elizabeth here. “You wrote that he died from multiple stab wounds,” I said.
Wexler, now shaping up to be a first-ballot inductee into the Asshole Hall of Fame, managed to combine sarcasm, condescension, arrogance, and mild amusement into a single chuckle. “Did you reach another conclusion, Professor?” he asked.
“No, but I was curious as to how many stab wounds there were,” I said.
“You saw the accompanying photos in the report. There were too many to count. Mr. Louden was practically shredded.”
“That’s the thing,” I said. “The photos you included only show certain sections of his body, not all of it. You photographed all of him, though, correct?”
“Of course,” said Wexler.
“But you didn’t bother to count the stab wounds?”
Wexler glared at me. If looks could kill I would’ve been toes-up on one of his other slabs.
“No, I didn’t bother,” he said, beginning to lose his cool. “Again, there were too many to count…and I really don’t like what you’re suggesting, Professor.”
In that case, Doc, you’re really not going to like what’s coming next…
Chapter 30
I MUTTERED a few words under my breath. Loudly enough for the doctor to hear something, but not loudly enough to know what it was.
“What’s that?” asked Wexler.
“Three hundred and fifty-two,” I repeated.
He could hear me just fine now. He simply didn’t know what the hell I was talking about.
“That’s how many dimples there are on a Titleist Pro V1 golf ball,” I explained in response to his blank stare.
“Listen, Professor—”
“Four thousand five hundred and forty-three,” I continued, cutting him off. “That’s the number of words in the US Constitution. One thousand seven hundred and ten? That’s the number of steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower when it was first built.”
“Are you trying to impress me?” asked Wexler. “Or just piss me off?”
“I’m trying to get you to do your job,” I said.
“Telling you whether Jared Louden died of thirty versus forty or fifty stab wounds—that’s what this is about?” he asked.
“Not exactly.”