“I watched that tape five times, and unless I’m beginning to lose it that leg definitely looks broken, though how in hell he’s walking on it is beyond me. I’ll let you form your own opinions, though. As for this,” she jerked her chin toward the empty table. “This is kind of odd. Looks like Boyd started at one end and kept opening doors until he found Ruger, and he clearly pulled out the drawers of Castle and Cowan, pulled the sheets back, and there is some indication that he did some damage to each body.”
“What?” all of the men said it in a shocked chorus, even Head, and she held up a hand.
“From what I can see—and Dr. Weinstock will have to verify this in a postmortem—it looks like Boyd may have intentionally damaged the already torn flesh on the throats of both corpses.”
Terry blanched. “But…
Sanchez shrugged. “My guess? He may have been trying to disfigure the bodies to make identification of the murder weapon more difficult.”
“You’ve lost me,” Terry said.
Weinstock was nodding. “All weapons, even very sharp knives, leave trace elements in the wounds, and by manipulation of the wounds we can often get a fairly clear picture of the type of weapon used in the murder—smooth-edged knife, serrated knife, garden trowel, what have you. Microscopic traces will tell metal from plastic from wood, and so on.”
“It helps in court,” Ferro added. “If the suspect is found in possession of a weapon and that weapon can be matched to the wounds…well, there you go.”
“Okay, I get it.” Terry looked at Sanchez. “So you’re saying that Boyd messed with the wounds to disguise the weapon he might have used? Wouldn’t he just have tossed the weapon away by now if he was concerned with that sort of thing?”
“Mr. Mayor,” Sanchez said, “I’m no forensic psychologist, but I don’t think we’re dealing with a rational mind here. There’s also some indication of ritual, and we might need a psychologist to take a look at that.”
“What do you mean by ‘ritual’?” Terry asked.
“Boyd apparently dribbled blood onto the faces and throats of both corpses. There’s no pattern I can see except that there are a few drops of blood on the lips of each and more on the throats of each.”
“Holy Mother of God,” Gus whispered and his face went gray.
Ferro grunted. “Sounds like Boyd’s really lost it. Extreme violence, apparently senseless acts such as stealing Ruger’s body, and now blood rituals.”
“I’ll back you up on that,” Weinstock said. “In purely clinical terms I think it’s safe to say that this Boyd character is a total freak-job.”
Sanchez nodded. “That part of it will be up to you to sort out, Doc. For my part, I also took some measurements of footprints and such.”
“The ones in the hall?” Head asked doubtfully.
She shook her head. “No, there was some water on the floor and he walked through it. Clear limp evidenced by the gait and spacing, and a step-scuff pattern that suggests he was partially dragging his right leg.”
“And yet he carried a two-hundred-pound man out of here over his shoulder?” Terry asked skeptically.
“If we hadn’t had that tape, sir,” Sanchez said, “I’d have argued pretty strongly for an accomplice, but the tape is the tape. You should watch it.”
They did, crowding into the small morgue office. Brad Maynard came down with a copy and they played it half a dozen times. On the sixth replay Vince LaMastra joined them, his face still puffy from sleep, his square jaw rimed with yellow fuzz. He watched the tape over Ferro’s shoulder and when Boyd, disheveled and very clearly limping on a twisted right leg, staggered out with Ruger’s body slung over his shoulder, he said, “That’s sick. He looks dead.”
“He is dead,” Terry snapped. “That’s why he was in the damn morgue.”
“No,” LaMastra said, reaching out to tap the screen. “Him. Boyd. He looks dead. It’s weird.”
They watched the tape a seventh time, and Boyd looked dead that time, too. No one said anything for a while. Finally Gus murmured, “I wish to hell he
Later three of them—Ferro, LaMastra, and Gus met in the doctors’ lounge. Terry left for home, and Weinstock was overseeing the post-forensic restoration of his morgue. Gus made a pot of coffee and they settled down with cups, looking over the staff rosters for that evening. “Most of the staff don’t have access to the door keys and security codes,” Gus said. “That leaves the maintenance staff, the security people, a few of the top docs, and the officers eating in the cafeteria—Head and Chremos from Crestville. And Jim Polk, who was here visiting Rhoda Thomas.” He consulted a chart. “Call it twelve people in all who were here at the time of the break-in.”
“Okay, then we need to interview each one,” Ferro said.
