Chapter 8: Inspector Moo

The Joke in Homicide about the morgue was that in spite of the lousy climate, the place was good for business. There's nothing like the sharp smell of the formaldehyde or the depressing sheen of the hospital-tilled halls to make The drudgery of chasing down dead leads seem like inspired work.

But as they say, that's where the bodies are.

That, and I got to see my buddy Fatimah.

There wasn't much to say about Fatimah Mohammed. Except that she was brilliant, totally accomplished, and absolutely my best frien in the world. For six years, she had been the city's chief medical examiner, which everyone in Homicide knew was underdeserving a title as there was, since she virtually ran the office for Anthony Righetti. Righetti is her overbearing, power thumping, credit-stealing boss, but Fatimah rarely complains.

In our book ,Fatimah is the office of the coroner. But maybe the idea of female M.E. Still didn't cut it, even in San Francisco.

Female and black.

When Gebriel and I arrived, we were ushered into Fatimah's office. She was wearing her white doctor's coat with the nickname" Butterfly" embroidered on the upper left pocket.

The first thing you noticed about Fatimah was that she was carrying fifty pounds she didn't need. I'm in shape, she always joked." Round shape."

The second was her bright, confident demeanor. You knew she couldn't give a damn. She had the body of Brahman, the mind of a hawk, and the gentle soul of a butterfly.

As we walked in, she gave me a weary but satisfied smile, as she'd been up working most of the night. I introduced Gebriel and Fatimah flashed me am impressed wag of the eyes.

Whatever I had accumulated over the years in the street smarts, she threw off in natural wisdom. How she balanced the demand of her job, and placating her credit seeking boss, with raising two teenage kids was a marvel. And her marriage to a Timothy, who played bass drum for San Francisco symphony orchestra, gave me faith that there was still some hope for the institution.

I have been expecting you." She said as we hugged." I called you last night from here. Didn't you get the message?"

With her comforting arms around me. A flood of emotions welled up. I wanted to tell her everything. If it weren't for Gebriel, I think I would have spilled it all- kelvin, Negli's- right here.

I was beat," I answered," And beat up. Long tough day."

Don't tell me," Gebriel chuckled." You guys have met."

Standard autopsy preparation," Fatimah grinned as we pulled apart.' Don't they teach you that stuff down at City Hall?"

He playfully spread his arms.

Uh-uh, said Fatimah, squeezing my shoulder." This you gotta warm. Anyway." She regained a time of seriousness," I finished the preliminaries just this morning. You want to see the bodies?"

I nodded yes.

Just be prepared: these two didn't make much of an advertisement for the modern Bride."

She led us through a series of closed compression doors towards the vault, the large, refrigerators room where the bodies were stored.

I walked ahead with Fatimah, who pulled me close and whispered," Let me guess. You gave Isaiah a kiss on the nose, and all of a sudden there was this charming prince."

He works for the mayor, Fatimah," I smiled back.

They sent him here to make sure I don't faint at the first sight of blood.

In that case," she replied, pushing the heavy door to the vault open," you better hold on to that man tight.

I had been having very close encounters with dead bodies for six years now. But what I saw sent a shiver of revulsion racing through me.

The mutilated bodies of the bride and the groom were laying side by side. They were on the gurneys, their faces frozen in the horrifying momen of their deaths.

Nathaniel and Lizzy Harry.

In their stark, ghostly expression was the strongest statement I have ever seen that life may be governed by anything fair or clement. I locked on the face of Lizzy. Yesterday, in her wedding dress, she had seemed somehow tragic and tranquil.

Today, in her slashed, naked starkness, her body was snarled in a freeze-frame of grotesque horror. Everything I had buried deep yesterday rushed to the surface again

Six years in Homicide, and I had never turned away. But I turned away now.

I felt Fatimah's hand bolstering my arm, and leaned into her.

To my surprise, it turned out to be Gabriel. I righted myself with a mixture of anger and embarrassment.

Thanks," I exhaled." I'm okay.

I have been doing this job eight years." Fatimah said, and this one I wanted to turn away myself."

She picked up a folder from an examining table across from Nathaniel Harry. She pointed to the raw, gapping knife wound on the side of his chest." He was stabbed once in the right ventricle. You can see here the blade pierced the juncture between the fourth rib and the sternum on the way in. Ruptured the AV node, which provides the heart the electrical powering. Technically. He arrested,"

He died of a heart attack!"

Gebriel asked.

She pulled a pair of tight surgical gloves over her hands and red-lacquered nails." Electromechanical disociation. Just a fancy way of describing what happens when you get stabbed in the heart."

What about the weapon?" I spoke up.

"At this point, all I know is that it was a standard straight-edged blade. No distinguishing marks or entry pattern. One thing I can tell you is that the killer was medium height, anywhere from five-seven to five-ten. And right handed, based on the angle of the impact. You can see here the part of the incision is angled slightly upward. Here," she said poking around the wound." The groom was six feet. On his wife, who was five-five. The angle of the first incision was slanted in the downward path"

I checked the groom's hands and arms for abrasions

Any signs of struggle?"

Couldn't the poor man was scared right out of his mind."

I nodded as my eyes fall on the grooms face.

Fatimah shook her head." That's not exactly what I meant. Kalistus's Roth's boys scraped up samples of a fluid from the groom's shoe and the hardwood floor in the foyers where he was found, she held up a small vial contains droplets of cloudy liquid.

Gebriel and I stared at it, uncomprehending.

" urine." Explain Fatimah." The poor man apparently went in his pants. Must have been a gusher."

She pulled a white sheet over Nathaniel Harry's face and shook her head." I figure that's one secret we can keep to ourselves.

Unfortunately," she said with a sigh," things didn't happen nearly as swiftly for the bride,"she led us over to the bride's gurney."maybe she surprised him. There are marks on her hands and wrist that indicate a struggle. Here," she pointed to a reddened abrasion on her neck." I tried to lift some tissues from under her nails, but we'll see what comes back. Anyway, the first wound was in the upper abdomen and tore through the lungs. With time, given the loss of blood, she might have died from that."

She pointed to a second and third ugly incision under the left Brest in a similar location to the groom's." Her pericardium was filled with so much blood you could have wrung it out like a wet dishrag.

You are getting technical again I said.

The tissuelike membrane around the heart. Blood and collects in this space and compressed the muscle so that the heart can no longer fill with blood from the main return. Ultimately, it ends up strangling itself.

The image the bride's heart choking on her own blood chilled me." It almost as if he wanted to duplicate the wounds," I said, studying the knife entry points.

I thought of that," said Fatimah," straight line to the heart.

Gabriel furrowed his brow," so the killer could be professional,"

Fatimah shrugged." By the technical pattern of the wounds perhaps, but I don't think so."

There was hesitancy in her voice. I looked up and fixed on her grim eyes." So what I need to know is, was she sexually molested?"

She swallowed." There were clear signs of postmortem penetration. The vaginal mucosa was severely extended and I found small lacerations around the introitus."

My body stiffened in rage," she was raped.

" if she was raped," Fatimah replied,"it was a very bad deal. The vaginal cavity was wide as I have ever seen it. Honestly, I don't think we are talking penile entry at all."

"Blunt instrument?" Gebriel said. Certainly wide enough... but there are abrasions along the vaginal walls consistent with some kind of ring." Fatimah took a breath." Personally, I'd do with a fist."

The angry schooling nature of Lizzy Harry's death shivered me again. So she had been mutilated, defiled. A fist. It had a blunt, savage finality to it. Her assilent wasn't just trying to act out his nightmare but wanted to shame her as well. Why?

"If you can handle one more thing. Follow me," Fatimah said.

She led us out through a swinging door into an adjoining lab.

On an apron of white sterile paper lay the blood-smeared tuxedo jacket we found next to the groom. Fatimah picked it up by the collar."Kalistus loaned it to me. Of course, the obvious thing was to confirm whose blood was actually on it."

The left panel was slashed though with the fatal incision and sprayed with dark blotches, of blood. Where this starts to get really interesting," said Fatimah is that it wasn't Nathaniel Harry's blood that I found on the front of the jacket."

Gebriel and I gaped in surprise.

The killer's?" He said, wide-eyed.

She shook her head.' No, the bride's"

I made a fast recollection of the crime scene. The groom had been killed at the door; his wife, thirty feet away in the master bedroom.

" How could the bride's blood get on the jacket?" I said, confused.

"I struggled with the same thing. So I went back and lined up the jacket against the groom's torso. The slash mark didn't quite match up with his wound. Look, the groom's wound was here. Fourth rib. The slashed mark on the jacket are three inches higher. Checking further, the damned jacket Isn't even the same brand as the pant. This is Joseph Abboud."

Fatimah winked, seeing the gears of my brain shift into place.

The jacket wasn't the groom's. It belonged to the man who had killed him.

Fatimah rounded her eyes." Ain't no professional I know will leave that behind."

"He could have been just trying to utilize the wedding as a cover," Gebriel replied.

An even more chilling possibility had already struck me.

"He could have been a guest."