Erasing Memory Part 2

"Later, Swets."

"Later, brother."

WALKING ALONG THE subterranean corridor from one pool of fluorescent light to the next, MacNeice felt slightly claustrophobic. The glossy white concrete walls and grey tiled floor that led to the autopsy room made for as unforgiving a s.p.a.ce as any he knew. He tried deep breathing, but the more he thought about breathing the harder it was to breathe, and of course there was that awful resident smell that clung to the clothes and in the nostrils and hair of everyone who spent more than an hour in this place. He paused for a moment before pushing the stainless swinging door, pulling his sleeve down so he didn't have to touch it with his hand. subterranean corridor from one pool of fluorescent light to the next, MacNeice felt slightly claustrophobic. The glossy white concrete walls and grey tiled floor that led to the autopsy room made for as unforgiving a s.p.a.ce as any he knew. He tried deep breathing, but the more he thought about breathing the harder it was to breathe, and of course there was that awful resident smell that clung to the clothes and in the nostrils and hair of everyone who spent more than an hour in this place. He paused for a moment before pushing the stainless swinging door, pulling his sleeve down so he didn't have to touch it with his hand.

The pathologist's a.s.sistant, wearing calf-high rubber boots and an ap.r.o.n like a fishmonger's, was hosing down the tiled floor. He looked up at MacNeice, nodded slightly and directed the hose away from the entrance. The stainless table was clean, thank G.o.d, and the body on the gurney next to it was covered by an opaque white plastic sheet. The pathologist, Mary Richardson, a tall, slim British woman in her late forties, was writing something on her clipboard. After checking her watch and marking down the time, she glanced over at MacNeice.

"Is that the young woman from the beach house?"

"Yes, it is. I've had a first look. I'm just making some notes before we put her away for the night."

"How did she die?"

"A needle in the ear. It broke through the ca.n.a.l into her brain, filling her temporal lobe with acid," the a.s.sistant interrupted. He could never resist the gory details, and the pathologist took on a look of resigned familiarity-like a mother listening to her son being rude at the dinner table.

Wedging his squeegee handle into the valley of plastic sheeting between the girl's feet, he pointed to his left ear. "The needle was eighteen gauge and at least three and a half to four inches long. Whoever did it had to puncture the tympanic membrane"-he motioned with his index finger, a sharp jab that made MacNeice flinch. "That's poetic, I think. The killer took out her eardrum first. Then he had a choice: go down the Eustachian tube or up slightly to the cochlear organ. Either way he'd have to punch through bone to enter the skull. He took the Eustachian route." Again he jabbed at his ear, and this time his head recoiled as if it had taken a shot. "Once inside the temporal lobe, he squeezed the syringe, and the rest...Well, sulphuric acid's like shoving a hungry rat into a bucket of burger meat-the rat keeps right on eating."

"Junior, that's enough." Richardson looked over at MacNeice, who was paler than when he had arrived, then shot a stern glance at her a.s.sistant, who nodded several times, picked up the squeegee and returned to his cleaning.

"Jesus Christ," MacNeice said. "Sulphuric acid-you mean the same as in a car battery?"

"Exactly. Garden-variety battery acid," Richardson said. "The likelihood is she didn't feel a thing; she'd been knocked out with something. Hopefully we'll find some residue in the Champagne gla.s.s or the bottle-they're with the toxicologist. But there's something else...."

"What else could there be?"

"The diameter of the needle would suggest a veterinarian more than a medical doctor, but he or she knew exactly where to insert it. Not one false start, no torn tissue other than along the track of the needle."

"Who do you think would know how to do that so precisely, other than a doctor?"

"Certainly not a GP, and in truth, I don't believe a vet. Even very few neurosurgeons would know how to hit this target as precisely-there's no reason to go into a brain that way other than homicide. Whoever did this has had practice, and I'd start there. Check and see if anyone else has had a brain melted by acid."

"Why didn't I see any blood? Wouldn't it have come back out the ear ca.n.a.l?"

She reached over to a rolling table and picked up a small steel object, examining it over her gla.s.ses. "It's brilliant, in a sick way," she said. "This is, in effect, an earplug. If it had any other function I cannot imagine what that would be. Once we pulled it out-you wouldn't have been able to spot it, Mac, the way it was placed-the ooze started, like pulling a finger out of a very nasty hole in a d.y.k.e. It was a first for both of us."

She was looking in the direction of her a.s.sistant, who was now leaning on his long-handled squeegee. Both sides of his mouth were curved down, but his eyes were smiling-he enjoyed grossing out cops.

"If you'd opened her eyelids," the young man volunteered, "the whites of her eyes would have been slightly grey, but by the time we got her, they were black. This is some new territory we've entered here."

The pathologist had lifted the plastic sheet and was looking down with disbelief and maybe even wonder. Fortunately for MacNeice, she'd only lifted it on her side. He had no interest in seeing what had happened to the girl since the cottage.

"But wouldn't the killer have have to be a medical guy?" to be a medical guy?"

"Not necessarily," she replied. "He-and I'm almost certain it's a he, as I don't believe a woman would have the strength in her hand and arm to be so precise with the insertion-could be a watchmaker or a diamond cutter. This was precision work, and when I think about it, it doesn't strike me as medical. And more to the point, Mac, a doc would have dozens of ways to kill her-a needle up the nose to the brain, for instance. No, this was deliberately, diabolically elegant. The acid took out the temporal lobe, then it ate through the midbrain, and that took out the heart and pretty much everything else. The heart stopped pumping in seconds, but the acid just kept going. If you had arrived an hour or two later, the acid would have been on the outside as well. She would have dissolved before your eyes." Richardson lowered the sheet.

"Rats in a bucket. We've flushed most of the acid out, but it'll continue to eat away at her," the a.s.sistant said.

MacNeice couldn't bear to look at him. "Any idea of the kind of syringe?"

"Not yet," Richardson said, "but I can tell you the acid would have dissolved anything plastic, so it must have been gla.s.s or stainless steel. Secondly, the amount of acid injected is more than most syringes would hold, and he couldn't have changed cylinders easily without wriggling the shaft. The shaft went in, it stayed in and then it came out. One deft move-no hurry and no hesitation whatsoever."

"Is there any medical application for a syringe like that?"

"No. This was a custom instrument with no other use for human or animal. It's hard to believe the damage done. Even when she arrived here, she looked like she'd just fallen off to sleep."

MacNeice said, "That was the plan, I guess. Laying her on the floor, starting the record player, placing her hand just above the turntable-and he knows we're all playing our part now. It's theatre." He turned towards the door, determined to get away from the smells, the stainless steel, the lighting and the constant dripping of-what? He didn't want to know. But then he paused and turned back to her. "Why the temporal lobe? I mean, why would he take out the temporal lobe? Why not the heart?"

"I have no idea. The temporal lobe is key to phonological recognition-language, sound. The acid he injected would have quickly wiped out the cortex and everything above and below. She was already unconscious, so she wasn't going to scream. That's the riddle, Mac. There are six other orifices, all untouched."

MacNeice tilted his head slightly as if cradling a violin between his shoulder and chin. "This was the ear positioned just above the violin."

"Oh yes, Swetsky told me about the 'hickey'-very funny. Yes, I suspected this was a violin player."

"So this wasn't just about killing her," MacNeice said. "That much would have been easy. This was a message for someone still alive-that's why the bother. And the real pain for that person or persons will begin when we break the news. We're the messengers."

Mary Richardson offered him a slight, sad shrug.

MacNeice nodded and put his shoulder to the door.

A LIGHT RAIN WAS FALLING LIGHT RAIN WAS FALLING. Caught in the triangular spill of the parking lot floodlights it looked more like mist, an unnatural yellow-white at the top of the cone, fading to a silvery blue where it met him. MacNeice looked up and closed his eyes for a moment, letting the rain kiss his face. He needed to go home and pour a grappa, listen to some music and try to forget until morning that someone out there had a mind more twisted than any he'd yet encountered.

Somewhere a dog was barking, a series of short warnings to something or other.

FIVE.

MACNEICE KNEW THE VALUE of exercise and had kept his regimen going even as his wife was dying. It was somewhat shy of spectacular but well above the level of essential. At forty-five vanity was waning for him, but he had structural issues-a knee, a shoulder-that if ignored would mean pain and dysfunction, and the latter was too humiliating to contemplate. The next morning he was up with the sun and on the stationary bike for an hour, pushing it, focused on speed and tension and sweat and escaping the memories that kept grabbing at him. of exercise and had kept his regimen going even as his wife was dying. It was somewhat shy of spectacular but well above the level of essential. At forty-five vanity was waning for him, but he had structural issues-a knee, a shoulder-that if ignored would mean pain and dysfunction, and the latter was too humiliating to contemplate. The next morning he was up with the sun and on the stationary bike for an hour, pushing it, focused on speed and tension and sweat and escaping the memories that kept grabbing at him.

He'd gone to a dinner a few nights earlier with Vic Tanaka, his old high school football teammate, who had taken it upon himself to represent the opinion of several of Mac's friends: it was time for him to move on, to try to leave the past behind.

MacNeice had suspected that a mission like that was the reason for the dinner, which was why he'd put away more than his share of two bottles of wine before the subject hit the table. Leaving things behind had worked whenever they'd had a bad game, but sitting in the back booth of Marcello's after a fine dinner, Mac went on the offensive. "I listened to Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald singing 'Stars Fell on Alabama' on the way over here. On the way home I'll probably listen to Miles Davis-h.e.l.l, I may even listen to Ama-f.u.c.kin'-deus Mozart-and no one would tell me that I had to turn those dead f.u.c.kers off and listen to someone who's still alive. But when it comes to someone who meant the world to me, who meant something to you too, Vic, you think it's time that I should just leave her behind?"

It had taken him two days to calm down enough to call his friend to apologize-not that he really needed to. All he could say was, "I can't let her go. I don't know how."

But now he had a purpose. He needed to find out who had created a needle that could puncture tissue and bone and inject sulphuric acid into a girl's brain. He should have told Vic that nothing gives a man new purpose like catching a killer.

THE FIRST THING HE DID when he got to work was log on to his computer and Google "manufacturer precision instruments Dundurn." Six names appeared; one he recognized as the tool-and-die maker who'd testified as an expert witness in a case involving the gift of a custom-made handgun that had come apart in the owner's hand the first time he attempted to fire the weapon. The single-cartridge split barrel had exploded backwards, slicing through the man's cheek and tearing off the hard-sh.e.l.l hearing protectors-with his right ear inside them-before embedding itself in the firing-range wall, next to a poster that read when he got to work was log on to his computer and Google "manufacturer precision instruments Dundurn." Six names appeared; one he recognized as the tool-and-die maker who'd testified as an expert witness in a case involving the gift of a custom-made handgun that had come apart in the owner's hand the first time he attempted to fire the weapon. The single-cartridge split barrel had exploded backwards, slicing through the man's cheek and tearing off the hard-sh.e.l.l hearing protectors-with his right ear inside them-before embedding itself in the firing-range wall, next to a poster that read SAFETY FIRST. UNLOAD AND LOCK YOUR WEAPON AWAY AT HOME SAFETY FIRST. UNLOAD AND LOCK YOUR WEAPON AWAY AT HOME.

Certain that, since his wife had hired the handgun's designer, the bolt had been intended to take off more than his ear, the man launched a civil suit against the gunsmith, a seventy-year-old Spaniard who insisted that the malfunction had occurred because the bolt had not been in the "lock and fire" position. Intrigued by the case, MacNeice had sat in on the tool-and-die maker's cross-examination. He had proved the Spaniard's a.s.sertion by rigging up the weapon in his own range. With the bolt locked, it fired perfectly. Unlocked, the rear end of the split barrel had disappeared into a six-foot Plexiglas cylinder full of rigid Styrofoam, captured from all angles by three separate video cameras. The charges were dropped and the wife of the scarred and earless gun collector sued for divorce the same day.

There were three other names, and two corporate ent.i.ties that sounded too large to be creating syringes out of stainless steel. The Spaniard, who would now be in his eighties, wasn't listed. He called the expert, Donald Ferguson, first.

"h.e.l.lo. Ferguson Engineering here."

"Mr. Ferguson?"

The refined English voice on the other end took his already cheerful greeting to a new level. "The very same, sir. How can I help you?"

"It's Detective Superintendent MacNeice. I watched you testify in a civil case involving a malfunctioning handgun some years ago. Do you remember the suit?"

"I remember it clearly. Miguel Figuero's fancy firing tool, the one with the split barrel. How can I help you?"

"If I can swing by this afternoon, say two p.m., I'd rather speak to you about it in person."

"Two is fine. I'll be in the shop out back of my house. It's 32 Glen Avenue."

"I'll see you at two."

MACNEICE CHECKED HIS WATCH-9:42 a.m.-and thought about another espresso. His pa.s.sion for espresso had risen to a new level once he and Kate had moved to the gatehouse and the nearest decent espres...o...b..r was miles away. The department had chipped in for a machine after Kate's death, as a way to show him they cared without having to say so. Swetsky had suggested that the real reason they had bought the machine was so they could keep him from disappearing for an hour just to get a coffee at Marcello's. It was Marcello himself who had arranged the purchase: "Buy Swiss-don't buy Italian. Trust me, I'm Italian."

The machine sat next to the regular coffee maker like a Ferrari parked next to a Dodge minivan. But other than MacNeice and Michael Vertesi, a second-generation Italian, and Fiza Aziz, the division's only homicide detective with a doctorate in criminology-and its only female-no one touched it. That was just fine with Mac; he'd taught both Michael and Fiza how to clean and backwash, how to grind and pack the coffee, what was great crema and what was burnt crema. Both of them loved coffee as much as he did.

He picked up the phone to retrieve his messages, the first of which was from Swetsky. "The owner of the cottage is out of the country golfing in Palm Springs. He's due to arrive home Sunday and no one at his office knows his exact whereabouts. So, short of doing the legwork to find him, that's all we've got at the moment."

The telephone rang a second after he hung up the receiver, the call display reading "DC Wallace."

"What can you tell me? I've got a press conference at ten thirty."

"Only that a young woman was murdered in a beach house up on Lake Charles and her ident.i.ty has not been confirmed. Pathology and toxicology a.n.a.lysis are underway as to the exact cause of death. We are actively pursuing leads as to the ident.i.ty and whereabouts of her killer or killers."

"Okay, and what can you tell me that I can't say out loud?"

"She was likely given a spiked gla.s.s of Champagne to knock her out, followed by a needle inserted in the left ear and an injection of battery acid directly into the brain."

"Christ almighty. What do you need?"

"I'm fine for now with Vertesi and Aziz. Swetsky's offered to pitch in when he can."

"Do you think this is someone who's likely to go for two?"

"I don't believe so. It was such a theatrical display of confidence, even arrogance, that I'm fairly certain there won't be another like it."

"You make it sound perfect."

"No, it was clean, but it wasn't perfect." Though MacNeice wasn't sure at the moment what the imperfection was, he was certain he'd find it.

"I hope you're right," Wallace said, and hung up.

The phone dead in his hand, MacNeice set the receiver back in the cradle. David Wallace was considered by both the city and the upper echelons of the force to be a serious and capable professional with no lack of ambition. While he likely knew that MacNeice had been offered the job of deputy chief just after he'd lost his wife and had declined, he'd never shown anything but respect for the older detective. This was due in part to the fact that MacNeice had the highest solve rate in the region for homicides. For his part, MacNeice considered Wallace to be a brilliant political strategist as well as a capable administrator. He respected his boss, and most of the time his boss left him alone to get on with things, which was what he needed.

MacNeice stared thoughtfully at the desks around him. The only thing he liked about the low part.i.tions that had turned the squad room into a cubicle farm was that they could pivot. For more intense investigations he could swing them inwards and create a semi-enclosure. The power, Internet and phone cables all ran along a raceway underneath the raised floor; if you took your shoes off-as MacNeice often did-you could feel it vibrating very slightly with the constant hum of words and images being transmitted to and from the unit.

THE TWO YOUNGER detectives knew some of the details of the events at the lake, the most salacious involving injection of battery acid into the brain, and thought they knew why MacNeice had requested command of the case. When he got up out of his chair and came around the corner of his part.i.tion, both of them instinctively stood up. Vertesi, not wanting to appear that he was eavesdropping, picked up a file on his desk and flipped it open. detectives knew some of the details of the events at the lake, the most salacious involving injection of battery acid into the brain, and thought they knew why MacNeice had requested command of the case. When he got up out of his chair and came around the corner of his part.i.tion, both of them instinctively stood up. Vertesi, not wanting to appear that he was eavesdropping, picked up a file on his desk and flipped it open.

"We're on," MacNeice said. "Vertesi, grab one of the large whiteboards from storage and some black, red and blue markers."

When Vertesi had rolled in the whiteboard, MacNeice began his debriefing, handing each of them a set of images of the snapshot and the key. Then he took up a black marker and made top-line notes on the whiteboard of what he knew, then, with the red marker, all that he knew he didn't know. When he was finished, he sat down, saying, "It's not much, but it's a start. We should be getting Palmer and Williams's report from the neighbour interviews today, but I'm not optimistic for two reasons-"

"Because Palmer's a d.i.c.k?" Vertesi often reached for a gag. Aziz and MacNeice usually ignored him unless it was really good, in which case they both cracked up. His Palmer shot was not good. "Sorry, sir. Two reasons?"

MacNeice began again. "It's a cottage screened from the road, spotless inside and out-not a grease stain on the garage floor, a scuff on the drywall, a worn bit of flooring, nothing. I'll be surprised if the neighbours have ever noticed anyone living there. Secondly, the other cottages are at least a hundred yards away on either side, with bush in between, and while sound carries near the lake-the guy who was out trolling had to be a mile away-this girl didn't scream; she just went to sleep. Though, I'll grant you, someone may've heard the Schubert."

"I'll find the landlord," Vertesi offered. He loved his work, but more than that, he loved that Swetsky hadn't taken the trouble to track down the owner, wherever he might be. "I'll also put out a feeler internationally to check for any similar killings, and I'll see what I can find out from Lock Tight about that key."

Aziz swung her chair back towards her desk. "I'll get onto the forensics team for their image bank and information about anything else they may have found. I'll also find out what Toxicology has on the contents of the Champagne gla.s.ses and bottle." Aziz was the only person in the unit who got respect from the forensics team. Vertesi was convinced it was because she had a better education than any of the propeller-heads in the lab.

"When is the pathologist's final report coming?" Vertesi asked.

"Tomorrow, but given that the brain was liquefied and there were no other signs of trauma on what was otherwise a very healthy young woman, probably the only thing we don't know yet is what the specific sedative was. Dr. Richardson was somewhat doubtful that Toxicology would be able to identify it precisely."

"If the gla.s.ses are connected to this and Toxicology can identify what was in them-other than bubbly-then we may have found the first imperfection," Aziz said.

"Possibly." MacNeice rolled the whiteboard off to the side of his desk. "But to toss the gla.s.ses into the bush, where we'd be sure to find them, could also be part of the plan.... I'm off to see Ferguson, the tool-and-die maker who made mincemeat of the malfunctioning-handgun civil suit several years ago."

Aziz looked at Mac hesitantly, then made a suggestion. "When you meet with Ferguson, ask him if he knows of any precision instrument freelancers who happen to be from the former Eastern Bloc."

MacNeice loved how Aziz's mind worked, how she was learning. It was as if she were leaping across a stream, landing on all the expected stones, then suddenly jumping to one not so obvious that gave her access to a shorter, surer route. "What makes you ask that, Fiza?"

Both Aziz and Vertesi were aware, perhaps more than MacNeice himself, that when he used their first names, it was a form of praise. Aziz smiled as she replied, "It just seems like something that would come from there. They developed a killing game of lethal subtlety during the Cold War, and skills like those don't disappear just because a wall comes down."

MacNeice picked up his notebook and jacket. "Aziz, when you're talking to Forensics, ask them for the designer label on that gown. Track down where it came from and find out whether the store clerk knows anything about the big night it was purchased for. I'll be off the radio, but you can reach me by phone or email on my cell."

On the way to the stairs, MacNeice heard Vertesi say quietly to Aziz, "'Lethal subtlety'? The Wall? You're a gen-i-us, Aziz, a freakin' gen-i-us."

"Why, Michael, my dear boy," Aziz replied, channelling the Queen, "you're too kind."

FIZA A AZIZ AND M MICHAEL V VERTESI couldn't have been more different, and maybe that was the magic of it. Aziz had been born of Lebanese Muslim parents who had escaped the inferno of Beirut to move to the U.K. in the 1980s. Her father was a mechanical engineer and her mother, a professor of biology. Their families had lived for generations in Beirut, where Christians, Muslims and Jews rubbed shoulders to such an extent that their many differences seemed to have worn away. Her parents were shocked when their world of peaceful coexistence dissolved, seemingly overnight. couldn't have been more different, and maybe that was the magic of it. Aziz had been born of Lebanese Muslim parents who had escaped the inferno of Beirut to move to the U.K. in the 1980s. Her father was a mechanical engineer and her mother, a professor of biology. Their families had lived for generations in Beirut, where Christians, Muslims and Jews rubbed shoulders to such an extent that their many differences seemed to have worn away. Her parents were shocked when their world of peaceful coexistence dissolved, seemingly overnight.

Fiza had been eleven when her family emigrated to North America so her mother could accept a senior post at Queen's University. By September 2006 Aziz had earned her doctorate and, with her parents' support, she entered the police academy's officer training course as its only female devout-as far as anyone knew-Muslim.

What sustained her, MacNeice imagined, was her sense of humour, which he took to be British. But there was something else about her, a quality he found both rare and fascinating. She was elegant even in cop clothes. Though her demeanour was somewhat distant, the smile that had briefly lit her face just now was a moment of surfacing beauty.

As remarkable as Aziz's journey had been, it wasn't preordained that Michael Vertesi would become a cop either-far from it. His father was a Sicilian who had come to North America as a child after the war. Michael had been born about two miles from Division but still considered himself to be Sicilian. He had run with a tough crowd as a teenager, one that saw three of his best friends incarcerated before they were nineteen. Vertesi was saved from a similar fate only by excelling at football.

MacNeice remembered the time another second-generation Italian had arrived in the department and Michael had asked him where he was from. The sleepy-eyed young officer had smiled and answered, "Napoli. Where are you from?"

"Head office, Calabria." Michael had shaken his hand, but neither man was smiling.

When MacNeice asked him later about the remark, Michael said, "Calabria, the toe of the boot, home of the families. I'm the only cop there's ever been in my family. My pop loves that."

Slightly younger than Aziz, he had joined the force at the same time. Michael had been with the department for six years and had distinguished himself not only as a uniformed officer but also as a student of officer-training courses with a focus on homicide investigation. His application for promotion to detective had come with a request: "If I'm chosen, I'd like to work with MacNeice."

MACNEICE TOOK LUNCH ALONE in the bar of a restaurant down the street from the division office. The television was on but he paid no attention to it until the local news program cut away to Wallace's press conference. in the bar of a restaurant down the street from the division office. The television was on but he paid no attention to it until the local news program cut away to Wallace's press conference.