Hawkes carefully made a Y incision, a cut into the body from shoulder to shoulder, meeting at the sternum and then going straight down the abdomen to the pelvis.
The interior organs were now exposed. Hawkes used a standard tree-branch looper to cut through the ribs and collarbone. He lifted the rib cage away to expose the heart and other soft organs which he took out and weighed. The next step was to take samples of fluid from all the organs, followed by making a slit in the exposed stomach and intestines to examine the contents.
When his examination of the torso was complete, Hawkes moved to Alberta Spanio's head, first probing the eyes for hemorrhages in case the victim was strangled before she was stabbed. Then he carefully made an incision in the scalp behind the head and peeled the skin forward over the face to expose the skull. With a high- speed oscillating power saw, he cut through the skull and opened it with a chisel, prying off the skullcap so he could lift out the brain in order to weigh and examine it without doing it any damage.
As he engaged in each step, he described what he was doing and what he saw. His words were recorded, and the tape labeled as evidence.
'Done,' he said finally. 'I'll get the samples to the lab.'
'Tell them it has to be done quickly,' said Stella. 'I'll prod them from our end.' It was not uncommon in New York for a homicide lab report to drag on for weeks or even months.
Hawkes nodded and moved to the sink in the corner where he took off his bloody gown and gloves, washed, and put on fresh gloves.
Stella felt light-headed, and it must have shown because Hawkes said, 'You all right?'
'Fine,' she said.
It wasn't the autopsy or the sight of the flayed corpse that was getting to her. It was the damn flu. She cursed the weakness, thanked Hawkes, and headed for the door.
'Now,' said Hawkes behind her, 'let's have a talk with Mr. Lutnikov.'
Fortunately for Stella, Lutnikov was Aiden and Mac's case. She wondered why one of them wasn't there.
Detective Don Flack had checked with the front desk and found out who had been in the rooms a floor up and a floor down from the one in which Alberta Spanio had been murdered. To be sure he also checked who had been in the rooms two floors up and two floors down.
The only potentially promising room turned out to be the one directly over the open bathroom window. It had been occupied by a Wendell Lang who had specifically asked for that room two days before and was told it was occupied. He had taken another room, paid cash, and moved into the one over Alberta Spanio as soon as it was vacated. Mr. Lang had checked out at six this morning.
Unfortunately, the clerk Flack got the information from had not been on duty when Wendell Lang checked in or out.
Flack took the original of the sign-in card, holding it carefully in the corners, and dropped it into a small plastic bag which he pocketed. Then, with a key provided by the manager, he went up to the room Wendell Lang had rented.
The room was small. The maid had already made it up. He found the maid with a cart in the hallway, showed his badge, and asked if she had vacuumed the room and if she still had the trash from the room.
The woman, Estrella Gomez, was chubby, fair skinned, and in her thirties. She had only a slight accent when she said, 'Room 704. Nothin' in the trash. No newspapers, nothin' in the room. Didn't use the towels. Didn't even sleep in the bed. I ran the vacuum. Tha's all.'
Flack told Estrella Gomez to go to the front desk and tell them not to let anyone have the room, that it was a potential crime scene. Then he went back inside the room that Wendell Lang had rented, went to the window, opened it, and looked down and out. Sheer drop and two problems. The window was clearly in view of anyone looking up from 51st Street or across the street from a high-rise office building. The chances of someone lowering himself from the window and not being seen were poor even at night, although Don Flack had seen stranger things.
Flack would know after Hawkes's examination just when Alberta Spanio was murdered. If the sun had already come up, someone climbing out of a sixth-story hotel room stood a more-than-even chance of being spotted.
As he pulled his head back inside the open window, Flack saw a mark in the center of the sill, a small indentation that cut a narrow band through the center of the white wood. The indentation looked new, the exposed wood clean. He touched it, confirmed it was fresh. He took out his cell phone and called Stella.
Just as he was about to knock at Louisa Cormier's door, Mac's cell phone rang. He didn't recognize the caller number on the screen.
'Yes,' he said, stopping and looking at the highly polished dark wood door finely engraved with curlicues and flowered vines.
'Mr. Taylor?' came a woman's soft voice.
Aiden stood nearby, aluminum case in hand, waiting.
'Yes,' Mac said.
'This is Wanda Frederichson. We'd like to postpone finishing until the weather clears and we can remove enough snow.'
Mac said nothing.
'Of course if you want to go ahead on Monday anyway, we'll do our best but we recommend…'
'Monday,' Mac said. 'It has to be Monday. Just do your best.'
'And you still want everything we discussed.'
'Yes,' said Mac. 'Long-range weather forecast says there won't be any more snow after tomorrow for at least a week.'
'But,' said Wanda Frederichson, 'the temperature is scheduled to remain around zero for at least seven days.'
Mac could tell that the woman wanted to say more, wanted to convince him to wait, but there was no waiting. It had to be Monday.
'And you did say there would be no guests?' Wanda Frederichson asked, double checking.
'None,' said Mac. 'Just me.'
'Ten A.M., Monday then,' Wanda Frederichson said, sounding resigned.
Mac flipped his cell phone closed. His eyes met Aiden's. If there was a question behind her brown eyes, she hid it. She knew better than to ask.
Mac used the knocker on the decorated door. From inside the apartment, he could hear five notes chiming.
'Never saw it,' she said.
The door opened. A petite woman in her fifties in a white blouse and blue skirt stood before them. Her hair was short, curled, and honey blonde, her eyes blue. Both the color of her hair and eyes were artificial, but nearly perfect. She wasn't quite pretty, but she had a delicate, made-up elegance and an almost sad smile that displayed perfect white teeth.
'Louisa Cormier?' asked Mac.
The woman looked at Mac and Aiden and said, 'The police, yes. I was expecting you. Mr. McGee called from downstairs. Please come in.'
'I'm Detective Taylor,' Mac said. 'This is Detective Burn. She'll wait for me out here.'
Louisa Cormier looked at Aiden.
'She would be more than welcome…' Louisa began and then looked at Aiden's jacket and said, 'Crime scene. The young lady is going to go over my foyer.'
Mac nodded.
'It's perfectly fine with me,' Louisa said with a smile. 'Not that I could do anything about it even if it weren't.
