the same lacy top as the noose.
After several minutes, Neil returned with Bobby Mangini, another body collector, and the officer who had discovered Terry. “They’re going to take her now.”
“I’d like to talk to Officer Abraham first.” Mangini and his assistant took the cue and went back out. Neil slunk against the wall, eyeing Steve.
Abraham was a square, athletic guy with a smooth boyish face that made him look like a high school linebacker. He was clearly unnerved by the sight, trying not to look at the body. “How long you been on the force?”
“Almost two months.”
“You’ll see worse,” Steve said. “When you entered the apartment, who was here?”
“The landlady, Jean Sabo, and the woman’s friend, Katie Beals.”
“Were the lights on or off when they discovered her?”
“They said they were off.”
“How about in the rest of the apartment?”
“The landlady said the lights were on in the kitchen and living room but not here.”
“Did you touch anything in this room or the other rooms?”
“No, sir.”
“How about the body?”
“I checked her carotid artery to confirm she was dead, but that was it.”
“Did either of the two women touch her body or anything in the room?”
“No, sir. They were pretty upset and had to leave. I told them to wait in the other room.”
Steve glanced at the body again. Her fisted hands meant she had died in agony. “What about the bed?”
“The bed, sir?”
Steve lifted the bottom sheet stretched over the mattress. The tag said Model—StroboMatic 10. “It’s an orthopedic bed with motors that have a back and foot lift. It’s also got a back massage.” Steve nodded at the nightstand. “That’s a cordless remote.”
“Jeez, I thought that was for the TV.”
“They look alike. Was the bed motor on?”
“Not that I could tell.”
With his gloved hand, Steve inspected the remote. It had a timer setting—a maximum of an hour. “How about the AC?”
“It was on.” He slid a glance toward Neil.
“I turned it off,” Neil said. “It was freezing in here.” He raised the clipboard in his hand. “I got it noted in the report.”
Steve nodded and looked at Abraham. “It’s a pretty nasty sight, especially with the girlfriend and landlady, but I’m wondering if you put the sheet over her.”
“No, sir. I think it was the M.E.’s.”
“M.E. sheets are blue.”
“I sheeted her,” Neil said. In his hand was a photo of the victim posing with another woman in a backyard setting.
“Thank you, Officer. I’ll catch you later.” Abraham nodded and left the room. Steve moved to Neil. “You sheeted her?”
“Yeah. I got it out of her closet.”
“You might have contaminated evidence.”
“Evidence of what? She died of an accident.”
“That doesn’t tell me why you sheeted her.”
“The guys were coming in and out.”
“They’re crime-scene body collectors! They see this all the time.”
“Christ, I knew her. You knew her.” He stood the photograph back up on the table. “I didn’t recognize her until I saw the poster. A fucking waste.”
“I’ll say.” A uniformed officer with a sergeant’s badge entered the room—Rick Malloy from the Jamaica Plain precinct. Behind him were Bobby Mangini and his assistant. “Fucking beautiful piece of work is what she was.”
“Crime scene says they’re done,” Mangini said. “So we’re going to put her in a bag.”
“Not yet,” Steve said. The others looked at him blankly, resenting his rolling in late and stalling the wrap-up. “I’m just wondering if you or your team moved the body when you checked her. Shifted her around or anything?”
Neil rolled his head in exasperation.
“We looked under her to check lividity, but she’s pretty much like we found her.”
“Didn’t alter the position of her head?”
“Just to check the ligature under the towel, but her head position’s unchanged. Why?”
“Because the angle bothers me.” He moved to the bed. “Look at the ligature. All the pressure is on her throat and the veins and carotid arteries along the sides.”
“Yeah, which is how she died.”
With his gloved hand he lifted the plait of hair at the back of her neck to expose the
“So?” Neil said.
“How many hangings have you seen?”
Neil was taken aback by the question. “I don’t know. A couple.”
“How many accidentals?”
“What’s your point?”
“Look at the bruising on the back of her neck.”
“That’s the lividity.”
“Lividity works with gravity—where the blood settles. Look at the bottom of her face where it hangs over. It’s purple. This isn’t the same color as settled blood. That’s trauma.”
Mangini flicked on a penlight and inspected the ligature around the woman’s neck. “Could also be an abrasion.”
“Looks like even pressure marks all the way around, which I don’t think would happen with the stocking the way it is. There wouldn’t be any on that
“Only way to know for sure is to have the lab do a cell analysis.”
“We’ll put in for that. Also she was wearing a sexy evening dress and a thong—hardly an outfit if she’s going to lie here and sex herself. Even if she was, why leave the lights on in the other rooms if she was going to bed?”
“So, what are you saying?” Mangini asked.
“I’m saying I want crime scene to do a full-blown processing because I think someone was with her.”
Neil’s face flushed red. “I think maybe you’re taking this a little far, Steve.”
Steve nodded Neil to the other side of the room. In a low voice he said, “I understand how you want to wrap this up, but I’m not convinced this is an accident. Even if it is, nothing’s been dusted in here. The floor’s not been vacced. Nobody’s done a rape kit on the body. This is
“Because Mangini was convinced. The techs were convinced. And I’m convinced. She was having a sexual fantasy thing but passed out and suffocated.” He removed the mangled stirrer from his mouth. “This isn’t the Portman case.”
“Smooth, Neil.”
Three months before Neil joined the force, Steve had misread a crime scene, incorrectly declaring a suicide. The family had hired a detective who claimed that the investigators had jumped to conclusions and, as a result, the department ended up taking flak from the media. It was shoddy work and the inevitable manifestation of the stress from Steve’s alienation from Dana: heavy drinking, showing up late for work or not at all, use of excessive force with suspects. His superiors had reprimanded him, but when the Portman case hit the headlines six months ago, Captain Reardon suspended him for a week.
