“She must’ve been quite the athlete,” he said wryly.
“Don’t I wish.”
“Where’s it hurt?”
He stopped and reached out with both hands, feeling the bottom of my rib cage.
“Right there,” I said.
His nimble fingers worked around my sides and back again.
“Nothing broken. You’ll probably be sore for a couple of days. Let’s see what Mrs. Wilensky gave up.” He led me to his office, which was adjacent to the laboratory: a cubicle of a room large enough for a desk, a couple of file cabinets, three chairs, and a table that held a coffeemaker, a couple of mugs, a tall sugar shaker, and a bedpan full of ice, in which a bottle of milk rested. There was a calendar on the wall, displaying a drawing of the human form with all the vital parts identified on it. The motto on the bottom read topfer’s surgical instruments in large letters, and under that stainless steel precision tools for every occasion.
Ski was sitting in one of the chairs, staring stoically at the calendar. Ski could look at body parts all day long, but the aroma of death in all its incarnations really got to him.
I sat down next to Ski and Bones sat at his desk, which was piled with papers, books, a phone, and a human skull, which had an ashtray wedged inside it, just behind the gaping mouth. He rooted around in a desk drawer, ultimately coming up with a file folder, and proceeded to read from his report.
“Could you just reduce that to simple English?” Ski said after a moment or two.
Bones smiled, retrieved his cigarette, and leaned back in his chair.
“I make her closer to forty than forty-seven. Bleached blonde. In simple English, both lungs were full of water and traces of lye and other ingredients consistent with soap.”
“In other words, she drowned, as we suspected,” I said.
“Yes and no,” he said.
“Now what does that mean?”
“She drowned all right, but remember what I told you about electrocution?”
“Yeah, it’s the big freeze,” Ski said. “Everything stops on a dime.”
“Very good. So…?”
“So what?” Ski said.
“So how’d all that water get in her lungs?” He grinned like a man holding four aces.
It took a minute to sink in.
Ski said, “Uh-oh.”
I didn’t say anything. I just stared at him.
“In simple terms, boys, the lady was dead before the radio fell in the tub with her. You got yourself a nice, sweet homicide here. And a murder one unless the killer just happened to be strolling past Wilensky’s bathroom on his way home and decided to hold her underwater for four or five minutes. She broke a toe thrashing around and there’s some skin under a couple of her fingernails.”
“Please don’t say ‘I told you so,’ ” Ski said to me.
What had been conjecture on my part was now a reality. The assurance that Verna Wilensky was murdered in cold blood didn’t make me feel good. It streaked through me like a cold wind had sneaked through my pores. It chilled my heart. And with that came the realization that perhaps Culhane knew the truth and was simply toying with me, safe in the belief that somebody had beat murder.
“My guess is that whoever killed her knocked that radio in as an afterthought,” Bones said. “As most killers would, he probably thought he’d committed the perfect crime.”
We both sat there and stared at him.
“Homicide,” he said gleefully, and snapped his fingers. “Did I make your day or what?”
CHAPTER 18
I put on the red flasher, tweaked the siren, and made it to Pacific Meadows in a little under twenty minutes. I didn’t say anything on the way. Instead, my mind was working overtime. I was thinking of Verna Wilensky’s last minutes.
She draws a hot bath, lights a candle, folds her bathrobe neatly, and puts it on the toilet seat. She tests the water with her toe. Then lowers herself carefully in the tub, settles, takes a sip of her gin and tonic. Lights a cigarette.
Sinatra murmurs a love song on the radio.
She doesn’t hear the window in the living room slide up, doesn’t hear or see the figure slip through.
He walks across the room, peers around the corner of the bedroom doorway. He sees cigarette smoke swirling in the light from the candle. He slips into the bedroom.
He takes off his gloves and suit jacket. Lays them on the bed. Rolls up his sleeves. Flexes his fingers. He sidles up to the bathroom door, peers around the corner.
Verna lolls in the warm water. She takes another drag on the cigarette and snuffs it out, drains most of her drink. She is feeling light-headed. She closes her eyes, hums a little tune.
She doesn’t see the shadow wriggling on the wall as the candle dances to the movement the killer makes walking into the room. He walks up to the tub. Stands over her, flexes his fingers again.
His knuckles crack.
She opens her eyes. Looks straight up and sees the shape of her killer hovering over her. Before she can scream, he grabs a handful of her hair and thrusts her head underwater.
She begins thrashing.
Her killer is a shimmering silhouette filtered through water.
He plunges his other hand in the water and shoves her body against the bottom of the tub. The water roils as she fights to free herself.
She reaches up, scratches the killer’s hand. He pulls it away and her head breaks the surface of the bath for a moment. He plunges his hand down and shoves her head underwater again.
She is kicking and flailing her arms.
The last pain she feels is her toe, breaking against the side of the tub.
Bubbles burst from her nose and mouth.
She looks up through heavy eyes, sees her deliverer’s arms, wriggling as the bathwater floods into her lungs.
Then blessed sleep.
The killer holds her under until the bubbles stop. Until the thrashing stops. He stands up, looks down at his work. The music ends and the disc jockey’s funereal voice comes on. He begins to introduce a Glenn Miller tune.
The killer leans on the shelf, jogs it, feels the screws rip loose from the wall. He jumps back, holding his hands over his head.
The radio splashes into the tub, hits her on the jaw as sparks pop from it. The water sizzles for a second.
Then it is quiet.
The killer, satisfied, returns to the bedroom. He wipes his arms free of water but does not dry them with a towel. He rolls down his sleeves, puts his gloves and jacket back on, leaves by the window.
A dog barking.
Too late.
“Jesus, look out!”
Ski’s voice snapped me out of it. I was in the opposing lane. I swerved back just as the city bus rumbled by, its horn bellowing angrily.
“My mind wandered for a minute,” I said.
“Yeah, so did the car.”
“I was just thinking about the case.”
