Matter of Trust (8 page)

‘I think McNally is a good detective and he will do his darnedest not to allow his personal experiences to influence his approach to a case.'

‘I don't know about you, Joe, but if I'd lost Sara that way and saw this new victim, discarded in the Passaic, then . . .' said David.

‘Me too,' said Joe, with no further explanation needed.

‘So what is your friend going to do?' asked Joe after a time.

‘He's going to go to the police.'

Joe nodded, his shoulders dropping ever so slightly, perhaps in relief that David could now let this one go. ‘You did the right thing by calling him, David. Going to the cops is the right thing to do.'

But when David looked to his friend, he guessed Joe could see the relief was not exactly mutual. ‘He asked me to go with him,' he told Joe, knowing there was no point in beating around the bush.

‘
What
?'

‘Chris asked me to accompany him to Newark PD's 3rd Precinct at three o'clock this afternoon, and I said yes.'

‘Jesus, David.' Joe shook his head in disapproval. ‘This is a mistake. The man must have a billion attorneys at his disposal. This might not even be the same woman for Christ's sake – and, even if it is, if your friend is innocent, why the hell does he need a lawyer for in the first place?'

‘He doesn't need a lawyer, Joe, he needs a friend. I'll be in and out – one day, two tops.'

But Joe obviously wasn't convinced. ‘This is a mistake,' he said again.

‘I won't let it be, Joe.'

‘I've heard that before, David, but at least on those occasions you have limited your “leap before you look” approach to Boston. Newark is a whole new kettle of fish, my friend. You may know how this city works criminally, legally – but Newark, New Jersey? You might not be aware of what you're getting yourself into.'

‘I'm not getting into anything, Joe. And besides, I grew up in Newark, so how hard can it be?'

‘You're going where you haven't gone before, David.'

‘No I'm not, Joe.' He shook his head. ‘I'm going home.'

‘S
he was still alive when she hit the water.'

And there it was, plain and simple. Salicia Curtis had conducted most of the autopsy in silence and Harry McNally had not asked any questions, knowing the competent ME would summarise her findings when she was ready.

The examination had been gruelling, largely due to the putrefaction of the body. While the cold temperatures of the Passaic worked to slow decomposition, the reasonably stagnant state of the water surrounding the body hastened its decay. Further, a lack of freezer space in the morgue meant the body had had to stay in the cooler truck before being transferred for autopsy, resulting in further temperature changes and movement and further breakdown of examinable tissue and skin slippage which meant that the poor woman in front of them was virtually unidentifiable.

‘So it wasn't the blunt forced trauma to the head that killed her?' he asked, referring to the evidence of a blow and subsequent brain haemorrhage Salicia had also found during the course of the autopsy.

‘No, the blow to the back of the head was severe enough to cause the internal bleeding, and we could well have listed the subdural haematoma as the eventual cause of death if the victim had not been deposited in the Passaic before the cranial bleeding had time to send her into an
irreversible coma. But our friend here,' Sal gestured at the victim on the cold metal slab before them, ‘has water in her airway and stomach, and her lungs are swollen and there is evidence of bleeding which signifies an aggressive struggle for air.'

McNally nodded. ‘And the cold?' he asked, knowing the temperature in the river – a little over four degrees – was enough to send a human into hypothermia.

‘There's evidence of spasm of the larynx,' replied Sal, ‘which means she had a severe reaction to the sudden exposure to the cold. In fact, given she would have been groggy from the blow – and her heart rate must have decreased to a point close to non-existence – the massive drop in temperature would, at least initially, have helped her regain consciousness.'

‘Just in time to struggle for her life,' said McNally.

‘Yes,' replied Sal, ‘until the lack of oxygen sent her into cardiac arrest.' The ME took a breath. ‘Once again, hypothermia could have been listed as the cause of death if she had stayed alive long enough for her body temperature to drop below 77°F. That would have resulted in the enzymes in her body slowing down to the point where her vital organs were no longer able to function. But my guess is she was dead long before the one to three hour benchmark of hypothermia-related deaths in waters between three and ten degrees.'

‘So this vic had three doors of death to choose from – a blow to the back of the head, asphyxia or freezing to death?'

‘Pretty much,' said Sal, her eyes sad behind the plastic glasses. ‘But I'm afraid there was no choosing about it. The perp who hit her set the whole process in motion leaving her body no option but to take the easiest route out. At least the drowning must have been quick.'

If the words were meant to comfort him, they didn't. ‘You think she gave in?' he asked.

‘On the contrary, I think she put up a hell of a fight.'

‘There's more evidence of trauma?' asked McNally.

‘Trauma . . . and of rape.'

‘Aw, Jesus,' said McNally, unable to help himself.

Salicia nodded. ‘There were several bruises on the victim's legs, her face and her jaw, as well as evidence of fresh vaginal bruising and tearing.'

McNally shook his head. ‘And let me guess, that week in the water got
rid of every trace of evidence that could link us to the asshole who did this to her.'

Salicia did not answer, but simply offered him a smile. ‘Now you see, McNally, that's where the good news comes in. Freezing water may be deadly enough to kill a person but it can also act as a very effective agent when it comes to preserving criminal evidence.'

‘The cold preserved the seminal fluid.'

‘If there are traces of seminal fluid inside her, it well may have. But I won't know that until I analyse the swabs that I took.'

McNally nodded, praying they were going to get lucky.

‘It gets better if you're up for it,' added Curtis then, her smile widening, just a little. ‘I found some near-frozen skin matter lodged deep under the fingernails of her two remaining fingers on the right hand.'

‘
She scratched the perp?
' asked a now excited McNally.

‘Maybe,' Sal replied. ‘Cold, relatively stagnant water is a ME's best friend, McNally. I took several samples from both her uterus and her fingernails, and I think we might be in luck.'

‘You can get this jerk's DNA?' McNally needed to confirm it.

‘It's possible.'

It took all of Harry's strength not to run around the open corpse in front of him and offer Salicia Curtis a long and grateful hug.

‘Anyone ever tell you you rock, Curtis?'

‘Not since I was a teenager,' she replied.

‘Well, you do.'

Salicia smiled again. ‘I know.'

Newark, New Jersey

T
here was very little Gloria Kincaid did not know about her next-door neighbours. Short Hills, in the township of Milburn, was one of the most expensive suburbs in Essex County – hell, in New Jersey as a whole, and Gloria knew that keeping abreast of what went on in the two-storey Colonial that was number 14 Walnut Crescent was the most important task on her daily agenda – largely because it involved her keeping an eye on her son's activities and those of his substandard brood of four.

Right now she could hear her daughter-in-law apologising to the help. Something about forgetting to buy enough potting mix for the new rose bushes. Gloria was sitting at her sunroom window, which meant that if it weren't 11.45 on a Saturday morning, the Tremonts in number 12 would most likely have heard her daughter-in-law too (Nathan and Eleanor Tremont had a teenage daughter who played competition lacrosse every Saturday at noon which meant – as luck would have it – the trio would have left well over twenty minutes ago). It really was ridiculous, the way Rebecca clung to that working-class inferiority complex of hers. She was a senator's wife for Christ's sake, and at some point she had to let go of the Little Orphan Annie thing.

Lord knows she'd tried with Rebecca, and, despite her current frustrations, she knew she'd done a fairly respectable job, especially considering what she'd had to work with in the first place. Then again, Rebecca Gillies Kincaid might be a dull-as-dishwater also-ran with a plain face and cowering demeanour – but Gloria did have to admit that the woman had resolve. She clung to her husband like feathers on tar, no matter how little affection he showed for her. And that unshakable devotion to her politician spouse had worked appreciably in Gloria's favour.

The trick to it was knowing when to turn a blind eye. And Rebecca was very good at that. Perhaps her pathetic upbringing as the fifth of seven children born to a mother who'd spent twenty years as a check-out cashier at Wal-Mart and a father who ran a seedy-looking pawn shop in Jersey City had taught her a thing or two about denying the tragedies of reality.

Rebecca had it down pat. She ignored the fact that her plain twin daughters were completely devoid of any talent and personality whatsoever; she indulged her son in his sullenness and his extremely poor choice of friends; and she completely overlooked the fact that her husband's attentiveness ended the moment the cameras stopped rolling and, more to the point, she'd never once protested at his sleeping with her ex-best friend.

It really was quite remarkable, thought Gloria as she sipped her chamomile tea from a china cup and listened to her son's wife apologise to the gardener once again. It wasn't acceptable for her to forget to buy the regular garden supplies, but it was fine and dandy for her husband to continue his twice-weekly routine of fucking that slut. Rebecca would do anything to live up to her self-appointed role of devoted supporter, including denying what she knew to be true.

Of course, Gloria knew all about denial. She had perfected the art of discerning what matters she should confront and those she should obliterate from any form of acknowledgment many years ago.

She had learnt it from her grandmother – the beautiful Victoria Vandercamp who was born into money, married for more, and saw the regular payments to her husband's gambling debtors as part of the deal of being the spouse of a man of considerable means. She'd learnt it from her mother who overlooked her husband's infidelity in return for his last name of Astor and the country club kudos that went with it. And she'd applied such selective acknowledgment to her own life when, on the very night
her husband had been elected Governor, he had explained, in a moment of honesty and friendship that he was ‘batting for the other team'. He'd honestly believed that she had no clue – and was completely taken aback when she assured him she was quite aware of his sexual preferences and more than happy to continue their little charade as long as he remained discreet and continued his push for Congress. It really hadn't been that difficult.

And so, as Gloria sat back in her green chintz armchair, the sun now streaming through the eastern bay windows, and watched her daughter-in-law back down her drive in her BMW SUV to go to the supermarket to buy some more potting mix, she took comfort in knowing that she had stepped up again, this time by removing the only thing that stood between her son and the future that awaited him.

She prayed, then and there, that despite the emotional setback Chris would inevitably suffer at her action, that he would also be man enough to take the reins and run with them – that he had inherited enough political nous from his mother to realise that remorse was not an option, and enough strength and stoicism from the man who had fathered him to forget the mistakes of the past and keep the truth hidden. Just as she had done all those many years ago.

C
onnor Kincaid was having trouble breathing.

He was in the locker room. It was late. The rest of the team had left over an hour ago and Connor's back was sore from the numerous slaps of congratulation that he'd received after scoring a free throw to win the game for the Saint James's Academy home team.

Connor was good at sports. Not because he tried at them, but because they came naturally to him – like they had his father before him. Connor was tall and lean and good-looking in a dark and brooding sort of way. He was his father's son in so many ways, except for where it counted – when it came to charisma and personality and charm.

Connor lifted his head from his hands and saw his sweaty reflection bouncing off the bright red metallic locker doors. His image was distorted, the sweat running down his face looking more like droplets of blood than perspiration. The very image of it made him sick to his stomach yet again, as he pulled out his cell phone for the umpteenth time and willed it to ring or beep with a message from his two best friends.

Will had told him to chill – to go about his life and pretend that nothing had happened.

‘You know what you know,' Will had said. ‘But you're not going to do your father any favours by opening your goddamned mouth.'

‘You don't understand,' Connor had replied. ‘It's hard – pretending none of this has happened, hiding what I'm thinking . . . doing nothing.'

‘You've had that poker face since birth, Kincaid,' Will had retorted. ‘Just how fucking hard can it be?'

It was true what Will had said about the poker face. Connor Kincaid had been born without a personality. He was a mistake, an inconvenience, an embarrassing gaffe. He was the reason his parents had married. He knew this despite the fact that his parents never said it out loud. His grandmother had alluded to it, of course – usually when she wanted to bully his mother into something his mother didn't want to do. It was Gloria's way of reminding his mom that she was lucky to be a Kincaid in the first place – that the only reason she was brought into the fold was because she'd slept with his father and fallen pregnant during an unlikely one-night stand.