Murder Among the Angels (11 page)

“Not at all,” said Dr. Louria, ushering them over to the cluster of chairs by the windows overlooking the river, which glowed like polished brass in the afternoon sun. “What can I do for you?” he asked, once they were seated.

Leaning over, Jerry pulled the first skull cast out of the shopping bag, unwrapped the bubble wrap, and set it on the coffee table in a cork collar that he had borrowed from Jack Lister.

“This skull was found in a local cemetery,” he said. “It’s been identified by the state forensic anthropologist through the body parts that go with it as belonging to a woman of between twenty-five and thirty years of age, and standing about five feet six inches tall.”

Dr. Louria leaned over to look at the skull, and nodded.

Charlotte could detect no unusual reaction, but then the evidence of the plastic surgery on this skull was subtle. Even the forensic anthropologist had missed it the first time around. Maybe Dr. Louria too had overlooked the evidence of his own handiwork. If, indeed, it
was
his handiwork.

Then Jerry took the second skull cast out of the bag, unwrapped it, and set it in a cork collar on the coffee table next to the first.

Charlotte watched closely as the doctor leaned over to get a better look at the skull. There was no mistaking the signs of plastic surgery on the chin; they were apparent even to Charlotte’s untutored eye.

The doctor’s face was expressionless as he took in the skull’s general appearance. But when, upon closer inspection, he noticed the evidence of the implants, the color slowly drained out of his face.

“This skull also belongs to a young woman between the ages of twenty-five and thirty, and standing about five feet six inches tall,” Jerry said. “Like the first skull, it was found in a local cemetery.”

“A cemetery,” the doctor whispered softly as he fought to maintain a facade of professional decorum.

“We’d like you to confirm the observation of the state forensic anthropologist that these two murder victims”—he emphasized the words
murder victims
—“have undergone cosmetic surgery. Also, we’d like to know anything specific you can tell us about the surgery.”

“Yes,” the doctor said authoritatively, having regained his composure. “Both victims have undergone cosmetic surgery. The first appears to have had cheek implants, and the second to have had cheek, chin, brow, and posterior mandible implants.”

“How can you tell?” Jerry asked, obviously hoping that the doctor would say something that would give away the fact that he had been the surgeon.

“The chin implant is readily visible,” he said, pointing it out to them. “The other implants have left their marks on the bone. The implants rest directly on the bone, which has to be devoid of tissue before the device is inserted in order to provide a stable seal.”

“Is there anything specific about the technique that might help us identify who performed the surgery?” Jerry asked.

The surgeon shook his head. “I can’t tell much from the first skull, but in the case of the second skull, the technique that was used is standard: the surgery could have been performed by any cosmetic surgeon.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Jerry asked.

The surgeon shook his head.

“Thank you,” said Jerry, as he proceeded to rewrap the skull casts and put them back in the shopping bag. “It helps to have a prominent cosmetic surgeon in the community to assist us with these matters.”

“May I ask a question?” the doctor asked. “You’ve got my curiosity aroused, you see. When were these skulls found?”

“The first one was found late last summer,” Jerry said. “The state forensic anthropologist didn’t recognize until we found the second skull that the first one also bore evidence of cosmetic surgery.”

The doctor nodded. “I wouldn’t have either,” he said.

“The second was found this past Monday.”

“I see,” the doctor said. A mask of profound sadness had fallen over his face. Suddenly he looked old and weary.

After thanking the doctor, Charlotte and Jerry took their leave. As they were going out, the comedienne rose to enter. This time, she ignored Charlotte: “I won’t tell if you won’t tell,” was the implication of her attitude.

As they were leaving, Dr. Louria’s secretary emerged from an office off of the waiting room and held out a manila envelope to Charlotte. “I was going to mail this to you, but as long as you’re here …”

While Jerry rearranged the skulls in the shopping bag, Charlotte slid the contents out of the envelope for a surreptitious look. As she expected, it was the computer-generated portrait of her reincarnated face. Though she had seen the same image on the computer screen, the “hard copy” was much more impressive. Without the magnetic pen, the thousands of tiny pixels no longer carried the potential of flux, lending a new authority to the final product.

And there she was: looking younger, more vibrant, and more glamorous than she had in thirty years. She felt a surge of youthful energy. If looking
at
the picture made her feel like this, she wondered, what would looking
like
the picture make her feel like?

She had thought she had her mind almost made up. Now she was waffling.

On the way back to the police station, Charlotte once again found herself pondering the credibility of Dr. Louria as a murder suspect. After their interview with him, she had no doubt that he had performed the surgery. That much was clearly apparent from his reaction to the cast of the second skull. But she didn’t think he had murdered the young women. It was his sadness that had convinced her. She was sure that, until Jerry had unwrapped the skulls, he hadn’t realized that the young women were dead.

“What do you think?” she asked Jerry as they made the left-hand turn onto the Albany Post Road.

“I think he operated on the victims. But I don’t think he killed them.”

“That was my impression too. Why don’t you think he killed them?” she asked, curious as to his reasons.

“Because he wouldn’t have had to ask when the skulls were found,” he said. “Also, his comment about the cemetery. He wouldn’t have been surprised that the skulls were found in cemeteries if he was the one who put them there.”

“This is true,” said Charlotte. Though as she was well aware, people could dissimulate. “Let’s say for the sake of argument that we’re right,” she said. “That he didn’t kill them, but that he did create them, so to speak.”

Jerry nodded.

“If he didn’t create them in order to kill them, and thereby exert his contol over them—I thought that was a very good theory, by the way—then why did he create them?”

“Remember what Aunt Lothian said about the amnesia?”

Charlotte nodded.

“Maybe he wanted to bring his wife back. Maybe his plan was to create a new Lily: school her in Lily’s habits, speech patterns, manner of dress, and so on. Then he would announce to the world that she’d been the victim of amnesia and set her up in Archfield Hall as his wife.”

Charlotte thought about it for a moment, and then said: “Any discrepancies would be written off to the amnesia.”

Jerry nodded.

“I seem to remember Aunt Lothian posing a similar scenario, and I seem to remember you telling her something to the effect that this was real life, not the movies,” Charlotte commented. “But I’ll play along for the sake of argument. What would be in it for the Lily clone?”

“Money, position, glamour.”

“Yes,” Charlotte agreed. It was a preposterous scheme, but not outside the realm of possibility. She remembered a young friend of her stepdaughter’s—a French major in college—who had been paid by a wealthy family to pose as the deceased French wife of an elderly member of the family who had lost his mind. For many years, this young woman had lived in luxury as the deceased Marie-Claire, benevolently shepherding the doddering millionaire around the world according to the dictates of the social season. She had thought it a wonderful job, and had stayed in it for a number of years before marrying an heir to a great fortune whom she’d met through her putative husband’s social connections.

A girl could do worse, she thought. Particularly one who didn’t have anything to begin with. “Why more than one?” she asked.

“For the reason you gave earlier: that the first ones didn’t work out. They didn’t look right, or they couldn’t learn to hold their fork in the proper way.”

“Where did he find these girls, do you suppose?” she asked.

“We’re going to have to find that out.”

For a moment, Charlotte leaned back and imagined the doctor, like some latter-day Henry Higgins, teaching the young women to speak like Lily, to walk like Lily, to dress like Lily. Hadn’t Aunt Lothian said the young woman in the drugstore had been wearing sunglasses just like those Lily always wore. The Henry Higgins scenario would also explain why the girl in the drugstore had worn the same perfume Lily always wore. Suddenly, Charlotte sat straight up in her seat. “Jerry!” she said.

“What?” He looked over at her.

“The girl in the drugstore!” she said. “If Aunt Lothian was right that she looked like Lily, she might be the next victim.”

“Jesus!” Jerry said. “You’re right.” Instead of turning into the police station, he passed it by, and then turned left onto the road leading to Sebastian’s. “Lothian said she lived in Corinth,” he said. He looked over at Charlotte. “I hope you don’t have to get right back.”

Charlotte shook her head as Jerry felt around in his pockets. “Where’d I put that slip of paper—the one that I wrote the name and address that she gave me down on?” he asked himself.

“Doreen Mileski,” Charlotte said. “Thirty-three Liberty Street. It’s in your right pants pocket.” It was too bad she had never managed to stay married—she’d been widowed once and divorced three times—because she possessed a number of wifely skills that were going to waste.

Jerry shot her a look. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be able to remember anything once you got to be over seventy,” he said as he leaned back to extract the slip of paper from his pocket.

“My short-term memory’s still pretty good,” Charlotte replied. “From what I understand, though, I’m supposed to start losing it as I get older. Then I’ll only be able to remember what happened in 1942.”

“That’s the point I’m at now,” Jerry said as he opened the piece of paper against the steering wheel.

“Obviously,” Charlotte said.

“Doreen Mileski,” he read. “Thirty-three Liberty Street.”

6

It took only a few minutes to get to 33 Liberty Street. The house was located right down the street from Sebastian’s, which wasn’t much of a surprise, since everything in this little village was located within a stone’s throw of everything else. It was a small two-story colonial, painted white, as most of the houses in Corinth were, with black shutters and a front door of Chinese red. Next to the front door were two black wrought-iron mailboxes, one each for the upstairs and downstairs tenants. The label on the mailbox for the downstairs tenant read: D. Mileski.

Jerry climbed the steps to the small front porch and rang the buzzer for the downstairs tenant.

As they waited for an answer, Charlotte gazed out at the river, which was just visible over the roofs of the houses that stepped down to the riverbank, and which looked as smooth and peaceful as a lake. A riverboat was plying its way back downstream on the Manhattan-to-West-Point-and-back cruise that, along with the cruise that circled Manhattan Island, was a favorite attraction for tourists to the New York area.

When no one answered, Jerry tried the buzzer for the upstairs tenant, whose name was C. Wald. Judging by the muffled sounds of children playing, the upstairs tenant, at least, was home.

The buzzer was answered by the noise of someone thumping down the stairs in what sounded like wooden clogs. A moment later, the door was opened by a young woman with a pockmarked complexion and stringy brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. A child clung to her leg, and behind her the entrance hallway was cluttered with balls, bats, and assorted kiddie vehicles.

“Mrs. Wald?” Jerry asked.

“Ms. Wald,” she replied tersely.

He showed her his badge. “We’re looking for the downstairs tenant, who I understand is a young woman named Doreen Mileski. She didn’t answer the buzzer, and I wondered if by any chance you knew where she was.”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

She thought. “I guess it was a week ago last Monday. She was just going out walking. She liked to walk on the golf course early in the morning. I thought she might have gone on a trip, but her car’s still here.” She nodded at the tan Honda that was parked in front of a small barn at the back.

Jerry pulled out his pad and made a notation of the make and model of the car, and the number of the New York State license plate.

“How long has she lived here?” he asked.

“Since last fall,” she replied.

“This might seem like a peculiar question, Ms. Wald,” Jerry continued. “But it’s important to us. Did you ever notice any evidence that she’d recently had an operation? Any bandages, that sort of thing? Particularly on her face.”

She shook her head.

“Bruises?”

For the first time, the young woman appeared to take an interest in the line of questioning. “Why, yes, I did notice bruises around her eyes a couple of times. She would wear sunglasses and a scarf, but I could see the bruises through the sides of the sunglasses.”

Jerry nodded.

“I thought maybe her boyfriend had beaten her up,” she added. She said this as if it were a fact of life that women had to put up with.

“Any sign of a boyfriend?” he asked. “Or any other visitors?”

She shook her head. “Not that I noticed,” she said. “But I’m usually at work during the day. Has anything happened to her?” she asked.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out. Did she have a job?”

“I don’t know,” Ms. Wald replied. “She went out every day. But she wasn’t regular about it. One day she’d go out for an hour, the next for a whole afternoon. I don’t know much about her,” she added. “She wasn’t very friendly.”