The Ambassador's Wife (7 page)

“Give me a second before I lose my thought,” she said, not looking up.

“Take your time.”

At the sound of Tay’s voice the woman shifted her eyes toward him without lifting her head and, although she continued to write, he saw her examine him with evident curiosity.

“Please sit down,” she said, moving her eyes back to the file she was working on. “I’ll just be a moment.”

Tay sat on a straight chair in front of the desk and took the opportunity to make his own assessment of Dr. Susan Hoi. She was a looker. He had not been prepared for that. Her hair was short and stylishly cut and, although mostly black, there were highlights that appeared almost red under the fluorescent lights of her office. Beneath her white lab coat he could just see what looked like a square-necked black dress and a single strand of pearls. Pearls and a little black dress to cut up dead bodies? Who would have thought?

The woman sat very straight in her chair, her shoulders back and squared to her work, and wrote quickly with long, fluid strokes. There was something about her posture that Tay found very attractive, enticing even, but how could that be? When encountering a beautiful woman, surely not many men found themselves attracted to her posture. Legs, of course; breasts, yes; face and eyes, naturally; even occasionally arms and hands. Tay had heard there were some men who were attracted to women’s feet, but he couldn’t see Susan Hoi’s feet under her desk and doubted he was one of those men in any case. But to be attracted to a woman’s posture? What in the world did that say about him?

Before he could decide, she closed the file, adjusted its position on her desk in an unconscious gesture of tidiness, and smiled at him with what seemed to be genuine warmth.

“I’m glad you could manage the time, Inspector.”

“It wasn’t time I was short of.”

“Oh, I see.” Dr. Hoi readjusted the position of the file, although it was obviously unnecessary. “Actually, no, I don’t see.”

Tay nodded a couple of times while he was trying to decide what to say. He could make some kind of idiotic excuse, he supposed. Or perhaps he could just tell her the truth. If he did that, he would no doubt either get high marks for honesty or come off as a complete jerk. Unfortunately, right off the top of his head he couldn’t think up a convincing lie so it looked like he was stuck going with the truth by default.

“It’s just that I don’t like looking at dead bodies,” Tay said. “The sight of them makes me nauseous.”

“But you’re the investigating officer in a homicide.”

Tay nodded in resignation.

“Oh, I see,” she said. “This must be your first.”

“No, I’ve been in CID-SIS for nearly fifteen years.”

“Fifteen years? And you’re still avoiding dead bodies?”

“Yes.”

He waited for her to fill in the rest. It didn’t take long.

“So you’ve never attended an autopsy,” she said.

“No.”

“Or examined the deceased after the autopsy was completed.”

“No.”

“I see.” Dr. Hoi folded her arms over her chest and made a little clicking noise with her tongue. “Well, then. What shall we do here?”

“May I make a suggestion?” Tay asked, shifting his weight on the chair.

“By all means.”

“Why don’t you just tell me about what you wanted me to see? You could even draw some diagrams if it would help, or you know…”

Tay trailed off into silence, feeling like an idiot.

Dr. Hoi nodded slowly. “All right. That’s fine, I guess.”

She reopened the file she had been working on when Tay came in, glanced at it briefly as if to refresh her memory, then leaned back in her chair and steepled her fingers, unconsciously tapping the points of her forefingers against her lips.

“The deceased is a healthy, well-nourished Caucasian woman in her early to mid-forties. My guess is that she’s probably an American. I can’t be certain, of course, but both her dental work and the polish on her finger and toenails are consistent with an American origin. On the other hand, perhaps she’s French but gets her dental work done in the US and wears American nail polish.”

“That sounds pretty unlikely to me.”

“As it does to me.”

Dr. Hoi glanced down at her file again.

“From the temperature of the deceased, and taking into account the setting of the air conditioning in the room where she was found, my best guess is that the time of death was between eighteen and twenty hours prior to the discovery of the body.”

“That means she was killed…” Tay paused to calculate, “between five and seven Monday evening.”

Dr. Hoi nodded in acknowledgment of Tay’s mathematical acumen.

“Fingernail scrapings produced no organic matter and the body was relatively unmarked, except of course for the destruction of the face. There were, however, marks on her wrists and ankles that in my view are consistent with restraints having been placed on her in some fashion. At first I thought that might suggest the deceased had engaged in sadomasochistic sexual activity.”

Dr. Hoi glanced at Tay and in embarrassment he flicked his eyes to the blank wall just over her shoulder.

“On the other hand there was no evidence of recent intercourse, certainly no semen in the vagina, the anus, or the mouth. Of course, that’s not conclusive. The vagina was badly mutilated by the flashlight and I can’t be absolutely certain no penetration occurred, but the anus was intact and I saw no signs of penetration there. And, of course, her attacker might have used a condom.”

Dr. Hoi glanced at Tay again, but he was studying the wall with intense concentration.

“There’s also something else to keep in mind,” she went on when Tay wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Sadomasochism frequently doesn’t entail intercourse, at least not in the usual sense, so we can’t rule out the possibility of sexual activity based purely on the lack of any evidence of intercourse. She had been restrained, that we can say for certain, but the killer may have snapped the handcuffs around both her wrists and ankles simply for the purpose of killing her, not because they were engaged in some form of sexual activity.”

“Handcuffs?”

“Yes, definitely handcuffs. My guess is they were the plastic disposal type.”

“You mean like police cuffs?”

This time Dr. Hoi’s response came after a short but perceptible pause.

“Yes,” she said. “Quite similar or even possibly identical to police cuffs.”

A silence fell as Tay processed what he was hearing. Somewhere in the distance some sort of machinery whirred to life emitting a low-pitched humming sound.

“I gather you’re aware of the cause of death?” Dr. Hoi asked after a few moments had passed in silence.

“I assume it must have been the beating.”

“Certainly not. The woman was shot.”

Tay’s mouth dropped open.

“She was shot with a .22 caliber hollow point,” Dr. Hoi continued, “fired from a revolver with its muzzle placed in contact with her right ear.”

She made a little gun with her thumb and forefinger and then reached up and placed her forefinger into her ear.

“One shot,” she said. “Like this. Straight into the ear. Bam!”

It took Tay a moment to regain the power of speech, but when he did the words spilled out involuntarily.

“You’re shittin’ me.”

Dr. Hoi couldn’t suppress a smile. “No, Inspector, I shit thee not. This was why I wanted you to come over and look at the deceased yourself. Very unusual thing to see here in Singapore. Are you sure you won’t change your mind?”

“I’m sure.” Tay’s mouth was dry and he tried unsuccessfully to swallow. “Thank you.”

“Pity. As I said, very unusual thing.”

Dr. Hoi pursed her lips as if she was trying hard to recall something, although what it might be wasn’t clear to Tay.

“In any event,” she continued after a moment, “the entry wound is very small and completely hidden inside the ear. That’s probably why you missed it when you examined the deceased at the scene.”

“Probably,” Tay mumbled.

“The stippling is apparent once you find the point of entry and it leaves no doubt at all that this was a contact wound. The bullet took a downward path, entering through the primary motor cortex. There was extensive subdural hemorrhaging that ripped linear fractures through the entirety of her skull, then extended down to her neck. The consequential shock wave brought about major tissue trauma, which brought her nervous system to an immediate halt causing her blood pressure to drop like a rock.”

Dr. Hoi abruptly stopped talking.

“I’m sorry, Inspector. From the look on your face, I’m not sure you’re staying with me here. Is something distracting you?”

“Is something distracting me?” Tay rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ, does a cat have an ass?”

Dr. Hoi burst out laughing. “You do have a very colorful way of expressing yourself, Inspector.”

“My father was an American. He willed me his vocabulary.”

“That must come in handy in your line of work.”

“Particularly now. I’m bowled over.”

“Yes, firearms deaths in Singapore are unexpected, aren’t they?”

“I can’t think of one in years.”

“Well, you have one now.”

“There was no blood,” Tay said.

“What?” Dr. Hoi asked.

“There was no blood around her ear. None on the bed either.”

“Ah,” Dr. Hoi said. “I see what you mean.”

“Wouldn’t there have been bleeding? If she was shot?”

“Some perhaps. Not very much. As I said, the damage to the brain would have caused her blood pressure to drop very quickly and the entry wound was quite small. You didn’t see any blood at all?”

“No. The bed had been stripped.”

“Well, there you are. There wouldn’t have been enough blood to soak through the sheets to the mattress. It would have been easy to clean up the body as well. Although, offhand, I’m not sure why a killer would—”

“Did you recover the bullet?” Tay cut in.

Susan Hoi opened the center drawer of her desk, removed a clear plastic vial that looked like a pill bottle, and placed it on the desk in front of Tay. When he picked up the vial, it rattled loudly in the quiet office. Tay saw it contained nothing but some flecks of vaguely yellowish metal that looked more like pieces of glitter than a bullet.

“A hollow point,” Dr. Hoi said. “It exploded just like it was meant to. Then it pulverized her brain. I have nothing for you but these fragments.”

“A hollow point,” Tay repeated, still trying to process what he was hearing. “So you don’t think this could have been a crime of passion, the result of some kind of—”

“Inspector, this was an execution,” Dr. Hoi interrupted. “The killer chose a .22 revolver loaded with hollow points, a weapon that is useless for anything
except
an execution. Whoever this woman is, her killer came prepared to murder her and then coldly did so.”

“Then why did he beat her so badly first?”

“He didn’t.”

`”What are you talking about?” Tay asked. “Her face looked like hamburger.”

“The beating occurred postmortem,” Dr. Hoi said. “As you have already pointed out, there was relatively little bleeding. If the decedent had been alive at the time she was beaten, she would have bled a great deal.”

Dr. Hoi paused for Tay to frame another question, but when he didn’t she continued.

“Your killer handcuffed this woman’s wrists and ankles, put an assassin’s handgun against her right ear, fired one shot, and then used some sort of club to crush her face. The facial marks are consistent with the butt of a gun so I’d guess her killer shot her in the head and then used the same revolver to beat her face in.”

“Why would the killer beat her after she was already dead?”

“Rage?” Dr. Hoi shrugged. “That would be my guess, but you’re the detective here, Inspector. I just cut up dead bodies and try to find out what made them dead.”

Dr. Hoi leaned back and waited a few moments for Tay to speak again. When he didn’t, she fiddled briefly with her pen, then abruptly pushed herself away from her desk and stood up.

“That’s about all I have now, Inspector. I should get back to the report. I ought to have it completed by Monday and I’ll see that you get it immediately. Now unless there’s something else…”

“No, I don’t think so,” Tay said as he rose slowly to his feet. “Nothing else. Thank you.”

Dr. Hoi offered her hand and Tay took it. It was cool to the touch. He was suddenly seized by a wild impulse to pull it toward him, open her fingers, and press her palm to his forehead, but he resisted.

“Take a left outside and go through the door,” Dr. Hoi said.

“Follow that corridor all the way to the end and you’ll be back in reception.”

“Thank you, yes,” Tay said.

Tay sensed Susan Hoi was waiting for him to say something else, but he couldn’t think what it might be.

“Have a nice weekend,” she eventually said when he remained silent.

“Thank you.”

And then he left, closing the door behind him.

Tay followed Dr. Hoi’s instructions and before long found himself outside the mortuary, standing on a concrete walkway next to a lawn that was mowed as smooth and tight as a putting green. He got his bearings and began to walk back to his office, taking it slow.

That’s the ticket, Tay thought to himself. Take it slow. Take it all slow.

The afternoon was hot and clear and the sky was a dense, crystalline blue. It looked as perfect as the inside of a ceramic bowl.

EIGHT

THIS
time Tay remembered to bring the letter from New York home with him, but when he called that evening he was unable to reach the lawyer named Rosenthal. A secretary told him that Mr. Rosenthal was at his house at the shore and wouldn’t be in the office again until Monday morning. Tay left both his home and his cell phone numbers, suppressing his annoyance at finding himself a supplicant to a man who not only could take his Fridays off but also had a house at some shore. He hung up wishing he had never made the call in the first place.

It rained all day Saturday and Tay did nothing but read the Martin Cruz Smith novel, smoke, and think about the murdered woman. He felt as if he were becalmed in the eye of a hurricane. All around he could hear the wind howling and feel the storm coming, but he had no way to guess when or from what direction it might strike. Major cases were like that, he knew. Periods when nothing happened followed by periods when everything happened. Something would come up. He had no idea what it would be, but he had no doubt he would be off and running again soon. It always worked that way. At least it always had.