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Nine Lives - A Dafydd Owen Story - Ep5

As I watched the ME load all that was left of Monica Wilson into a body bag I leaned over to Sarah. "Can you catch a ride back with the feds or with Paul? I'm going to the morgue. I want to sit in on this one."

She shuddered. "Do you do that often?"

"Only when I think I might learn something that's too important to wait for the official report, and I think that this is one of those times."

"OK." She wandered over to arrange a ride. I went and talked to the ME as the boat headed back to the landing stage and our waiting vehicles. I quietly walked up behind the stocky badger and spoke quietly enough that we wouldn't be overheard.

"Mind letting me in to the students observation bay for this one, Tim?"

"Something tweaked your whiskers?"

"Yeah, your frown when you got your first good look. I could see something was off myself from where I was standing, just not sure what."

"This one's going to be worse than the others, Dafydd. I called ahead and Tonya will be standing by to assist. If you want in the observation bay, be my guest."

---

The observation bay at the morgue was designed for students to study technique. It was in a raised area with an angled window that allowed a student to look almost directly down on the autopsy table. I wrinkled my nose. Like the rest of this place it smelled of formalin and Lysol. The formalin actually helped. In addition to being what was used to preserve tissue samples, exposure to it for more than a few minutes deadened your sense of smell for a few hours, and some of the things that had been cut open in the room I was looking down into genuinely stank. Not merely "smelled bad," we were talking "make a maggot puke" levels of awful.

Laid out on the table, with her fur now dry, some of the injuries to Monica Wilson were a little more obvious. Flecks of blood matted most of her stripes and Tim and a petite jackal, both of them in scrubs, were looking at each other perplexed and a camera dangled loosely in the jackals paws. I reached forward and hit the button to turn on the audio relay.

"Tim, if we want to photograph every wound clearly we're going to hand her back to her family practically shaved bald.We can't do that to them."

"We may have to. It's not like she's in any state for an open casket viewing anyway."

"Can you give me a little while after we do the comb-outs? I'd like to make life easier on them if we can."

"Sure. Call your brother and let's do this."

Tonya's brother was a mortician. One of the best in town, actually. What was going to happen was that after Tim and Tonya had taken their first set of photographs and meticulously combed out every inch of our victims fur for trace evidence, Tonya's brother would bring in a plain casket with a white luxury liner, actually one of his "demo" setups for the liner. They'd dress the body in a plain white shift and lay her in it and he'd take some "repose" shots before taking her back out and removing the shift, laying her back on the table so the autopsy could proceed. That way the family would have more than the horrors their imaginations could conjure from a closed-casket funeral. Doesn't work when they are too long gone, but Monica had been in the river less than 12 hours. Once her fur was combed out and the zip-tie around her neck was removed, she looked like she was asleep. I'd actually given Tonya the idea for this a couple years ago when it became apparent that a full forensic autopsy was going to make a kids body look so bad that it would give the poor parents nightmares for months even if a skilled mortician had done his best to reconstruct. Even genius artists have their limits, Huge shaved areas exposing horrific wounds just can't be patched. Better to give the family something where the fur can still cover the grisly details. It was totally unauthorized, Tim had caught us at it, chewed us up one side and down the other and then bought into it with enthusiasm, making it official policy where it wouldn't interfere with evidence gathering.

I went and grabbed myself a coffee and a snack. By the time I got back they were just finishing up and laying the body back on the table. I flipped on the audio again as they got started.

"Body is that of a female tiger, apparent age late twenties or early thirties.There is clear evidence of multiple cutting wounds, seeming to follow the lines of her stripes.The body shows minimal signs of water immersion, indicating that it had been in the water less than 12 hours. Shave the areas over her wounds, please.... Wounds are uniformly shallow, made with a sharp blade over a period of several days pre-mortem. The wounds closer to the top of the body show a more advanced state of healing than those lower down. Photo progression, please... Thank you. Digital extremities have been crudely amputated from all four limbs, the angle of the cut indicating that the paw was compressed to force each claw to extend and then the claw was severed with a scissor-like tool.In all cases the cut occurred approximately three millimeters above the distal phalangeal joint."

Tonya paused in her photographing of the wounds.

"Doctor, look at this."

"Hmmm... I see. Shave the rest of the fur on her breasts, please..." He unpaused his recorder. "Multiple linear and pincer-type contusions on both breast. Preliminary assessment is that they were caused by beating with a small-diameter rod and by compression using a tool similar in dimensions and operation as lineman's pliers. Diffuse ligature marks on the neck indicating slow application of pressure. Two indented marks either side of the windpipe, showing tissue damage consistent with mild but repeated electrical shock.Eyes show minor anoxic petichiae.Bruising and minor bleeding on the lips, oral membranes and throat suggest violent introduction of a foreign object. Swabs and slides taken. Evidence of violent sexual assault, both vagina and anus show signs of forcible penetration. Minor anal tearing. Patent evidence of vaginal hemorrhage... shit... "

"Doctor?"

"It's ok, Tonya.. this is new... Dislocations of caudal vertebrae at regular intervals..." _ He was running his hands along her tail, and it flopped around obscenely.. Even a dead cat's tail shouldn't be like that. _"All bar two of the caudal vertebral joints have been violently dislocated. Levels of palpable tissue swelling indicate that these injuries were inflicted distal to proximal."

Fuck. So this bastard (or bastard plus bitch, we didn't know yet) had systematically snapped her tail from its end to her butt in addition to crudely declawing her. He (or they) had sliced down the center of every stripe the poor woman had.. they'd used pliers and a cane on her tits.. and along the way done enough to make every hole bleed. I wanted these assoles, so bad I could taste it. I may not have seen them in forever, but I have daughters. Below me, they were about to open her up. I was pretty sure what they'd see. I watched Tim make the classic "Y incision" from shoulders to sternum and from sternum to pelvis.

"Multiple rib fractures. Heart and lungs appear normal, no overt pathology or injury. Significant amount of blood in the abdominal cavity.... source is apparently a torn artery consequent to a ragged perforation of the vaginal wall."

A few minutes later the incision was being closed.

"Ok, Tonya. We're done here. Do we have a family preference for which mortician we call when this case wraps up?"

"Not yet."

"Ok, stick her on ice. I'm going to type up the report. They want this one yesterday."

"What are you listing as COD, Doctor?"

"It's fifty-fifty. Either the internal bleeding or the zip-tie around her neck were enough to be fatal. There's less sign of anoxia than usual and a hell of a lot of blood, so I'll probably call it that she bled out before she died from strangulation."

I turned off the audio and stared down for a few minutes more at the body on the table. They were going to spare her family seeing her like this but I wanted it burned into my mind. I turned away and walked out when I caught myself growling.

---

Back at the FBI office I snagged Paul, Cy, Sarah and Agent Warren.

"The killer is escalating. Significantly more violence than before - like they were holding a serious grudge."

The dobie's ears snapped upright. "As in, this one looked like it was personal?" I nodded and he stuck his head out of the door. "Jane, Freeman! Everything you can find on Monica Wilson. History, potential enemies, everything. She may have been the primary target." As he closed the door Sarah spoke up.

"That would explain why this one is so far off profile. If it's a personal motive is it from something that happened when she was younger? That would link the two halves of the profile. Building up to how she used to look then taking her personally, perhaps?" That made Agent Warren stick his head out the door again.

"See if you can dig up any images of her when she was about the same age as Janet Hunter. Look for trigger incidents around the same time period."

"If she was the primary target, what do we expect now?" That made the Agent Warren's ears flag.

"Hard to say. If he's done and his need for vengeance is satisfied, we may never hear from him again until we catch him. If he's got a taste for it, though, he's going to rapidly escalate and intensify his spree."

"So basically we have a few days to identify and catch him or things could get even uglier."

"Pretty much. If our unsub us going to blow, we may not even have a few days."

Sarah and I just looked at each other and went out to do some digging of our own. Let's see what our methods could shake loose about Monica Wilson.

---

Monica Wilson, maiden name Fowler, had been a moderately successful real-estate broker and her husband was a mid-level manager in the corporate office of a big bank. Her elder brother, on the other hand, he was not quite such an upstanding pillar of the community. He ran a dive bar up in Fridley and the local vice cops suspected he was also running a small stable of girls. They both grew up poor but she'd worked her way out of it, he'd gone the crooked route. As far as we could tell they hadn't been in contact for a few years but just to be certain, Sarah and I were heading up there to ask a few pointed questions.

The bar was tucked into a corner of a seedy strip-mall. The neon sign had originally read "Danny's Place" but more than half of the letters were burned out. There were a couple of slightly ragged-looking characters hanging around inside, a couple of girls dressed like cheap hookers and a bear in the height of jeans-and-wife-beater fashion behind the bar. Sarah hung back like she was claiming a table, just coincidentally picking one where she had a good view of everyone in the place, I headed for the bar.

"What can I get ya?"

"Just a word with the boss." I slid a business card across the bar. He didn't even glance at it.

"Boss aint around."

"Bullshit. His car is parked out back."

"Say he doesn't want to be disturbed then."

"Which would disturb him more, do you think, a quiet chat or getting his bar trashed? By the way, if that paw comes out from under the bar holding anything, my partner will shoot you."

He looked over at Sarah. I didn't need to look over my shoulder to know what he saw. Out of view of everyone else but the bartender, Sarah would have her Glock in her paw resting on her lap. His paw emerged empty.

"I'll go get him." I shook my head.

"No you won't, you'll be back with muscle and artillery. Instead you're going to take us to him and not set up anything you're going to regret while we're in there talking to him."

Shrugging, the bear opened the door beside the bar marked "Staff Only" and gestured for me to precede him through it. By the time he was ready to follow me through it, no doubt intending to jump me as soon as it closed, Sarah was right behind him, her paw and its contents concealed in her pocket.

"Don't try anything stupid, Sugar.. I'll blow your spine in half above the waist and leave you in a wheelchair wearing diapers for the rest of your life." Somehow, having that statement delivered in a soft, almost purring, feminine voice made it even more effective. We were led down a narrow hallway to a door at the far end with a faded and chipped sign on it that said "Office". We stopped him before he could knock.

"Go back to work, sonny. Your boss will call you if he needs you. Set up anything daft and you, personally, will be our highest priority target. If you got any doubts, take a closer look at that business card and try to recall where you might have heard my name. If you do remember it, you'll know why it's an extremely bad idea to fuck with me. If you don't then you're way too far out of your league to even try."

Once he was gone, given the general ambiance of this place, both Sarah and I made sure we were holding our weapons openly when we opened the door.

Danny Fowler was scrawny for a tiger and was a little too preoccupied to pose a threat anyway. He was so focused on humping the poodle girl bent over his desk that he hadn't even heard the door open.

"Stuff it back in your pants and get her out of here, Danny-boy. We need to talk."

Buster Keaton couldn't have directed the scene that followed any better. Danny's head whipped around, realized that two furs with guns were in his office and tried to move behind his desk for cover, forgetting that his dick was buried in the girl and his pants were around his ankles. Off balance, he crashed into the wall and bounced off it. He landed on his back just as the girl slipped off the desk and instinctively put out a paw to catch herself. Her weight landed on that paw squarely atop Danny's junk. Never heard a tiger make that kind of noise before. She dragged herself up and fled out the door, leaving Danny looking more green than orange and seriously like he was about to puke.

Sarah closed the door while we waited for Danny to recover. He was gradually becoming more coherent. He hauled his pants up, stuffed what had to have been the bluest balls in the history of comedy into 'em and glared at us.

"Who the fuck are you and what do you want?"

"The name's Owen and we need to have a little chat about your kid sister."

"Shit, man, I haven't seen or talked to her in ten years. I don't even know where she lives."

"Her current address is the morgue. There's a possibility it might have been something to do with some trouble she got into when she was younger. Teens or early twenties."

"Fuck." He shook his head. "She was a little wild but she stayed out of trouble, mostly. Only real trouble she got into was a couple of fights and screwing pretty much the entire football team after homecoming when she was a sophomore and getting herself knocked up. Mom went ballistic and forced her to deal with it rather than have the kid that young."

"How serious were the fights? Anything happen that anybody could still be holding a grudge for?"

"Nah, only serious thing I can think of was another girl on the cheer squad who was trying to bully her. Amy, I think her name was. Cute golden retriever girl but a total bitch. She and Monica got into one serious fight and that was the end of it. That retriever got her muzzle clawed up pretty good and Monica was suspended for two weeks for that. Hardly something to hold a grudge this long for. Would you mind putting the fucking hardware away?"

"In this place, Danny? With your bartender probably too stupid to take the hint and mustering all the muscle he can find out there? For now I like 'em just fine the way they are." He shrugged.

"Told you all I can, man."

I slid another business card onto his desk. "You remember anything, or find anything out, it's probably a good idea to call me. If I catch you holding back on me I won't be quite so polite."

We went out the back way to avoid finding out if the bartender really was as stupid as he looked.

---

We were updating Cy and the FBI team with the little we had learned about Monica's past when the killer put a big question mark on Monica being his primary target. He'd snatched another girl.

To be continued....