Autopsy, p.13
Autopsy, page 13
They showed up anyway, and what was I thinking? Maybe I don’t want to face that each day the road behind me gets longer than the one ahead, and there’s no reversing the trajectory. Possibly when I was first approached about becoming the chief again, I deluded myself into believing we can go back to what we left.
Or more likely I was running away from what I didn’t want to face after losing Janet and Desi. Worst of all is knowing what it’s done to my niece. Death is the one thing I can’t defeat no matter how much I wish otherwise, and it would seem I’ve done nobody any favors by returning to where I got started.
On the job a little more than three short weeks, and things aren’t going very well. There’s no one to blame but myself. It’s time I do something about it besides just standing here and taking what comes while fretting constantly about offending someone.
You’re too nice.
How many times has Lucy said that when she hears what’s going on at work.
You can’t be afraid to show them who’s boss, Aunt Kay.
Nothing will change if all I do is worry about displeasing this one or another, and I feel the slow burn of an angry stubbornness setting in. I step out of the shower, drying off, and there’s no better cure for discouragement than getting back into the saddle.
Putting on my bathrobe, I call the DNA lab, unfamiliar with the clerk who cheerfully answers, “This is Candi,” as if she works in a nail salon. I announce myself, and when she doesn’t respond beyond a grunted “uh-huh,” I add, “Good morning.”
“Oh hi, good morning. Um, who are you looking for?” is her distracted reply, and technically she doesn’t answer to me.
But the lab director, her boss, does. I can get her in plenty of trouble if I’m sufficiently motivated.
“I realize we haven’t met. I’m the new chief medical examiner,” I add in case she hasn’t connected the dots.
“I know. I’ve seen you on the news when Dana Diletti’s tried to interview you. What’s she like in person?”
“I need Doctor Givens, please,” I reply, and Candi the clerk doesn’t see him at the moment, doesn’t know where he is.
“He’s probably tied up,” she figures as I imagine her yawning, looking bored. “Maybe you could try back later?”
“Candi?” I say her name in a way that gets her attention. “I don’t care what he’s in the middle of, I want him on the phone right now.”
“Oh. Yes, ma’am. Okay . . . Um, h-hold on,” she stammers, and in no time, molecular biologist Clark Givens is on the line.
“How’s it going?” I don’t have to tell him why I’m calling.
“We should have the answer within the hour,” he informs me as I stand in front of the sink, tearing off a piece of dental floss.
I tell him to text me when Gwen Hainey’s identification is confirmed, and make sure he notifies August Ryan at the same time so he can deal with the next of kin.
“Sadly, her family, those who knew her probably already heard what’s all over the news, and that should never happen.” I towel my hair some more.
“August has called here several times already. And the media’s out of control, hounding everyone from what I understand,” Clark lets me know. “When I got here a few hours ago, there was a TV truck on the street filming employees getting out of their cars, heading into the building.”
“Let me guess.” I open a drawer under the sink, finding the styling gel. “Dana Diletti again.”
“Her producer is one of the people who keeps calling.” Clark’s voice over speakerphone inside the master bathroom. “Apparently, she’s doing some big piece on the Railway Slayer, as she’s dubbed Gwen Hainey’s killer. And that’s sure to scare the bejesus out of everyone.”
“Making everything that much harder for those of us trying to work the case,” I reply, and I bring up the disturbing death that Officer Fruge told me about.
Cammie Ramada, her body found on the shore of the Potomac River inside the same park where Gwen was found on Daingerfield Island, I explain to Clark.
“Apparently, this was in early April, and ruled a drowning, the manner of death accidental.” I run a comb through my damp hair, working a dab of gel through it. “But a police officer I was with last night insists Cammie Ramada was murdered. There seem to be a lot of unanswered questions about the case.”
“Which police officer?” Clark asks, and I can tell he’s guarded.
“Blaise Fruge.” I open a cabinet, and nothing is where it’s supposed to be thanks to Dorothy rummaging through my belongings. “She and I spent a lot of time together going through Gwen Hainey’s townhome.”
“What is it I can help you with, exactly?”
“I’m interested in what you have to say since you were working here when Cammie Ramada mysteriously drowned.” I remind him I hadn’t moved from Massachusetts yet.
I also don’t think the death made the news in a big way or I would have heard about it. I go on to say that Park Police Investigator Ryan hasn’t mentioned the case to me, and one can only hope there’s no conspiracy of silence going on.
“Because of tourism, local business, politics or anything else,” I’m saying to Clark. “We need to make sure her death isn’t connected to Gwen Hainey’s,” I add, and he responds with a startled pause.
“Just so we’re clear,” he finally says, “I was on vacation with my family in the Outer Banks when Cammie Ramada’s body was found.”
At the end of the day, his lab isn’t responsible for the DNA analysis such as it was, he adds. There’s not much to tell except what he knows from talking to the police, reviewing their reports, he says.
“The FBI decided to move samples to their Quantico labs and do the analysis there,” Clark explains, and they’ll try the same thing with me, I have no doubt.
But it’s not going to happen. I’ve yet to let them take Gwen’s evidence out from under us. The body and everything relating to it is the medical examiner’s jurisdiction. Naturally, I extend that to include the flattened penny, and anything else I collected, the analysis in my labs already under way.
“Our hands were tied as you likely know if you’ve reviewed the records,” Clark says over speakerphone. “Once the FBI took over, that was that.”
“The problem is I’ve not looked at the records yet,” I reply, fussing with my hair in the mirror. “I’d never heard of Cammie Ramada before last night but intend to get up to speed before the day is out.”
“After the FBI took what they wanted, nothing happened. The case was closed.”
He explains that the scene wasn’t managed the way it should have been, too many cooks in the kitchen. There were problems with contamination.
“I’m not sure how well acquainted you might be with the former chief,” Clark says, and he doesn’t know the half of it. “But it’s likely he hasn’t worked many scenes in recent memory.”
“I’d say that’s accurate.” I refrain from adding the rest of it.
Elvin Reddy is more of a politician than a medical examiner, having no passion or respect for the work itself and even less for patients living or dead. He’d far rather appear on the news or mingle with the prominent and powerful than talk to the family of a loved one who’s died suddenly, tragically.
I knew what he was early on when he’d have his morbid fun with those he could bully. Nothing like asking the wrong person to open a body bag crawling with maggots. Or making lewd observations about a dead woman’s “sizeable attributes, what a waste.” I’d overhear his salacious cracks.
He was the sort to keep trophies such as artificial joints and breast implants until I caught wind of it. Suffice it to say, we did nothing but clash during my Richmond days when he was one of my forensic pathology fellows, the worst I ever mentored.
Chapter 17
“Mind you, this is hearsay because I wasn’t there.” Clark continues to tell me what he knows about last April’s case. “Doctor Reddy appearing at the scene only added to the confusion, and the cops were afraid to stand up to him if he did something they didn’t agree with.”
“Such as?”
“Not having appropriate PPE,” he says. “Just a mask, gloves, and he had to be told to put them on.”
Clark says he’s seen the photographs of the former chief shining his light on the body, and he’s not exactly a poster child for proper forensic procedures. Such trifling details are for everyone else to worry about, is the way he looks at it.
“Not to mention,” he adds, “there’s the obvious complications since we’re talking about a national park. The Feds, in other words, and technically the jurisdiction of the park police.”
But Daingerfield Island is located in the city of Alexandria, and of interest to their law enforcement. Also, the FBI could stake claims on the investigation. To confuse things further, Cammie Ramada’s body was partially on Virginia soil, and partially in water located in the District of Columbia. What Marino would call a cluster-eff on flipping steroids.
“Talk about a mess.” Clark’s voice sounds from my phone on the edge of the sink as I do what I can to patch myself together. “Try dealing with a case involving the park police, the locals and the FBI. And meanwhile, the chief medical examiner of Virginia and those answering to him don’t feel a crime was committed.”
“I’m curious why Elvin Reddy showed up to begin with.” Unzipping my makeup bag, I certainly can see that Dorothy rummaged through it for a sewing kit.
“I don’t have a clue. All I can tell you is we picked up Doctor Reddy’s DNA and excluded him. That’s the contamination I’m talking about.”
The investigation never went anywhere after it was determined by my predecessor that the death wasn’t due to violence.
“Samples were never tested or entered into a database,” Clark says, and now I’m really appalled.
“Are you suggesting that the FBI never ran the DNA through CODIS?” I’m hoping I didn’t hear him right.
“It’s my understanding that no profiles from the Cammie Ramada case were uploaded into CODIS,” he repeats.
“Why not?” I ask, and just when I think Elvin couldn’t be more negligent or incompetent.
“A submission can’t be a fishing expedition.” Clark recites the usual CODIS protocols that I know so well.
The DNA profile must be from the suspected perpetrator, and there isn’t one if no crime was committed. Contaminated samples aren’t allowed, and he knows as well as I do that bureaucratic obstructions can be gotten around if one is motivated by justice instead of self-interest or laziness.
“A murder doesn’t go away because someone decides it.” Staring in the mirror I go easy with the eyeshadow, just a touch of brown. “If Doctor Reddy had left the case pending because he wasn’t sure what happened to her? The evidence would have been tested, and we likely wouldn’t be having this conversation, Clark.”
“I don’t disagree.”
“So, here’s what I’d like you to do.” I pick up the eyeliner pencil. “I want you to treat Cammie Ramada as the coldest of cold cases, and start over.”
“What do you mean, start over? The case is closed.”
“I’ve just reopened it. Let’s see what’s left of the evidence collected from the scene, the autopsy.” I brush my hair back from my face, looking at my reflection, and it could be worse. “Anything that might be a source of DNA with the thought in mind that her death might not have been accidental.”
I tell him to pay special attention to swabs taken from the body, from skin surfaces, inside orifices, and under the fingernails.
“And whatever Cammie was wearing when her body was found,” I add while texting Lucy, asking her to see what she can find out about the victim.
“She was clothed when she was found, it didn’t look like a sexual assault,” Clark says as I text Marino next.
I let him know that I’m going to need his help later in the day. He’s to stand by and I’ll get back to him. In the meantime, I need him to find out what he can about Cammie Ramada’s death this past April.
“Running tights, shoes, a long-sleeved jacket.” Clark recalls what she had on when she died. “Again, you’ll see from the scene photographs.”
Lucy answers me with a “copy that” thumbs-up. She’ll see what she can find out. She and Janet both will, I guess.
“We still have swatches we removed from her clothing but never analyzed,” Clark says.
“How much of this is at the FBI labs?”
“They took the samples they wanted. But most of the evidence is still here.”
“I want your lab to get started right way with rapid DNA testing,” I tell him. “Any unknown profile or partial one we’ll also want submitted to CODIS, and if we come back empty-handed we try forensic genealogical testing next.”
“You do realize these samples still aren’t going to meet the CODIS standards for submission,” he warns as another message lands on my phone.
Have heard about the Ramada case, a weird one, Marino has texted me back.
“The FBI’s database isn’t the first whistle stop. We are.” I carry my phone as I leave the bathroom, still talking to Clark.
I ask him to compare any unknown DNA profiles or partial ones in Cammie’s and Gwen’s cases. And to do it as quickly as possible, I remind him as I open my closet, wondering which suit to wear. “If it turns out both are homicides and they were killed by the same person, we have to worry that someone else may be next.”
Windshield wipers drag across the glass in a light rain at half past ten, more volatile weather on the way. Traffic is slower and more snarled than usual, and that’s saying a lot as congested as it normally gets in this part of Virginia.
Benton is at the wheel of his Tesla SUV, wearing amber-tinted glasses in the fog to cut down on the glare. He’s changed from his earlier tactical attire into one of his impeccable suits, charcoal gray with pearl pinstripes, and over this a long black trench coat.
As usual, he’s far more the fashion statement than I am in my simple Prussian blue pants suit, my sensible low-heeled ankle boots with nonslip soles. My dark brown jacket is made of a quilted waterproof fabric, nothing fancy. I might have gone to the trouble of wearing a skirt and dressier shoes were I feeling more energetic.
“What I think is that nobody bothered following up on her death. Certain parties hoped it would just go away,” Benton is saying about Cammie Ramada.
“I worry they did more than hope,” I reply.
“That’s what it’s sounding like.”
“Of all days to get called to some emergency meeting in D.C., when what I really need is to go through her case,” I reply. “Well, chances are I won’t be getting around to that in the near future but at least I can get people started.”
I try Lucy first, and most of all I want to check on her.
“How far out are you?” Her voice through the speakers, and she sounds in decent enough spirits.
“Depending on traffic,” Benton says, “maybe fifteen. Not including checkpoints.”
“Do you know what they want yet?” she says, and by they she means Benton’s Secret Service colleague Tron.
The two of them are warily acquainted, and I would have predicted they wouldn’t get along. Certainly not at first. They’re too much alike.
“I have no idea why I’m being summoned,” I reply.
Lucy hasn’t been informed about the White House, only that the Secret Service needs us, that we’re headed to a highly secure area in D.C. She may figure it out. But what she won’t do is prod or pry.
“How’s it going with Cammie Ramada?” I take a sip of water. “There certainly seem to be questions about what happened to her.”
“I’m on it but nothing much out there, almost nothing in the media,” she says, and I hear keys clicking. “There was some chatter on social media at the time. We’re still digging,” she adds, and I wonder if she’s looking at Janet’s avatar as we’re speaking.
“I’ll be off the radar for a while, possibly most of the day,” I reply. “But you and Marino can conspire.”
“You sure you’re feeling okay?” she says, and I’ll forever see her terrified eyes as I began feeling the effects of the poisoned wine.
“Almost as good as new.” I’m not really. “Hopefully we can have dinner later.”
I end the call as Benton follows George Washington Memorial Parkway, and Daingerfield Island is off to our right. It’s not really an island but a forested swath in the northernmost part of Alexandria, between a major highway and the Potomac River.
“I have a feeling Cammie is what I call a nuisance case, a threat to local business and everything else,” Benton concludes from what he’s overheard so far.
“That’s what I’m guessing Elvin Reddy thinks about it. Well, as my mother used to say, he’s got another think coming,” I reply, looking out my window at dense trees, most of them bare this time of year.
The park at Daingerfield Island is popular with runners, cyclists, bird-watchers, and it has a marina and a sailing club that I can’t see in the overcast. Also, there’s a bar and grill that Benton and I have enjoyed on occasion, looking out at the water and the boats, catching glimpses of red-tailed hawks and bald eagles.
I can see the Tidal Basin, and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial’s pristine white rotunda up ahead, vague in the swirling fog, the oncoming headlights bleary. Checking my messages, I’m waiting to hear from Rex Bonetta, and I try calling him again. This time he answers, and I let him know he’s on speakerphone.
“It’s okay to talk. I’m in the car with Benton,” I explain.
“How are you doing?” he asks.
“Much better than I was, thanks.”
“I’m very glad to hear it, and my lab’s in overdrive trying to find out what you got hold of last night.” My chief toxicologist’s quiet voice through the surround-sound speakers. “Or better put, what got hold of you.”
“I’m very sorry you were visited at home in the middle of the night.” I hope Marino didn’t scare him to death, ringing the bell, pounding on the door. “Please apologize to your family. But as you know, the circumstances are highly unusual.”
