CHAPTER 11

City Coroner’s Office

It was called the dead house. And, as coroner’s physician, Max Wilcox was its guard and protector. He defended the place— and those unfortunate enough to end up there— from all interference, political or otherwise. Max had only two allegiances to speak of: the first to science and the truths it revealed, and the second to the poor souls who found themselves upon his autopsy table. A bald-headed man with lean features and a concise, soft-spoken manner, he moved with graceful agility among large soapstone tables. Each table had grooves carved into it, designed to channel all manner of fluids into the drains located strategically around the room. Three tables were stacked with equipment, including vials, sponges, jars, even scales. And there was no mistaking what lay covered under a white sheet on the room’s back table: Annie Germaine’s corpse.

This was the part of my job I enjoyed the least. With my aversion to blood and my weak stomach, I prepared myself for these visits by forcing my mind to detach. By focusing only on strict analysis, I usually managed to subdue my visceral reaction. Even so, I blanched in reaction to the room’s overwhelming stench— a peculiar mix of bleach and bodily fluids that made my eyes tear and my breath come in short gasps.

Wilcox had just completed the postmortem examination and was ready to explain his findings. Alistair and I barely merited his attention when we entered the room, but the moment he noticed Isabella, he stared long and hard.

“You’re not dressed,” he said finally, his tone disapproving.

Before we had been permitted to enter the autopsy room, one of the coroner’s assistants had ushered us into separate changing rooms. Alistair and I had dutifully put on the white trousers, coats, and hats that were customary to wear when entering the autopsy room. While Isabella had chosen a white coat to cover her dress, the pants would not have fit even had she chosen to remove her petticoat and skirt and wear them. And the hats we had been provided would not have begun to cover her thick hair, pulled back as it was into a loose twist.

She returned Wilcox’s gaze steadily. “I’m not dressed because you’ve no appropriate clothing for ladies.”

Wilcox seemed to consider the situation for a moment. Women were entering nursing school in greater numbers and becoming active in the medical profession. But that was not to say a man like Max Wilcox welcomed them, even as observers. He took his time sizing up Isabella.

“What you will see here is not for the timid,” he warned darkly.

“Fair enough.” She set her chin in determination.

“Just don’t come too close to the autopsy table or my open samples. I need to protect my evidence from outside contaminants.” His voice was gruff, but he seemed to suppress a smile. “But you,” he gestured to Alistair and me, “should come here. I have things to show you.”

We obeyed almost reluctantly, leaving Isabella toward the back of the room, next to a glass-covered cabinet that held a variety of steel utensils.

“You’re seeing Mulvaney after we’re done here?” Max asked me.

I nodded, adding, “Or at least telephoning him.”

“Hrmmph.” He made a guttural noise. “Well, you can tell him he was right. All external evidence to the contrary, this young lady is indeed a victim of murder. My internal postmortem examination leaves no doubt.”

He pulled back the sheet that covered Annie Germaine to reveal her face and upper body— or what was left of it after the coroner’s scalpel had done its work. My stomach lurched as I noted the start of the deep Y-shaped incision that began at her shoulders and ran down the front of her chest. He had needed access, I knew, to her major internal organs.

Alistair’s intake of breath was sharp, but Max, a consummate professional, ignored our reactions and continued to explain.

“When I examined this young woman, with the aid of advanced equipment such as I did not have at the theater, I immediately noticed some very small pinpoint hemorrhages. You can see yourself if you look closely at the conjunctiva.” He took his steel utensil that resembled a buttonhook and turned her eyelid inside out, just as he had done yesterday at the theater. “The tiny red marks can indicate asphyxiation.”

“So this gave you your evidence of strangulation?” Alistair asked.

“On its own? No. Alone, it can neither prove nor disprove strangulation.” Max closed the eyelid and put down his button-hook tool. “But taken together with other signs? Yes.”

He crossed to the table next to us and returned with three jars containing what looked to be dry samples of skin and sliced muscle tissue.

“The problem confronting all of us was the entire absence of external evidence of injury. And it was important to wait until this morning before conducting the autopsy. You see, the element of time is quite often necessary for the severity of internal injury to appear.

“When I cut the Y incision and accessed her lungs, I immediately discovered that they were collapsed, with no air in them. I determined that I needed to dissect her cervical vertebrae. In other words, her neck.”

He drew forth a large specimen jar filled with a pink organ of some kind and reached for a pair of steel tongs. Slowly, he pulled it from the specimen jar and we were once again overwhelmed by the smell of its formaldehyde preservative, designed to prevent shrinkage or distortion. Despite the odor, we went closer to look.

“This is her larynx, including her hyoid bone,” he announced. “You will see that I left her tongue still attached.” He turned the organ around for us to observe.

I swallowed hard and stole a glance at Isabella. She was leaning forward with interest— handling the gruesome sight better than I was.

“There was no sign of fracture to the laryngeal skeleton. But look at these telltale signs of contusion hemorrhage in the deep tissue.”

We observed the red marks he had indicated.

“You used the term asphyxiation earlier,” I said. “Can you tell whether she was smothered or strangled?”

His eyes lit up as he led us to the back table, nearer where Isabella continued to stand. I glanced at her and caught her stoic expression. With another steel instrument, this one with a hooked end, he picked up a sample of what I knew to be skin.

“This,” he said with a confident air, “is what tells me she was definitively strangled. As the skin dries, sometimes small contusions such as these become apparent. They are from the anterior of the neck. And notice the slight curvilinear abrasion that appears as a small set of two. That is a sign of two fingernail marks.”

“Made by her killer?” Alistair leaned in eagerly.

“No.” Wilcox’s tone took on the indulgent note it often had when he had to explain something to an amateur. “Such marks are usually made by the victim, and these marks are no exception. I measured them against her own nails to confirm she made them herself.”

“It was likely an involuntary reaction on her part, to pry off whatever— or whoever— was choking her,” I added for Alistair’s benefit.

“But I don’t understand. How could there be no bruising on her neck if she was in fact strangled?” Alistair asked.

“Ah.” Max raised a finger to his lips. “I’d say it was because her killer— whoever he or she was— formed a ligature from a very soft fabric. And when it is released at the very moment of death, it minimizes the chance of there being marks on the skin.”

I looked at him sharply. “That suggests her strangulation was caused by a person with considerable skill.”

“That would be your job to determine, not mine,” he said dryly.

He half leaned against a tall stool near the sink. “Everything else was unremarkable,” he said in conclusion. “Lungs, stomach, liver— all looked to be normal and healthy.”

I glanced at the large jar containing Miss Germaine’s stomach. A piece of paper underneath it indicated the organ’s weight.

Dr. Wilcox was continuing to talk. “Absolutely no trace of poison anywhere. My report will indicate death by asphyxiation, specifically strangulation.”

Alistair gave Wilcox a quizzical look. “You mean you have no more to tell us? You can tell us nothing about the killer himself?”

Wilcox shrugged. “Science has told us what there is to tell.” He looked Alistair square in the eye. “Science doesn’t elaborate or espouse hypotheses of the sort you seem to want.”

“With all due respect, Doctor, I think you mean you will not add further detail or venture a hypothesis,” Alistair said in response.

“I’m a coroner, not a criminologist, Professor. I deal in hard facts.”

Alistair flashed his most charming smile. “Come, Doctor. You and I are not so very different. We both deal with crime on a regular basis, and we seek answers to the same questions: you from the secrets of the body, me from those of the mind.”

He pulled over another stool and sat easily, one arm across across his knee. “I’ll bet you could tell me something about the kind of person capable of strangling Miss Germaine— without conjecture, looking only to what your scientific examination has revealed.”

Wilcox got up and began gathering his steel utensils for sterilization in the sink; his hands moving fluidly across the table. The action reminded me of a pianist’s hands floating up and down over the keys.

I tried to reframe Alistair’s question in a more diplomatic manner. “For example, was Miss Germaine’s killer a man of great strength? Or could a weaker man have done it?”

Max let forth a soft guffaw. “That’s one of the biggest misconceptions people have— that it requires strength to strangle somebody. Not at all. In fact,” he said, as he placed the specimen jars containing Miss Germaine’s organs onto a shelf near the sink, “a very small force applied to the right anatomic area will accomplish the task. Thus, a smallish woman, such as yourself,” he gestured toward Isabella, who had drawn closer to us, “might actually strangle a large man such as Mulvaney.” His mouth formed a slight smile, as though he found the idea amusing.

“How much knowledge— or experience— would that take?” I asked.

“To get it right?” Wilcox considered for a moment, then said, “A good deal, unless the killer simply got lucky.”

I glanced at Isabella. Though she remained some distance away, she appeared unfazed by the coroner’s explanation.

“Is it likely, then, that the killer has done this before?” Isabella asked.

The coroner bristled. “Science doesn’t deal in likely.” He put a scornful emphasis on the word. Then he reconsidered. “But possible, yes. I’d say it’s quite possible.”

He began gathering a different set of tools, and I recognized that he was preparing to sew the body back together for burial. “If her killer did not have prior experience, at the least he had done extensive preparation to know exactly where to apply force— and exactly when to release it— to avoid the telltale bruising that otherwise would result.”

I briefly explained to Wilcox our suspicions regarding Eliza Downs.

“Would it strengthen our case to autopsy Miss Downs?” I frowned. “We would need to approach her family for permission to exhume her corpse.”

“I’d say that’s more a legal question than an investigative one.” Alistair stood. “It would allow the district attorney to pursue a double-murder charge, so it may prove necessary later on. But we have enough information now to establish the killer’s pattern of behavior— or modus operandi, as you would call it. I doubt a second autopsy would help us find the killer we seek any faster or more easily.”

We thanked Dr. Wilcox for taking the time to explain the postmortem results to us, even before he wrote up his official report.

“What’s next, Detective?” Alistair asked, in good humor again the moment we reached the street and could breathe the fresh air.

But I stopped short, frozen.

“Simon?” Isabella’s brow furrowed with concern.

I stared ahead at Frank Riley and Jack Bogarty, for the two Times reporters were lounging against the black iron street lamp in front of us.

“Good morning, Detective.” Frank took a long drag from his cigarette, then tossed it into the street, where a large puddle quickly extinguished it.

“Mr. Riley,” I said coldly. “I didn’t know your crime beat extended so far downtown.”

His face spread into an oily grin. “No place like the dead house for a crime reporter to get his scoop. In fact, I came here looking for you. Thought we might trade some information.”

“But not to print.” My response was guarded.

“Not yet.” He held his hand up as a pledge, the smile still in place. “You’ve got my word of honor.” Then he removed his brown derby for a moment and pushed slickened black hair off his forehead.

“What information do you have to offer us?” Isabella spoke with self-assurance.

“I don’t believe we’ve had the plea sure, Miss . . .” Frank Riley half bowed in greeting, giving a flourish with his hat.

“And I’m Jack Bogarty,” his partner intervened, not bothering to disguise his obvious interest as he flashed his most charming smile. “Very pleased to meet you.”

“My daughter-in-law, Mrs. Sinclair,” Alistair said, introducing her even as he took a protective step closer to her. “You said you had information.”

“Ah, yes. I understand that yesterday you interviewed a suspect named Timothy Poe.” Frank directed the question to me.

I said nothing.

“Come, now— I know you did. Jack here actually got the tip.”

Jack chuckled. “Even theater critics have their sources, you know.”

“I spoke with Timothy Poe. So what?” I waited.

Frank scratched his chin. “Well, I think you’d do well to chat with Mr. Poe again. You’ll find him at this address.” He passed me a scrap of paper with a Greenwich Village address scrawled in black ink.

It read “101 MacDougal Street #5C.” It was not the address Timothy Poe had given me last night as his residence.

My eyes narrowed. “What is this place?”

“Not the address he gave you, is it? You’re in for a surprise. In return, I need to know if you got confirmation of murder in there.” Frank nodded in the direction of the dead house.

I answered him brusquely. “We did.”

“And the official cause of death?”

“Asphyxiation,” I said, and hoped he would be satisfied for now. Luckily, he was.

I glanced again at the address he had given me.

“Why is Poe here?”

He gave me a knowing smile, though all he said was, “Let’s just say Mr. Poe was less than forthcoming in his interview with you.”

And before I could ask him any more, he and Jack disappeared into the throng of people in the street.