BLUE MERCY Read online

  When she felt the caress of his finger against the back of her hand, Kay lifted the soda to her lips.

  “Are you seeing anyone, Kay?”

  But she didn’t have to answer. Their waitress appeared with Arsenault’s martini. Regret passed over his face as he sat back to make room for the drink.

  This time the girl didn’t stick around for the taste test. Arsenault eyed the bartender across the room as he brought the thin-stemmed glass to his lips.

  The rest happened too fast. Kay had barely registered one of the Billy-Bobs standing up from the neighboring booth and starting past them when Arsenault swung the glass out.

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Arsenault shouted, “are you putting it through a fucking blender?” But his last words faded as his hand collided with Billy-Bob’s groin behind him. Gin and vermouth sprayed out, soaking the faded denim of the man’s crotch.

  “You little pansy-ass fag.”

  Arsenault’s surprise was momentary. “What did you call me?”

  “You heard me, asswipe.”

  Arsenault shot out of the booth. So fast that even Billy-Bob seemed temporarily stunned. There was the sound of shattering glass, and as Kay stood, she saw the broken cocktail glass in Arsenault’s hand, the bowl gone and the jagged stem now pressed into the brute’s throat.

  “Scott, leave him.”

  Billy-Bob’s eyes were wide, his head thrust back to escape the pressure of the sharp stem. In her peripheral, Kay was aware of the other two Billy-Bobs clambering out of their booth.

  “Scott, he’s not worth it,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  But there was no breaking through the red rage. A muscle twitched wildly along Arsenault’s jaw. There was a fierceness in his whisper. “I could open you up right here,” he said. “What do you think about that, you ignorant fuck, huh?” The stem pressed tighter and a bead of blood broke the skin at the tip of the stem.

  The music in the bar droned on, but the din had lowered. Kay sensed the eyes on them.

  Then, Billy-Bob One swung at Arsenault, sucker punching him from below. Arsenault folded. And Kay moved in.

  “Come on, guys, it’s over.” She angled herself between the brute and Arsenault, almost knocking him off his feet as she did. Somewhere behind her she was aware of a bouncer moving in, but not before Billy-Bob swore and went to throw another punch.

  Kay made a grab for him before realizing she was too close. His upward swing clipped her, his elbow connecting sharply with her lip. For a second she saw stars, felt the rush of endorphins. Then Kay felt the heat of blood. She sucked at it as the bouncer muscled in, hustling the boys back. Jostling and shoving. Swearing.

  Arsenault was still heaving for air as she escorted him down the row of booths and to the door. “Put it on his tab,” she said to another bouncer on the way out.

  “What the hell were you thinking in there?” she asked him once they hit the street. “Christ, did you seriously think you could take on those three Neanderthals?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I hope you don’t do that on a regular basis,” she added, “or one of these nights it’ll be your body I’m standing over.”

  “I’m not a fag.” Arsenault wheezed the words.

  “And why would you think I’d even give two shits?” But Kay knew why.

  He coughed several times, hacked up a wad of spit and sent it to the cobblestones. In the dim light, Kay didn’t see any blood.

  “Come on,” she said, guiding him into the side alley that led to Fleet Street.

  He coughed some more, this second fit preventing her from hearing the Billy-Bobs coming. One moment Arsenault was at her side, the next he was on the ground.

  It was the same brute Arsenault had doused with the martini that started the kicking, his heavy, military-style boot driving into the Web designer’s side at least once before his buddies joined in.

  “Hey!” Kay groped under her jacket for her shield. “Hey!” She yelled this time, grabbing the shoulder of the closest Billy-Bob and spinning him around.

  From the wildness in the brute’s eyes she knew he wouldn’t have thought twice about taking a swing, but Kay shoved the shield into his face.

  “Back the fuck off. All of you! Now!” Her jacket brushed back, she had one hand on the butt of her nine. The shield was up and steady in her hand as the three goons backed away from the gagging heap that was Arsenault.

  “You’re a fucking cop?” the first one muttered, a small trickle of blood still marking his throat.

  “Damn right. And you guys can consider this the biggest fucking break of your lives that I’m not going to haul you in. Now get the fuck out of here.”

  Before the three of them had even hit the end of the alley, she was at Arsenault’s side, hauling him up.

  “I’m fine.” He brushed off his ruined chinos and straightened his hair. “Really.”

  But Kay knew the bruises he’d have in the morning would not be restricted to his ego. She walked him out to Fleet Street then, his arm over her shoulders as she guided him to the Lumina. In the glow of a streetlamp she checked him over.

  “I’m all right, Kay,” he assured her again.

  “You’re damn lucky. Those guys could have really messed you up. I don’t know what the hell got into you,” she said, remembering the flare of rage that had come over him. She thought she’d had Arsenault pegged.

  She unlocked the Lumina and fetched a tissue and pressed it to her bleeding lip.

  “I know it was wrong,” he said. “It’s just guys like that …I’m not gay.”

  “So you said.”

  She wasn’t sure what prompted him then. One moment he was staring at her, the next he’d taken the tissue from her hands and was dabbing at her cut lip. The boldness of his move caught Kay off guard.

  When he leaned in, one hand braced against the roof of the Lumina, the other lifting her chin to the light as though to inspect it, Kay wasn’t entirely sure of his intentions. But then Arsenault moved in, and she knew he was going to kiss her.

  His advance didn’t surprise her. What did surprise Kay was that a part of her wanted him to. It had been a long time since someone had shown interest. A long time since she’d let someone close enough. And she was only human, after all.

  In the dim glow of the streetlamp she saw the desire in Arsenault’s face, but in her mind’s eye there was Finn.

  Pushing him back, Kay ducked under his arm. Behind her, Arsenault groaned, and when she looked at him again, she saw his disappointment.

  “Come on,” she said, realizing she was shaking. “I’m taking you home.”

  30

  THE SUN HAD SIZZLED the dew off the shallow front yards of the row houses sloping up to Television Hill. There was the smell of mulch, the lingering of yesterday’s garbage, and—for Kay—the memory of B. J. Beggs’s body splayed out in the back alley.

  Kay knocked on her sixteenth door of the morning. She’d been recanvassing the neighborhood since seven. Not knowing how late Finn had been out on Wilkens last night, she hadn’t wanted to wake him. She’d left a message for him on his desk, then drove to the district office on Cold Spring, where she enlisted the help of two uniformed officers.

  On the concrete porch a plastic planter hung from the rail, the contents dead. Several editions of the Sun lay in the weather-bleached recycle bin. She rapped against the screen door’s lower panel, loud enough to wake the dead, let alone the living late for work. In the second-floor windows, closed blinds hung askew.

  A strange déjà vu twisted in her gut then. Licking the tenderness of her lip, Kay pushed the memories aside and instead thought of Scott Arsenault.

  He’d been silent during the short drive back to his building from the bar last night, and when she’d said goodnight, he’d turned in the passenger seat, and again she’d wondered if he would try to kiss her. She’d actually felt flattered by the Web designer’s interest last night. For the first time in longer than she could remember, it made her f
eel alive, part of the real world.

  Knocking again, Kay eyed the flyers that jammed the misshapen tin mailbox mounted next to the door. Perhaps the house was a rental, sitting vacant between tenants. She moved to the bow window on the main floor, cupped her hands to shield the daylight, and peered through the crack in the curtains. There was little to make out. Dim outlines of scant furnishings. An oval mirror on the opposite wall reflected what little light bled through the drapes.

  She was about to knock a third time when her cell went off.

  “You still on TV Hill?” Finn asked over the digital connection.

  “Yeah.” She turned down the steps of the empty house. “What’s up?”

  “I’m at the ME’s. Jonesy’s starting on the girl. I thought you’d want to be here.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Leaving the two uniforms to finish the canvass, it took Kay almost twenty minutes to battle morning traffic across the city and find a parking spot on Penn Street. Finn was waiting for her outside the OCME, crushing a cigarette into the sidewalk.

  “I thought Jonesy wasn’t doing her until later,” she said as they took the elevator down to the autopsy suite.

  “Guess he figured he’d get an early jump on things. He’s just wrapping up. What’s with the lip?” he asked, pointing.

  “I’ll tell you about it later.” She swung open the steel doors of the main suite and crossed the floor. “Sorry I’m late, Jonesy.”

  “Wow, who clipped you?” the ME asked.

  “It’s a long story. What have you got on our girl so far?”

  “Ketamine hydrochloride.” Jonesy handed her the tox results across Beggs’s body. “A dissociative anesthetic. Manufactured by Parke-Davis, marketed as Ketalar, and related to phencyclidine.”

  “PCP?” Finn asked.

  “Yeah, only ketamine’s safer, and much shorter-acting. It was originally created for children and was the anesthetic of choice in Vietnam. Works as a hallucinogenic. Causes the patient to feel dissociated from their body, making it possible to carry out surgical procedures. It’s still used in third-world countries, but here it’s mostly utilized in veterinary medicine.”

  “So how does someone get the stuff?” Kay asked.

  “You can buy anything on the streets. Illegal ketamine’s usually stolen from vet hospitals in its pharmaceutical form. Users either inject it intramuscularly or cook it down into powder.”

  Jonesy half-rolled Beggs’s body on the cutting table and pointed to a perfectly round bruise circling a puncture mark behind the prostitute’s left hip. “Given the injection site, it’s not likely she did it herself.”

  “When you say short-acting, what are we talking about?” Kay asked as Jonesy let the body slide back.

  “Depends on the dose. Full onset can take anywhere from one to four minutes, with the total trip lasting twenty or thirty. Residual effects can linger for an hour or more.”

  “Trip? So people do this stuff recreationally?”

  “Ever since the sixties. It was called Vitamin K back then. Resurfaced in the last few years on the rave scene as Special K.”

  “And what does it do?”

  “Blocks the nerve paths, impairing motor skills, often simulating paralysis, but without depressing pulmonary or circulatory function. It’s also used as a date-rape drug.”

  “So you’re saying it paralyzes them?” Kay asked, her mind reeling at the possibilities.

  “Depending on the dose, yes.”

  “So how much did our girl have in her system?”

  “Can’t say for sure. Not without a time of death. Putrefaction was likely delayed because of the blood loss. Blood provides a channel for the spread of putrefactive organisms within the body. Plus I think he kept her cool …”

  But Kay was hearing Arsenault’s words now… . he’s wanting to stall the decay. So Arsenault had been right.

  “But the ketamine didn’t kill her?” Finn asked.

  “No.” Jonesy held up one of the girl’s slashed wrists. “Exsanguination. The radial artery was sliced. Very clean. He knew what he was doing. This girl bled out till there was nothing left.”

  “So definitely not a suicide?”

  “Not with the ketamine in her system. I doubt she could have held a knife.” Jonesy leaned back, surveying his morning’s work. Beggs had been opened and emptied, her individual organs examined, packaged in red plastic bags, and returned to the body’s cavity to be closed up again.

  “What about the bruising?” Kay pointed to the marks on Beggs’s arms and legs. They were more noticeable this morning than yesterday. “How old are those?”

  “Most, I’d guess, were sustained just prior to her death. These”—he pointed to the backs of Beggs’s wrists and arms—“these look like handprints. Like she’d been grabbed. The rest are random.”

  “She struggled then?”

  “I’d say yes.”

  Kay looked again at the girl’s remains, willing them to provide her with the answers. What did he do to you?

  “She’s also been washed,” Jonesy said. “Some kind of industrial soap. There’s not much evidence on her. Trace or fiber.”

  “Prints?”

  “We fumed with cyanoacrylate and hit her with the lasers. Nothing.”

  “What about inside her? Did you find anything?” Kay asked.

  “Traces of spermicide. But no seminal fluids. She made sure her trick used a condom. But who knows if it was the same guy that killed her?”

  “Nothing forcible?”

  “Doesn’t look like.”

  “Any way of knowing when she’d had intercourse last?”

  “Hey, I’m a good cutter, Kay, but I’m not psychic.” Jonesy shot her a smile. It faded when she didn’t reciprocate.

  “Any ideas why he’d bleed her?” she asked eventually.

  “I’m not a forensic psychologist either.”

  “Come on, Jonesy, you’ve seen a lot. Anything come to mind?”

  “Bleeding a victim …I don’t know. Could be anthropophagy.”

  “What’s that?” Finn asked.

  “Vampirism. Drinking of blood. Or it could be a cult thing, or maybe he’s reenacting some scenario.”

  “Funeral homes drain the blood from the bodies,” Kay said.

  “Sure. But they use an embalming machine. A Porti-boy. Pumps a formaldehyde-based fluid in through the carotid while forcing the blood out the jugular. They don’t cut open the wrists.” Jonesy snapped off his latex gloves. “It would probably help if you knew what this guy’s goal was. The body or the blood.”

  “There’re easier ways to get blood.” Finn began untying the paper gown he wore over his suit.

  “Then maybe it’s the process he’s after.” Kay looked down at Beggs’s wrists, seeing the white glare of bone and tendons that lay beneath the muscle. Beggs’s life had pumped from those gashes while she’d lain unconscious. Is that what you’re after? You want to see the life drain out of her?

  “I wish I had more for you,” Jonesy said. “But given how clean she is, she’s not telling me much.”

  They thanked him and left the cutting room. Out in the corridor they tossed the paper gowns in the bin.

  “So you gonna tell me about the fat lip?” Finn asked again.

  “Bar fight.” She caught his side glance. “It’s not what you think. I wasn’t drinking. I was with Arsenault.”

  “Last night?”

  Kay nodded and punched the up button of the elevator. “He called me. On my way home from Wilkens last night. Wanted to talk, so I met him at The Cosmo.”

  She saw Finn’s jaw tighten. “You could have come got me.”

  “Yeah, but he wasn’t going to talk with you there.”

  “He’s a suspect, Kay.”

  She didn’t argue, even though she didn’t agree.

  “It was a public place, Finn. I had the situation under control.” She thought of Arsenault leaning into her, her back pressed against the Lumina. “Nothing was goi
ng to happen.”

  “Nothing except for that fat lip of yours.”

  “It was an accident. Really. A couple drunk Neanderthals looking to pick a fight on a hot night.”

  “Uh-huh.” He didn’t sound convinced. “So did you get anything from Arsenault?”

  The doors opened to the lobby and Kay had to squint against the glare of the sun on the marble panels of the OCME’s foyer. “I don’t know how much stock to put in this, but he suggested a necrophilia angle.”

  Finn shook his head as though considering and dismissing the theory in the same breath simply because it came from Arsenault. “The guy’s not right, Kay. Don’t let him fool you.”

  “He’s not fooling me.” She sensed Finn’s possessiveness again, only this time she wasn’t sure if she should find it insulting or charming.

  “He’s connected to all this, Kay. Somehow.”

  “I agree, but the more I talk to him, the more I’m convinced it’s not him we should be looking at.” Still, Kay couldn’t forget the spontaneous rage she’d seen explode from Arsenault last night. She could still see the brute’s head snapped back in fear, the jagged edge of the martini glass’s stem jammed up against his stubbled throat, and the thin line of blood that sprang from its point. And she could still feel the crawling suspicion she’d had last night when she’d actually contemplated the possibility of Scott Arsenault killing.

  31

  IT HAD BEEN A LONG DAY of chasing down names and addresses and anything else connected to B. J. Beggs. Still, they wound up with nothing. Whoever had picked up the young prostitute three nights ago was not a Wilkens regular. No one recognized the late-model sedan, had noted even a partial tag number, or remembered seeing it before. Finn and Kay had hit a wall.

  It was late when Finn pulled up to Kay’s front door, and he was surprised when she invited him up. Now, as he listened to her shower running down the hall, he wondered if the only reason she’d asked him up was to discuss the case.

  “Maybe we need to rule out Scott Arsenault,” Kay shouted from the shower.

  Finn made his way down the hall to the open doorway. He watched her blurred silhouette behind the tempered-glass stall doors, unable to avert his gaze. “How do we do that when the genius can’t even come up with a decent alibi?” he asked.