The Dark Web Murders

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Monday, 20th August. Late afternoon 

Sheehan and Stewart stared at the half-covered corpse of Michael Stevens, feeling faintly repulsed, as always, as they watched Doctor Campbell examine the cadaver's facial features from a distance of two inches, watched him smell the open cavity that was the cadaver's mouth, watched him examine the arms, the hands, the fingernails, all the while muttering incomprehensibly. Sheehan was waiting for a judicious moment to interrupt, when suddenly the doctor stopped still and said, "Well,this is a surprise." 

Immediately alert, Sheehan said, "What's that, Dick?" 

The doctor turned with a start. "Ah, Jim? You're here? And your delectable sergeant. Didn't hear you come in. Good afternoon to you both.And may I say, Denise, you're looking lovely as ever." 

"Thank you, kind sir," Stewart said with a smile. "Your door was slightly open when we arrived, but you seemed intent on your examination,so we didn't want to interrupt." 

"What did you see, Dick?" Sheehan repeated, unconcerned with niceties. 

Campbell eyes crinkled as he turned again to Stewart. "I think perhaps you can convert your plural personal pronoun from 'we' to 'I', Sergeant." He waved a hand at Sheehan. "This one undoubtedly does not share your qualms about interrupting my work." 

Sheehan sighed and gave the pathologist his bleakest look. 

Campbell raised his hands in defence. "All right! All right! Don't get excited. The actual find is not the cause of my surprise. In fact, I really don't know what to make of it. My surprise is occasioned by the fact that there is actually something there to find. Our perpetrator has to date been meticulously careful. I have not found a single item that might be called a clue since these murders began and, as I understand from Bill Larkin,neither have the SOCOs. So, this is definitely a surprise." 

Sheehan's hands were held almost rigidly in front of him, ostensibly to express pleading, but it almost seemed as if he was threatening to strangle the pathologist. 

"For the third time, Dick, what have you found?" 

At that point the door opened, and Doctor Jones came in wearing a white lab coat and carrying a manila file and some sheets of paper.

"Good afternoon, Doctor Jones," Stewart said. 

Jones, not one for casual talk, gave her a nod in return and said solemnly, "Good afternoon, Sergeant. Good afternoon, Chief Inspector."He continued walking across the mortuary, left his papers on a nearby desk,donned a white rubber apron, and was quickly absorbed in examination of the flaccid body of an elderly female. 

Sheehan turned again to Campbell who had just lifted a small pair of tweezers from the tray beside him and, taking the corpse's right hand in his,he extracted a small strand of elastic rubber, perhaps a tenth of an inch in length, from under one of the fingernails. He held it up for the detectives to see. 

"What is it?" Sheehan asked, staring at it. 

"It's a tiny piece of white elastic." 

"So, what do you make of it?" 

"I've just told you. I don't know." 

"There was a load of sex paraphernalia in that room. Anything spring to mind that might have stuff like this in it?" 

The doctor burst out laughing. "What kind of life do you think I live, Jim? How would I have a clue about something like that?" He grinned at Stewart. "Sex toys, indeed." 

"Could it have come from the killer, do you think?"

 "I have to imagine that it did. He's got fairly long nails, this guy, well manicured. I suppose if there was any kind of struggle or activity, this could have caught on one of those nails. I'm sure it wasn't there while he was alive. He would definitely have noticed it and removed it." He stroked his chin and stared directly at the detective. "Or, the hand may have come into contact with an ambulance attendant or something while they were packing the corpse for removal and this snagged on the fingernail, wherever it came from." 

"I'll have somebody's guts for garters if that proves to be the case," Sheehan growled. "Bag it for me, will you, Dick? Maybe forensics can find out what it is. Or maybe even harvest a speck of DNA from it." 

Campbell's mouth went down. "Mmmm!" 

"Mmmm what?" 

The doctor shrugged. "They might, but it won't be easy." He walked over to a shelf and placed the elastic in a small plastic evidence bag. "Here you go,Jim. Let me know what you find out about it. I'd be curious to know what it is." 

"Thanks, Dick," Sheehan said, handing the bag to Stewart. He looked back down at the corpse. "So, what else can you tell us?" 

"Well, one thing is different, I mean, apart from the fact that the killer carelessly overlooked that tiny item." 

"Let me guess," Sheehan interjected. "Unlike the other two, this victim was drugged before he was killed, right?" 

Campbell's head went back, and he stared quizzically at his friend."Okay! I'll bite. How did you know?" 

"Simple deduction," Sheehan replied. 

Campbell's eyes narrowed suspiciously as his gaze moved from Sheehan to Stewart. "He's playing with me, right?" 

Stewart said, straight-faced, "I really couldn't say, Doctor." 

"Look, Dick," Sheehan explained casually. "Our killer's profile is telling us that he is a small, probably slight man, maybe even a woman. Our victim here is stocky, strong. If he was in the heat of a sexual encounter that night when he was murdered, our killer would never have been capable of physically overpowering him. The only way the perp could have carried out the killing the way he did was by drugging the victim at some point beforehand. So, there you go. Q.E.D."

 Campbell looked far from convinced but he tossed his head and changed the subject. "I found some fibres on the judge's corpse." 

Sheehan was immediately attentive. "Fibres?" 

"Yep! Looks like they might have come from a camel-hair overcoat." 

"Oh, very clever, Dick. You had me going there." 

Campbell shrugged. "I did find fibres." 

"Yes, and you saw the coat during your examination of the body at themurder scene." 

"Yes. Actually, I meant to ask. What was the overcoat doing there?" 

"The person who discovered the body, Edgar Doran, felt that he couldn't leave it lying exposed the way it was, and threw his overcoat on top of it. I gave him a bit of a rollicking for doing that. Think he cost us anything?" 

"Not sure," he replied. Then he pointed again to an area of the victim's abdomen. "Okay, I was messin' with you about the fibres, but I did find a tiny hair on the judge's corpse. The judge's hair is white; this one is dark.So it isn't the judge's. It might have come from the killer, or it equally might have come from Edgar Doran when he was throwing the coat over the body." 

Sheehan frowned thoughtfully. "Our killer wears some kind of protective clothing. He's leaving us nothing, so it's probably Doran's. Bag it anyway, and we'll get forensics to have a look at it." He looked at his  watch. "Anything else?" 

Campbell spread his hands. "Not sure of its relevance, but two of your victims, the judge and Stevens, were sexually very active, in all sorts of deviant ways, I would guess. The teacher, not so much." 

Sheehan grimaced. "The teacher is kind of the odd man out in this trio. We've been trying to find ways to connect him to the other two. You've just made him even more of a disconnect." 

Campbell grunted. "Oh, dear! That was careless of me. It has to be annoying when pesky facts get in the way of your famed deductive skills." 

Sheehan tried to give him a hard stare but the twinkle in his eyes rendered the effort futile. "We'll let ourselves out, Dick. Let us know if anything else strikes you." 

The pathologist bowed theatrically. "Good day to you, Jim, and good day to you, too, Sergeant Stewart."