Beckett leaned over the man with the black spectacles and lab coat.
“Anything?” he asked, trying not to get his hopes up.
The lab technician shook his head.
“Nothing. The man had some alcohol in his system, and traces of marijuana. But nothing at levels that would incapacitate him. Gerald was, however, HIV positive.”
Beckett swore and took his hands off the back of the man’s chair.
So Gerald was relatively sober when he died.
Tests from the gun lab hadn’t come back yet, but Beckett would be shocked if the gun at the scene wasn’t the same one that had fired the bullet that had exploded the top of his skull. His wallet was still in his pants, and inside Beckett had found eighty dollars—four twenties.
It didn’t look like a robbery was the motive. What it looked like, quite frankly, was a man who was down on his luck. A man who was HIV positive, who was turning tricks for cash and who had just lost the will to live.
And who had ended it all with one bullet.
Beckett rubbed his forehead.
Only that wasn’t what happened. What happened was that someone had murdered Gerald Leblanc and made it look like a suicide. Just like what happened to Eddie and the man in the bathtub with the slit wrists, the drunk who asphyxiated, and the woman who OD’d and then drowned in Central Park.
He just had to find something that could link the cases, anything that might indicate that their wounds weren’t self-inflicted.
“What about the girl in the pond?”
The man in the glasses turned back to his computer and typed away.
“High levels of diamorphine—heroin—in her system. If she hadn’t drowned, she most likely would have OD’d.”
Beckett swore again.
“And the drunk? The one—ah, fuck it. Never mind,” he patted the man on the shoulder, and he jumped. “Thanks for your help.”
He turned and started toward the door, intent on leaving the lab.
“Dr. Campbell? Can I ask why you are so interested in these suicides? I mean—”
“No, you may not,” he said, without turning back.
Beckett stood in the morgue, the four bodies laid on metal gurneys before him. He had found the man from the first image—Trevor Gobbets—and the man in the tub—Nick Thanos—and had reviewed the files from the junior ME as well as the bodies themselves. And his results and conclusions were the same as they had been with Gerald and Eddie.
His gaze skipped from one naked body to the next, his eyes barely focusing on their pale white flesh. That is, until his eyes landed on Eddie’s light-brown skin. He shook his head and sighed.
“Goddamn it, Eddie. God-fucking-dammit.”
Five murders, all within two weeks.
He loved puzzles, but this one seemed wholly unfair. It was as if all of the pieces had been cut square.
“C’mon Beckett, find something to help Chase out. To help Eddie out.”
Beckett snapped on his gloves and went to the first body, repeating the same process he had done at least a half dozen times already.
Trevor Gobbets had been a homeless man for more than two decades. No family, no friends, no job, no money. The only way they had identified his body was from his fingerprints from a shoplifting charge seven years prior. His corpse showed all the telltale signs of long-term alcoholism: sunken eyes, a pallid complexion, abscesses on his hands and feet. Tox had revealed that he had a blood alcohol level of 0.37. He was so drunk that when he fell on his neck, he didn’t wake up.
Or at least that was the way it was made to look.
“How does a homeless alcoholic find enough alcohol to get that drunk?” he wondered out loud. He made a mental note to ask the tech about the specific type of alcohol later. After combing the man’s body, and not finding anything in the way of evidence of foul play, he moved on to the next.
Nick Thanos was an obese man who had just recently divorced from his wife and had lost custody of his two children. The narrative was simple: the man was depressed, his life was falling apart, so he decided to off himself by slitting his wrists in the tub.
The cuts on his wrists were deep—deep enough to slice through the tendons. There were three slashes on each wrist, working their way upward, nearly to his elbows. Beckett was about to move on to Eddie next, when he noticed something on the inside of the man’s right hand. Sliding down the body to get a better look, he grabbed the mans forearm and carefully lifted it.
There were callouses on the inside of his thumb and the side of his index finger.
He’s right handed, Beckett thought. He inspected the cuts on his right wrist next, then those on his left. Something wasn’t right.
The slashes on the right wrist were strong, deliberate, while those on the left weren’t quite as deep, and there appeared to be hesitation marks.
Beckett wasn’t positive, but if he were a betting man, he would put his money on the fact that Nick had cut his right wrist first, then the left. Which, being right handed, would be very unnatural, indeed.
It’s not much, he figured, but it was something.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he lowered the corpse’s arm back to the gurney, pulled off his glove, and answered it.
“Yeah?” he said, surprised at how tired he sounded.
“Dr. Campbell? It’s Zeke.”
Zeke? Who the hell is Zeke?
“Who?”
“Zeke? From the lab? We just spoke ten minutes ago.”
“Ah, sure, Zeke. What is it?”
“So I was taking another look at Trevor Gobbets’s tox?”
He had Beckett’s full attention now.
“And? What did you find?”
“Well, I’m not sure if it’s anything, but I was looking at the numbers again, and it looks like he had trace amounts of methanol in his system.”
“Methanol? You sure?”
“Yep. I’m sure, I mean it could—”
“Thanks, Zeke, big help,” Beckett said and then hung up the phone.
Then he immediately dialed Chase’s number.
It appeared as if the puzzle pieces had finally acquired a familiar shape.