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Halifax, May 17
2:15 p.m.
The autopsy viewing room was cool and quiet. Though its purpose was to minimize the shock and smells, in Allan’s experience, it did little good in moments like this.
He stood beside Philip Ambré in front of a curtained window, waiting for Dr. Coulter to reveal the body of the woman pulled from the Halifax Harbor. Allan was quite certain that the body belonged to Trixy Ambré. He wished that it could be someone else. In two days, he knew, Cathy would be laid to rest. Now here was her father, waiting to learn the fate of his only other daughter.
In the five days since Cathy’s death, Philip’s appearance had changed dramatically. He looked haggard, diminished, and weary. His eyes held a haunted quality and were bruised by dark crescents. Allan couldn’t imagine how hard this had to be for him.
He said, “I’m sorry to have to put you through this again.”
Philip lowered his head. “I know you are.”
A knock came at the door, and Dr. Coulter poked his head in.
“Are we ready, Detective?” he asked.
Allan gave a slight nod.
As the door closed, Philip inhaled a deep breath and turned to the window with a stiff, grim composure.
Coulter drew the curtain aside. A body lay on a metal gurney just on the other side of the glass, covered by a white sheet. Coulter walked over to it and then pulled the sheet down to the woman’s upper chest. With merciless clarity, the overhead lights captured the puffy face and the waxen skin that was blotched with dark, irregular patches. Allan noted that Coulter had closed the eyelids to conceal the missing eyes.
For several minutes, Philip didn’t move, only stared at the woman with his mouth agape.
Allan hated this.
“How...” Philip tried to speak, but his parched voice was lost in a hard swallow. “How does a father not know his own daughter?”
“You can’t ID her?”
Philip shook his head. “It’s her face. What’s wrong with it? It looks bloated. And Cynthia never had those huge blemishes before.”
“It’s from the time she spent in the water,” Allan said.
Quietly, Philip’s mouth formed a small “o.”
“The hair is similar,” he said after a time. “How many other women do you have missing in the city?”
Only one this recent, Allan wanted to say.
“She was found wearing clothes that Cathy had described in the missing persons report,” he said. “But there are other ways of confirming identity. Dental records. Blood tests.”
Arms folded, Philip turned away, staring at the floor. Moments passed before he looked at Allan again.
In a tone laced with melancholy, he said, “Cynthia had a diamond-shaped birthmark on the nape of her neck. You should be able to see it under her hairline.”
Allan left to convey the information to Dr. Coulter. When Allan returned to the viewing room, he stood at the window with Philip and watched Lawrence Sodero turn over the body. Coulter adjusted his glasses and examined the back of the neck. He glanced at the two men in the window and gave them a solemn nod.
For what seemed a long time, Philip visibly strove to keep from breaking. Then he lowered his head and emitted a shaky breath. Watching him, Allan could feel the depth of his loss.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Ambré.”
Philip’s eyes were moist. “Cynthia and I haven’t spoken to one another in three years,” he murmured. “But I still loved her.”
Allan looked into his ravaged face. “I know you did.”
Philip placed a hand on Allan’s arm and squeezed. “Please find the one responsible for this. Bring the fucker to justice.”
It was a simple plea from an anguished father, Allan realized, yet it filled him with a mix of dread and duty.
“I’ll do the best I can,” he said.
Tears ran down Philip’s face now. “I know you will.” He walked toward the door and then stopped, looking back over his shoulder. “Carol and I would love to see you at Cathy’s service on Wednesday. Can you make it?”
“I already set time aside for it.”
Philip nodded. “Thank you.”
Heartsick, Allan watched the door close behind him. He knew that it would be a tough road ahead for Philip—both daughters gone in the span of a week. How could any father bear the guilt of not having protected either of them?
With a heavy sigh, he went to the morgue. Coulter and Sodero were preparing for the autopsy. Allan stared at the swollen wreck lying on the gurney.
He asked, “How long do you think she was in the water?”
“A week. Maybe more.” Coulter slipped on a pair of latex gloves. “If you look at the hands and feet, you’ll see the maceration is well established. There are signs of early skin separation in the big toes. It takes roughly a week to reach that stage.”
Allan shifted his gaze to the opaque, wrinkled skin in those areas. The time frame seemed right to him—Trixy had gone missing eight days ago.
“Any idea as to the cause of death?”
Coulter said, “Nothing until the autopsy, Detective. But if she drowned, it’ll be tough to determine.”
“What about the missing eyes?”
“They could’ve been removed by marine life,” Sodero said. “Crustaceans, especially crabs, are known to attack the soft parts of the face—the eyes, nose, and mouth.”
Coulter added, “There are abrasions around the eye sockets and lips indicating that something in the harbor was nibbling at the body.”
Allan glanced at his watch. “I’ll stop back in a few hours. See what you found out.”
He grabbed a coffee and muffin at a local Robins and then returned to his office. His desk was cluttered with an eight-day compilation of the Brad Hawkins murder—handwritten notes, canvass, supplementary, lab and autopsy reports.
A corkboard hung on the wall behind the desk, and a map of Halifax was pinned to it. A red circle marked where Brad had been murdered. Below the map was an array of aerial and crime-scene photos.
Allan let out a troubled sigh. He had no suspects. No clues. No witnesses. The case was just over a week old, and already it seemed hopeless.
He sat down, took a sip of coffee, a bite of muffin. His gaze fell on the manila envelope containing the autopsy photos of Cathy Ambré. Her death left him with a deep sadness that would probably be with him for a long time. If her sister, Trixy, hadn’t disappeared, Cathy might still be alive. She might’ve beaten her addiction and gone on to live a prosperous life.
If there was any measure of justice in her death, it was that she helped take Bernard Potter off the streets. Cathy had saved many lives.
At five, Allan went to Coulter’s office. It was a spacious room, well furnished. His desk was covered with family pictures. Doctorates that were showcased inside expensive frames adorned the walls.
Coulter typed on his computer. “Detective, please have a seat.”
Allan did so. “What’re we dealing with?”
Coulter stopped typing. “Homicide.”
It didn’t surprise Allan. He’d expected as much.
Coulter said, “Miss Ambré was struck with a blunt, cylindrical instrument. I found a single-impact injury to the side of her head. When I examined the skull, I found a linear fracture in the temporal region.”
“Was the blow hard enough to cause death?”
“Varying levels of unconsciousness, yes. But not death.”
“Would a wound like that bleed much?”
“Oh, yes,” Coulter said. “Nothing bleeds like the scalp.”
Allan steepled his fingers in front of him. “What else did you find?”
“Hemorrhaging in the eardrums. The lungs were heavy and voluminous. On dissection, there was fluid in the alveoli. There was also a large amount of silty water in the stomach.”
“So she was alive when she entered the water?”
“Yes.”
Allan rubbed the bridge of his nose. He wondered if Trixy had been knocked unconscious and then dumped into the harbor.
“There’s something else, Detective,” Coulter said. “I could be way off base, but when I examined the optic nerves, I noticed that they’ve been cut.”
Hearing this, Allan’s eyebrows shot up. He felt a strange frisson.
“Jesus,” he murmured. “How sure are you of this?”
“Quite sure. Certain, in fact. The wounds on the optic nerves were clean cut. I didn’t see any ripping, as one would expect to find. Especially if a crab or some other ocean scavenger had been trying to tear out the eyeballs.”
“Would that require some skill, training?”
Coulter shrugged. “Not really. You’d be surprised at how easy it is to pop out a person’s eyeball with your thumb or finger. Then it’s just a matter of cutting the exposed optic nerve.”
Allan mulled everything over for a moment. Then he got up, thanked Coulter, and walked outside to his car. He took out his pen and notebook. On a blank page, he wrote:
1. Was Trixy with a john prior to her murder?
2. Why the missing eyes?
3. Homicidal drowning—uncommon.
4. Alive when entered the water.
5. Where and how did she enter the water?
For a long time, Allan stared at his last remark. Then, closing his notebook, he took out his cell phone and called the serology department at the forensics lab.
“What can I do for you, Detective?”
Allan said, “There are some blood samples being sent over from the medical examiner’s office under the name Ambré. That’s A-m-b-r-e. First name, Trixy. I need those samples compared to the blood we found on the Eastern Canadian Tugboat wharf on May ninth. I need the results ASAP.”
“We’ll do our best.”
“Thank you,” he said and hung up.
If the blood on the wharf belonged to Trixy, then whoever killed her also killed Brad Hawkins.
More determined than ever, Allan returned to his office to work.
