CHAPTER 13

 

Cathy Ahearn shrugged as she handed the autopsy report to Davis. “I’m afraid there’s not much there, Matt,” she said. “Death by asphyxiation, and of course she was raped. Pretty much the same as the first one, except the initials were different—at least the other set.”

Matt acknowledged the news with a nod. “I took your advice and got in touch with the archbishop.”

“Any luck?”

“Not yet,” he said. “I met with Romero, and he’s got his people checking on unhappy ex-employees within the archdiocese. Also, Father Richter down at St. Jude’s is going to see what he can come up with inside his church. Both murders occurred within the same parish, and—”

“Oh, Matt, there is something else,” interrupted Ahearn.

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“Well, it looks as if the same ‘perp’ did both of them.”

“How do you figure?”

“Same blood type. We ran an acid phosphate test on some of the stains on the sheets and turned up semen. Our boy’s a secretor, AB to be precise. That represents only about five percent of the population. Highly unlikely that two guys with that blood type would commit the same kind of murder. So, we’ve narrowed it down to about two-hundred-and twenty-five thousand New Yorkers, give or take fifty thousand.”

“Wonderful,” quipped Davis. Turning to his partner, he added, “Chris, have we got blood types on the two husbands?”

Freitag pulled his notebook from his breast pocket. He flipped through the worn pages, finally finding what he was searching for.

“Here we go,” he said. “Let’s see—husband Number One, type O; Spiros, type A.”

Davis shut his eyes, and replied in deadpan, “So, let’s see, we can definitely eliminate the two husbands. Great! Now we’re really getting somewhere.”

Ahearn grabbed Davis’s arm. “You know, you just might have something there,” she said, earnestly.

“Oh, really?”

“I’m serious, Matt. The fact that both women were married; maybe that means something —”

“And maybe it doesn’t,” Davis quickly replied. “Maybe we’ll just have to wait until we’ve got a dozen in the morgue before—”

“Oh, come on, Matt. I’m only trying to help.”

Davis rubbed his eyes. “Sorry, Cathy,” he said. “I’m just frustrated.”

“Maybe both women were having an affair with the same guy?” offered the ME.

Davis seemed to brighten at the suggestion. “I guess that is a possibility. Yeah, what the hell. Anyway, it’s something. We’ll check that out. Won’t we, Freitag?” His partner rolled his eyes at the ceiling and answered in a mock slave-like tone,” Whatever you says—“Massuh.”