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CHAPTER SEVEN
Lisa Cooksey was thirty-one. Everyone said she looked twenty-one and lately she felt as if she was sixty-one.
The long hours were wearing her thin. Her edges were frayed and she felt as though a cat was pulling at the fringe. She didn’t have much left in her. Between school and a full time job on the force she thought she would hit the breaking point so hard that people around her would actually hear the snap.
She persevered; her mother raised her to be strong. “In a man’s world,” she had said. “You have to work twice as hard to get half the credit.” Mom may have been right; admitting her mother was right about anything was a bitter pill to swallow.
She was attractive, or so she had been told by countless men on the force. But the compliment was usually followed by advice on what she could do to improve her looks. Put on makeup, style your hair, stop biting your nails.
She was happy being herself; a plain and natural looking nail biter. The truth was she wasn’t interested in prettying herself up for a man. She didn’t have the time to date or, as her dear mother called it, settle down.
She was as settled as she was going to get and comfortable not relying on a man or setting herself up for disappointment by entrusting her heart in the hands of one. Been there, done that.
For now, she was on her own and doing things at her own pace. If her pace had led her to standing in the office of Doctor Paul Singh who was not only deceased but sprawled out face down on the floor where puddles of blood spread out from the stumps where his hands used to be then so be it. At least she was here of her own accord.
Stephen Fry pushed through the cluttered office.
The doctor worked out of his home. He was old, pushing eighty, and only had a select group of patients. “Second senior in as many nights to bite the bullet.”
Lisa rolled her eyes. Men were so eloquent.
“I’m thinking connection right of the back, but that’s probably just the optimist in me.” Fry took a knee beside the dead doctor.
Lisa eyed Fry with some trepidation. She wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable around him she just had a general disdain for the men on the force and their callous lack of sensitivity. Fry more than the others. She was certain the events from two years ago largely contributed to her caution around him. She had seen up close and personal the things of which he was capable when challenged. He could ruin her.
“So,” she said as she too stepped closer to the body. “Let me hear your take on it.”
Fry looked up at Lisa then back at Doctor Singh. “Seems pretty general to me; someone comes in and gives the doc a whack on the wrists with a knife of some sort and leaves him for dead. That’s pretty vague but I’m not the garrulous type Detective Cooksey.”
Lisa forced a smile and hoped it looked half as genuine as she tried to make it. She slipped into a pair of latex surgical gloves, no need in contaminating the scene before the crime scene unit arrived. “Well, detective Fry, your story sounds very thorough.”
This time Fry was the one who gave the half-hearted attempt at a smile.
“Here's how I see things Detective,” Lisa stared around the room, taking in the sites. “And I use the term loosely as you don’t really detect much.”
Fry chuckled. “That sarcasm I detect?”
“Well, I was laying it on pretty thick. I just might have to second guess my comment; you picked up on that right quick.”
Fry smiled his perfect smile. Brilliant white teeth perfectly aligned. “You’re stalling.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
Lisa shrugged. “And you’re a dick. Now shut up and let me think.”
The scene was odd, even by homicide standards. The doctor didn’t appear to have put up any fight. The office, disorderly as it appeared, was not the result of combat. The doctor himself lay directly beside his chair, which meant that he was either standing or sitting at his desk.
Lisa spoke her findings aloud and didn’t glance over at Fry. She didn’t need his approval or his condescending stares. “I think, if we check the back of the head, we just might find,” Lisa ruffled the doctor’s hair. “Yes, I thought so.”
Fry stepped closer and took a knee beside the body. He fixed his attention to the area of the doctor’s head to which Lisa was pointing with a ball point pen. The skin was broken and a goose-egg sized lump swelled beneath the abrasion.
“Looks as if the killer knocked our man unconscious,” Lisa said as she stared determinedly at the wound. She took a moment and surveyed the scene, her eyes squinted and she let out a small gasp.
Fry stared at her; he obviously didn’t catch on to what she had discovered. “Either you had some revelation or you just suffered an instantaneous asthma attack.”
Lisa stood and made a slow circle around the body. She stared at his feet for a moment then made her way to the front of the body and stared at the carpet directly beneath of the puddles of blood. “My God,” she whispered. “He wasn’t unconscious after all.”
Fry bolted to his feet. “Are you telling me that the doctor was conscious while his hands were severed?”
Lisa nodded. “Look at the carpet by his feet,” she said. “It’s worn; the pattern of the fabric is disturbed.” She rounded to his feet, knelt and analyzed the sides of his shoes. “He was thrashing, the trim of his shoes is covered with carpet fiber.”
Following suit Fry studied the area of carpet directly beneath the collecting puddles of blood. There were two sets of five claw marks in the carpet where the doctor apparently had dug his fingers seconds before his hands were removed from his body. The claw marks were now covered in blood but evident nonetheless. “Jesus,” Fry whispered. “He bled to death.”
“Don’t touch anything else,” Lisa said quietly. “Save it for the crime scene guys.”
“Ever since that TV series they think they’re hot shit.”
Lisa looked around the room. “I wonder if the doctor was expecting his killer.”
Fry shrugged. “He was a doctor,” he replied. “Check his date book.”
Lisa strolled around the small office and took a mental inventory. Amidst medical journals, patient files and prescription pads she found the planner. Nothing fancy by doctor standards, just a simple planner with a picture of a wrinkly dog with the words, Hang Loose emblazoned below the canine. She flipped through the pages once, then again.
“Any luck?”
Lisa looked up and shook her head. “No appointments listed today,” she answered. “Except for a golf game at three this afternoon.”
“Might be a good idea to check with his opponent, golf can be quite the competitive sport.”
Lisa nodded and again forced a smile. “No hands and a scheduled golf game, talk about a handicap.”
Fry shook his head with disgust. “That’s low, even by my standards.”
He was right, she had hung around with the barbarians so long that she was now emulating their behavior. It was pack mentality personified and she shivered. She was overcome by the need for a shower.
Fry had found a stack of photo albums and was busy flipping through them. “Looks like Doctor Singh was a stickler for nostalgia.”
Lisa squinted. “What you got there?”
“Photos,” Fry replied. “And other assorted sundries. Certificates, accolades, letters and such.”
Lisa inched closer and watched as Fry’s gloved hands flipped through the pages. The detective paused momentarily to read a caption for a photo or to take in the words printed on a certificate.
Lisa shrugged; sentimentality was for the weak she thought. It was something to hold onto when you thought your most crowning moments would be the last. She didn’t have need for such keepsakes. She refused to live her life like each great moment would be the last. She preferred to keep her eye on where she was going and not where she had been.
“He accomplished a lot in his life.” Fry said nonchalantly.
Lisa scrunched her face. The statement didn’t sit right with her; it seemed to imply that his death was no great loss as he had lived a full and successful life. If belittling ones existence made another feel superior or served to lessen the impact of the situation; if by demeaning the deceased in such an inconsiderate fashion helped one become desensitized to the horrors they see day in and day out then that person should consider leaving the field all together.
The grim reality was this, the scenario before them. It could not be masked nor should it. Lisa preferred to stare adversity in the face and stand her ground. She refused to make light of what she did not understand. She could admit she was terrified by the things she saw and didn’t feel the need to laugh at or belittle things she couldn't comprehend to accommodate her own shortcomings.
“You okay?”
Fry’s voice snapped her back to reality. “Not really,” she replied. “I think I’ve seen all I need to here.”
Lisa walked from the doctor’s office and down the flight of stairs leading to the modest foyer. Doctor Singh was old but that gave no one the right to cut short a life that otherwise would have returned many more happy moments for him to immortalize in one of his albums. For that Lisa was saddened.
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