Beyond Suspicion

His pulse quickened. Jack had seen plenty of blood before, visited many a crime scene. There was nothing like seeing it in your own house. “Do you need help?”

His voice echoed off the tiled walls, as if to assure him that no answer would come. He took two more steps, then a third. His grip tightened on the gun. His steps became half-steps. Weighted with trepidation, he turned the corner. His eyes tracked the bright red line to its source. He faced the Roman tub and gasped.

A bloody hand hung limply over the side-a woman’s hand. For an instant Jack felt paralyzed. He swallowed his fear and inched closer. Then he stopped, utterly horrified yet unable to look away.

She was completely unclothed, only blood to cover her nakedness. An empty bottle of liquor rested at her hip. It was literally a bloodbath, her life seeming to have drained from the slit in her left wrist. Red rivulets streaked the basin, the thickest pool of blood having gathered near her feet.

“Jessie,” he said, his voice quaking. “Oh… my… God.”

13

•

The Swyteck house was an active crime scene. An ambulance and the medical examiner’s van were parked side by side on the front lawn, a seeming contradiction between life and death. The driveway was filled with police cars, some with blue lights swirling. Uniformed officers, crime scene investigators, and detectives were coming and going at the direction of the officer posted at the door. The first media van had arrived soon after the police. More had followed, and six of them were parked on the street. Neighbors watched from a safe distance on the sidewalk.

Assistant State Attorney Be

Jancowitz was a veteran in the major crimes section, with two dozen murder trials under his belt, and he had the seemingly carved-in-wax worry lines on his face to prove it. The Miami-Dade office kept at least one prosecutor on call to attend crime scenes, but it was no coincidence that Jancowitz was on this particular assignment. A buddy had tipped him off that the body was at Jack Swyteck’s house, knowing that it would be of special interest to Jancowitz.

After four years of death-penalty work for the Freedom Institute, Jack was persona non grata at the state attorney’s office. In fact, he’d handed Jancowitz his first loss ever in a capital case. Jack’s stint as a federal prosecutor had only worsened things. He was assigned to the public-corruption section and put two cops in jail for manufacturing evidence in the prosecution of a murder that was only made to appear gang-related. The assistant state attorney in the case was Be

Jancowitz caught up with the assistant medical examiner just as she was hoisting her evidence into the back of the van.

“Hey there,” he said.

“Mr. Jancowitz, how are you, sir?” It was her style to be rather stiff and formal even with people she liked.

“You about finished in there?”

“Almost. Pretty messy scene, I’m afraid.”

“I know, I saw.”

She removed her hair net and latex gloves. “Was the victim a friend of the Swytecks?”

“No. A client, as I understand it.”

“Ah,” she said.

He wasn’t sure what the “ah” meant. Maybe something along the lines of All lawyers at some point in the relationship are capable of killing their client. “How soon before she’ll be coming out?”

“She won’t be coming out. It’s a body now.”

“That’s one of the things I was going to ask. How long has she been an it?”

She laid a hand atop her evidence kit and said, “I should be able to give you a better idea once I get these maggots under the microscope.”

“You got maggots?”

“I scraped them from her eyes. Some in her nose, too. Looks like they’re hatching, or about to hatch.”

“Where does that put the time of death?”

“Twelve hours, give or take. Not everyone puts as much stock in forensic entomology as I do, but I’m a firm believer that the insect pattern that develops on a corpse is about as reliable an indicator of time of death as you’ll find. Absent a witness, of course.”

“But you need flies to have maggots.”

“Right. Flies are drawn to the smell of a dead body within ten minutes. They lay thousands of eggs, usually in the eyes, nose, and mouth. That’s why the hatching is so crucial in determining time of death.”

“But this body was indoors.”

“Well, they don’t call them house flies for nothing.”

“I didn’t really notice any flies inside.”

“Doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”

“House was all sealed up, too. Air conditioner was on.”

“There was that broken window pane in the back, on the French door. Flies could have easily come in through that.”

“Yeah. Or the flies that laid the maggots could have found the body outside in the open air. Before it was moved inside.”

“That would sound a lot more like homicide than suicide.”

“Yes,” he said, thinking aloud. “It would, wouldn’t it.”

Cindy was waiting in the car. She and Jack had been backing out of the driveway, on their way to her mother’s house, when a detective arrived on the scene. Cindy was eager to get away from the chaos, but the detective promised to keep Jack only a few minutes. A few minutes had turned into half an hour.

She peered through the windshield, her stomach churning at the sight of her house being transformed into a crime scene. Long strands of yellow police tape kept the onlookers at bay, which triggered a wholly incongruous thought in Cindy’s mind. Strangely, it reminded her of the day Jack had asked her to move in with him before they were married. He’d tied yellow ribbons to the dresser handles as a way of marking the drawers that would be hers. If only it were possible to go back to simpler times.

A knock on the passenger-side window startled her. To her relief, it was a police officer. Cindy lowered the window.

“Would you like some coffee?” It was a female officer who spoke with a hint of a Jamaican accent. The voice was mature and confident, which made Cindy realize that this cop wasn’t as young as she looked.

“No, thank you.”

“It’s Starbucks. Still hot.”

“Thanks, but caffeine is the last thing my nerves need right now.”

“I can understand that.” She rested the paper cups on the car hood, reached through the open window, and offered her hand. “I’m Officer Wellens. Call me Glenda.”

“Nice to meet you,” Cindy said as they shook hands.

Glenda glanced casually toward the house and asked, “You know the woman?”

“She was one of my husband’s clients.”

“Wow.”

“Why is that a wow?”

Glenda shrugged and said, “That was just the first thought that popped in my head. Isn’t that what’s going through your head right now? Like, ‘Wow, how did this happen?’”

“My thoughts are more along the lines of, ‘Why did this woman kill herself in my house?’”

“I could give you my two cents’ worth. ‘Course, you’re talking to a woman who’s seen about a million domestic violence calls.”

“What makes you think this has anything to do with domestic violence?”

“Didn’t say it did. It’s just my point of view, that’s all. Gorgeous young woman strips herself naked and slits her wrist in her lawyer’s bathtub. All I’m saying is that I’m trained to think a certain way, so certain thoughts go through my head.”

“Like what?”

She leaned against the car and struck a neighborly pose, as if talking over the kitchen windowsill. “I look at this situation and say, ‘This woman was trying to make a statement.’”

“You mean she left a note?”

“No, honey. Maybe ten percent of the folks who commit suicide actually leave a note. Most of them let the act speak for itself.”