Lucifer’s Tears

Then I notice equestrian clothing on the shelf on top of the clothes rack: shirts, breeches, a jacket and helmet. Interesting.

We go back to Iisa’s body. ‘Filippov has in the neighborhood of fifty burn marks on her body. Most are located on her abdomen, her genital area, her nipples, her face, and one through her left eye. The diameter and circular shape of the burns indicate she was burned with lit cigarettes. The wounds could have been inflicted after death, but I think they were probably used as a method of meting out pain. She voided her bowels either while being murdered, from fear or pain or both, or maybe upon death. Feces and urine are on the sheets between her legs.’

‘It’s enough to puke a dog off a gut wagon,’ Milo says.

I point at the audio recorder, press a warning finger to my lips and continue. ‘The blood pool pattern around the victim indicates that another body lay next to her while she bled. The outline of a head, arm and torso are clear. The resident of the apartment, Rein Saar, claims to have woken up next to the victim and found her dead. This lends some credence to his story. Most unusual is that Iisa Filippov has been struck dozens, perhaps more than a hundred times, with a light instrument at high velocity. It’s notable that her face around the lips was beaten with particular severity.’

The tone of my description is neutral, but the scene reeks of torture, horror and agony. Iisa’s face is nearly destroyed by cigarette burns, whipped to pieces, scored by marks and welts. Deep and wide-open wounds that ooze.

‘She was struck on the same surface areas, mostly on the face and torso, multiple times. It appears that the first lash abraded flesh, and that subsequent strikes deepened the wounds. This resulted in significant blood spatter. The walls and ceiling are misted with patterns of thousands of blood droplets that I estimate are an average of two millimeters in size.’

I hear the front door open, then voices. The forensics team is here.

Milo points. ‘Look at this little spot on the wall,’ Milo says. ‘Whatever the killer used to hit her smacked it and left a small tongue-shaped bloodstain. Given the clothes in his closet, I’d say Rein Saar beat her to death with a riding crop.’

‘A good guess,’ I say.

I go to the closet, get down on my knees and look at the floor. A bloody crop is propped up against the inside wall. I don’t touch it, leave it in place for the forensics team to photograph it. ‘Found it.’

Milo comes over and takes a look.

I speak into the tape recorder. ‘In the bedroom closet, we discovered the probable weapon used in the lashing attack. A riding crop, a little over three feet in length, with a leather tongue on the end. It appears to be made of fiberglass, has a leather-wrapped handle, and a loop on the end to secure grip.’

We return to the bedside. Both of us stare down at her for a moment. Milo asks me, ‘What do you think was the cause of death?’

‘She took a terrible beating, but there’s no arterial spurting. I doubt if it was blood loss. She’s got those socks stuffed in her mouth. I think he beat her with the horse whip until he got bored with it, then maybe just held her nose until she suffocated and died.’

‘I tend to agree,’ Milo says.

‘Maybe we should call Saska Lindgren and have him come take a look,’ I say. ‘He’s the bloodstain-pattern expert.’

Milo shakes his head. ‘No fucking way.’

‘Why not?’

‘This is my first big homicide case and I’m not sharing it with anybody.’

I raise my eyebrows.

He flushes, embarrassed at his gaffe. ‘Except you, of course. Listen, I’m going to tell you something personal.’

Not again. I wish he wouldn’t. I wait.

‘You’ve probably heard that I have a high IQ. People make a big deal about my being in Mensa.’

‘Yeah. So?’

‘I have advanced development of spatial relations and mathematics. The forensics guys are going to come in here, make detailed measurements and photographs, then enter it all into a computer program that will more or less re-create the attack. I don’t need the computer program. I can do it in my head.’

I don’t quite believe him. ‘Then do it.’

Somebody knocks on the bedroom door frame. I look. A member of the forensics team says, ‘Sorry we’re late. You guys want to let us in there?’

‘Give us a couple more minutes,’ Milo says. ‘Can you loan me a viewing loupe magnifier and a measuring tape?’

She brings them.

Milo looks close up at blood droplets at various points on the walls, measures distances. He stands on the chair and examines the ceiling. This feels silly, like I’m Dr Watson to his Sherlock Holmes.

My phone rings. It’s Kate. ‘Where are you?’ she asks.

‘At a murder scene.’

‘The weather is so bad, I was worried.’

I made a mistake taking this case. I want to be at home with Kate right now and I could be. A fuckup. ‘I’m fine. I should have called, but I got caught up in this.’

‘John and Mary will be here this evening. How are you going to be able to spend time with them if you haven’t slept?’

She sounds peeved, doesn’t realize I seldom sleep. I haven’t told her. While she sleeps, I lie in bed beside her and think. ‘I’ll be fine. We’ll have a nice evening, and I’ll get home as soon as I can.’

‘Please try. I miss you.’

I ring off. Milo is waiting, smiling and expectant. I guess I’m supposed to share his joy.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I got it.’

‘I’m bursting with anticipation.’

‘Trajectories are three-dimensional and so have three angles of impact. I calculated gamma, the easiest angle, which is the angle of the blood path measured from the vertical surface and extended angle. Then I calculated alpha, the angle of blood spatter moving out from the surface. Then finally beta, the angle of blood pivoting around the vertical. The three angles are connected through trigonomic equations that determine the major and minor axes and angle of impact.’

I interrupt. ‘Please get to the point.’

‘The tangential flight path of blood droplets is determined with the angle of impact and the offset angle of the blood spatter. They converge at the intersection of two blood-spatter paths, and the stains come from opposite sides of the impact pattern. The area of convergence is formed by the intersection of stains from opposite sides of the impact pattern.’

‘Get to the point.’

‘I’m trying to. The area of origin is the area in three-dimensional space where the blood source was located at the time of the attack . . .’

The dark circles around his eyes seem to have taken on a dull shine. I’ve noticed this happens when he gets excited. ‘Milo, please. The goddamned fucking point.’

He purses his lips, frustrated. I’ve ruined his fun. ‘The killer didn’t beat her at random. He chose small points on her body, hit the target areas repeatedly to cause maximum pain and damage, resulting in the great number of blood-spatter patterns, then chose a new area of flesh to whip.’

I sigh. ‘Thank you.’

He’s miffed. ‘And in case you didn’t know, most of the blood spatter isn’t the result of the riding crop striking her. When the whip recoils away from the body at the bottom of the striking arc but still at high velocity, that’s when the blood really flies.’

I did know, but I’m still not certain if I believe he can work it all out without a computer. I’ll talk to Saska Lindgren after we get photos and data from forensics, and see if he confirms Milo’s version of events.