Bad Monkey

Damn, he thought. She’s really hacked off.

One benefit of working in a violent metropolis such as Greater Miami was superior crime-lab technology, which had advanced by leaps and bounds during decades of extreme homicidal misbehavior. The .357 Smith & Wesson found by Gomez O’Peele’s body was tested, at Dr. Rosa Campesino’s request, for the presence of a cornstarch mixture commonly used on the inside of powdered latex medical gloves. Sometimes, when fitting a nervous hand into such a glove, a criminal might externally disperse microscopic particles of the cornstarch formula. That’s what turned up on both the handle and the trigger of the weapon that killed Dr. O’Peele.

It was a significant finding because a person who purposely shoots himself typically doesn’t worry about fingerprints, and therefore doesn’t don gloves before putting the gun barrel to his temple. In any event, the hands of Gomez O’Peele were bare when his body was discovered, and the only latents on the .357 came from two of the doctor’s right-hand fingers, which was instructive because his sisters reported he was left-handed.

Cumulatively the evidence was more than enough for Dr. Rosa Campesino to classify O’Peele’s death as a homicide, and she signed her name on the certificate. To surprised North Miami Beach detectives she conveyed her opinion that the doctor had been shot by a person other than himself who’d staged the crime as a suicide and had worn hand protection available at any medical-supply outlet. Rosa didn’t identify Nicholas Stripling as the likely killer because it would have jeopardized both her job and the case; the Bahamas excursion ranged far outside the accepted investigatory parameters of an assistant medical examiner. Yancy had to be the one to provide Stripling’s name.

Rosa’s ruling on O’Peele’s nonsuicide was an untidy development for the Key West Police Department, which had named the dead doctor as Charles Phinney’s killer since the same pistol was used in both shootings. The Citizen had already run a story saying the Phinney case was being closed due to the prime suspect’s self-inflicted demise. Now a new story had to be written announcing that the murder of the young fishing mate remained unsolved.

Rosa e-mailed her summary of O’Peele’s autopsy to numerous interested parties, including at Yancy’s suggestion Agents Liske and Strumberg at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Afterward, while Rosa was eating a tomato salad at her desk, a hearse arrived at the morgue to pick up the body of Lindy Schultz, age eight, who’d died of drowning after her appendix ruptured in the family swimming pool. Nothing complicated about the postmortem, but Rosa was having difficulty writing the report.

She got home at six p.m. and took off her lab clothes and poured a glass of white wine. When Yancy called, she told him she’d gone ahead and closed O’Peele as a homicide. He was all gung ho, saying it cleared the way for murder charges against Nick Stripling—if the police could patch together a case.

Rosa was doubtful. Yancy had been the last person to see the doctor alive, a fact any semi-competent defense attorney would exploit to cast suspicion Yancy’s way. There were no known outside witnesses to O’Peele’s killing and probably no physical evidence placing Stripling at the doctor’s apartment. Unsurprisingly, the serial numbers had been scraped off the .357, making it impossible to trace a chain of ownership.

“And anybody can buy surgical gloves,” Rosa said.

“What gave you the idea to look for that powder?” Yancy asked.

She could tell he was impressed.

“Couple years ago I had a case where a urologist down on Brickell shot her boyfriend dead. Instead of using a regular medical glove to handle the weapon, she put on those latex finger cots—five of them—because she did a lot of prostate probing and that’s what she had at the office. It goes without saying she wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier. The techs pulled a flawless palm print off the gun but also some cornstarch from the fingerlets. She wound up pleading to murder two.”

Most of the time Rosa enjoyed her work, although she was increasingly aware of the mental toll. She never watched CSI: Miami or any of the TV shows featuring buff forensic investigators; in fact, she didn’t look at much television except Morning Joe and the Tennis Channel. Her now-deceased former husband had been a decent mixed-doubles partner even with a spazzy backhand.

She asked Yancy if he was glad to be back in the Keys, and he said there was never a dull moment. “The westward view out my window has been dramatically enhanced. I can’t wait for you to see.”

“Oh shit. What did you do, Andrew?”

“Not a thing! However, I may have unwittingly inspired a bad deed. I’ll tell you all about it this weekend. You’re still coming down, right? If not I might get maundering drunk and take a spill on Duval Street.”