Raging Heat

“I don’t know. Let’s check in.” The idea of the rooftop and candles became a hope that sank, plummeting without comment, featherless.

Heat tried calling Rook when they found the body of Jeanne Capois, but his phone went straight to voice mail. Not the sort of news you leave on a message, so she let it go with, “Big development. I’ll be in the field on my cell.” She resisted saying call me. Too needy.

Detective Ochoa spotted her and strode toward her unmarked Taurus when she pulled up in front of the prep school on West End Avenue. Nikki paused for a ritual breath then met him on the sidewalk. “School custodian made the find,” he said, escorting her to the black iron gate between the granite school building and a mixed-use apartment with a dental practice on the ground floor. “Garbage pickup is today. He was rolling the trash barrels to the walk, and there she was, dumped behind them. Lauren says there’s so much blood, no doubt she was done here.”

Dr. Parry crouched over the corpse, running tests and directing the CSU tech where to take photos. “This is a bad one, Nikki.”

“Sadistic shit,” said Detective Raley. He knew Heat wasn’t big on profanity but let it out. “Sorry for that, but this is pretty fucked up.”

Nikki leaned over the ME for a peek and quickly turned away. “This goes beyond blood loss from a beating,” said Lauren. “My totally prelim cause of death is asphyxia. See the choke marks on the neck? As yet, I see no signs of sexual assault, so I can only imagine it was either deviant behavior or torture.”

Ochoa said, “Based on the ravaging of the apartment she lived in, my money’s on torture.”

“Mine, too,” said the medical examiner. “Come closer. See the fingertips? That damage was caused by pliers — see the grooves made by the grippers inside the pincers? And her eyes…It looks like some sort of toxic or corrosive liquid was poured into them. The bright stain on her blouse could be from automotive antifreeze. I’ll test it.” Heat turned away again, standing up straight to look at the bright yellow leaves waving on the fall trees while she contemplated the horror of Jeanne Capois’s last moments alive. “She also has abrasions around her mouth where they must have gagged her. There are also numerous burns about her breasts and the soles of her feet.”

“What about these here?” asked Nikki. “The marks just above her wrists.”

“These are consistent with some sort of restraint biting into her skin.”

“Like disposable cuffs?” Ochoa said it, more than asked it. All three detectives went right to the bloody zip ties recovered from the vendor outside the planetarium where Fabian Beauvais crashed.

Lauren Parry, the scientist among them, said, “It’s highly possible. To be certain, I’d want to examine more carefully back at OCME.”

“Disposable cuffs it is,” said Ochoa.

“Can you venture a time of death?” asked Detective Heat.

As the medical examiner slipped brown paper bags over the victim’s hands to preserve DNA and particle evidence, she said, “The body’s been here two nights, I’d say. As for the hour, that’s tricky. I’m going to need my lab work to give us a window. That would make it the night of the home invasion, if it tests out.”

Nikki looked down at Jeanne Capois’s soft, kind face; such a contrast to the brutal agony she endured. What was her life like? The photos found in her room portrayed a joyful, young woman with lots of friends, a smile that lit up the world, and a boyfriend. A boyfriend who had also died in a most horrific fashion. Heat thought about an immigrant woman in her twenties, coming to New York, as so many did, to gain a toehold on the American Dream. And this is where it ended. In an enclosure where they kept the trash. Destined for a stainless steel table in the basement autopsy room on East Thirtieth. How did this happen? What was she into? One thing Heat knew for sure: Given the timing and her relationship with Fabian Beauvais, there was something more to all this than a first-genner seeking a better life.

The detectives huddled on the sidewalk while the OCME van backed up to the gate of the garbage area. Even though the prep school closed for the day following the discovery, technicians tented the area for privacy while the body got loaded. “TOD before or after the apartment ransack?” Heat asked.

“I could see it either way,” said Raley. “Scenario-one, they nab her after she leaves the building at — what time did the elderly housekeeper say?”

“Ten P.M.”

“Right. And they bring her here — or catch her hiding out here — and go to work on her, trying to get her to give up whatever it is they wanted to find.”

Ochoa shook his head. “But then why go and rip the hell out of the apartment?”

“Maybe she didn’t tell them what they wanted,” said Heat. “Or she lied.”

The metal legs of the Stryker collapsed as the gurney got loaded. And they all just stopped talking and thought about the strength of will that woman must have had in the face of a professional interrogation job like that.

“Gentlemen, still your case. What next?”