They proceeded with the autopsy and Carl made his usual attempt to convince me to stick a needle in the eye to retrieve the vitreous fluid. Thanks but no thanks. There was a lot of gross I could handle, but that went way beyond my squick tolerance.

Doc began to peel the skin of Vic’s neck back. “Good god, this was one strong son of a bitch!” He shook his head in amazement and when I looked I could see large clots of blood where the creature’s fingers had dug in. “Carl, get pictures of this, please.” He paused long enough for Carl to get the pictures, then continued peeling back the layers of muscle. He carefully palpated the throat area and let out a low whistle.

“Hyoid bone broken?” I asked. I didn’t have much knowledge of pathology and anatomy, but I knew that the hyoid bone was often broken in cases of manual strangulation.

Doc snorted. “Broken? That’s putting it mildly. The whole trachea is crushed, thyroid cartilage is broken.” He shook his head again in disbelief. “This guy was dead—or at least well on his way there—before he was helped out the window.”

I couldn’t completely control the shudder. Poor guy.

Doc moved with careful efficiency through the rest of the autopsy—removing and examining organs and taking samples of blood and urine for toxicology testing. Finally he glanced up at Carl. “Let’s get him sewn up. I’m going to want to do a posterior neck dissection to get a better look.”

Carl removed the block beneath the body, then pulled out a thick, curved needle about three inches long and a ball of nylon string. He cut off about a yard of string and threaded the needle, then extended the needle to me.

“Care to help?” Carl asked, face impassive. “It will go faster with two of us sewing.”

I reluctantly took the needle. “This is so disgusting.”

His lips twitched. “Be careful,” he said. “The needle can get slippery, and you don’t want to poke yourself. And it doesn’t have to be pretty or neat. The funeral home will take it out anyway.”

I cringed as I pushed the needle into the flesh at the edge of the long incision. It didn’t matter that I knew Vic Kerry couldn’t feel anything anymore. It still sent a chill through me every time I pierced the skin. I definitely didn’t have it in me to do the kind of ritual torture that the Symbol Man had performed.

I quickly discovered that “slippery” was an understatement. Even though Vic Kerry had lost massive quantities of weight and was fairly trim, he still had a thin layer of fat in his midsection. After a couple of passes through that fat, the needle was slick and damn near impossible to manage.

“Thanks for the help,” Carl said. I looked up to see that he’d started from the other end, completely sewing up the rest of the incision in the time it had taken me to do three whole stitches.

I gave him a black scowl. “You did not need my help,” I accused. “You only wanted me to do more gross stuff.”

“Your perception astounds me,” he replied with a dry chuckle. “But I could use your help turning the body over.”

“I think I need to start filling out a time sheet for the coroner’s office, Doc,” I said over my shoulder.

The pathologist smiled and continued to jot notes. “It’s not enough that you’re my favorite detective?”

I hid my smile and made a rude noise. “Yeah, yeah,” I said as I helped Carl flip Vic over. “I’ve heard that tune before. Money talks, Doc!”

Doc gave a low laugh. “Worth a try.” He stepped up to the prone body and made a careful slit along the spine from the nape of the neck to a point between the shoulder blades.

“Unbelievable,” he murmured after a moment of examination.

“Doc? What did you find?”

“Kara, whoever did this was unbelievably strong. You have shearing of discs of upper cervical vertebrae. Marked hemorrhage along vertebrae and into posterior neck muscles. Ligaments from vertebrae to base of skull are ruptured.” He kept pointing at globs of blood that apparently meant a great deal to him, but simply looked like a gory mess to me. He straightened. “I mean, it’s as if something grabbed this guy by the neck and just squeezed, breaking and ripping everything back here.”

“And then threw him out the window in the hopes of making it look like a suicide,” I said.

“There’s no way that these injuries came from a fall,” Doc said flatly. Then he gave me a wry smile. “My advice is to keep an eye out for a big, strong, dirty giant.”

I gave him the chuckle he was expecting. Good thing he doesn’t know how close he is to the truth.

Chapter 15

After leaving the morgue I called Roger, relieved to discover that it was his day off, which meant I could avoid walking through the gym again. I arranged to meet him at his apartment, then called Adam Taylor while I was on my way to Roger’s. Adam seemed unruffled at my request to come talk to him, merely stating that he was in New Orleans in meetings with the band’s label, and that he’d be more than happy to meet with me at the studio later in the day, perhaps five-thirty?

I agreed and disconnected, taking note of the fact that he’d been unsurprised at the request for an interview. It might mean nothing, or maybe Roger had given Adam a heads up about Vic Kerry’s death. I sent a quick text to Ryan to update him and arrange to meet him at the studio at five, then headed out to see Roger.

Roger lived in a relatively new apartment complex on the north end of town, and about as far away from the lake as you could get and still be within Beaulac city limits. It looked like a decent enough place, though I was fairly sure I’d go nuts having neighbors on all sides. The complex was large—almost a dozen buildings—and each building had what I estimated to be about fifteen apartments. I had a hard time believing that there were that many people in the Beaulac area who needed rental space, but as far as I could tell the majority of the units had residents.

Roger answered the door with a wan smile. “Detective Gillian,” he said. “Have you found out anything?”

“A few things,” I replied. “I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.”

He stepped back to allow me to enter. “It’s no problem.” He closed the door behind me then led the way down a short hall and into the living room. Or perhaps it was the dining room, or an extension of the kitchen. It was a bit difficult to tell where one room ended and another began. It was tidy, though, and the furniture was arranged in what was probably the best way to take advantage of the strange floor plan. It felt comfortable and welcoming, and even the drum set in the corner seemed to fit into the flow of the room. I had only the barest knowledge of feng shui, but I somehow had a feeling that this room would be a perfect example of how to do it right.

Roger didn’t seem very comforted at the moment though. He turned troubled eyes to me. “So, um, I’m guessing that the fact you want to talk to me means you don’t think Vic committed suicide?”

“You’re right,” I said evenly. “It’s been ruled a homicide.”

He seemed to fold in on himself as he sank to sit on the couch. “That’s so hard to believe,” he said, voice hollow. “Vic was such a cool guy. Why would anyone want to kill him?”

“That’s what I intend to find out.” I pulled out my notebook and found the photocopy I’d made of the paper that had the initials and the dollar amounts. “Just so you know, I’ve already submitted subpoenas for Mr. Kerry’s bank statements and financial information, but I found something during my search of the office, and I’m wondering if you can help me figure out what it means.” I passed him the copy of the paper, watching him carefully for his reaction, but to my surprise he merely nodded.

“I can tell you exactly what this is. Well,” he amended, “I can tell you what the ‘R. P.’ stuff is. I mean, that’s me, as I’m sure you guessed.” He looked back up at me. “And he loaned me fifteen thousand dollars.”

“Can you tell me why?”

“I want to open my own gym,” he said, leaning forward, suddenly earnest. “Not a fitness center like Magnolia, but a real gym for people serious about working out. No spa or any of that crap.”

“Surely you need more than fifteen thousand dollars.” Doubt colored my voice. “You have other investors?”

He sat back. “Not yet. No one’s going to want to invest in a nobody without any seed money. But Vic really believed in me, which was why he loaned me the money. He put me on to some really good investments, and by the time I’m ready to go forward with the gym, I figure I’ll have enough to be able to attract some serious investors.”

“What kind of investments?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not really sure. Vic said he’d loan me the money and would take care of all the investment stuff. He had me sign some papers for him so that he could take care of everything.”

I blinked. Was he truly this naive? “You mean a power of attorney?”

An expression of chagrin crossed his face. “Um, well, I guess it was kinda like that. I totally trusted Vic, though. And since it was his own money, it wasn’t like I was worried about him taking it, y’know?”

“Did you ever get the feeling that anything about the situation wasn’t completely legit?” I asked, doing my best to keep the dubious note out of my voice. It shrieked not legit to me, but then I was more cynical than most when it came to this sort of thing. Probably because I’d seen so many cases of fraud.

He shook his head firmly. “Never. Vic’s known about my plans for the gym for close to a year now, and has always said he’d support me any way he could.”

It was possible that there was nothing hinky about the whole deal, but now I was itching to find out more about these investments. “Roger, did Vic ever give you any paperwork showing you how he invested the money?”

The first shadow of doubt briefly clouded his face. “Well, no. But maybe he hadn’t had a chance to do anything with the money yet. I mean, it was only a couple of weeks ago.”