“I didn’t know you could salvage prints like that.”
He shrugged. “You sometimes have to sever the fingers first. To rehydrate, you can soak ’em in a three percent lye solution or a one percent solution of Eastman Kodak Photo-Flo 200 for a day or two. Another method is to use successive alcohol solutions, starting at ninety percent and gradually decreasing. With Ritter, the first presumption was of suicide, though Kirchner said he had big doubts and the county sheriff did, too. Keep in mind, there wasn’t any suicide note at the scene, but there was also no environmental disorder and no signs of trauma on the body. No fractured hyoid to suggest cervical compression, no evidence of knife wounds, skull fractures, gunshot-”
“In other words, no signs of foul play.”
“Right. Which is not to say he couldn’t have been subdued in some way. Same thing with Toth, except there was no personal ID. Sheriff’s department went back through months’ worth of missing-persons reports, contacting relatives. They made the initial match that way.”
“So what are we looking at?” I asked, turning the photograph so he could see.
“To all appearances, both guys tied a rope around a boulder, put a noose around their necks, pushed the rock through the Y of a tree limb, and hung themselves. It wasn’t until later that the similarities came to light.”
I stared at him. “That’s odd.” I glanced down at a photograph, in which I could now see the crisscross of rope circling the circumference of a rock about the size of a large watermelon. Toth’s torso and extremities had separated, falling in a tumble on one side of the tree while the upper half of his body, pulled by the weight of the boulder, had fallen on the other still attached by the length of rope.
“Nothing remarkable about the rope, in case you’re wondering. Garden variety clothes line available at any supermarket or hardware store,” he said. Dr. Yee watched my face. “Not to be racist about it, but the method’s more compatible with an Asian sensibility. Some dude out in Nota County, how’d it even occur to him? And then a second one here? I mean, it’s possible Toth heard about his pal’s alleged suicide and imitated his methodology, but even so, it seems off. As far as I know, the Nota Lake cops kept the specifics to themselves. That was information only shared between agencies.”
“Really. If Alfie Toth wanted to kill himself, you’d think he’d blow his brains out; something simple and straightforward, more in keeping with his lifestyle.”
Dr. Yee shifted back in his chair with a squeak. “A more plausible explanation is that both victims were killed by the same party. The reason the cops are so paranoid is to avoid all the kooks and the copycats. Someone ups and confesses, you don’t want anyone other than the killer in possession of the details. So far the papers haven’t gotten wind of it. They know a body was found here, but that’s about the extent of it. I’m not sure reporters have put two and two together with the deceased in Nota Lake. That didn’t get any play here.”
“What’s the estimated time of death for Ritter?”
“Oh, he’d been there five years from Kirchner’s estimate. A gasoline receipt among his effects was dated April 1981. Gas station attendant remembers the two of them.”
“Quite a gap between deaths,” I said. “Have you ever run across a methodology like this?”
“Only in a textbook. That’s what makes it curious. Take a look at this.” He reached backward and pulled a thin oversized volume from the bottom shelf. “Tornio Watanabe’s Atlas o f Legal Medicine. This was first published in ‘sixty-eight, printed in Japan, so it’s hard to find these days.” He flipped the pages open to a section on hangings and turned the book so I could see. The photographs were of Japanese suicide victims, apparently supplied by various police headquarters and medical examiners’ offices in Japan. One young woman had wedged her neck in the V of a tree, which effectively compressed her carotid and vertebral arteries. Another woman had made a double loop of long rope, which she wound around her neck and then put her feet through, achieving strangulation by ligature. In the method Dr. Yee’d referred to, a man tied a rope around a stone, which he placed on a chair. He’d wrapped the same rope around his neck, sat with his back to the chair back, and then tilted the chair forward so the stone rolled off the seat and strangled him. I studied the photographs on adjoining pages, which depicted in graphic detail the ingenuity employed by human beings in extinguishing their lives. In every case, I was looking at the face of despair. I stared at the floor for a moment, running the scenario through my head like a piece of film. “There’s no way two men on opposite sides of California would have independently devised the same method.”
“Probably not,” he said. “Though, given the fact they were friends, it’s possible they overheard someone describe the technique. If you’re intent on suicide, the beauty of it is once you topple the boulder through the fork in the tree, there’s no way back. Also, death is reasonably quick; not instantaneous, but you’d lose consciousness within a minute or less.”
“And these are the only two deaths of this kind that you know of?”
“That’s right. I don’t think this is serial, but the two have to be connected.”
“How’d you hear about Ritter’s death?”
“Through Newquist. He’d known about Ritter since his body was discovered back in March of this past year. When a backpacker came across Toth, he reported it to the local sheriff’s department and they contacted Nota Lake because of the similar MO.”
“Isn’t there a chance Toth killed his friend Ritter, hoping to make it look like suicide instead of murder, and then ended up killing himself the same way? There’d be a certain irony in that.”
“It’s possible,” he said dubiously, “but what’s your picture? Toth commits a murder and five years pass before he finds himself overwhelmed with guilt?”
“Doesn’t make much sense, does it?” I said, in response to his tone. “I talked to his ex-wife and from what she said, he wasn’t behaving like a man who was terminally depressed.” I checked my watch. It was close to 4:45. “Anyway, I better let you go. I appreciate the information. This has been a big help.”
“My pleasure.”
When I got home at five o’clock, Henry’s kitchen lights were on and I found him sitting at his kitchen table with a file box in front of him. I tapped on the glass and he motioned me in. “Help yourself to a cup of tea. I just made a pot.”
“Thanks.” I took a clean mug from the dish rack and poured myself a cup of tea, then sat at the kitchen table watching Henry work.
“These are rebate coupons. A new passion of mine in case you’re wondering,” he said. Henry had always been enthusiastic about saving money, sitting down daily with the local paper to clip and sort coupons in preparation for his shopping trips.
“Can I help?”
“You can file while I cut,” he said. He passed me a pile of proof of purchase seals, which I could see were separated according to the company offering to refund a portion of the price. He was saying, “Short’s Drugs has started a Receipt Savers Rebate. Club, which allows you to collect your rebates and send them in all at once. There’s no point in trying to get fifty cents back when it costs you nearly thirty-five cents for stamps.”
“I can’t believe the time you put in on this,” I remarked as I filed. Over-the-counter diet remedies, detergent, soap, mouthwash.
“Some are products I use anyway so who can resist? Look at this one. Free toothpaste. Makes your smile extra white it says.”
“Your smile’s already white.”
“Suppose I end up preferring the taste of this one. There’s no harm in trying something new,” he said.
“Here’s one for shampoo. You get one free if you buy before April First. Only one per customer and I’ve got mine already, so I kept this for you if you’re interested.”
“Thanks. You do this in addition to the store coupons?”
“Well, yes, but this takes a lot more patience. Sometimes it takes as long as two to three months, but then you get a nice big check. Fifteen bucks once. Like found money. You’d be surprised how quickly it adds up.”
“I’ll bet.” I took a sip of my tea.
Henry passed me another ragged pile of clippings. “When you finish that batch, you can start on these.”
“I don’t mean to sound petty,” I said, bringing the conversation around to my concerns, “but honestly, Rosie paid more attention to those rowdies than she did to us last night. It didn’t hurt my feelings so much as piss me off.”