No. 3643: God’s will is involved in everything.
Dr. Conroy: I’m a priest too, Victor, and I believe that God sometimes lets nature run its course.
No. 3643: Nature is an intellectual construct that has no place in our religion, Doctor.
Dr. Conroy: Let’s go back to the observation room, Victor. Tell me how you felt when the technician attached the electrodes.
No. 3643: He had cold hands.
Dr. Conroy: Just cold, nothing else?
No. 3643: Nothing else.
Dr. Conroy: And when the images started to appear on the screen?
No. 3643: I felt nothing then, either.
Dr. Conroy: You know, Victor, I have the results from the plethysmograph and they show specific reactions here and here. Do you see those spikes?
No. 3643: I felt disgust when I saw certain images.
Dr. Conroy: Disgust, Victor?
[Conversation pauses for more than a minute.]
Dr. Conroy: Take all the time you need to answer, Victor.
No. 3643: Sexual images disgust me.
Dr. Conroy: Anything specific, Victor?
No. 3643: All of them.
Dr. Conroy: Do you know why they disturbed you?
No. 3643: Because they offend God.
Dr. Conroy: Nevertheless, when you observed particular images, the apparatus registered tumescence in your masculine member.
No. 3643: It isn’t possible.
Dr. Conroy: To put it in vulgar terms, they gave you a hard-on.
No. 3643: Language like that offends God and the dignity of his priests. I have to . . .
Dr. Conroy: What do you have to do, Victor?
No. 3643: Nothing.
Dr. Conroy: Are you having a violent seizure, Victor?
No. 3643: No, Doctor.
Dr. Conroy: Did you become violent the other day?
No. 3643: Which other day?
Dr. Conroy: Right. Forgive my lack of clarity. Would you say that the other day, while you were beating the head of my psychologist against the control board, that you had a violent seizure?
No. 3643: That man was tempting me. “And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee,” says the Lord.
Dr. Conroy: Matthew, chapter 18, verse 9.
No. 3643: Precisely.
Dr. Conroy: And what of that eye? Of the agony of that eye?
No. 3643: I don’t understand.
Dr. Conroy: The man’s name is Robert. He has a wife and a daughter. You sent him to the hospital. You broke his nose, seven teeth, and gave him a severe concussion. Thank God, the guards managed to subdue you in time.
No. 3643: Maybe I became a little violent.
Dr. Conroy: Do you think you could become violent now, if your hands weren’t strapped to the sides of the chair?
No. 3643: If you want to, we could find out, Doctor.
Dr. Conroy: I think we’d better stop the interview right here, Victor.
MUNICIPAL MORGUE
Tuesday, April 5, 2005, 8:32 P.M.
The autopsy room was a chilly place, painted a jarring grayish mauve that did nothing to lighten the atmosphere. A light outfitted with six bulbs hanging over the autopsy table lent the cadaver a few last minutes of fame in the eyes of the four spectators staring down at him. It was their job to find out who was responsible for his untimely demise.
Pontiero clamped his hand over his mouth when the coroner lifted Cardinal Robayra’s stomach onto the tray. A putrid odor permeated the autopsy room as the examiner proceeded to cut the stomach open with his scalpel. The smell was so strong it overwhelmed even the formaldehyde-and-chemical cocktail the doctors used to disinfect the tools of their trade. Dicanti asked herself why coroners kept their instruments so clean before putting them to use. An absurd idea. It wasn’t as if the dead man was going to pick up an infection.
“Eh, Pontiero, do you know why the dead baby crossed the road?”
“Yeah, Doc, because he was stapled to the chicken. You’ve told me that one six, no seven, times. Know any others?”
The coroner was humming quietly as he went about making his incisions. He was a good singer, with a hoarse, smokey voice that made Paola think of Louis Armstrong, above all because he was humming “What a Wonderful World.” He interrupted the song only to torment Pontiero.
“The real joke is watching you struggle not to puke, Pontiero. Don’t think I don’t find that funny. This one got what he had coming.”
Paola and Dante glanced at each other over the cardinal’s dead body. The coroner, a recalcitrant Communist, was an old hand at his job who at times lacked respect for the dead. He thought Robayra’s demise terribly humorous, something Dicanti didn’t find the least bit amusing.
“Doctor, could you limit yourself to an analysis of the body and just leave it at that? Both our invited guest, Deputy Inspector Dante, and I find your attempts at humor offensive and out of place.”
The coroner glanced at Dicanti out of the corner of his eye and went about examining the contents of Robayra’s stomach. He gave up the satirical jabs, but between his teeth he cursed everyone in the room and everyone’s family as far back as the third generation. Paola stopped listening to him, being more preoccupied with the look on Pontiero’s face, which at that moment was a shade halfway between white and green.
“Maurizio, I don’t know why you torture yourself like this. You’ve never been able to stand the sight of blood.”
“Shit, if this phony little saint can take it, I can too.”
“You would be surprised to know how many autopsies I’ve attended, my delicate colleague.”
“Really? Well, I remind you that there’s at least one more waiting for you, although I think I will enjoy it more than you.”
Here they go again for Christ’s sake, Paola thought, while she tried to mediate between the two. They had carried on like this all day. Dante and Pontiero had felt a mutual repulsion from the moment they met, but to be fair to Pontiero anything in pants that came closer to Dicanti than ten feet wound up on his bad side. She knew he regarded her like a daughter, but he took it too far sometimes. Fabio Dante was the frivolous type and he certainly wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, but he was not deserving of the nastiness her coworker was lavishing upon him. What she could not figure out was how a man like Dante had come to occupy the position he did in the Vigilanza. Bad jokes, one after the other, followed by harsh putdowns, all of it in sharp contrast to Inspector General Cirin’s closely guarded, colorless character.
“Perhaps my distinguished visitors can muster the refinement necessary to lend their attention to the autopsy they’ve come here to watch.”
The coroner’s raspy voice dragged Dicanti back to reality.
“Go ahead, please.” She shot a cold look at both cops to get them to knock it off.
“OK, the victim had not eaten anything since breakfast, and everything indicates he ate very early because all I can find are a few scraps.”
“So maybe he skipped a meal or he fell into the killer’s clutches before lunch.”
“I doubt he passed on a meal. . . . He ate well, as you can see. Alive, he weighed a little over two hundred pounds, at six feet tall.”
“Which tells us the killer was physically fit. Robayra was hardly light as a feather,” Dante interjected.
“And it’s one hundred and thirty feet from the church’s doorway to the chapel,” said Paola. “Someone would have to see the killer bringing the body into the church. Pontiero, do me a favor. Send four cops you trust into the area. Send them in plain clothes, but with their badges. Avoid telling them what happened. Just say that there was a robbery at the church, and you want them to find out if anyone saw anything during the night.”
“Hunting around with the out-of-towners is a waste of time.”
“So don’t do it. Talk to the people who live nearby, especially the old people. They get by on very little sleep.”
Pontiero nodded and hurried out of the aut
opsy room, visibly pleased at not having to stay on. Paola watched him exit, and when the doors had slammed shut behind him, she looked straight at Dante.
“What exactly is going on with you, Mr. Vatican? Pontiero is a good cop, he simply cannot stomach the sight of blood. That’s all. I’m asking you to cease and desist the inane verbal jousting.”
“You said it. So we have more than one big mouth here in the morgue.” The coroner was laughing to himself.
“Mind your own business, Doctor. Let’s keep going. Do I make myself clear, Dante?”
“Calm down.” Dante raised his hands in self-defense. “I don’t think you understand what’s happening here. If tomorrow morning I had to go into a burning building with a pistol in my hand, shoulder to shoulder with Pontiero, there’s no doubt I’d do it.”
“So can you tell me why you keep picking on him?” Paola was utterly dismayed.
“Because I enjoy it. And I’m sure he enjoys being pissed off at me too. Why don’t you ask him?”
Paola shook her head, muttering unflattering things about men under her breath. “Let’s keep going, shall we? Doctor, do you know the hour and the cause of his death?”
The coroner scanned his notes.
“I remind you that this is a preliminary report, but I’m pretty sure. The cardinal died around nine o’clock at night yesterday, Monday. Margin of error, one hour. His throat was slashed. The cut was made from behind, by someone I believe was the same height. I can’t tell you anything about the weapon, except that it was at least six inches long, a straight edge, and very sharp. It could be the kind of razor a barber uses. I don’t know.”
“What about his wounds?” said Dante.
“The extraction of the eyes took place antemortem, before he died, as did the mutilation of the tongue.”
“He pulled out the tongue? Christ almighty.” Dante was disgusted.
“In my opinion he did it with a pair of pliers. When he was done, he stuffed the recess with toilet paper to staunch the hemorrhage. He later removed it, but a few traces of cellulose were left behind. But listen, Dicanti, you surprise me. It really doesn’t seem as if this is affecting you very much.”
“I’ve seen worse.”
“So let me show you something I am sure you have never seen. I have never come across anything like it, and I have been at this for many years. He stuffed the tongue in the rectal cavity with astonishing expertise. Then he cleaned up the blood around it. I would have missed it if I hadn’t looked inside.”
The coroner showed them photographs of the tongue, cut into pieces.
“I put it on ice and sent it to the laboratory. Get me a copy of the report when it comes in. I still have no idea how he did it.”
“Don’t worry, I will see to it personally,” Dicanti assured him. “What about his hands?”
“Those were cut off postmortem. Not a clean job. There are hesitation marks here and here. Probably it was difficult for him or he was standing in an uncomfortable position.”
“Anything under the nails?”
“Fresh air. The hands are impeccably clean. I suspect he washed them with soap. I believe my nose detects a trace of lavender.”
Paola was thinking.
“Doctor, in your opinion how long did the killer need to inflict these wounds on the victim?”
“I hadn’t thought about it. Let’s see. Give me a second.”
The old man let his hands slide up and down the corpse’s forearms, the sockets of the eyes, and the mutilated mouth while he thought it over. He was still singing to himself quietly, this time something by the Moody Blues. The name of the tune eluded Paola.
“Well, gentlemen . . . He needed at least half an hour to remove the hands and clean them, and something like an hour to wash the rest of the body and put the clothes back on. There’s no way to say how long he tortured the victim but it looks like he took his time. I’m certain he spent at least three hours at it, probably more.”
Some place quiet, unknown. Private, far away from prying looks. Soundproof, because Robayra certainly had to have screamed. How much shouting is a man going to do if somebody is pulling out his eyes and his tongue? A great deal, no doubt. They had to come up with a time frame, establish how many hours the cardinal had been in the killer’s possession, then subtract the time he spent in doing what he did to his victim. That way they could reduce the scope of the search, if they were lucky and the killer had not had all the time in the world.
“I know the boys have yet to find any fingerprints. Did you come across anything out of the ordinary before cleaning him, anything you sent to be analyzed?”
“Nothing much. A few fabric fibers, a few traces of something that could be makeup on the shirt collar.”
“Makeup? Interesting. From the killer?”
“Look, Dicanti, maybe our cardinal had a few secrets,” Dante said.
Paola looked at Dante. She was caught off guard. The pathologist gritted his teeth, laughing mischievously.
“I’m not going there,” Dante hurried to say. “I just want to say that it’s possible he took a great deal of care with his image. He was, after all is said and done, a man of a certain age.”
“Still, it’s a remarkable detail. Any traces of makeup on his face?”
“No, but the killer must have cleaned it, or at least dried the blood from the eye sockets. I’ll give it a closer look.”
“Doctor, send a sample of the makeup to the laboratory, just in case. I want to know the brand and the exact shade.”
“That could take some time unless they have a data bank already set up to compare with what we send them.”
“Write on the order that they can go through an entire perfume shop if they have to. It’s the type of assignment that really appeals to Troi. What do you want to tell me about blood or semen? Did we get lucky?”
“No chance. The victim’s clothes were spotless, and there were only a few traces of a blood, the same type as the victim’s. Definitely his own.”
“Anything on the skin or in the hair? Spores, anything?”
“I found small traces of adhesive in what was left of the wrists, which makes me suspect the killer stripped the cardinal, bound him with duct tape before torturing him, and afterwards put his clothes back on. He washed the body, but not in a bath. See this?”
The pathologist pointed to a thin white line of dried soap on Robayra’s side.
“He used a sponge with water and soap, but without much water in it or he wasn’t being very careful in this area because he left a lot of soap on the body.”
“What kind of soap?”
“That’s easier to identify than the makeup, but it’s less useful, too. It appears to be ordinary lavender soap.”
Paola leaned over the body and took a deep breath. Lavender it was.
“Anything else?”
“There’s some adhesive on the face too, but a minute quantity. That’s it. And definitely, the deceased was very shortsighted.”
“And what does that have to do with the matter at hand?”
“Dante, pay attention. He is not wearing his glasses.”
“Of course he isn’t wearing his glasses. The killer tore his eyes out, what does he need his damn glasses for?”
The coroner was clearly annoyed by Dante.
“Fine. Listen, I’m not telling you how to do your job. I’m just telling you what I see.”
“That’s good, Doctor. Call us when you have the complete report.”
“Of course, Ispettore.”
Dante and Paola left the coroner bent over the body, whistling his versions of the jazz classics, and stepped out to the hallway, where Pontiero was barking short, concise orders over his cell phone. As soon as he was finished, Dicanti spoke to both of them.
“OK, this is what we’re going to do. Dante, you go back to your office and write out a report of everything you can remember from the scene of the first crime. I prefer you do it alone, which will make it easier. Put in all the ph
otos and pieces of evidence your wise and knowing leader has let you keep. And then come back to UACV headquarters as soon as you’re done. I’m afraid this is going to be a long night.”
FBI
BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DIVISION
NATIONAL CENTER FOR THE ANALYSIS OF VIOLENT CRIME
INTERNATIONAL TRAINING PROGRAM
FINAL EXAM: VICTIMOLOGY
Student: DICANTI, Paola
Date: July 19, 1999
Grade: A+
Single Question: Describe in 100 words or less the importance of TIME in the creation of a criminal profile, using the Rosper method. Make a personal evaluation by connecting the variables with the perpetrator’s level of experience. You have two minutes counting from the time you turn the page.
Answer: The perpetrator has given himself the time necessary to:
a. kill the victim
b. interact with the body
c. remove any traces of himself from the victim and dispose of the body
Comment: According to my deductions, variable a) is limited by the perpetrator’s fantasies, variable b) helps to reveal his hidden motivations, while c) defines his capacity for analysis and improvisation. In conclusion, if the perpetrator dedicates more time to
a. he has a moderate level of experience (3 crimes)
b. he is an expert (4 crimes or more)
c. he is a beginner (this is his first or second murder).
UACV HEADQUARTERS
Via Lamarmora, 3 Tuesday, April 5, 2005, 10:32 P.M.
“Let’s see. What do we have?”
“Two cardinals murdered in the nastiest way imaginable.”
Dicanti and Pontiero ate sandwiches and drank coffee in the laboratory’s conference room. For all its modernity, it was a gray and depressing space. The only spot of color came from the hundreds of crime scene photos spread out in front of them on an enormous table, with four plastic bags full of evidence in a pile at one end. At that moment it was all they had. They were waiting for Dante to bring them the leftovers from the first murder scene.
“All right, Pontiero. Let’s start with Robayra. What do we know about him?”
“He lived and worked in Buenos Aires. Arrived on an Aerolineas Argentinas flight Sunday morning, with an open ticket he’d bought several weeks before. The flight was not reserved until one in the afternoon Saturday. With the time difference, I figure that was when the Holy Father died.”