Cause of Death Read online

  But the door was thrown so wide that it bounced off the back wall and startled Drake. He removed the keys from the lock and whipped around and found himself staring at a lean, light-skinned black man who stood in the entrance.

  “Detective Drake?” the man gasped.

  Drake’s eyes narrowed, and he felt his body tense, preparing for action.

  “Nobody’s called me that for some time,” he said quietly, trying to measure up the other man.

  He was young, with neatly cropped, curly black hair and dark circles under his eyes. But for all of his bluster, his pose was non-aggressive.

  He was scared.

  “But that’s you?” the man asked, moving forward.

  Drake nodded.

  “Yeah, that’s me—Damien Drake.”

  The man took a deep, hitching breath. When he reached into his leather messenger bag slung over one shoulder, Drake instinctively took a step toward him. Scared or not, he wasn’t about to be taken by surprise.

  But when the man pulled out a folder, Drake felt his body relax and he admonished himself.

  You’ve got to stop doing that. You’re going to give yourself a heart attack thinking that everyone is going to pull an Uzi from their purse.

  “We’re closing, so if this is about a job, come back tomorrow,” Drake said.

  The man shook his head.

  “No, I’m pretty sure you’re going to want to see this,” he said flatly.

  Drake eyed him suspiciously, and when the other man didn’t falter, he nodded.

  “Fine, step into my office, then.”

  Chapter 2

  The man introduced himself as Dr. Edison Larringer, Eddie for short, a pathology resident at NYU. He spoke in the rushed, hurried speech of a man that needed to be somewhere, everywhere, anywhere but here.

  “How can I help you, Eddie?” Drake asked, sweeping the scotch and empty glasses back into the drawer. Business had been tough to come by, and he wasn’t about to turn down his second whale of the day.

  And that said nothing of the other niggling fact, his gut reaction that this man had something important to show him.

  Eddie didn’t answer. Instead, he swallowed hard and placed the folder on the table and spun it around. Drake picked it up and opened it. The first thing he saw was an 8 x 10 photograph depicting a man half on and half off a bed, his neck bent awkwardly beneath him, his face masked in shadows. There was a second photograph beneath the first, and without thinking, Drake held them side by side.

  They looked to be copies.

  Drake took his time looking at them, his eyes moving from one to another, trying to ascertain what was so important that the young doctor felt the need to burst into his office at half-past six on a Friday evening.

  When nothing came to him, and he doubted that nothing would no matter how long he stared, Drake looked at the man across from him, an eyebrow raised.

  “I’m not sure—” he began, but Eddie cut him off.

  “They’re both dead,” he said quickly.

  “Yes, I can see—”

  “But they aren’t the same; they’re actually different. Look at the clock, it’s a different time, and the sweater isn’t exactly the same, the first has like this cross stitch pattern while the other has—”

  Now it was Drake’s turn to interrupt.

  “Woah, slow down there partner. Take a deep breath. Go slow. It’s late and I’m old.”

  Eddie’s eyes bulged and his mouth twisted as if to say, How dare you tell me to slow down with something as important as this? Don’t you get it? Don’t you understand?

  But in the end, the young man did as asked.

  When Eddie spoke again, his words came out more slowly. Still fast by any measure, but slower on a relative scale.

  “On the left is a photograph from the NYU forensic pathology course exam, the one with the clock that reads 3:41. The one on the right is a copy, but it’s a copy, if you catch my drift. See the clock? It reads 3:42 am.”

  Drake turned his attention back to the photographs and noted that what Eddie was saying was true. And yet he still didn’t see the significance.

  “I see that, but what does it mean? The pictures were taken a minute apart. So what?”

  The man took another deep breath.

  “Okay, so the one on the left is from the test—we are given the photograph and then supposed to determine possible causes of death, differentials, if you will—and it’s a real photograph from a crime scene. I don’t know from when, but judging by the decor, it’s at least a decade old, maybe even more. It’s the same image used every year in the course.”

  Drake nodded.

  “Okay…”

  “It’s supposed to be a trick; see how the bedspread is all messed up? The first inclination is that there is foul play involved, that there was a fight, an altercation of some sort that caused his death. At least that’s what the professor expects your final diagnosis to be. But the real cause of death is much more… ordinary. This man just got very drunk and fell out of bed. He was so drunk that he never woke up when his windpipe was closed off—positional asphyxia, it’s called.”

  Drake looked at the photograph, tilting his head off to one side as he squinted. He had never heard of positional asphyxia, but it looked like a very unpleasant way to go.

  He would much rather go out with his fists raised.

  Drake shook his head and held out the second photograph, the one with the clock reading 3:42.

  “And this one?”

  Eddie blinked.

  “This one is different; it’s not the same person, not the same crime. It’s been staged.”

  Drake’s eyes narrowed.

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s been made to look like the first one, like the photo from the test, but it isn’t the exact same.”

  Drake felt himself nodding.

  “And where did you get this one from?” he asked, shaking the photograph in his right hand.

  Eddie suddenly leaned back in his chair, and Drake thought he saw sweat begin to bead on his forehead. For the first time since barging into Triple D, the man seemed to be at a loss for words.

  Drake waited and eventually Eddie lowered his eyes.

  “I stole it,” he said quietly.

  Drake stared.

  It wasn’t the revelation he had expected, but it was something.

  “From where?”

  Again, Eddie hesitated. When he finally answered, his voice was barely audible.

  “I stole it from the professor of the course—I stole it from Dr. Beckett Campbell. And I know one thing for certain: that man, the one in the photograph with the clock reading 3:42? He didn’t die from positional asphyxia. He was murdered.”

  Chapter 3

  “Wait a second, you stole this? From Beckett Campbell?”

  A look of confusion crossed Eddie’s face.

  “Yeah, I took it. But the important thing is that this man—” he reached across the table and took the photograph from Drake. “—was murdered.”

  Drake stared at Eddie for a long time before saying anything; he was having a hard time reading the man. Eddie was convincing enough, but this whole thing about stolen photographs from Beckett of all people, of forensic pathology exams, positional asphyxia, if that really was a thing, all seemed like a cruel joke.

  A setup of some sort, the reason for and the point of, Drake couldn’t begin to imagine.

  He leaned back in his chair and prepared himself to put this young doctor—if he wa,s in fact, a doctor—to the test.

  “Alright Eddie, I’m not sure what kind of game you’re playing, but I’ll play along. But here’s the thing: if after I’ve drunk a fifth of scotch I decide that I don’t like the rules of this game, then I’m going to make sure that there is only one loser, and it ain’t gonna be me. Got it?”

  Eddie screwed up his face and recoiled.

  “Game? What are you talking about, game? Someone’s been murdered. Maybe you have
n’t been—”

  “How’d you find me, Eddie? Of all the private investigators in New York City, you came to me—why? If you’re so convinced that the person in the photo was murdered, why don’t you go to the police?”

  Eddie dropped his gaze and said nothing. Drake grimaced and slid the photograph back into the folder.

  “Thanks so much for coming in today, Eddie. But I’m afraid you caught me at a bad time. See, I was just about to go get drunk and celebrate signing a new client—a real client,” Drake said as he pushed the folder across the desk toward Eddie, an unfamiliar smugness forming on his face. “So if you’ll excuse me, I—”

  Eddie’s eyes shot up.

  “Suzan told me about you. Suzan Cuthbert.”

  Drake froze.

  “What?” He felt anger immediately start to mount inside him, and his body tensed. “You better watch what you say next, Eddie, or—”

  “Suzan’s at NYU in her first year of medical school, and she started auditing the forensic pathology resident course,” Eddie said leaning away from Drake. “It… uh, the death of her father came up.”

  Drake leaped to his feet so quickly that his chair toppled behind him.

  “You little shit,” he seethed. “You come in here with some bullshit story about some sort of copycat killer, then you have the gall to bring up Suzan? Was it that bastard Ivan Meitzer that put you up to this? Revenge for not giving him the Butterfly Killer story?”

  Drake saw red and before he even realized what he was doing, he reached across the table and grabbed Eddie by the collar of his white polo shirt. He twisted the material in his hand, bringing Eddie’s face to within inches of his own.

  “You get the fuck out of here—take your goddamn pictures and get the fuck out of here.”

  He stared into the man’s wide eyes as he threatened him. When Eddie tried to look away, he tightened his grip on his shirt until his eyes came back to him.

  Only then, after staring at the man’s watering eyes for the better part of a minute, did he shove the young doctor away.

  Eddie fell back into his chair with a grunt, but then quickly stood, grabbed the folder and shoved it into his messenger back. Then, with a final, wistful glance, Dr. Edison Larringer scrambled out of the office, then through the reception area of Triple D Investigations, leaving both doors wide.

  Drake fell back into his chair and sat there, breathing heavily as he watched the man go. Then he reached into his desk and pulled out the bottle of whiskey and glass again.

  Seriously? Whoever put the kid up to this must have some serious balls to bring up Suzan.

  As he poured himself another drink, the image of the psychiatrist whose nose he had broken outside Suzan’s school flashed in his mind.

  When I find out who’s behind this, I’ll break more than his fucking beak.

  Drake poured himself another drink, and when his blood pressure started to normalize, he found himself back at his computer again without even thinking about what he was doing.

  Only this time he didn’t search for his own name, or Chase’s, and not even Suzan.

  Instead, he searched for Beckett, and a photograph of his friend, smiling widely, his bleach blond hair spiked atop his head, was the first result that popped up.

  Chapter 4

  Dr. Edison ‘Eddie’ Larringer left Triple D Investigations with a single thought echoing inside his head.

  This was a mistake—this was all a mistake.

  He was sweating, he was tired, but most of all he was confused. It dawned on him that everything he had told Drake, everything that had been consuming all of his thoughts for the past six days, had been a fabrication.

  It wasn’t unthinkable; in fact, it was even plausible given how exhausted he was. Beckett’s forensic pathology final exam was on Monday, and he was struggling just to stay afloat. If anything, Eddie was a realist; and if he was being honest with himself, he knew that he wasn’t going to pass. And one more fail meant that his entire career as a physician was in jeopardy. Which is why he had, after much moral anguish, broken into Dr. Campbell’s office.

  He didn’t have to take the folder with the photographs that lay on Beckett’s desk, which at first had looked like hard copies of the final exam. After all, he didn’t need them—the USB key he had taken had digital versions embedded within the PowerPoint presentation. That was enough, more than enough, for Eddie to pass.

  He didn’t need the folder.

  In fact, he wasn’t entirely sure why he had taken it. He just had.

  And now Eddie was beginning to think that this had been the biggest mistake of his life.

  If only I hadn’t looked at the photographs. Things would be different if I had just burned the entire folder.

  But he hadn’t. And once he looked, it was impossible for him to unlook.

  At first blush, the digital and printed images looked nearly identical.

  But they weren’t; they were just a little off. And when Eddie searched the Internet for accidental deaths over the last six months, he found the description of one that perfectly matched the image in the folder.

  Only that image also matched the one from the course, which, considering the grainy texture of the photo in the PowerPoint, must have been taken years ago.

  It wasn’t exemplary, it was nearly exactly the same. Textbook, in a way that defied logic.

  Eddie just couldn’t believe that it was a coincidence.

  Someone had taken a photograph of a recent crime scene staged to look exactly like the one used in the test.

  And the only reason that someone would do this, in his opinion, was to cover up a murder.

  Eddie quickly made his way across the parking lot to his trusty Cavalier and fumbled with his keys to open the door. It was already dark out, a fact that further added to his anxiety.

  Once inside, he sat behind the wheel for several moments before starting the car.

  Should I go to the police as Drake suggested? He wondered.

  That, too, would lead to him failing his exam, of that Eddie was certain. After all, stealing a test from his professor’s desk would amount to more than just him staying behind to repeat a year of forensic pathology. NYU took plagiarism, theft, and cheating very, very seriously.

  And so did the police.

  If he went to the cops and admitted what he had done, it would mean that they would take away his medical license.

  Eddie had thought about the bind he had gotten himself into for several sleepless nights. But when the young and pretty Suzan Cuthbert started to audit the class, it looked to him like a solution to his problem had fallen into his lap. After all, everyone knew what happened to Suzan’s father, and a little research on his part revealed information about his partner, about Damien Drake.

  Surely, the man would help him out, would take him seriously, given that he knew Suzan. What he hadn’t planned for was the man’s temper.

  Eddie’s eyes lifted to the rear-view, and he was shocked to realize that he barely recognized his own gaunt features.

  “A mistake, this was all a big mistake,” he said in a dry croak. “A mistake.”

  But try as he might, there was no way he could put the image of the man in the sweater, his body hunched over his own neck, out of his mind.

  He couldn’t unsee.

  It’s no coincidence. It can’t be.

  Eddie reached for his keys and was about to put them in the ignition when a flash of movement in the mirror caught his eye.

  “What the—”

  But Dr. Edison Larringer didn’t even get a chance to finish his sentence. A dark figure rose from the back seat, and a thick piece of rope was wrapped around his throat.

  He gasped and reached for the ligature, but it was yanked tight, forcing the back of his head against the headrest. Eddie clawed desperately at the rope, trying to force his fingertips between the twine and the soft tissue of his neck, but it was no use.

  It was just too tight.

  As he gasped and
desperately tried to fill his lungs with fresh air, he saw the door to Triple D Investigations swing open and the man himself stepped out into the parking lot.

  Help me! Eddie tried to scream. Help me, Damien! Help me!

  But no words came out.

  And yet despite this, Drake seemed to pause for a moment, his face a sickly yellow in the streetlights, his eyes scanning the parking lot and street beyond.

  Please, help me!

  Eddie’s heart sunk when Damien shook his head and made his way to his own car.

  Only seconds later, Dr. Edison Larringer’s entire world went dark.

  Chapter 5

  Dr. Beckett Campbell squinted at his students as he spoke, deliberately meeting each and every one of their stares before continuing.

  What had started as an innocent suggestion by Diego for him to teach a class at NYU, had soon grown into a challenge for Beckett. And this challenge had quickly transitioned into something that he liked very much.

  Very, very much.

  Who knew torture could be so enjoyable?

  “This is it,” he said, drawing the words out dramatically, much like a voice-over for a blockbuster movie trailer. “This one test will determine the rest of your adult life. Fail? You die. Barely pass? Gravely wounded. Pass? You get to diddle dead bodies for eternity. The choice is yours, my disciples.”

  The pale faces of the students before him almost made Beckett break into full-blown laughter. One boy—Reginald? Was it Reginald? He could never remember the damn students’ names—visibly gagged and, for one brief, tantalizing moment, Beckett thought that he was going to vomit on his desk.

  But, to his dismay, the boy gulped like a fish out of water and managed to keep it together for the time being.

  “I’m just messing with you guys,” Beckett said with a chuckle. But the accompanying smile faded when his eyes fell on the only empty seat in the classroom. He searched the room again, trying to figure out which of the eleven residents was missing. “But you know the rules. Keep your eyes on your own paper. I’ll put up an image on the projector, you guys read the accompanying paragraph on the sheet in front of you, then follow the instructions. Remember, it’s not always about getting the correct diagnosis. It’s about getting the right diagnoses given the information you have at hand.”