Postmortem(5)

Seminal fluid was present in all of the cases, yet it was of little serological value. The assailant was one of the twenty percent of the population who enjoyed the distinction of being a nonsecreter. This meant his blood-type antigens could not be found in his other body fluids, such as saliva or semen or sweat. Absent a blood sample, in other words, he couldn’t be typed. He could have been A, B, AB or anything.

As recently as two years earlier, the killer’s nonsecreter status would have been a crushing blow to the forensic investigation. But now there was DNA profiling, newly introduced and potentially significant enough to identify an assailant to the exclusion of all other human beings, provided the police caught him first and obtained biological samples and he didn’t have an identical twin.

Marino was inside the bedroom right behind me. “The bathroom window,” he said, looking at the body. “Well, according to the husband in there,” jerking a thumb in the direction of the kitchen, “the reason it was unlocked’s because he unlocked it last weekend.”

I just listened.

“He says that bathroom’s hardly ever used, unless they got company. Seems he was replacing the screen last weekend, says it’s possible he forgot to relock the window when he finished. The bathroom’s not used all week. She”—he glanced again at the body—“has no reason to give it a thought, just assumes it’s locked.” A pause. “Kind of interesting the only window the killer tried, it appears, was that window. The one unlocked. The screens to the rest of ’em aren’t cut.”

“How many windows are in the back of the house?” I asked.

“Three. In the kitchen, the half bath and the bathroom in here.”

“And all of them have slide-up sashes with a latch lock at the top?”

“You got it.”

“Meaning, if you shone a flashlight on the latch lock from the outside, you probably could see whether it’s fastened or not?”

“Maybe.” Those flat, unfriendly eyes again. “But only if you climbed up something to look. You couldn’t see the lock from the ground.”

“You mentioned a picnic bench,” I reminded him.

“Problem with that’s the backyard’s soggy as hell. The legs of the bench should’ve left depressions in the lawn if the guy put it up against the other windows and stood on top of it to look. I got a couple men poking around out there now. No depressions under the other two windows. Don’t look like that killer went near ’em. What it does look like is he went straight to the bathroom window down the hall.”

“Is it possible it might have been open a crack, and that’s why the killer went straight to it?”

Marino conceded, “Hey. Anything’s possible. But if it was open a crack, maybe she would’ve noticed it, too, at some point during the week.”

Maybe. Maybe not. It is easy to be observant retrospectively. But most people don’t pay that much attention to every detail of their residences, especially to rooms scarcely used.

Beneath a curtained window overlooking the street was a desk containing other numbing reminders that Lori Petersen and I were of the same profession. Scattered over the blotter were several medical journals, the Principles of Surgery and Dorland’s. Near the base of the brass goose-neck lamp were two computer diskettes. The labels were tersely dated “6/1” in felt-tip pen and numbered “I” and “II.” They were generic double-density diskettes, IBM-compatible. Possibly they contained something Lori Petersen was working on at VMC, the medical college, where there were numerous computers at the disposal of the students and physicians. There didn’t appear to be a personal computer inside the house.

On a wicker chair in the corner between the chests of drawers and the window clothes were neatly laid: a pair of white cotton slacks, a red-and-white-striped short-sleeved shirt and a brassiere. The garments were slightly wrinkled, as if worn and left on the chair at the end of the day, the way I sometimes do when I’m too tired to hang up my clothes.

I briefly perused the walk-in closet and full bath. In all, the master bedroom was neat and undisturbed, except for the bed. By all indications, it was not part of the killer’s modus operandi to ransack or commit burglary.

Marino was watching an ID officer open the dresser drawers.

“What else do you know about the husband?” I asked him.

“He’s a grad student at Charlottesville, lives there during the week, comes home on Friday nights. Stays the weekend, then goes back to Charlottesville on Sunday night.”

“What is his discipline?”

“Literature’s what he said,” Marino replied, glancing around at everything but me. “He’s getting his Ph.D.”