The Finishing School Read Free

greeted Butch warmly, then turned to Shavonne.
    “What’s your assessment?” she asked.
    “I’m not allowed to certify cause of death without an autopsy unless it’s natural causes, but I
could
,” Shavonne said. “This one’s a no-brainer. All the classic signs of narcotic drug overdose. You got vomiting, loss of control of the bowels. You smell
that
, right? Nasal and lachrymal discharge. Severed tongue on the brown-haired girl, who’s also got white powder under the nostrils, indicating nasal ingestion. No visible track marks on the arms, but that’s no surprise. Kids in this socioeconomic bracket are squeamish. Shooting up’s too street for them—they prefer it up the nose. So I’m gonna say with ninety-nine percent certainty heroin’s the culprit here.”
    “You’re sure it was heroin? Why not cocaine if there’s white powder under the nose?” Melanie asked.
    “Cocaine ODs are pretty rare,” Shavonne explained, “and they usually happen because the victim had some undetected cardiac problem. With cocaine you never see people OD’ing simultaneously like this. Whereas with heroin, if the stuff’s powerful enough, it’s not uncommon to get a couple bodies at a time just from snorting. More, even.”
    “One’s nude and the other’s half undressed. Any signs of sexual abuse?” Melanie asked.
    “No visible trauma consistent with defensive wounds. But the autopsy’ll look for evidence of recent sexual intercourse, forced or consensual. If there
is
evidence, we’ll take swabs and DNA-test the semen. That’s probably not why the bodies are naked, though. It’s normal for ODs to be missing some clothes. They rip ’em off while they’re freaking out.”
    “Did we find the missing clothes?” Melanie asked Butch.
    “The brunette’s are in a pile on the bathroom floor, so that looks consistent with what Shavonne’s saying. The blonde’s skirt and sneakers were in the kitchen. Why there, is anybody’s guess.”
    “Did we recover any heroin from the scene?” Melanie asked.
    “Looks like they snorted it all before they kicked off,” Butch said. “But we found the empty glassines, so the lab’ll test for residue. Take a look.”
    Butch handed her two clear plastic evidence envelopes that had already been heat-sealed and dated. Each one in turn contained a tiny pouch made from waxed paper with a fold-over flap, precisely sized to hold an individual dosage unit of heroin. Known as glassines or “decks” in cop parlance, these particular pouches had been stamped with the word GOLPE, in bright red ink.
    “The decks were found right next to ’em, like they snorted the junk one second and keeled over the next,” Butch said. “One was found on the bed next to the blonde’s right hand and the other on the floor next to the brunette’s right arm.”
    “Hmm, that’s odd,” Melanie said.
    “Why do you say that?” Butch asked.
    “If the dark-haired girl snorted the heroin and fell over in a seizure the next second with the glassine still in her hand, why are her clothes all the way in the bathroom?”
    “Maybe she snorted more than one deck,” Butch offered.
    “Then we should’ve found another empty, right?” Melanie examined the glassines. “
Golpe
,” she intoned, giving the word its Spanish pronunciation.
    “You recognize the stamp?” Lieutenant Albano asked.
    “Stamps” were the brand names of the drug trade. Knowing the brand name would make tracking down the supplier a whole lot easier, since certain gangs tended to specialize in certain brands of heroin.
    “No. Just that it’s Spanish. It means ‘slap’ or ‘punch.’ In this context it’s more like ‘hit,’ a hit of dope. The Spanish name is unusual, don’t you think?” she asked.
    “Well, no offense there, Counselor, but the major heroin distributors in this town are all PR or Dominican. The Spanish sell the shit, so they put it in a language they understand.”
    “Not true, Lieutenant,” Melanie said,