Sacred Trust

“Ted, what is it?” I say.

Putting the glasses back on, he shakes his head.

“I’ve never seen anything like this. I’m sorry, Abby. My guess would be that this is some sort of execution-style killing. Possibly to silence your friend, or to send a message to someone else. Perhaps even revenge for something she did. The words that were painted on her chest, in fact, would seem to confirm this.”

Ben tightens his arm around my shoulders, and Ted says, “Are you sure you want me to go on?”

“Yes,” I respond in what sounds amazingly like my ordinary, day-to-day voice. “Go on.”

I want to know everything, suddenly. I want every word burned into my brain so that when and if I ever meet up with the monster who did this to Marti, I will feel perfectly justified in killing him.

“Her back…the skin on her back,” Ted says, “is in strips. And the fact that her feet were nailed to the cross, that she wasn’t simply hung on the cross with strips of cloth, is significant. In reported cases of crucifixion, the very act of hanging—without the feet being affixed to the cross, that is—would cause death to occur rather quickly from suffocation. That is, provided the victim didn’t die first of cardiac failure, blood loss or dehydration. The weight of the body on the cross pulled the arms upward, causing the pectoral and intercostal muscles to be stretched. This led to hyperexpansion of the lungs and an inability to breathe. The victim would attempt to raise himself with his arms to relieve the pressure, which caused muscle spasms. Unable to hold himself in that lifted position, he would die very quickly.”

I close my eyes briefly, but to steady myself, not to ward off the picture. Ted’s recital is working. My anger is growing.

He shakes his head sadly, looking at me, then down at Marti. “In your friend’s case, as I’ve said, her feet were nailed to the cross. I find this significant. In ancient times, when the feet were nailed, it was done primarily to lengthen the victim’s suffering. It gave the victim something to press against—to raise himself against, rather than using his arm muscles. In that way, he was able to breathe momentarily. He would alternate between slumping to relieve pain on the feet and then pressing against his feet, in order to breathe again. The pain caused by pressure on the nailed feet, of course, would have been terrible. Eventually the victim, who in many cases began this terrible ordeal with loss of blood, became too exhausted to lift himself any longer. The respiratory muscles became, you might say, paralyzed. Which led to suffocation and death.”

He sighs. “This is a simplification, of course. There are other medical details…fluid buildup in the lungs and perhaps the pericardium, hypovolemic shock…I could go over these with you, but—”

Ben shakes his head, and this time I agree. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to forget this, even if Marti’s killer is one day caught and put to death. “Thank you, Ted. This is enough.”

Then I remember something Ben said earlier. “Just one thing, Ted. Ben told me you thought Marti had actually died from a brain injury. Not suffocation?”

He takes several long moments to answer. “Without having seen the results of her toxicology tests,” he says with obvious reluctance, “which will take a bit of time, that is my best guess.”

“Are you saying she died from a blow to the head?”

Ted looks at Ben, obviously miserable about having to do this with me. I would take pity on him, but I need to know everything.

“Please, tell me,” I say.

One of Ted’s hands goes to Marti’s forehead. He brushes it gently, as if brushing back her hair, though it’s hidden under the white sheeting. “As I said, I’ve done some reading about ritual murders, in particular religious ritual murders. What I found on your friend…Abby, have you ever heard of trepanning, or trephination?”

“I don’t think so. It doesn’t sound familiar.”

“Well, a trephine is a surgical instrument with sawlike edges. It’s used to cut disks of bone from the skull, in medical practice. The cult of trepanning, or trephination, however, is something else. It’s been around, off and on, for thousands of years, and seems to be making a comeback now, if you will. Followers of this cult believe that drilling a hole into the top of one’s head where the soft spot, or fontanel, was at birth brings a person a feeling of bliss—the greatest high one can experience.”

“Drilling a hole? You can’t mean they do this to themselves?”

“That’s precisely what they do, I’m afraid.”

“Ted, that’s…it’s sick.”

“I agree. However, there does seem to be historical evidence that this has been practiced by thousands of people over the centuries. Some believed it would help mental illness, headaches, epilepsy. Others claimed it gave them special mental powers. In your friend’s case…” He pauses.

“You don’t mean somebody did this to Marti,” I say, shocked.

“I’m afraid it looks that way, Abby. I found a hole the size of a quarter had been drilled into her skull, probably by a corkscrew-like object, such as a trephine.”

Seeing my expression of horror, he stops, waits a moment, then continues. “Unfortunately, the instrument used went too far—into her brain. There was massive bleeding, and I suspect this is what ultimately caused her death. As I’ve said, I can’t be sure, of course, without further tests and examination. But I suspect that whoever did this did it after nailing her to the cross.”

I look down at Marti again, imagining the scalp, then the skull, being drilled through, the horrible pain she must have experienced.

I try to swallow, but there is no saliva, only bile in my throat, and I am shaking. “God, Ted. Why would anyone do such a thing?”

“My best guess,” he says, “is that it fit with the religious aspect of this murder. According to reports I’ve read, priests once performed this act to release evil spirits from people who were thought to be possessed.”

I lean back against Ben, my legs too weak to support me much longer. The bile is in my mouth now, and I fear I’ll vomit. Reaching for a Kleenex in my bag, I hold it to my mouth.

Ted’s glance slides from me to Ben. “You should take her home, now,” he says. “Abby, again, I am very, very sorry. Try to get some rest. Put this out of your mind for a while.”

“Put it out of my mind? Ted, how can I? Who would have done this to Marti?”

“I can’t answer that, I’m afraid. Your friend was a well-known personality in her field. People like that sometimes make strange enemies.”

I can’t imagine Marti ever having made an enemy.

I turn to Ben, anger taking over. “How long, do you think, before you get this monster?”

“I don’t know, Ab. Carmel—the council, city administrator, angry residents—everyone wants this solved, and quickly. The task force is working on it already, including the sheriff’s department, the police departments of every city on the Peninsula, and of course—”

He breaks off. The Secret Service, he was going to say. But he didn’t, and I’m guessing that’s because Ted is here. Ben is supposed to keep the Secret Service’s involvement quiet, apparently.

“I can promise you one thing,” he says, his expression grim as he looks down at my friend. “I’ll do everything I can to find out who did this, Abby.”

I let him lead me to the door, but midway there I turn back.

“Ted, you didn’t say. Was Marti…was she raped?”

He shakes his head. “I’ve found no evidence of sexual attack, Abby. No, everything about this points, as I said, to an execution-style killing. It was the style that counted, I’d guess—perhaps the shock value of the terribleness of it, not the actual cause of death.”

4

I leave Ben outside in the parking lot, climbing into the Explorer and again promising to find Marti’s killer. It is a comforting promise, though I fear that’s all it is. I wonder how long it will be before they start questioning me again.

We haven’t talked further about the name “Abby” at the crime scene, or the letter A carved into Murphy’s back. If that seems odd, I attribute it to Ben’s haste to get back to the station and the case.

At home, I tend to Murphy first, cutting open a capsule of vitamin E and rubbing it gently into the wound on his back to hasten the healing. Still feeling numb, I double-check doors and windows, making sure they’re all locked. Taking a cup of hot chocolate upstairs, I undress for bed, putting on a pair of warm pajamas. Murphy plants himself outside my door, as usual, at the top of the steps. After a few minutes I call him in with me, patting the bed and urging him to lie beside me. Careful not to touch the sore spot beneath his fur, I position my arm around him, seeking to comfort us both while we fall asleep. He licks my hand and looks at me with eyes that seem full of questions for which I have no answers. Sighing, he lies back down.

First thing in the morning I call the vet and he tells me to bring Murphy in at one. I settle him down on a blanket by the fire, fix myself some breakfast, do the dishes, throw some clothes in the wash and sweep the side patio. Then I call Frannie to let her know Murphy’s been found, and tell her what was done to him. She is horrified, and we commiserate about that a few minutes. Finally I call Ben to find out if they’ve made any progress on the case and if there’s any word about Marti’s funeral. The one thing I forgot to ask Ted was how soon he’d be releasing her body. Ben isn’t in, and the woman at the desk assures me she’ll have him call me as soon as she hears from him.

After that I don’t know what to do with myself. All this activity has had only one purpose—to keep me from brooding about Marti. It can’t help things to sit and mourn. Yet, what’s the alternative? To head out on a white charger? I would give anything to be able to avenge my friend’s death. If I knew who killed her, I would probably, at this moment, do him in with my own bare hands. I just don’t know where to begin.

If only she had talked to me about her life more recently, if only I had made more of an effort to be with her, to find out what was going on with her. If only, if only, if only. Could I have done more?

I turn to writing to get my mind off things. It doesn’t seem to help. At the computer in my study, I try to come up with next week’s column, but my mind won’t work. I feel as if I’m sleepwalking, and finally give up struggling for the witticisms my readers have begun to expect, all the funny and sometimes caustic observations about life in Carmel that residents and tourists alike seem to enjoy. Instead, I toy with the keyboard, typing out Marti’s name and then the letter A, over and over, like some kid scrawling her boyfriend’s last name after hers in a geography workbook: Annie Smith. Annie Smith Jones. Mrs. David Jones. Everywoman’s dream…to get that ring, marry that man.

In this case, the occasion is not a wedding but a funeral. Though what the difference is, I swear I don’t know. For me, they both seem related to death or dying.