‘What is this Horus?’ asked Chris.
Maynard looked to Joshua before answering. ‘We believe your system would benefit from being able to see more than the first-person perspective and have been working on a third-person view. Horus is a small drone device that will provide an aerial view of the scene surrounding the target. Sort of like a video game. We think that this will add huge benefits.’
‘Surrounding the
target
you say? That’s an interesting choice of words.’
‘Don’t read too much into that, Chris,’ said Joshua. ‘You’re going to love playing with Horus, it’s great fun.’
The rest of the meeting went well and Chris was happy with how it turned out and he was pretty sure his guests had been too. Things were looking good but Chris was a little shocked that the commercial application of his work was being considered so soon. He guessed it was inevitable. Joshua and Maynard left Chris and were in high spirits. Chris tried to continue working but as the day wore on, he started to feel the effects of his long night working. He decided he would surprise Michelle and get home early, he wasn’t getting much done and his work would benefit more from a good night’s sleep and a fresh perspective.
Detective Ben Naylor parked his ’65 Buick at the Beach Drive entrance to Rock Creek Park and took a moment to study the surroundings before leaving the car. It was a nice area with red-brick houses, each with two cars and probably two kids. He guessed they were occupied by lobbyists, lawyers, and other professional people; you couldn’t pick a more unusual spot for a murder, but his twenty years of policing had taught him killers weren’t fussy about where they did their work, they just didn’t want to get caught.
He left his door unlocked and walked the path to the park, he’d read the preliminary report and knew this was the route the victim had run earlier this morning. The overhanging trees made good cover for any would-be assailant; it didn’t take long before he was completely obscured from the road. Not a bad choice, but still, he wondered about the motive. The girl had been found with her house key and phone. She had no money, but that was normal for someone out on a run. A mugger would probably have taken the phone, maybe he was interrupted before he could search the body. There was no sign of interference and no sign of a struggle. This was going to be a difficult case.
After a five minute walk he reached the first of the police cordons. He nodded to the patrolman who’d landed the job of keeping the press and nosey neighbors away from the crime scene. There was no need to show his badge, he was well known in this precinct. ‘Been busy Jim?’ he said.
‘No sir. Just a couple of reporters snooping around, the perimeter’s far enough away from the scene that they didn’t wait around.’ He looked pleased with himself, Ben was sure he saw his chest swell a little.
‘Maybe they cut through the woods instead?’ The young cop blushed and Ben figured the rookie had just realized that guarding a path in a park of this size was a pretty pointless task. If someone wanted to get a close look, they would. ‘CSI still here?’
‘Yes sir. They’re hunting for the bullet, there’s not a lot else going on. The body’s at the morgue, the man who found her is still here.’
‘Thank you Patrolman, keep up the good work.’ He offered a half salute and received a brisk and enthusiastic return. The new recruits of today were just kids. He stepped over the tape and headed towards the scene. A line of CSI’s wearing white paper suits were crawling on hands and knees about twenty feet from the running track. He didn’t envy them, finding a single bullet in the woods was no mean feat, they were going to be here for hours.
A series of small orange cones marked a trail along the running path, which he assumed was where they’d found blood. The outline of the body painted on the path had a large brownish-red stain where the head would have lain. He walked to where the drops of blood started and looked up the path to where the body was found. The path seemed fairly open, there were no easy hiding places and this was too near the entrance. Why here? Why not wait until she’d gotten further in, unless this was an opportunistic killing. Or maybe her killer was known to her and therefore didn’t need to hide. A young detective came up to Ben and offered his hand.
‘Glad you could make it Detective. Car trouble?’ he said.
Ben got some stick from the younger guys at the station on his aging Buick. He ignored the jibe, ‘What’ve we got Brad?’
‘Not a lot to go on. The girl, as you know, received a single fatal gunshot wound to the head. It appears as though she was shot about fifteen feet down the path and then continued to this point where she collapsed.’
‘So she kept running after some guy blows her brains out?’
‘It appears so. Initial tests on the blood show it all belongs to the victim, there’re no prints, no DNA. The track is a mess of footprints, as you’d expect, and there’s no sign of the body being disturbed.’
‘Time of death?’
‘Well here’s the thing sir, she was still alive when the witness called it in. By the time the paramedics got here it was too late. The call was made at 6:49 AM.’
‘Who the hell goes for a run at that time of the morning?’ Ben looked around the outline of the body and noticed a strange pattern of blood-like marks. ‘Are these paw prints?’ he said.
‘I’m afraid so. The guy that found her was walking his dog. It got to her before he could pull it away.’ Ben noticed the young detective turn pale. He looked as though he was going to throw up. ‘The coroner thinks the dog may have licked some of the blood and possibly eaten some gray matter.’
‘Jesus.’
‘I know. And she was still alive.’ He cupped his hand over his mouth but then seemed to regain his composure.
‘Have we got any ballistics?’
‘Nothing so far. CSI’s are still searching for the bullet, there’s no shell casing. Either this guy cleaned up before leaving or he had some kind of bag to catch the spent round.’
‘You make it sound like a professional hit, Detective.’
‘It looks very clinical to me Ben. No struggle, no physical evidence, no forensics, no witnesses.’
‘Have you got any good news?’
‘There’s coffee in the truck where the witness is waiting.’ Detective Nichols pointed to a group of cars parked about twenty feet to their right. ‘We figured you’d want to speak to him before we let him go.’
Ben followed the detective to the SUV. He hadn’t learned much he didn’t already know from his preliminary report, but it always helped to get a feel for a scene first-hand. He grabbed a coffee from a tray and took a swig, and then spat it back into the cup; it was cold and sweet.
He looked at a guy standing next to a dog and figured that he must be the one. The dog was lying with its chin on the path, its ears flat against its head. Sulking. The man didn’t look much better. He was leaning against the black SUV, his head hung down, he appeared quite shaken. He was wearing sweat pants and running shoes, although Ben guessed these were just the first clothes he’d found rather than to help in any attempt to run. Ben took a moment to size him up. His unshaven face told him he’d been less keen to get to the park at that time of the day than the dog had been. He was five-eight, maybe five-eleven if he stood straight and at first guess was around mid-to-late forties. He looked as though he could lose a few pounds. He also looked like he couldn’t wait to get away. Poor bastard. Ben walked over and held out his hand.
‘I’m Detective Naylor,’ he said. ‘Can I offer you a cold coffee?’
‘No thanks, I’ve had one already. I’m Dwayne. Dwayne Erwin. Am I going to be here long?’
‘I’ll try to make this as short as possible. You understand that this is a very serious incident Mr. Erwin? Do you have somewhere you need to be? We could make some calls if you like?’
‘No, I’m fine.’
‘Just a few questions, we’ll take a proper statement at the station later. Can you tell me what happened?’
The man proceeded to tell Ben how he had found the girl on the path. He didn’t mention the dog finding her, maybe he was embarrassed. He said that when he’d found her, the girl was already in bad shape.
‘She was still conscious when I found her,’ he said. ‘She looked at me with pleading eyes.’ He looked up and stared at nothing in particular, remembering the horror of what he’d seen. Ben thought he was clearly upset, and would probably need counseling to get over the experience, if he ever would.
‘It’s OK,’ said Ben, ‘take your time.’ He crouched down and put his hand out to the dog and got a doe-eyed look in return. The dog was still sulking, he gave it a rub behind the ears and its tail slapped against the floor. ‘Did she say anything? Maybe mention a name, or gesture in a direction where her assailant may have gone?’
‘She tried to speak but didn’t make much sense, it was kind of a moaning sound. She didn’t point or move. I think she’d been trying to make a phone call, her phone was in her hand.’ The man looked at his own hand as though he was holding a phone, acting out the scene as he relayed his experience. ‘I’d really like to go home now,’ he said.
Ben felt sorry for the guy and he really wasn’t providing any useful information. He could go. ‘Thank you Mr. Erwin, you’ve been a great help.’ He held out a card which was taken gingerly by the man’s shaking hand. ‘If you remember anything, anything at all, I want you to give me a call, OK?’ The man nodded and read the card. ‘We’ll get you to come in and give a proper statement in the next couple of days, now go home and get cleaned up.’
There wasn’t much here and the search for the bullet could take weeks. This case was going to need good old-fashioned police work. He knew he needed to get a full history of the girl and start to interview those close to her. Nine times out of ten the killer was someone who had a close relationship with the victim. Ben walked back over to the young detective and put his hand on his arm to get his attention.
‘What do we have on the girl?’
‘Nothing at the moment. The tech guys are looking at her phone to pull out some personal details. We should have something soon.’
‘Fine, keep me informed, I’m going to the coroner’s office.’
Detective Naylor drove from the park to the coroner’s office on L Street, NW. He swiped his card and the heavy double gates slid along their railings, a security camera recorded his progress as he drove into the courtyard. He found an empty spot, parked, and then walked to the entrance that led to the morgue. The entrance led underground. In modern times, with air conditioning, there was no reason for a morgue to be located underground, but that is where they were in every police station and hospital Ben had visited. Maybe there was something deep in the human psyche that required the dead to be kept underground. He walked down the gray corridor, the fluorescent lighting cast a cold light on the roughly plastered walls, and the smell of formaldehyde and sterilizing fluid filled the air and made the inside of his nostrils burn. He didn’t like this part of the job, but over the years had learned to accept its inevitability. He knew that when it came to getting an insight into the last moments of a homicide victim, the coroner was your best friend.
He had called ahead and was expected, but still he needed to sign the visitor’s book and leave his gun with the officer at the desk. The gun was checked in to a locker and he was given a visitor’s badge before being allowed to proceed.
Ben continued down the narrow corridor until he reached the door to examining room number three. He knocked and walked straight in without waiting for an invite. He knew the drill and had been here many times before. He walked into the brightly-lit room that was twenty feet square with a stainless-steel bench in the center. On the bench was the body of the girl, a cotton sheet covered her lower-half. Ben thought that even in death, we allow for modesty. The tiled floor was wet from what he could only guess was a clean-down following the previous autopsy.
The medical examiner didn’t look up from his work, but raised a gloved hand and beckoned. He was an old friend; they had met many times, although not usually in the best of circumstances.
‘Ben, you’re just in time. I’m about to remove the top of the cranium. Come over here and take a look.’
Although he had learned to deal with autopsies, he would never understand how anyone could do this work, day after day. He understood the need to explore and understand, but he couldn’t help but see the cadavers as people, and the dissection made him feel uneasy; he thought the entire act to be a little unnatural.
Ben had known the examiner, Dr. Alex Turin, for nearly twenty years. They’d met when Ben was attending his first autopsy. A much older, and wiser Alex stood before him now. Ben figured Alex was probably getting close to retirement, he was in his late fifties, maybe early sixties. He wore his half-moon glasses low on his nose, just over the top of his surgical mask. His hair was gray with flecks of white and peeked from the edges of his surgical cap. The clothing worn during autopsies had changed throughout the years as the preservation of evidence and protection from DNA contamination was of paramount importance. Reluctantly, Ben walked over to the top of the bench.