Authors: John Gilstrap
Indeed Russell could. The dead man lay on his stomach, and all the low spots of his body had turned purplish black from the stagnant blood pooled in his tissues.
As he followed Tim in close to the body, Russell did his best to conceal his revulsion at the odor. Local homicide investigators had the luxury of getting used to this sort of thing. As infrequently as Russell did it, every murder was a new adventure in stamina.
"The guy's a cop. Thomas Stipton from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We found his badge and ID in his back pocket."
Russell's right eyebrow scaled his forehead. He nodded toward the empty holster on the corpse's hip. "Where's his weapon?"
Tim shook his head. "Haven't found it yet. Doubt that we will."
"Shot with his own gun, you think?"
"Hard to say till ballistics gets done with the bullets. Here, take a look at the entry wounds." As Tim spoke, he pointed out the different holes with the point of his pen. "We've got one here in the shoulder, sort of between his shoulder blade and his collarbone, one here at the suprasternal notch, and another here on the top of his head."
Tim dug using phrases like suprasternal notch. Russell would probably have called it the top of the breastbone, or maybe the base of the throat.
"High, downward angles," Russell observed. "You figure the killer was hiding in a tree?"
Tim shook his head. "I thought that at first, yes. But look down there in the woods. You see that orange evidence marker? That's a stray bullet lodged in a tree trunk."
Russell could see the scar itself, gouged in the base of a tree about twenty feet away. "So, what are you telling me? The guy was crawling?" Well, that's the million-dollar question, isn't it? I figure maybe it foiled rape attempt. Judging from the powder burns, this guy was shot like point-blank."
Coates stood again and scanned the area around him. "But his pants are up and his pecker's tucked in, right?"
"Sure looks that way. Maybe he was still trying to subdue her when he got shot."
Russell's head bobbed as he considered that. "Okay, so why didn't she call the police when she got down off the mountain? And why steal his gun?"
"Scared, maybe? I don't know, rape victims freak out all the time. You know that."
"Maybe." Russell strolled in a small circle around the body, trying to imagine a scene as it might have unfolded. Suicide was out, if only because of the angles of entry. What does that leave? Murder, certainly, but how? And why out here?
"There's something else -"
Russell silenced Tim with a raised finger. He saw something. Not sure what it was, exactly, but it was something. Call it insight, call it intuition; but whatever it was, he'd learned to trust it. Something about the arrangement of the leaves. There it was, right over there: a cleared spot among the mess of rocks and leaves. If he used his imagination a little, he could almost see a faint circular imprint in the ground.
He walked over to the spot, and still not saying a word, he stooped and then knelt, feeling along the ground for a telltale sign of -
"Here it is," he announced. "The stake hole from their tent." Removing his pen from his pocket, he gently probed the hole. Sure enough, it extended down at an angle; and from the angle, he could guess where the other stakes had been. "There was a campsite built here last night. I want plaster casts made of these stake holes, Tim. And I want casts made of every footprint and of every tire track down there on the fire road."
"That'll take forever." It wasn't a complaint; merely an observation.
"You've got more pressing business, do you?"
Tim smiled.
"You were going to show me something else," Russell prompted.
"Oh, yeah. Damnedest thing. Parker over there found these." Tim led his boss out farther into the woods. "Look."
Russell followed Tim's arm down to two more footprints. "Am I looking at something that is more than it appears?"
Tim started to wipe away the leaves for a clearer picture of the
Crime Scene is done with everything. Make your point with your hands in your pockets."
Tim blushed. "Parker noticed that these prints are deeper than the others, and that they're unusually close together. The boot treads seem to match, so it would seem that both feet belong to the same person."
Russell laughed, then grew instantly apologetic once he saw the expression in ever-serious Tim's face. "Relax, Timbo. I suddenly got this image of a guy walking around with someone else's foot." Still no laughter. "Go ahead." And lighten up, asshole.
"Well, Parker thinks the depth can only mean one of two things. Either the guy is really heavy, or he stood here for a very long time."
"Or both."
"Right. Or both. Still, don't you think that's odd? Somebody standing out here watching somebody else get killed?"
Russell shrugged. "I don't know. If I had stumbled by a murder in progress, I might be inclined to stand real still and be quiet. Better than being drawn into the fight."
"So that puts at least three people on the scene of this thing now. And of those three, one of them is dead, another did the killing, and a third stood by and watched."
"How do you know he didn't stand here before or after the murder?"
Tim started to answer, but then stopped. "Well, I guess I don't know that for sure, but what would be the point? I mean, who's going to stand out here in the middle of the woods like that? Long enough to make an imprint this deep? And as far as hanging around after the murder is concerned, that doesn't make sense either. Christ, this guy has a dead body on his hands. He's going to get the hell out, isn't he?"
Russell nodded and walked back toward the campsite. "It's also interesting that they took plenty of time to clean up before they left."
"Your point being?"
"Look around. If it weren't for the body on the ground, you'd never know anyone was here. I mean, they even scattered the ashes from their campfire. Seems kind of odd to me that someone who's just been attacked would have the presence of mind to cover their tracks so well."
Tim thought it over. "Okay, so why not conceal the body?"
Damn good question. "How would you do that? I mean, as a practical matter, you could bury him, but that would mean a big fucking hole. Not exactly something you can dig with the spoon from your mess kit. I figure they saw the futility of it and decided to use the time to their advantage and just concentrate on doing away with all vestiges of themselves."
And how naive a decision it was, he didn't say. Even the smartest criminals leave something behind. Beyond the footprints and tire tracks, there might be cigarette butts, toothpicks, hair or blood samples. All he had to do was piece those things together, use a little imagination and logic, and with a little luck, he'd have himself a murderer in no time.
BOBBY MARTIN SHOT upright in bed, instantly awake, and instantly aware of all the horrors the new day brought. Jesus Christ, he'd killed a cop!
Had he really called in and reported it? Had he really been that stupid? So much of what was happening jumbled in his head like somebody else's terrible dream that he felt momentarily lost between fantasy and reality. But none of it was fantasy, was it? Every detail, every mistake, every second was bona fide, certified, USDA-choice reality.
Whipping off the covers, he swung his feet to the floor, surprised to see that he was still wearing his pants and socks from yesterday. He'd been so exhausted when he lay down on the bed - just for a few minutes, he'd promised Susan - that he'd neglected to undress.
He didn't bother to call out to see where she was. He knew. She'd be right where she was the last time he saw her: in the baby's room, watching the little boy sleep. The hallway still smelled of fresh paint and new carpet, and as he crossed the bridge that separated the grand foyer from the expansive great room, he walked gently, hoping not to wake anyone.
He still didn't quite understand how he'd allowed himself to be talked into buying this barn of a place. What good were five bedrooms when you only had furniture for two? Even at that, everything was so undersized from their previous town house that most of it would have to be replaced anyway. But it was the house that Susan wanted, and thanks to last year's bonus he'd been able to put enough money down that the monthly payments didn't hurt too much. It was their dream house, purchased in the frenzy of dreams about Steven.
What wonderful times they were, back when everything seemed so ordained. He loved every minute of the excursions to baby stores and fabric shops, choosing paint and the bunny-rabbit border print for the nursery. Finally, after so long, they were going to be a family. A real family, with kids and messy diapers and toys underfoot.
And at long last, well-meaning busybodies would stop asking the baby question, and he and Susan could stop pretending that the questions didn't hurt. He recognized that they'd brought a lot of the insensitivity on themselves, refusing as they had to share with anyone else the devastation of the miscarriages, but who wanted to be burdened with such news from their friends? Talk about a conversation killer. Instead, they'd spent four years just shrugging and offering their standard line about taking their time.
Once they'd passed the critical first trimester, though-with a couple of extra weeks thrown in just to be sure-they'd gone public about Steven, and everyone they knew offered nothing but good wishes. They were inundated with baby showers, providing them with enough clothing and paraphernalia to keep the kid going for the first three years.
In the weeks since the baby had died, however, they'd heard precious little from anyone outside the family. People didn't know what to say, and truth be told, Bobby didn't know how to reach out to anyone. He couldn't get past his anger that everyone else he knew-everyone- could pop out babies at will, all of them perfectly healthy, while he and Susan could only produce corpses.
The Martins were good people, dammit. They were well educated, they had good jobs, they made a lot of money, and they had this untapped reservoir of love for which God had twisted the valve shut. It wasn't fair. Hell, half of the people he knew couldn't afford the kids they had, yet it seemed that someone new was popping up pregnant every day.
Most people couldn't even make it to Stevens funeral, citing dozens of schedule conflicts, and when he thought about it rationally, he couldn't say that he blamed them. Nothing made people squirm quite as quickly or as thoroughly as the thought of a dead child, and they would go to extraordinary lengths to rationalize it away. If one more person tried to comfort him with the adage that miscarriages happen all the time, he was going to throttle them. At full term, it's not a miscarriage; it's a dead son. Why couldn't people recognize that?
In the hallway outside the nursery, Bobby paused to look at the little shrine he'd built to Steven's memory. At the hospital, a nurse had thoughtfully clipped a lock of his son's hair and presented it quietly to Bobby, tucked away in a sealed envelope, along with a picture of the baby.
"I know it's painful now," she'd said, "but in years to come, I thought you'd like to have this."
It was the kindest, most sensitive thing that anyone had ever done for Bobby, and not a day had passed in the last few weeks that he hadn't thought of her, and how she had sat with him in the hallway, holding him as he struggled to find the strength Susan would need. He'd recognize the nurse's face anywhere, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember her name.
Now, the dark wisps of corn silk lay permanently encased in a Lexan frame, on the wall above the impossibly tiny booties that they'd had bronzed, even though they'd never been worn.
As for the picture, he threw that away. He wanted to remember his son for his gymnastics in his mother's tummy, for his boogying in utero. If ever he felt compelled to remind himself of what Steven had looked like, he always had the sonograms. He couldn't make head nor tail out of them, but at least they triggered happy memories.
He found Susan in the nursery, where she hadn't moved since last night. She still sat in the Mother Goose rocker, stroking the sleeping boy's filthy hair through the crib rail. She looked up at Bobby and smiled. "He's beautiful, isn't he?"
He was, indeed. Even through the dirt that caked his face and his ears, the boy would have been the darling of Madison Avenue. His dark brown hair and olive complexion gave him a Latino look, but with the long, slender features of a Scandinavian. Sleeping on his tummy as he was, with his head canted toward them, he looked like the very picture of contentment.
Bobby smiled back. "Has he awakened at all?"
"Hasn't moved. He was exhausted."
Bobby got the feeling that Susan would stay there for days on end, or even weeks until the boy opened his eyes again. Seeing her this peaceful made him feel warm in a place that had been cold for too long. But he also felt fear.
"Honey, we have to talk."
"Later." She didn't bother to look at him this time.
"No, I really think we ought to do it now. There's a lot-"
"Who would do this to a child?" she interrupted. "Who would take such a beautiful baby and neglect him so?"
Bobby moved around and knelt next to his wife. "That's what we need to talk about, Suz. What are we going to do with him?"