Black Water (6 page)

Gilliam flipped back through his notebook, then stopped and smoothed a page.

Merci wondered why you'd have to look up the answer to a question like that, but she knew Gilliam was only finding his facts. Still it irritated her that he couldn't just get to the bottom of things sometimes.

"She'd had vaginal intercourse within the last three hours of her life. There was no genital bleeding, bruising, tearing or abrasions. No sign of a struggle. No semen in the mouth, throat or anus. Mrs. Wildcraft did have some light scrapes, perhaps bite marks, on the back her neck. I can't explain them. They may be sexual in nature, or they may not be. This doesn't appear to have been a sexual attack. It's possible that she was coerced into intercourse some other way than force. Or maybe the killer was interrupted. Maybe it was never his intention. That's just speculation."

"I guess that means she wasn't raped."

"That's my opinion."

The anger fanned by seeing Gwen Wildcraft's tortured body wouldn't leave her, it just sped her up, made her want to fight. "Well, is it Deputy Wildcraft's semen or isn't it?"

"I'm cooking the DNA gels right now, Merci."

"What did the tech see on the driveway—any good tire tracks?

"Nothing he could use."

"What about the footprints under the trees?"

"The imprint casts came out beautifully," he said. "Size-sixteen casual shoes made by Foot Rite. They're not widely available—and like the same shoe in a size ten, say. You're looking at specialty store and catalogues. Ike might be able to get some useful manufacture information for you."

"Fingerprints from the bathroom?"

"Lots of them, as you'd guess. We're running them all against his and hers, but nothing's popped out at us. That's eyeball work, so it's taking time. Vince told me last night he wants all this fast-track. Buckley did the test shooting last night, so he might have some fittings by now."

When they walked into the firearms examination room, Buckley was sitting at a table next to one of the comparison microscopes. He'd been looking across the room, his chin up on one fist, and seemed slightly apologetic for it.

On the table beside him was a two-foot square of plastic bubble wrap upon which sat Deputy Wildcraft's gun, the brass casing found by Zamorra and the two casings from the Wildcraft bathroom. A clear plastic box held what looked to Merci like a small-caliber bullet sheared into two fragments. The box beside it was empty. A larger one held perhaps fifty empty nine-millimeter casings: Buckley's comparison brass, Merci thought, fired through various guns.

Buckley was a wiry Georgian who had what Merci thought were impeccable manners, and a skeet shooting medal from the '72 Olympics. As usual, his shirt was plaid and his tie was a solid knit and his hair was sprayed into a perfect brown helmet.

"All three nine-millimeter casings from the scene were fired through the automatic registered to Deputy Wildcraft," he said quietly. "The breech face left two easily distinguishable marks. I haven't photographed any of this yet, so you'll have to take my word on it until I do."

"Your word's good, Buck, even if it isn't what I wanted to hear."

He sighed and shook his head. "It wasn't what I wanted, either. Makes me wonder if I could have done something. Should have seen something. But I didn't. Locked in my own little world, I guess."

Buckley's shoulders slumped. Merci saw him draw a deep breath and straighten his back.

"The slugs from inside Mrs. Wildcraft came from cartridges fired through that gun, too. The land and groove marks are good because the original cutting blade had a big anomaly that shows through on every bullet the gun projects. I say big—you need a microscope to see it. To a good examiner it looks like a street sign."

Tracking the freefall of her hope, Rayborn said nothing. And looking for refuge in details again, she thought to point out that the cutting tool used to create the rifling in the gun barrel would have been used to create the rifling in the
next
barrel on the S&W production line. And the previous one. But she knew the chances of any two of those barrels showing up in the same state at the same time in the same murder investigation were smaller than the breech face marks. By quite a bit.

It felt dismal to find herself thinking like a defense lawyer.

"I guess there's some flesh and blood that Jimmy took off the barrel end of the automatic, which he's going to try to put with the cut her forehead," said Buckley.

Neither Rayborn nor Zamorra spoke until they were outside the Coroner's Facility. It was almost noon and the late-August morning was; humid and hot.

Merci looked up at the pale blue sky and wondered what Tim Jr. was doing exactly now. Watching TV. Helping Grandpa doing something around the house. Driving his favorite birthday present from three months ago: a stationary car-like contraption with a mock video obstacle course he could "steer" through. It had sound effects: start, idle and an engine shriek that rose in pitch and volume according to what gear you shifted into.

She loved the way that Tim Jr. carefully locked the seat belt around his waist before he turned on the ignition, took the wheel then floored the accelerator and threw the shifter down into third. She interpreted this as a mixture of intelligence and courage. But then, she'd come see that he was marked for greatness. All her acquaintances who had children thought the same of theirs, but in Rayborn's opinion Tim was superior in obvious ways.

"I'm ready to hear what you got on Wildcraft from his friends, I don't suppose it's terrific news, if you didn't want James in on it."

Zamorra shrugged. "He was high-strung, happy and worried."

It was like a window had been opened in a sweltering room and puff of cold clean air had blown through.

Happy?

"Worried about what, Paul?"

"They were spending a lot of money. He liked nice things and did she. He worked all the overtime he could get. Did some bodyguarding and security work once in a while. I'd expect to find some nice credit card bills when we check their finances."

She waited while a faint smile crossed Zamorra's face. "And was in love. Still is, technically.

"She braced herself even as the words came out. "With whom?"

"Gwen. All three of the guys I talked to told me they'd never seen a guy that much in love with his wife. Two of them actually used the word 'insanely.' She was just out of high school when they got married. He had just graduated from state college with a degree in geology. Baseball scholarship. Gwen helped put him through the Sheriff's Academy singing in a rock band. Archie was proud of all that."

Zamorra laughed quietly. It wasn't something that he did very often and it made him look different. The darkness fled and he looked like a guy you wanted to know, maybe even touch.

"Okay, Paul, cough it."

"Archie has strong opinions and he stands up for them. A temper, too. There's a group of young deputies he hangs out with, some cops he met in the academy. Archie and one of them got pissed off at each other, had a fistfight in a bar and Archie knocked him out with one punch."

"What was the fight about?"

"You. The guy said you were wrong and Archie said you were right and it just got out of hand. They made up later but, according to the friends, neither one of them changed his mind."

For just a moment, her dread wavered and Rayborn enjoyed the warming breeze of approval. From a guy she didn't know. A guy very possibly guilty of murder, a guy with a bullet in his brain and not likely to live out the day.

"That's funny," she said, hearing the lameness but not caring. "Well, was Wildcraft a good candidate for a murder-suicide or wasn't he?"

Zamorra looked at her and shook his head. They had a running dispute about the way they looked at things. Merci tried for black or white, and absolutes. Zamorra was prone to colors and gradients. Merci judged quickly; Zamorra sometimes didn't judge at all.

"Was he or wasn't he, Paul?"

She looked at Zamorra with a small smile because she knew how long an answer might take. Hess had been like her and Zamorra put together: he'd bury himself in details and facts, gathering instead of judging, then his gut would kick in and guide him through. She wished she could be more like Hess, less opinionated and huffy, but decisive and effective when she needed to be. He had told her to be kind to herself because that's who she was stuck with for the next fifty year:

"I need to keep looking," he said finally. "Some people have other levels, whole lives that take place in secret. Those are the tough one: No one sees it coming. Rare, but it happens. They don't ask for help. They don't announce it. They usually leave a note."

Merci tried to imagine a life that secret, an intention so perfectly disguised.

"I don't see that he could kill a woman like that. His wife. What a beauty. What a voice, and she wrote songs. Look at those rocks he collected, the
suiseki.
He had, what do you call it. . .
appreciation."

"You can have all that, Merci, and still be desperate. That's what they all have in common—they don't see a choice. It's the last thing they can think of to do that's positive."

"Blowing your brains out is negative."

"I don't mean morally. It's positive in the sense that you do it. You act. You take back control of your life by ending it."

She thought this over, trying to split atoms like Zamorra. "Ass backwards," she said.

"Don't judge what you don't understand." Zamorra glanced at her and she saw the quick flash of anger in his eyes.

_M
erc
i
stood in the Wildcraft bathroom for the first time. She held the crime scene photographs, looking down, then up. It no longer smelled of blood and guncotton, but, faintly, of soap and potpourri. The room was smaller than she'd thought, but plenty big for two. White walls, a shiny tile floor, a high ceiling with a skylight. Thick white towels lavender accents. And now, without the glare of light off the shower door, one nick in the glass that might have been made by an ejected casing .

She'd gotten there an hour early because she liked some time alone. Hess had told her how he saw his way into some tough cases by imagining a picture relating to what had happened. He'd let the picture grow and change, even if it wasn't making sense. He'd led them to a killer called the Purse Snatcher that way—the first thing he'd pictured was a woman in a cocoon. In the end, there were no cocoons involved in the case at all, but that picture kept growing and changing until Hess understood what the Purse Snatcher was doing and how he was doing it. She'd been in awe of him for that. So she'd practiced until she was tired, then practiced more. It was alien to her way of thinking because she'd never—even as a child—had any interest in make-believe. At first she couldn't do it, then she could. She realized that to understand some things you have to let them come alive in your mind first. This idea was the second most important thing he'd left her. Merci needed to be alone for it, with only the ghosts for company.

Now, alone in the house, it was easy for Rayborn to see Gwen in her purple robe. Alive. Vibrant. Frightened. Small face, smart eye but eyes that are afraid.

What is she doing?

Does she come in here to take her face off, use the pot? Or does she immediately back to the far wall?

She has the phone with her because she's afraid, but how afraid? She locks the door because she's afraid, but how afraid?

Fear of the next moment? Or cautious, just-in-case fear? Did she have the phone in her hand when he came through the door, or did she reach for it?

Either way, it ends up in the sink, which is the "his" sink because the cabinet beside it houses shave gel, an athletic-themed antiperspirant, aftershave and a box of condoms. They're all economy size generic brands, except for the prophylactics, which are ribbed for her pleasure.

And either way, Merci thinks, Gwen is not afraid enough to get the little white-handled twenty-two from Archie's sink cabinet. Maybe she's afraid of it. Maybe she doesn't know how to use it. Maybe she doesn't know it's there.

Or maybe
she just wasn't fast enough.

It all could have happened in seconds: Gwen runs in and locks the door, looks down to dial the phone, the door splinters off its hinge something clubs her chest then a pistol is jammed against her high, intelligent forehead so hard the front sight takes a divot from her ballooning skin, one-two, bang-bang, you're dead.

Shot by her husband—a dimpled hunk she had had consensual sex with a few hours earlier, the man she'd fallen in love with in high school, helped through the Sheriff's Academy, posed with for portrait every year, with whom she shared a bed and a home in the hills?

She couldn't see it. Couldn't see Archie in this room with Gwen. He wasn't a player, not at this point.

But why not? She thought she knew why not, but that would wait for later. Right now, this first time through, she was going to try to see it like Gilliam and Buckley and probably everybody assumed it happened.