Blood Will Tell (9 page)

“That's enough, I should think. I'm sorry if I reopened old wounds."

“No, it's okay,” she told him. “Most of the crackpots showed up when I first became a cop, when people still remembered the Olympic medal. It's old news now."

“Not to me. I'm impressed."

She suspected that there wasn't a whole lot in life that impressed him.

The phone rang. “Let the machine pick up,” said Brandy.

But she had the kind of machine that allowed her to screen calls. “Brandy, it's Church. Call me when you get in, Kid. It's not news to help you sleep, but I don't want you to hear it on TV."

With an apologetic look at Martin, Brandy snatched up the phone. “I'm here, Church. What's happened?"

“A shooting,” he replied. “Damnedest thing. Rand and Paschall took the Andersons to the jail in Paducah—only they never showed up. Their car was just found, run into a ditch on the Kirtney Road. All four occupants are dead, shot in the head."

Chapter Four—Cop Killer

When cops were murdered, no police department would rest until the killer was caught. At the next morning's briefing, Brandy studied photos of the crime scene in disbelief.

The preliminary report confirmed the pictures: no sign of a struggle. The prisoners in back and the policemen in the front seat smiled serenely, appearing pleasantly asleep except for the wounds in their foreheads. Chase Anderson's uninjured left hand was still manacled to his wife's right. The officers’ guns were in their holsters.

Each victim had a single entry wound in the forehead; the exit wounds had blown off the backs of their heads.

“The car is being examined this morning,” Chief Benton reported. “We assume that the victims were out cold from carbon monoxide or some other agent before they were shot."

“What were they doing on the Kirtney Road?” asked Phillips. “That's no way to go to Paducah."

“We don't know,” replied Benton. “We don't know much of anything yet, except that four people were shot at close range without putting up a struggle."

Brandy stared again at the photos. “This is gonna sound strange,” she said, “but they're all in exactly the same position, wearing exactly the same expression, as Professor Land was when he died last week."

“Jesus, Mather, will you give it up?” asked the chief. “That case is closed. This case is open and ugly as an exit wound. You can find out why they were on the wrong road."

Brandy gritted her teeth. The least important aspect of the investigation—or the least likely to afford results.

Except—she got some. Prisoner transport was the result of state legislation that set new requirements for county jails, but provided no funds to help counties comply with them. The old and poorly designed jail in Murphy had first been reduced to a forty-eight-hour holding facility, and then to a twelve-hour one. When prisoners couldn't be bailed out at once, it could require two transports per day. There had been griping about inconvenience, the expense of paying other communities to keep Callahan County prisoners—but no one had thought of the potential for ambush.

County sheriff's deputies usually transported prisoners, but yesterday one county car had blown a water pump, just when a late summer grass fire had half the county mounties aiding the Fire and Rescue Squad. When the sheriff asked Chief Benton to have his own people do the transport, there had been no dearth of volunteers for the overtime.

The State Police and the County Sheriff were part of the investigation. Because of the fire, most of the county cars had been far from Murphy, but a few maintained patrols. Both a state trooper and a county mountie had heard a distant, broken radio report of a tractor-trailer accident on the Purchase Parkway, with a toxic spill. In each case the officer, not having heard it clearly, had called for confirmation and been told by his dispatcher that it must not be in their territory. Now it turned out there had been no such accident anywhere on the Purchase Parkway.

A trick to get Rand and Paschall to take a different road? Why that back road? When she got back to the office, she showed Church what she had discovered. “They should've taken 641 on to Draffenville, and I-24 to Paducah."

“Unless they received other orders,” said Church, studying the map. “They'd have started up 641. The false report others heard faintly must have been clear to them. It was on the police frequency, but it wasn't picked up in Murphy. What about a weak signal, very close to them?"

“The state and county cars were north and west of Murphy. The fake report must have come from a transmitter somewhere north of town. There are people with police scanners out there. Let's find out what they heard."

By the simple expedient of broadcasting a message asking who had heard the fake accident report, they had five responses in ten minutes, including one from Judge L. J. Callahan, whose home was in that area. Everyone had pretty much the same thing to say: the report had warned of toxic fumes, telling everyone to stay off both the Purchase Parkway and 641 near the Parkway entrance.

“So that's it,” said Brandy as they took the last identical report. “Rand and Paschall must have been traveling north on 641, heard that report, and decided to go around the obstruction via Mayfield."

“And 1899 over to the Kirtney Road to intersect with 121 would be a shortcut,” said Church. “A complicated ambush. Whoever set it up had to know where Car 108 was, and where the other city cars were, to make sure only Rand and Paschall would receive the message."

“The scanners that picked up the fake message were near north 641. If we can find the transmitter—"

But that they found no sign of. A search for witnesses, for tire tracks, for any clue to the perpetrators’ identity, proved fruitless.

The forensic report on Car 108 showed why Rand and Paschall hadn't reported their change in route. The radio had been sabotaged: it received just fine, but transmission was squelched down to the lowest range. The officers probably did report, but were not heard.

Thus Brandy, given what had appeared to be the least productive assignment in the case, had the most productive day. Possibly the killer or killers simply followed Car 108 out of Murphy, broadcast the fake message at the point where it was logical for Rand and Paschall to take the shortcut to the Mayfield road, then ambushed them.

But “how” the car was diverted to the deserted road did not explain “why” its occupants stopped and made no effort to escape, or to fight off their assailants.

Dr. Sanford found no indication of carbon monoxide or other poison. The police car yielded evidence only of tampering with the radio, and, it turned out, the air-conditioner. Most of the refrigerant had been bled out. The air would have appeared to work, but after a few miles it would have stopped cooling. The victims must have opened the windows, allowing the killers access.

Without the shotgun shells there was no identifying the murder weapon. The murderer could have picked them up, or the weapon could have been equipped with the “brass-catchers” used by hunters who saved their cartridges for reloading.

When there was no further progress, Judge Callahan showed up at the station. Chief Benton gathered everyone on duty to hear what he had to say.

“I'm a witness in this case, so I can't preside when it comes to trial. If it comes to trial. That can't happen until we find the killers. Let me offer any help I can."

“Why?” Brandy asked suspiciously, then immediately wondered if it was wise to call attention to herself.

“Call it a guilty conscience,” Callahan replied. “I run that scanner all the time. I heard the accident report—but I never listened for follow-up. If I'd've paid attention, if I'd called the police to ask why we weren't warning people to avoid north 641, the investigation would've begun earlier. It might have made a difference."

“I don't think so,” said Chief Benton. “The false police reports would have stopped as soon as the victims turned off the highway. We appreciate your help, Judge, but whoever planned this crime was a pro."

“They're probably long gone,” said Church. “Where you could help us, Judge Callahan, is in finding out who thought it was so important to get rid of the Andersons that it was worth killing two police officers along with them."

“That's right,” added Brandy. “Somebody didn't want the Andersons to go to trial—perhaps somebody they might have given up in a plea bargain?"

Callahan gave her a hard look. “Interesting theory, Detective. I thought the Andersons were freelancers."

“So did we,” said Benton. “But think about it, Your Honor. Their victims’ families were frustrated about the police not catching them, but once they were caught, they'd have no reason to take the law into their own hands."

“That leaves associates who didn't want them talking,” Brandy said triumphantly.

Callahan nodded. “You've got the Andersons’ records, of course. I'll call some of my colleagues in Tennessee and Illinois, see if they can shed light on the subject."

But Brandy didn't expect Callahan to be any help, and he wasn't. Church had long suspected, from the pattern of his decisions, that the judge was on the payroll of organized crime, and since his invitation to the ball she found it harder to dismiss her partner's suspicions. The judge's visit only added to them; he now knew exactly what leads the police were following.

The Car 108 trail went cold. The crime lab verified what their own team had found: no chemicals in any of the bodies, and no sign of tampering with the car except for the radio and air-conditioner. They were at a dead end.

And two cops were dead.

Rand and Paschall were not likely the intended victims, as no one knew until hours before the murders that they would get the transport assignment. Nevertheless, the department traced everyone Rand and Paschall had arrested, and anyone else who might have wanted revenge for a loved one's death or incarceration.

There were too many possibilities. The perpetrators might not even have cared who was in that police car. Church had seen such power plays up north, cop killings to demonstrate the power of crime lords, frighten the police, and cause citizens to lose faith in them.

But Chief Benton said, “If we accept that theory, then all we can do is wait for another strike. That's not acceptable. Two of our own are dead—and we're not going to rest until we find the killers."

Doc Sanford came to talk to Brandy. “Remember that death you investigated on the university campus?” he asked.

“You saw it too. That same expression on their faces."

“There's something else the same."

“What?” asked Brandy.

“No rigor,” Sanford replied. “In both cases the bodies was found within four hours, before rigor mortis usually sets in. But it never occurred in Professor Land, or either of the Andersons. It did occur in both police officers."

“Can you explain that?” asked Brandy.

“No. When I begun work on the Andersons, we thought they mighta been rendered unconscious by carbon monoxide. Delay of onset of rigor is consistent—but the red coloration of tissues was absent. Blood will tell. Toxicology confirmed that carbon monoxide wasn't the cause."

“So why didn't these four bodies exhibit rigor mortis?” Brandy wanted to know.

“That's what's so damn peculiar. Dr. Sendis autopsied the police officers, and observed the onset of rigor right on schedule. Neither of us can explain the discrepancy."

Brandy thought back to forensic pathology class. “Rigor mortis is caused by some enzyme—,” she recalled.

“By the depletion of ATP,” Dr. Sanford corrected, “the chemical necessary for muscle contraction. It dissipates after death, causing stiffening which remains until the muscles begin to decompose."

“Are you saying the bodies of Professor Land and the Andersons suffered premature decomposition?” asked Brandy.

“No, I ain't saying that. It could be a theory, but I wouldn't know how to test it, ‘less we knew the time of death of a new body, and suspected that it had suffered—whatever made these people meet death without resistance. If we froze tissue samples every half-hour, we could study the rate of decomposition."

“Well,” said Brandy, “I hope you won't get the chance to perform the experiment."

“There's one more funny thing,” said Dr. Sanford. “Y'know, an autopsy don't routinely include the extremities."

“But Chase Anderson had that gunshot wound to his hand. You're very thorough, Doc. What did you find?"

“It makes no sense, but you can look for yourself. The man was shot in the late morning. The slug went through the hand, fracturing two metacarpals. The hand was set and bandaged just hours before his death. But when I examined his hand last night, that wound looked several days old. The bones were beginning to knit."

“How is that possible?"

“I don't know,” replied Sanford, “unless the orthopedic team ain't told us they got one of them speed-healing gadgets they use on Star Trek."

“Have you told this to anyone else?” asked Brandy.

“It's in my report,” the coroner replied. “I'm just pointing it out ‘cause you worked on that other case. I still got blood samples from Professor Land. I'll culture them, and the ones from the Andersons, for any odd microorganisms. There's gotta be a connection. I been a doctor too long to accept ‘coincidence’ when I get the same weird symptom three times in a week."

Brandy and Dr. Sanford were not the only ones to link the deaths of Everett Land with the Car 108 murders. Local newspaper and television reporters speculated about the rash of deaths in Murphy, Kentucky. While serious journalists had too much integrity to suggest curses and Satanism, plenty of other people didn't. As details of the parked car and the lack of resistance got around, there was soon gossip that someone had put a spell on them.

Carrie Wyman managed to find time for a quick lunch with Brandy. Her clients were abuzz with the rumors, some terrified that someone was trying to put a spell on them.

When one of her neighbors asked Brandy if the police were looking for a witches’ coven, Brandy gritted her teeth and replied politely, “If a coven of witches had such power, they wouldn't have to lure their victims to a back road and shoot them. They could just let them take the highway to Paducah, and put the driver to sleep on that high entry ramp to the Parkway. The car would run off the ramp, everyone would be killed, and it would look like an accident."