Indelible (18 page)

Sara held her tongue, but Jeffrey said, “Can we get a rush on that?”

Hoss said, “It'll cost.”

Jeffrey shrugged, and Hoss gave a slight nod to Deacon, indicating it was okay.

Sara examined the surface of the body, finding
nothing remarkable other than a star-shaped scar below the right ankle.

She asked Deacon, “Can you help me open his hand?”

He put on a pair of gloves, and as they all watched, Deacon tried to pry open the fingers. The hand would not give, and he adjusted his footing, giving himself a wide stance as he tried to press his thumb into the small opening between Swan's thumb and index finger. When he put his shoulder into it, the finger broke open. The next was easier, and one by one he broke back the fingers and thumb. The snaps sounded like twigs breaking.

“Nothing,” Deacon said. He was leaning over the hand, and he moved out of the way so that Sara could see. Fingernail grooves cut into the meaty flesh of Swan's palm, but it appeared empty.

Deacon asked, “Death spasm?”

“Those are very rare,” Sara answered, looking back at the chest where the fist had been. “He was lying on his fist. The weight of his body could have closed the fingers and the rigor fixed it in place.” She looked around, finding a rolling lamp in the corner. “Do you mind getting that so I can take a closer look?”

He did as he was asked, unwrapping the cord and getting Paul to plug it into the wall socket. The bulb flickered a few times but easily illuminated the empty palm.

Using the sharp edge of the tweezers, she scraped under his fingernails, removing dry skin as well as some larger, unidentifiable flakes. She put them in a specimen bottle, along with some nail clippings, and
watched Paul seal them with a strip of bright green tape.

While Reggie took photographs, Sara held a ruler next to the scars and other identifying marks she had found. They progressed to the head, and she used her fingers to pick out pieces of skull and gray matter before pushing the hair back off Swan's face and exposing the entrance wound on the left side of his head.

Jeffrey had been quiet through all of this, and when he said, “Powder tattooing,” his voice was so low Sara was not sure if he had spoken the words or she had heard them in her own head.

He was right. There was a scatter-shot of reddish brown lesions surrounding the entrance wound where hot powder grains from the gun had burned the skin. Sara held the ruler as Reggie took photographs. She lightly combed her fingers through the hair and checked the surrounding skin for telltale markings. Finally, she said, “There's no soot that I can see.”

“Did he bleed it off?” Jeffrey asked, standing beside her.

“Not from this side,” she told him, feeling slightly relieved. The head was a mess, but she could see it clearly under the light now. Powder tattooing with the absence of soot most likely indicated an intermediate-range wound, meaning Robert was standing at least eighteen to twenty-four inches from the man when Swan was shot.

Jeffrey asked, “What'd he have in the Glock again?”

Paul was thumbing back through his notes. “Federal, one-fifteen grain.”

“Ball powder,” Jeffrey said, with palpable relief. He told Hoss, “Ball powder travels faster. That puts Robert anywhere from two to four feet away.”

“Goes with what he said this morning,” Hoss told them. “Had a hangfire when he pulled the trigger.”

“Hangfire?” Sara repeated, though not because she did not understand the word. A hangfire meant there was a delay between Robert pulling the trigger and the bullet being fired from the gun.

Jeffrey asked, “Did he say how long it took?”

“He wasn't sure,” Hoss answered. “Maybe half a second or so.”

Jeffrey looked at Sara, and she wondered if her own expression of disbelief mirrored his. There was no scientific way to prove or disprove how the gun had fired or when. Bullets did not come with a time stamp, and whether or not the gun had in fact had a hangfire was impossible to prove with any scientific accuracy.

Sara turned her focus back to the head, combing through the hair for debris and setting it aside on the tray for collection. She tried to keep her mind on the task, but all she could think was how quickly excuses were being made for every question the evidence raised. If the situation had been reversed and Robert was lying on the table in front of her, she knew that all the men here would track down Luke Swan like a rabid dog.

As if he knew what she was thinking, Jeffrey asked Hoss, “Where's Robert now?”

“He's with Jessie at her mama's,” Hoss provided. “Why?”

“I thought I'd check in on him. See how he's doing.”

“He's fine,” Hoss said, looking at his watch. “This is running a little later than I thought it would. I need to step out for a meeting.”

Jeffrey asked, “Do you want Paul to take our statements?”

Hoss seemed to have forgotten about this, but he answered, “No, I'll do that. Let's meet back at the station around three.”

Jeffrey told him, “We were planning on leaving before then.”

“That's fine,” Hoss told them, giving Jeffrey a hard pat on the back. “Y'all drop by the station on your way out of town. I'm sure it won't take long.”

Paul waited for his boss to leave before saying, “I need to get back to some paperwork myself.” He gave Sara a polite nod, then left the room. Deacon White was next, making an excuse about a lunch appointment. Sara wondered if he noticed the clock in the room read ten.

Reggie put down his camera and leaned against the sink, his expression plainly stating he had nowhere to go and even if he did, he did not trust Jeffrey alone in the room with the corpse.

Jeffrey made it worse by asking Reggie, “What did Robert's statement say?”

Reggie shrugged. “Why are you so curious?”

Jeffrey returned the shrug.

Sara did not know how Reggie would handle this, but still, she told Jeffrey, “I don't want to dig around
for the bullet. We need X rays first or I'll destroy any evidence.”

Reggie said, “There wasn't another bullet in the room. I checked. It was just the two twenty-two LRs in the walls and casings on the floor like I drew.”

Jeffrey seemed cautious, like he was feeling Reggie out. “What did Robert carry for backup?”

Reggie stared without answering.

Sara added, “A twenty-two would have less velocity than a nine-mil. It would be more likely to stay in the skull.”

Reggie's chin dropped slightly. His eyes went from Jeffrey to Sara. “I think we should find that bullet.”

Jeffrey nodded his agreement, saying, “Yeah.”

Sara changed into a fresh pair of gloves, thinking she hardly had the authority to do this, but also knowing that this was the only way to find the truth. Carefully, she probed around the exit wound in the skull with her fingers, not wanting to use the forceps because they could scratch or change the markings on the metal.

“Nothing,” she finally said. “It could be deeper in.”

Reggie told her, “Hoss won't let us take him back for X rays.”

“Luke,” Jeffrey said. “His name's Luke Swan. You ever have him in your cruiser?”

“Hell,” Reggie snorted. “About a million times.”

“For what?”

“Mostly breaking and entering, but he always made sure the houses were empty. Usually, he picked when he thought folks were at church.”

“Last night was Sunday.”

“Church is over by eight. Even if he was stoned, he would've seen the cars in the driveway and known.”

“You ever find a weapon on him?”

“Not once.”

“He ever do anything violent?”

“No.” Reggie paused as if to think it over. “He was small-time, usually just taking what he could carry out in a pillowcase.” He added, “But you never know, do you? I bet the people said the same thing about your daddy before he hooked up with them fellas who shot my uncle Dave.”

Sara saw Jeffrey's throat work as he swallowed.

Reggie continued, “You never know what some people are capable of. One minute they're stealing lawn mowers, the next minute they're murdering a sheriff's deputy in cold blood.”

Sara felt the need to say something, though she could not think what. Jeffrey's fists were clenched like he wanted nothing more than to beat Reggie to a pulp. Making things worse, Reggie tilted his chin up, practically begging Jeffrey to take a swing.

Sara asked, “Reggie, would you mind taking notes?”

Reggie took his time breaking eye contact with Jeffrey. “No, ma'am,” he said, taking out his notebook. He glanced back at Jeffrey. “Anything to help.”

While he wrote, Sara went back through her findings, not wanting to track down Paul for his earlier notes and delay leaving this god-awful town a minute longer than necessary. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Jeffrey staring at Luke Swan and wondered what he was thinking. He had not told her that the shooting his father was involved in
resulted in the death of a cop. Reggie's words had obviously hit their mark, and she could feel Jeffrey's anger melt into a sadness that felt almost like a fourth presence in the room.

The rest of the autopsy was as routine as was possible with any gunshot victim. There were no remarkable findings and no clues that pointed to anything other than what Robert had told them last night. Long-term drug use was obvious, as was a fatty diet that left deposits of calcium in Swan's heart. His liver was larger than expected, but considering Sara found alcohol in the man's stomach, it made sense. As for the missing bullet, maybe Reggie had overlooked it at the house or maybe it was buried deeper in the brain. Sara had not opened Swan's head, wanting to leave the option of X rays open should Hoss later be persuaded to actually investigate the case.

Sara was closing the Y-incision with the usual baseball stitch when she remembered to ask about clothing.

Reggie supplied, “They're in a bag at the station.”

“They're not here?” Sara asked, thinking that was odd.

“Hoss took them for evidence this morning,” Reggie said, flipping back through his notes. “Pair of twenty-nine–thirty Levi's, pair of Nike sneakers and white socks, wallet with six bucks in it and a license.”

“No underwear?” Sara asked.

He reread the notes. “Guess not.”

“Car keys?”

“He never drove himself anywhere. Lost his license on a DUI coupla three years back.”

“DUI doesn't mean he stopped driving,” Jeffrey pointed out.

Reggie shrugged. “Never caught him on the street. Car belonged to his grandma, anyway. She's crazy as a loon. Hoss caught her driving the wrong way a couple of times, then she ran through that stop sign over on Henderson and tore off the front end. Even if he wanted to drive after that, the car wouldn't start.”

Sara took off her gloves. “Is there somewhere I can sit to write out my report?”

“I'll go fetch Deacon,” Reggie offered. “I'm sure he won't mind you using his office.”

Sara went to the sink to wash her hands, feeling Jeffrey watch her every move. She tried to catch his eye again, but Deacon came into the room and he looked away.

“Well,” Deacon said, shuffling through some papers. “I guess these are probably what you're used to.”

Sara glanced down at the autopsy forms. “Yes, thanks.”

“I usually fill them out in here,” Deacon added, rolling a chair over to the counter by the sink.

“That's fine.”

Jeffrey said, “I'll be out by the car when you're ready,” and left the room.

Deacon said, “I'll leave you to it.”

Sara pulled up the chair and Reggie walked over, looking over her shoulder as she wrote in her name and the various details the state required. She recorded Luke Swan's address and home phone number, then the various weights and measurements of organs and other landmarks she found on the body.
She was writing her conclusion when Reggie cleared his throat. Sara looked up, waiting for him to speak.

For some reason, she anticipated a treatise against Jeffrey. What she got was, “This look pretty straightforward to you?”

Sara tried to measure her words, not knowing whether or not to trust the man. “I don't think any shooting is straightforward.”

“That's true,” he agreed, his tone just as cautious as hers. “How long you known Jeffrey Tolliver?”

For some reason, Sara felt the need to take up for Jeffrey. “A while. Why?”

“Just asking,” he said.

“Was there something else?”

He shook his head no and she went back to the report.

A few minutes later, Reggie cleared his throat again, and she looked up, expectant.

He said, “The Beretta takes seven rounds in the magazine.”

“Then you should have found five bullets in the magazine.”

“Six if he had one in the chamber.”

Sara waited, thinking this was like pulling teeth. “How many did you find?”

“Six.”

She put down the pen. “Reggie, are you trying to tell me something?”

His jaw worked just like Jeffrey's did when he was angry. Sara was getting tired of drawing out information from reluctant men.

She said, “If you've got something to say, then say it.”

Instantly, she knew she had pushed him in the wrong direction, but Sara was no longer worried about stepping on people's feelings. “Reggie, if you think there's something suspicious about this shooting, then you need to speak up. All I can do is fill in these forms. I'm not a cop and I'm not your mama.”

“Lady,” Reggie began, his voice shaking with anger, “you don't know what you're getting yourself into here.”

“That sounds an awful lot like a threat.”

“It's a warning,” he said. “You seem like a nice enough person, but I don't trust the company you keep.”

“You've made that abundantly clear.”