Lisa Gardner - Catch Me

D.D. shook her head. Neil would be an excellent detective, if only he didn’t hide behind her and Phil so much. He seemed content to let them be the forward members of the crew, while he spent his days overseeing autopsies at the morgue.

She wondered if the medical examiner, Ben Whitley, was here. Neil and Ben had been dating for a little over a year now. Not an office romance, per se, but an industry one. Made D.D. uneasy about what might happen in the event of a breakup. On the other hand, given that she was forty, unwed, and now mother to a ten-week-old baby boy, she figured she wasn’t in any position to give personal advice.

Life happened. All you could do was ride the ride.

She sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose, and felt the full weight of her ride’s current sleeplessness. Jack had been snuggled into his carrier when she’d left him this morning. All wide blue eyes and fat red cheeks. When she’d kissed the top of his head, he’d waved his pudgy little fists at her.

Did a ten-week-old baby know enough to miss his mommy, because a ten-week mommy sure knew enough to miss her baby.

D.D. sighed one last time, squared her shoulders, and got on with it.

FIRST SCENT THAT HIT D.D.’S NOSTRILS WAS the overwhelmingly astringent odor of ammonia. She recoiled as if she’d hit a wall, her eyes already tearing up as she frantically waved at the air in front of her, an instinctive motion that made no difference.

She glanced down and noticed the rest of the story: piles and piles of animal feces, which accompanied at least a dozen pools of urine.

“What the hell?” she demanded.

“Puppy,” Neil supplied. “Cute floppy-eared yellow lab. Was shut up for multiple days with the body. Obviously, not good for housebreaking. Puppy survived on toilet water and a box of crackers it chewed its way into. Animal control already took her away, if you want a puppy for Jack.”

“Jack sleeps, eats, and poops. What’s he gonna do with a puppy?”

“Hmm,” Neil said, nodding sagely. “It’s probably just a phase.”

D.D. stepped carefully over the puppy piles and followed Neil through the tiny living area into the even tinier kitchen. She waved to a couple of crime scene techs as she went, easing around them in the tight space. Each nodded in greeting but kept working. Given the smell, she couldn’t blame their desire to get in, out, and done.

Off the kitchen was an open doorway that appeared to lead to the single bedroom. Inside, D.D. spotted her other squadmate, Phil, sitting at a tiny desk with his back to the kitchen. He was wearing gloves, his fingers flying over the keyboard of the vic’s laptop. As their technical expert, he was the most qualified for preliminary data mining. Later, of course, he’d deliver the laptop to the techies for a full-scale forensic eval. But in any investigation, time was of the essence, so Phil liked to see what he could learn sooner, rather than waiting for the full forensic analysis, which would follow weeks later.

“Hey, Phil,” she called out to her older squadmate.

He glanced over his shoulder at her, raising one arm absently in greeting, then, spotting her face, performed a double take.

“Is it Jack?” he asked. Phil had four kids.

“Not why I’m cranky,” she gritted out.

“Alex…”

“Not why I’m cranky!”

“Her parents are coming,” Neil supplied from behind her.

“You have parents?”

D.D. glared at Phil. He quickly returned his attention to the victim’s computer, which allowed her to return her attention to the kitchenette, where a small wooden table had been shoved against the far wall. It featured two rickety wooden chairs, one of which was currently occupied by a corpse.

The ME, Ben Whitley, was leaning over the body. He looked up at D.D. as she approached, but she noticed he was careful to keep his gaze away from Neil.

Hmm, she felt like saying. It’s probably just a phase.

She switched her attention to the vic, an either really fat or really bloated white guy with greasy brown hair and twin bullet holes through the left side of his forehead.

“No one heard the shots?” she asked. Her eyes still stung from the stench of urine. She understood Neil’s handkerchief now and resiliently forced herself not to gag.

“In this neighborhood?” Neil replied wryly.

D.D. pursed her lips, acknowledging his point.

Dead guy’s considerable mass was just beginning to contort inside the sausage-like casings of his jeans and button-down red flannel shirt. The force of the shots had sent his head back, where his features had probably locked in the first two to six hours due to rigor mortis. Within two to three days, however, rigor had passed, the muscles slackening, the flesh of his jowls seeming to slide down his face like wax melting from a candle. Next step in the decomp process: putrefaction. Within twenty-four hours, bacterial action inside the body produced gases, leading to swelling and a very distinct odor known to homicide detectives and MEs the world over. Skin around the lower abdomen and groin turned blue-green, while stomach contents started to leak out through the mouth, nose, and anus.

Nothing pretty about decomp, which meant that all in all, D.D. was pleasantly surprised by the corpse’s intact condition. Bacterial action was just starting up, versus already running amok through the dead guy’s intestines. Made the scene more bearable, though she still wouldn’t want to be standing as close to the body as the ME was.

“So you’re thinking three to four days?” she asked Ben now, the doubt obvious in her voice.

He pursed his lips, considering. “Cold temperatures impede decomp. Given the apartment’s chilly ambience, I think that explains the slow putrefaction process. But won’t know for sure until I open him up.”

“First thoughts?”

“Cause of death is most likely twin GSWs to the left side of the forehead,” he stated. “Double tap, up close and personal. Notice the powder burn ringing the entry wounds, as well as the tight pairing. GSW one and GSW two are not even half an inch apart.”

“Execution style?” D.D. asked with a frown, venturing closer in spite of herself. “Any defensive wounds?”

“Negative.”

D.D. trusted Ben implicitly-he was one of the best ME’s the city ever had. But she couldn’t stop from glancing at the vic’s hands because the lack of defensive wounds didn’t make any sense. Who sat at his kitchen table and just let himself be shot?

“You’re sure it’s not suicide?” she asked Ben.

“No gun at the scene. No GSR on his hands,” the ME reported, then added, as a slight rebuke for her questioning his findings, “Unless, of course, he was wearing gloves which he kindly removed after shooting himself to death and hiding the murder weapon.”

D.D. got his point. She glanced back at Neil. “Forced entry?”

The lanky redhead shook his head. He appeared smug. “First responders had the building manager let them in. No sign of tampering with the lock. Windows are intact, not to mention too warped to open.”

D.D. eyed her squadmate. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“Nope.”

“All right, all right,” she muttered. “Game on.”

She continued her analysis of the scene. Entry wounds to vic’s forehead appeared tight and round. Given the lack of exit wound, she assumed a small-caliber weapon, such as a. 22. Easy enough handgun to conceal until the last minute, especially this time of year when everyone was bulked up in winter jackets. But also a questionable choice for a murder weapon-not much bang in a. 22. Gun aficionados generally referred to such handguns as “plinking” guns. Good for shooting at cans and squirrels, or maybe hurling at an opponent if all else failed. But plenty of people got shot by. 22s and lived, making the small-caliber handgun a dubious choice for an execution-style homicide.