J. Jance - Trial By Fury

The third book in the J P Beaumont series, 1986

I was hung over as hell when Detective Ron Peters and I hit the crime scene at ten after eight on a gray and rainy Seattle Monday morning. Peters, my partner on Seattle P.D.’s homicide squad, was quick to point out that it could have been worse. At least I had some hope of getting better. The black man lying behind the dumpster at the Lower Queen Anne Bailey’s Foods didn’t.

He was dead. Had been for some time. The sickish odor of decaying flesh was thick in the air.

Partially wrapped in a tarp, he lay propped against the loading dock, the whole weight of his body resting on his shoulders, his broad head twisted unnaturally to one side.

The human neck is engineered to turn back and forth and up and down in a multitude of combinations. This wasn’t one of them. I didn’t need the medical examiner’s officer to tell me his neck was broken, but it would require an autopsy to determine if a broken neck was actually the cause of death.

Fortunately, the medical examiner wasn’t far behind us. Old Doc Baker, his full head of white hair wet and plastered flat on his head, turned up with a squad of youthful technicians. Baker supervises departmental picture-taking and oversees the initial handling of the corpse.

Crime-scene etiquette comes with its own peculiar pecking order. In phase one, the medical examiner reigns supreme. Baker barked orders that sent people scurrying in all directions while Peters and I stood in the doorway of the loading dock trying to keep out of both the way and the rain.

The store manager, with a name tag identifying him as Curt, came to stand beside us. He chewed vigorously on a hangnail. "This is real bad for business," he said to no one in particular, although Peters and I were the only people within earshot. "Corporate isn’t going to like it at all!"

I turned to him, snapping open my departmental ID. "Detective J. P. Beaumont," I told him. "Homicide, Seattle P.D. Is this man anyone you recognize?" I motioned in the direction of the dead man.

It was a long shot, checking to see if Curt recognized the victim, but it didn’t hurt to ask. Every once in a while we get lucky. Someone says sure, he knows the victim, and provides us with a complete name and address. Having that kind of information gives us a big leg up at the beginning of an investigation, but it doesn’t happen often. And it didn’t happen then.

Curt shook his head mournfully. "No. Never saw him before. But it’s still bad for business. Just wait till this hits the papers."

"Optimist," Peters muttered to me under his breath. To Curt, he said, "Who found him?"

"Produce boy. He’s upstairs in my office."

"Can we talk to him?"

"He’s still pretty shook up. Just a kid, you know."

We followed Curt through the store, deserted except for a few anxious employees who watched our progress down an aisle stacked high with canned goods. At the front of the store, he led us through a door and up a steep flight of steps to a messy cubbyhole that served as Curt’s office. From the debris and litter scattered on the table, it was clear the room doubled as an employee lunchroom.

The produce boy was just exactly that, a boy, a kid barely out of high school to look at him. He sat by a scarred wooden desk with his tie loosened and his head resting on his arms. When he raised his head to look at us, a distinctly greenish pallor colored his face. The name tag on his blue apron pocket said Frank.

"How’s it going, Frank?" I asked, flashing my ID.

He shook his head. "Not so good. I’ve never seen anybody dead before."

"How’d you find him?"

"The lettuce," he said.

"Lettuce?"

"Not lettuce exactly. The produce trimmings. I was taking them out to the dumpster in a lettuce crate. That’s when I saw him."

"What time?"

"After seven sometime. Don’t know exactly. I don’t wear a watch."

"And you didn’t move him or touch him in any way?"

"Are you kidding? I dropped the crate and lost my cookies. Right there on the loading dock. Then I ran like hell."

"What time?" Peters asked, turning to the manager.

"Twenty after seven. I checked when I dialed 911."

We asked the full quota of questions, but there was nothing either Frank or his boss could add to what they’d already told us. Finally, thanking them for their help, we left the office and returned to where Doc Baker was still throwing his considerable weight around.

"What’s it look like?" I asked when he heaved himself to his feet, motioned the techs to pack up the body, and came over to where Peters and I were standing.

"Death by hanging from the looks of it," he said. "Rope burns around his neck. That’s probably how it got broken. I’ll be able to tell you for sure after the autopsy."

"When will you do it?" Peters asked.

Baker scowled. "Don’t rush me. This afternoon, probably. We have another one scheduled for this morning. What was it, a full moon over the weekend?"

Peters shook his head. "You’ve got it wrong, Doc. According to what I read, rapes and robberies go up during a full moon, not murders."

Baker gave Peters another sour look. They never really hit it off. Baker didn’t have much patience with Peters’ photographic memory for everything he’d read, and Peters regarded Baker as a pretentious old fart. Young detectives who hang around long enough, however, eventually figure out that Howard Baker is a very wise old fart.

Keeping out of the cross fire, I asked, "What’s the approximate time of death?"

"Off the top of my head, I’d say he’s been dead for two days or so. I’ll have more exact information later."

Over the years, I’ve learned to rely on Doc Baker’s educated guesses. He may be a pompous son of a bitch at times, but autopsy findings tend to verify his "top of the head" theories. I’m willing to give credit where credit is due.

We watched as technicians carefully placed paper bags over the victim’s hands to protect any trace of evidence that might have remained on his skin or under his fingernails. As they wrestled with the body, I realized this was a big man, well over six feet tall. He must have been in his late thirties or early forties. His close-cropped, wiry hair was lightly sprinkled with gray.

"Any identification?" Peters asked.

Doc Baker, observing his technicians, appeared to be lost in thought. There was a long pause before he answered. "No. No identification. Nothing. Plucked clean as a chicken. Watch and rings are gone, although he evidently wore both. No wallet. They even took his clothes, every stitch."

Baker paused and looked at me, one bushy eyebrow raised questioningly. "Robbery, maybe?"

"Maybe," I said.

Once the body was loaded, the next wave of technicians moved into the picture. The crime scene investigators from the Washington State Patrol’s crime lab took over the territory. The rain had solidified into a steady downpour, but the team tackled the dumpster in hopes of finding some clue that would help identify the victim.

Peters turned to me. "We’d better get busy, too," he said.

My hangover hadn’t improved, but I knew better than to expect Peters to give me a break in that regard. He’s a man who doesn’t drink very much, and he doesn’t have a whole hell of a lot of patience with people who do.

We walked across the lot to where uniformed officers had cordoned off the area. Just beyond the group of banked patrol cars, Arlo Hamilton, Seattle P.D.’s public information officer, held forth for a group of reporter types. He raised a hand to momentarily silence further questions. Extricating himself from the group, he walked over to Peters and me.