Kathy Reichs - Deadly Descisions

More key clicking and a new image appeared. The lines now plunged together from upper left to lower right, converging at a point two thirds of the distance from the bottom of the screen, then spreading slightly like stems on a bunch of dried flowers.

"The program can also produce a side view, which is necessary to estimate the height of the source of blood. By combining the two views you have a pretty accurate idea of point of convergence and, therefore, of victim position."

Gilbert leaned back and looked at me.

"So what do you want to know about the Cherokee scene?"

"Anything you can tell me."

For the next forty minutes I listened and watched, interrupting only for clarification. Gilbert was patient and thorough as he walked me through the bloodbath in the apartment.

What he said increased my conviction that Claudel was leading us in a dangerously wrong direction.

The screen was filled with hundreds of tiny dots, like the spray-paint mist in Gilbert's test room. Scattered among them were small bits of flesh and bone.

"You're looking at a section of the north wall, right behind the victim's chair. That's forward spatter."

"Forward spatter?"

"From the pellets exiting Cherokee's head. Blood from an entrance wound is called back spatter. Look at this."

Gilbert hit the keys and a new image filled the screen. It was a similar spray of aerosolized blood, though less densely packed, and lacking the larger globs of tissue.

"That's from the TV. When the pellets struck Cherokee, blood flew backward."

"He was shot sitting in the chair?"

"Yes."

He entered severai more keystrokes and the image was replaced by a view of the chair where the body had been found. Lines ran diagonally from the wall and the TM and crossed at a point headhigh above the seat.

"But the gunshot was icing on the cake. If he wasn't dead already, he was well on his way. Look at this."

More keystrokes. Another image, this one with larger spots and more variation in their size.

"That's medium-velocity spatter. It was all over the northwest corner of the apartment."

"But- 'just wait.

He brought up another frame. This one showed spots slightly larger than those in the previous image, but of roughly uniform size. They varied in shape from round to ovoid.

When Gilbert hit a key and zoomed out I could see that most of this spatter was distributed in a long curving line, with some drops lying to either side of the arc.

"That's from the ceiling."

"The ceiling?"

"It's what we call a cast-off pattern. It results from blood being thrown from a moving object, like my stick. When swinging a weapon, the attacker terminates his backstroke abruptly, then reverses direction to deliver the next blow. Most blood flies off on the backstroke, at least if there's enough force, but some can be thrown on the downward stroke, too."

He pointed to drops in the center of the trail.

"These spatters are due to the backswing."

He indicated several drops lying along the edge of the arc.

"And these are downswing trails."

I took a moment to digest that.

"So you're saying that he was beaten before he was shot?"

"This trail is one of five we were able to identify. Generally, assuming the blunt injury trauma is the only source of blood, or at least the first, the number of trails equates to the number of blows plus two."

"Why plus two?"

"There wouldn't have been any blood on the first blow On the second blow blood is picked up by the weapon and thrown off as the attacker makes the backswing for the third blow"

"Right."

"This medium-velocity spatter was found down low on the walls, and on the crap stacked in the corner.

He worked the keys again and more strings appeared, these converging on a point less than two feet above the floor.

"My opinion is that he was struck near the corner of the room, fell to the floor, and was then hit repeatedly. After that he was placed in the chair and shot."

"Struck with what?"

Gilbert pooched out his lips. "Pfff. Not my call."

"Why bludgeon him then shoot him?"

"Definitely not my call."

"If he was dragged, wouldn't that have left a trail?"

"The assailant may have wiped it up. Besides, there was so much blood everywhere, and so many people on the scene the floor was useless."

"And the burning may have disguised some of it."

"At least on the carpet. We may go in with Luminot, but it's not going to change what the spatters tell me."

I was thinking about that when he spoke again.

"There's something else."

"There's more?"

Again he worked the keys. Again a mist of high-velocity blood spatter filled the screen. But a portion of the cloud was missing, like a stencil with a cut out pattern.

"This is another shot of the wall behind the victim's head."

"It looks like someone took a cookie cutter to it."

"This is called a void pattern. It's produced when an object blocks the path of blood and is then removed."

"What object?"

"I don't know."

"Who removed it?"

"I don't know"

As I hurried back to my office, Dorsey's words provided voiceover for Gilbert's images.

Amateur Hour. Whoever did Cherokee is going to walk.

I grabbed my phone and punched in a number. A secretary told me Jacques Roy had flown to Val-d'Or and would be unavailable until Monday. Impatient, I asked for Claudel. Neither he nor his Carcajou partner was in. I thought of pagers, again decided the situation was not sufficiently urgent, and left messages for everyone.

I had just replaced the receiver when the phone rang. "Should I be sending the world's biggest fruit basket?" "Hi, Harry."

As usual my sister sounded as though she'd just completed some event requiring intense exertion.

"Why are you out of breath?"

"Akido."

I didn't ask.

"Is my baby boy driving you back to the solace of drink?"

"He's fine, Harry."

"Are you always this cheerful on Fridays?"

"I just heard something disturbing. What's up.

"I suppose you know that Kit and Howard went at it again."

"Oh?" I suspected as much, but hadn't pressed my nephew.

"It's the golf cart all over again."

I remembered that episode. When Kit was fifteen he'd stolen a cart from the pro shop at Howard's country club. It was found the next morning, half-submerged in a water hazard on the fifteenth hole, with half a bottle of tequila in the back compartment. Daddy went ballistic and son lit out. A week later Kit showed up in Charlotte. The last leg of hitchhiking had not gone well, and he owed ninety-six dollars to a taxi driver. Katy and Kit bonded immediately, and my nephew stayed the summer.

"What was the fight about?"

"I'm not sure, but it involved fishing gear Is he behaving himself?"

"Actually, I haven't seen that much of him. I think he's made friends here."

"You know Kit. Well, if you could let the little buckaroo stay just a little while I'd appreciate it. I think he and his daddy need some distance and some time.

"Doesn't Howard live near Austin?" "Yes."

"And Kit's in Houston with you?" That seemed like distance to me.

"See, that's the problem, Tempe. I've had this trip to Mexico planned for a long time, and I'm supposed to leave tomorrow. If I cancel I'll lose my deposit, and Antonio will be really torqued. Of course, say the word and that's what I'll do."

"Uh. Hm."

I wondered if Antonio was the akido link. With Harry a new man usually meant a new interest.

"I would hate to leave Kit unsupervised and in my home for a week, and at the moment I can't send him to his daddy And as long as he's with you anyway and you say he's no problem…"

She let the sentence dangle.