Дэвид Балдаччи - Absolute Power

The rope was still tied to the bureau and still disappeared out the window. Only now it was covered with black fingerprint powder, but there wouldn’t be much there. One usually wore gloves to climb down a rope, even a knotted one.

Sam Magruder, the officer in charge, approached, having just spent two minutes leaning out the window sucking in air. Fiftyish with a shock of red hair that topped a plump, hairless face, he was having a hard time keeping his breakfast down. A large portable fan had been brought in and the windows were fully open. All the CU personnel wore floater masks, but the stench was still oppressive. Nature’s parting laugh to the living. Beautiful one minute, rotting the next.

Frank checked Magruder’s notes, noted the greenish tint to the OIC’s face.

“Sam, if you’d stay away from the window, your sense of smell would go dead in about four minutes. You’re just making it worse.”

“I know that, Seth. My brain tells me that, but my nose won’t listen.”

“When did the husband phone in?”

“This morning, seven-forty-five local time.”

Frank tried to make out the cop’s scribbles. “And he’s where?”

“Barbados.”

Frank’s head inclined. “How long?”

“We’re confirming it.”

“Do that.”

“How many calling cards they leave, Laura?” Frank looked over at his ident technician, Laura Simon.

She glanced up. “I’m not finding much, Seth.”

Frank walked over to her. “Come on, Laura, she’s gotta be all over the place. How about her husband? The maid? There’s gotta be usables everywhere.”

“Not that I’m finding.”

“You’re shitting me.”

Simon, who took her work very seriously and was the best print lifter Frank had ever worked with, including at NYPD, looked almost apologetic. Carbon dusting powder was everywhere, and there was nothing? Contrary to popular belief, a lot of criminals left their prints at the scene of the crime. You just had to know where to look. Laura Simon knew where to look and she was getting zip. Hopefully they would get something after analysis back at the lab. Many latents just weren’t visible no matter how many angles you hit them with the light. That’s why they called them latents. You just powdered and taped everything you thought the perps might have touched. And you might get lucky.

“I’ve got a few things packaged to take back to the lab. After I use the ninhydrin and hit the rest with the Super Glue I might have something for you.” Simon dutifully returned to her work.

Frank shook his head. Super Glue, a cyanoacrylate, was probably the best method of fuming and could pull prints off things you couldn’t believe. The problem was the damn process took time to work its magic. Time they didn’t have.

“Come on, Laura, from the looks of the body the bad guys have had enough of a head start.”

She looked at him. “I’ve got another cyanoacrylate ester I’ve been wanting to use. That’s faster. Or I can always speed-burn the Super Glue.” She smiled.

The detective grimaced. “Right. The last time you tried that we had to evacuate the building.”

“I didn’t say it was a perfect world, Seth.”

Magruder cleared his throat. “Looks like we’re dealing with some real professionals.”

Seth looked at the OIC sternly. “They’re not professionals, Sam, they’re criminals, they’re killers. It’s not like they went to goddamned college to learn how to do this.”

“No, sir.”

“We sure it’s the lady of the house?” Frank inquired.

Magruder pointed to the photo on the nightstand. “Christine Sullivan. Of course, we’ll get a positive ID.”

“Any witnesses?”

“No obvious ones. Haven’t canvassed the neighbors yet. Gonna do that this morning.”

Frank proceeded to make copious notes of the room and its occupant’s condition and then made a detailed sketch of the room and its contents. A good defense attorney could make any unprepared prosecution witness look like a candidate for the Silly Putty factory. Being unprepared meant guilty people went free.

Frank had learned the only lesson he would ever need on the subject as a rookie cop and the first on the scene of a breaking and entering. He had never been more embarrassed or depressed in his life as he had when he had gotten off the witness stand, his testimony torn to shreds and actually used as the basis to get the defendant off. If he had been able to wear his .38 in court, the world would have had one fewer lawyer that day.

Frank crossed the room to where the Deputy Medical Examiner, a beefy, white-haired man who was perspiring heavily despite the morning chill outside, was lowering the skirt on the corpse. Frank knelt down and examined one of the small Baggie-clad hands, then glanced at the woman’s face. It looked like it had been beaten black and blue. The clothing was soaked through with her body fluids. With death comes an almost immediate relaxing of the sphincters. The resulting smell combination was not pleasant. Luckily the insect infestation was minimal, despite the open window. Even though a forensic entomologist could usually ascertain time of death more accurately than could a pathologist, no detective, despite the increased accuracy, ever relished the thought of examining a human body that had become an insect buffet.

“Got an approximate yet?” Frank asked the Medical Examiner.

“My rectal thermometer isn’t going to be much use to me, not when body temperature drops one and a half degrees an hour. Seventy-two to eighty-four hours. I’ll have a better number for you after I open her up.” The ME straightened up. “Gunshot wounds to the head,” he added, although there was no doubt about the woman’s cause of death to anyone in the room.

“I noticed the marks on her neck.”

The Medical Examiner looked at Frank keenly for a moment and then shrugged. “They’re there. I don’t know what they mean yet.”

“I’d appreciate a quick turnaround on this one.”

“You’ll get it. Not many murders out this way. They usually get a priority, y’know.”

The detective winced slightly at the remark.

The Medical Examiner looked at him. “Hope you enjoy dealing with the press. They’ll be on this like a swarm of honeybees.”

“More like yellowjackets.”

The Medical Examiner shrugged. “Better you than me. I’m way too old for that crap. She’s ready to go whenever.”

The Medical Examiner finished packing up and left.

Frank held the small hand up to his face, looked at the professionally manicured nails. He noted several tears in two of the cuticles, which seemed likely enough if there was a struggle before she’d gotten popped. The body was grossly distended; bacteria raged everywhere as the putrefaction process raced on. Rigor had passed long ago, which meant she had been dead well over forty-eight hours. The limbs were supple as the body’s soft tissue dissolved. Frank sighed. She had indeed been here awhile. That was good for the killer, bad for the cops.

It still amazed him how death changed a person. A bloated wreck barely recognizable as a human, when just days before... Had his sense of smell not already gone dead, he would have been unable to do what he was doing. But that came with being a homicide detective. All your clients were dead.

He carefully held the deceased’s head up, turning each side to the light. Two small entry wounds on the right side, one large, ragged exit hole on the left. They were looking at heavy-caliber stuff. Stu had already gotten pictures of the wounds from several different angles, including from directly overhead. The circular abrasion collars and the absence of burns or tattooing on the skin’s surface led Frank to conclude that the shots had been fired from over two feet away.