Aaron Elkins - Dying on the Vine

Rocco held up his hand again. “Yeah, I see the problem. How is he supposed to get her into a kneeling position?”

“That’s it. What he did do, I’m guessing, was to shoot her where she lay, right on the ground. Prone. Not execution-style at all. The bullet trajectory would have been exactly the same.”

John hunched his shoulders. “I’d say that’s a pretty good guess.”

“Thanks, but it’s actually more than a guess. Remember this afternoon, when I tossed out a couple of reasons why the bullet might not have made it all the way through her skull? Well, there was another reason I didn’t mention, because I didn’t want to muddy the waters at the time—”

“But now you do,” Rocco grumbled.

“I’m a scientist, Rocco. I have to say what I find.”

“That’s what he always says when he does this,” John said cheerfully. “Every single damn time.”

“Okay, so what’s this other reason?” Rocco asked reluctantly.

“It’s something that happens when the spot where the bullet would ordinarily exit is up against something firm, so that the bone is shored up and kept from exploding outward. So the bullet can’t get out either, and it just bounces off and stays inside.”

Rocco nodded his acceptance.

“So if I’m right and she was lying facedown on the ground, and he just leaned over and plugged her, then the earth, or rock, or whatever that was under her head would have kept the bullet from exiting.”

“Well, she was laying on her stomach, all right. Oh boy, I’m starting to think maybe we’re going to have to reopen this whole can of worms after all.” He shut his eyes. “God help me.”

“What about the husband?” Gideon asked. “How was he shot? Was it compatible with suicide?”

“Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure we’re on safe ground there. Couldn’t have been more compatible. Right out of the books. The classic spot for a handgun suicide.” He raised his left hand and jabbed his forefinger at his temple. “Bang. And please, don’t give me any more crap about shooting yourself in the armpit. You know damn well this is where they do it nine times out of ten.”

“I don’t know about your statistics,” Gideon said, “but generally speaking, yes.”

“And righties shoot themselves in the right side of the head and lefties shoot themselves in the left side of the head—”

“But not always,” John put in.

“Oh, come on, you guys, give me a break. What, it’s only ninety-five percent of the time?”

Gideon had to smile. There had been a recent study of just this question, based on an examination of confirmed suicides. The answer: 95 percent.

“And he was shot straight through the left temple,” Rocco continued. “Wanna guess whether he was a lefty or a righty?”

Gideon laughed. “Well . . . this is just a hunch here, but I’m going to take a chance and guess he was a lefty.”

“Bingo. Okay, your turn, Mr. Expert—pardon me, Dr. Expert. Now you’re gonna go ahead and tell me what’s wrong with our theory—why he couldn’t possibly have committed suicide, right?”

“Hey, Rocco,” John said approvingly, “you’re a quick learner.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Gideon said. “You’re right. Sounds like a suicide to me.”

Rocco staggered and clapped a hand to his heart. “I’m shocked . . . shocked.” They stopped walking to let Rocco draw a Marlboro from a pack with his lips and apply a lighter to it.

“Rocco,” Gideon said, “what were the other things that made you so sure he killed her and not the other way around? You said a minute ago that there were a lot of them.”

“Well, two of them, anyway,” Rocco said in a choked, constricted voice while he pulled in his first lungful of smoke. He held it there a moment with his eyes closed and then let it out in a long hoosh . “The other thing was the way their bodies were lying—hers right up against this big rock and his up against hers, which means she would have had to come down first, so how could she have killed him ?”

“Well, what about this?” John asked as they began walking again. “Someone else killed them both and tried to make it look like a murder-suicide. You know, rearranged the bodies and all.”

Rocco took two meditative drags. “Look, John, anything’s possible, but there’s just nothing, nothing at all, that points in that direction.” And then, in a muttered afterthought, “Until today, anyway.”

John shrugged. “Okay.” He didn’t think the idea held water either.

“You didn’t come up with any other suspects?” Gideon asked. “At all?”

Rocco bristled. “What do you mean, ‘at all?’ Like we didn’t do a thorough enough investigation or something?” But on reconsidering his words he cooled down. “Well, we didn’t, that’s true. We didn’t do a whole lot of searching. I mean, sure, we interviewed his family, the people who knew him best, and we looked into things, but it was all so obvious. . . . Hell, it seemed obvious. . . . The facts spoke for themselves, you know? He killed her and then he killed himself. Why would we go hunting for other suspects?”

“Yes, I can see that it would have seemed like a waste of money and manpower.”

“Anyway, no, there weren’t any other viable suspects. Oh, wait, there was one other thing: we found the gun. It came down the cliff with him, and it was his, all right. A wartime Beretta. Had it for forever.”

“Any prints?” John said, then jerked his head. “No, what am I talking about? There wouldn’t be, not after all that time out in the weather.”

“As a matter of fact there were. It wound up caught in the opening of his jacket, sort of wedged into his armpit. And it was a good leather jacket, so it was pretty well protected from the elements. So, yeah, we did manage to lift a couple of partials off it.”

“And?”

“And they’re his. I mean, I wouldn’t want to go to court on it because, as I said, they’re only partials. Besides, his prints aren’t on file anywhere. But we found prints that matched what we had on the gun all over his things at home . . . hundreds of them. I don’t know, maybe thousands. On his shoes, his eating utensils, his toothpaste tube, everything. We took prints of his family and the winery staff, and there’s definitely no match there. Our tech guy says the odds are ninety-nine out of a hundred they’re his.”

“You’re right,” John said. “Good odds, but they wouldn’t cut it in a courtroom.”

“There’s something that seems a little hinky to me here, Rocco,” Gideon said. “Am I the only one who thinks it a little, shall we say, unusual that the gun stayed with him all the way down and never bounced away anywhere where you couldn’t find it? That lady we looked at today sure did some bouncing, so I presume he did too, since he took the same route.”

“Well—” Rocco began.

“And then the gun just happened to end up in the very best possible place to preserve any fingerprints that happened to be on it?”

Rocco shrugged. “Sometimes we get lucky. It happens.”

“It happens,” John agreed.

“Yeah,” said Gideon, but he wasn’t satisfied.

“Rocco, you got a motive?” John asked.

“Uh-huh. He thought she was having an affair. This was what you might call an ultratraditional kind of guy, a real dinosaur, and that was all the motive he would’ve needed: she deserved to die, and he couldn’t stand to live. And fossils like him, they don’t do divorce.”

“And was she?” asked Gideon. “Having an affair?”

“Who knows? We were satisfied he did it, and he was dead. No reason to follow up. What would be the point? Just make more misery and unhappiness for the family. Enough said, case closed.” He threw a wry glance at Gideon. “Only now along comes the great Skeleton Detective with his gaga theories and screws up the works.”