Marked for Murder: The Father Koesler Mysteries: fk-10 Page 32
And it was murder. He knew the telltale signs. Suicides seldom slit their own throats; they usually open a vein in their wrists. And when they did go for their own throats, there were usually several cuts. Tentative, perhaps, at first, until one slash was deep enough to cause death. Or else the cumulative effect of the cuts was eventually fatal.
Tully studied the ruler Dr. Litka had placed near the cut. A technician was photographing the area for the records. The cut looked to be a couple of inches in length-considerable for a knife wound. And deep. Not the sort expected in a suicide.
Of course Doc Litka knew that.
"What are those scratches along the cut?" Tully asked.
"Look to be the high points of a serrated weapon," Litka replied.
"Hunting knife."
"Maybe."
"But you'd know it from those marks if it ever turned up."
"Probably; one of the teeth is missing. Not likely to turn up, though."
From the first moment he saw the body, Tully had been aware of other marks-none, of course, as arresting as the slit throat. "On the trunk, Doc: those insect bites?"
"I thought so, too, at first. But they look more like he got hit with something. A beating of some kind. Happened before his throat got cut. They probably tortured him. Beats me why. A real mean killer, I suppose."
Some cop at this very moment was pondering the same questions, thought Tully And whoever the cop was, he undoubtedly knew it was not likely he'd find any good answers. A bum in an alley, probably sleeping off a cheap wine drunk. Some kids, maybe, or perhaps another bum with a sadistic turn of mind. Whatever, they beat him up, slit his throat, don't even steal anything. Just for the hell of it. How you gonna find someone like that? Unless he or they do it again. Next time, maybe a mistake, or somebody'll see something. But not much chance on this one.
Doc Litka was wrapping up his examination. "Well, that does it. Bled to death. Exsanguination due to cutting of throat." To Tully: "At least the poor guy went fast. The knife penetrated the large vein. An air embolism formed and got sucked in, causing foam, which produced a valve lock in the heart. One or two gasps and he was done."
A mercy . . . I guess, thought Tully.
As he turned back to Doc Moellmann and the autopsy of David Powell, Tully noticed John Doe's knees. Scarred. Probably reduced to crawling around the alley. What a life! Maybe somebody did him a favor by putting him out of his misery. And, as Litka had observed, quickly. Still, it was murder.
Which was considerably more than one could say about David Powell. Justifiable homicide in the line of duty. Of course that verdict was not in yet. But it was a lead-pipe cinch.
The Powell case was already in the hands of, and being investigated by, two agencies. Because it involved a killing, the investigation would stay within the Homicide Division, which had processed the scene of the shooting and would continue investigating until they reached a conclusion. Independent of this investigation, the board of review would conduct its own hearings.
The potential consequences of a cop-committed killing were so fraught that it seemed imperative that the investigation leave no doubt whatsoever. If it was a cop who got killed, an unspoken vendetta was sworn. Over and above the manifestation of grief over a fallen comrade, it was necessary to remind the criminal community that cop-killers get caught and are punished. If it was a cop who killed, there had to be no hint or semblance of a whitewash. The police were the only nonmilitary who were not only empowered but required to carry guns. That explicit power carried a heavy responsibility. The department was more eager than even the civilian populace to determine whether it was a case of justifiable homicide.
In addition, one thing was certain when a cop killed anyone for any reason: Somebody was going to sue the department and/or the city. So, for this reason also, the investigation had to be thorough and objective and complete.
Tully had witnessed such investigations too many times. He could write the script. Some witnesses-especially suppliers, pushers, and users of drugs-would cry, "police brutality." They would swear that Powell never carried a weapon and certainly hadn't had one last night. Others-neighbors who wanted that troublesome dope house closed down-would recall that Powell had come at the police with a blazing Uzi. Still others would advance that most frequently heard charge: racism. This type of individual would not be bothered in the slightest by the fact that Tully as well as Powell was black. For some Detroiters, racism was so automatically cited as the cause of all urban evil that the attitude itself had become colorblind.
But the authorities had the slug from Mangiapane's shoulder that had been fired from Powell's gun. Ballistics would confirm that. And in a little while, Doc Moellmann would find the bullet Tully had fired. Those pieces of evidence, plus the testimony of credible witnesses, would exonerate him.
Meanwhile, Tully had been assigned to restricted duty for the duration of the investigation. The official term for this assignment was "minimal duty." In effect, it was a sort of benign suspension or a brief vacation. At the conclusion of the investigation, the findings would be announced by the board of review.
Then the official decree of justifiable homicide in the course of duty would be rendered. That verdict was, Tully felt, inevitable.
Moellmann was mumbling again. As was his custom, he wrote nothing during the examination, merely making cryptic notations on the body chart. Afterward-immediately afterward-back in his office he would write a complete report.
". . . uh-huh," Moellmann murmured, "twenty-one and one-half inches below the top of the head, one-half inch to the right of the midline, and five inches above the navel is located the entrance bullet wound. The wound measures one-quarter inch in diameter surrounded by the narrow rim of abrasion. There is no evidence of close-range fire on skin surrounding the injury."
Following the trail of dried blood, the M.E. began to trace the path of the bullet as it had passed from one internal organ to another. "The wound track passes from front to back, from right to left and slightly upward" There was a pause as Moellmann removed the affected organs. ". . . ah, here it is!" This intonation as if he had just successfully panned for gold.
Tully assumed the bullet had been located and that he was being invited to view the discovery. Both assumptions were correct. He moved closer to the body and studied the small area defined by Moellmann. There it was, lodged in one of Powell's ribs. Now somewhat misshapen, nonetheless the slug would carry the distinctive markings made by whichever gun barrel it had exited. In this case, unquestionably, Tully's gun.
Moellmann carefully excised the segment of bone containing the bullet. Then with strong fingers, he bent and flexed the specimen until the slug fell free. He was careful not to handle it with forceps or a hemostat for fear of destroying the bullet's distinguishing markings.
So, there it was. Powell's remains would be examined further. Moellmann would know more about David Powell in death than anyone had known in life.
Ordinarily, at this point in the autopsy, Tully would leave. Ordinarily he couldn't get out quickly enough. The autopsy in which he was involved was, for his purposes, concluded. But for some reason that he could not identify, he lingered.
An autopsy was just beginning at an adjoining table. Automatically, from force of habit, Tully began mentally ticking off the evident clues this body presented.
Hispanic woman, maybe in her late thirties, wearing an ordinary housedress, which was being carefully removed. From the condition of the clothing, Tully was fairly certain what had happened. The dress was stained with grease and tire marks. Fragments of glass tinkled onto the metal table and were carefully collected. There'd probably be paint stains on the dress too, though from this distance Tully couldn't distinguish them. She'd been hit by a car. How seriously she had been hit by that car was about to be revealed.
Briefly, she was placed face-down, nude. There were bumper injuries on the back of her legs. Hit from behind. But the bumper marks were at different levels on each leg. An
indication that she had been walking, or, judging from the discrepancy of the marks-much higher on the left than on the right leg-more probably she had been running. The scenario was getting clearer.
Why would she run from a car? In the case of an accident, if the victim isn't aware of the approach of a vehicle, he or she is usually hit from the side. Or, if there is some apprehension, the victim may turn toward the oncoming vehicle and be hit from the front.
But if someone is running away from the car when struck, the probability is that the driver is chasing the victim. And if that is the case, the charge is battery with a motor vehicle. Or, in this case, homicide-probably murder one.
The deceased was turned over onto her back. Suspicion confirmed. There was a deep gouge in the groin. Tully was certain this one was a homicide. Not only had she been struck from behind, but the car was being driven at high speed.
There were lacerations all over her head. Easily to be expected, since a pedestrian hit at high speed tends to be thrown high in the air, perhaps landing briefly on the car's roof or trunk, and then falling into the street. Frequently, the victim then may be struck by one or more of the following cars.
To top it off, there were multiple parallel tears over the victim's trunk and upper legs. These were injuries caused by overstretching of the skin under the great weight of a car.
Where this case broke through the mold was in the pattern of the tire tracks across the victim's body. To Tully's experienced eye, the tracks appeared startlingly similar. He bet it wouldn't take the technicians long to establish that all these injuries had been caused by one and the same vehicle. As frequently happens in such cases, when this woman had been run over repeatedly, the edges of the tire's grooves between the tread were imprinted on her body. Something similar to a rubber-stamp effect.
If the police ever found the right guy with the right car, they'd be able to match the actual tires with these treadmarks, which were at this moment being carefully recorded by the morgue's technicians. In this case, the tire treads would prove almost as helpful as fingerprints.
And, thought Tully, the cops very possibly would catch up with the guy who did this. Whoever the perp was, he had certainly been motivated.
Killing somebody was so easy. Or was it because Tully had become so inured to violent death that the act seemed so simple? In any case, one could kill quickly with little or no expense or trouble-as with that bum who'd had his throat slit. Or one could kill from a distance with little effort with a gun, as he himself had done with the late David Powell.
But to take the trouble to chase down a defenseless woman with a car, deliberately hit her at high speed, then run over her again and again-that required a good bit of intensity and dedication. There was little doubt, thought Tully, if they get this guy it would be murder in the first degree. For some reason he did not think of the driver of the death car as a woman.
And because there seemed to be such intense motivation in this killing, it seemed likely the good guys would win this one. But, experience stepped in to wag a finger, you never could tell.
With a deep sigh, Tully turned away from the autopsy tables. Idle speculation about homicide was a waste of time. And so was everything else he could think of doing just now.
Investigations into murder had substantially become his life. His dedication to the Homicide Division had cost him his first and, to date, only marriage. His wife long ago had decided that she had no chance in competition with his job. So, after a reluctant but finally amicable no-fault divorce, she had moved to Chicago with their five children. He visited the kids four or five times a year. He would have done so more often but he couldn't tear himself away from all these cases that begged for his attention. She had remarried. He had not.
For a little more than a year after the divorce he had lived alone in their now-too-large home in northwest Detroit.
Then he met Alice Balcom, a Wayne County social worker assigned to juvenile court. They were attracted to each other immediately and began dating. Soon they had mutually decided that the drive between the far reaches of the east and west sides of Detroit was silly. She moved in with him. It was Tully's first miscegenational union and, until recently, it had worked more smoothly than he could have hoped.
Al, as Tully called his "significant other," knew from the outset that he could not compromise his total dedication to his job. She had seemed content to finish a close second.
However, for the past several months, Al had not been well. And no one seemed able to diagnose her ailment. Her doctor, a renowned internist, had attended her carefully, but had not been able to stem the tide of symptoms that kept popping up like the buttons on a blender.
Most men would be grateful, even if they would not admit it, to have some time off to spend at home. Tully was not one of them.
Al was ill and there was nothing he could do about it. That was frustrating. Everyone would expect him to stay home with her. He expected it of himself. But he was confused. He was uncomfortable with a situation wherein he was surrounded by a problem, a problem that he could not solve.
For that was the whole kick of homicide. Tully thrived on real-life whodunits. The puzzle, the challenge of solving it, that was the entire enchilada.
Now the only challenge was how to deal with and what to do for Al. And he had no clue as to an answer.
Otherwise, he was on the shelf. And he didn't like it one little bit. But there was nothing he could do about it. And that, as he pulled his shapeless rain hat on, was that. But he didn't like it.
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Document ID: b98a3850-dd68-4263-8469-347a80259c7b
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