The Fallen
- Автор: Паркер Т. Джефферсон
- Год: 2006
- Язык: английский
- Год: William Morrow
- ISBN: 978-0-06-056238-0
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Fallen». Краткое содержание книги:
“He had a higher opinion of human nature than was realistic.”
“I can see how that could get in his way.”
“I would hope so.”
Kaven hung up.
Later that day Glenn Wasserman met us at the impound yard to show us what he’d found in the Explorer. The vehicle sat in a clean bay under strong incandescent lights. The window blood was black and thick enough to throw shadows onto the dash. Industrial air conditioners hummed along and gave the air a cold, clean feel, and anybody who worked here always wore at least a sweatshirt under the lab coat.
Glenn is a pleasant-faced twenty-five-year-old with two sons already and twin girls on the way. He grew up in Normal Heights like I did, though the four-year age gap kept us from knowing each other well. His handshake was strong and cool.
“After the GSR came up negative and I knew we had a homicide, I worked with two scenarios,” said Glenn. “One was an unknown assailant. The other was a known assailant. I’m leaning toward number two. Here’s why.”
He led us to the passenger side. I saw the silver fingerprint dust on and around the door handle.
“You already know about the gun that was found in here,” he said. “Wiped clean. Not so much as a friction ridge.”
“No surprise,” said McKenzie. “This guy is every kind of cool.”
“What about the cartridges in the magazine?” I asked.
“Clean.”
“The spent one?”
“Clean again. You bring a Tri-Flow wipe for prints, you don’t forget to wipe the cartridges you load.”
Glenn nodded at the Explorer. “While I was working on this vehicle, I realized it has automatic door locks. With the ignition on and the vehicle put into gear, all five doors lock. So if Asplundh came down the swale and parked near the bridge, then shut off his engine to wait, all four doors and the rear lift gate would have been locked. Could he have opened them while he waited? Sure — for someone he knew. Could he have gotten a good look at them through the passenger’s window? Maybe he could, if he had the engine running and his heater and defroster on.”
“The engine was off when patrol got there,” I said. “Everything was off.”
“Exactly,” said Glenn.
I pictured Garrett sitting alone in a locked and cooling car. I thought of the second set of tire tracks leading down the hillock from above.
“Maybe Garrett’s killer was already in the vehicle with him,” I said.
“And the second set of tracks was the pickup car,” said McKenzie.
“That’s consistent with some other things we found,” said Glenn. “Now here, the door handle of this vehicle is painted black. And the paint continues up the backside, where you’d put your fingers to pull it open. A handle like that is one of our potential honey pots. It’s a perfect print trap. But guess what? No prints again. No partials and no overlaps. I think it was wiped by our shooter on his or her way out.”
Glenn used a hankie to pull out the handle and swing open the door. He pointed at the numbered pink tags taped to the radio, ashtray, vanity mirror, console, seat-belt buckles, automatic door and window controls, even on the door-lock button in the far rear cargo section.
“We lifted partials from all over this vehicle,” he said. “Most of them are Garrett’s, but some aren’t. Nothing big enough to run through the print registries. We got a decent thumb from the radio on/off button — not Garrett’s. We got two partial fingers from the cover of the vanity mirror on the passenger-side sun visor — not Garrett’s. Probably not the shooter’s either, if he or she was careful enough to wipe the inside of the door handle. Prints can keep a long time, especially in cool, damp weather, so these could be weeks old.”
Glenn folded his handkerchief and pushed it back into a pocket on his lab coat.
“Hair and fiber,” he said. “We’re lucky the interior is upholstery instead of leather or vinyl. It won’t clean up very well, and it grabs and holds more than leather. Upholstery is a hair and fiber trap, and we got plenty. Ditto the floor mats.”
The passenger seat was marked with numbered yellow tags held in place with pins. Eight in all — three on the back and five on the bottom. I saw more yellow tags down on the floor mats.
“Yellow tags two, three, and six all locate apparently female hairs,” said Glenn. “Naturally blond — three, seven, and eight inches long, respectively. Straight.”
He pointed to a tag on the seat back. One on the floor mat. Another on the driveshaft hump in front of the center console.
“Kind of spread out,” said McKenzie.
“We know Asplundh got a hand on his killer,” said Glenn. “Grabbed the shooter hard enough to break a fingernail and trap some fibers. Maybe he struck or tried to grab the head first. Maybe when he clutched the coat or sweater that left those brown fibers, it shook the shooter violently. Either way, that could explain the spread of hairs if the killer was a woman.”
“Or they could have been floating around in there since Garrett’s last date with a straight-haired natural blonde,” said McKenzie.
“Sure,” said Glenn. “And there is some indication that the hairs could have been in here longer. Two of the three were intertwined with very small debris — lint and dust and dander particles. The kind of material that builds up in carpet or flooring or floor mats.”
He pointed to the other two tags on the seat back. “Here and here — more brown wool fiber, very similar to that found caught in Garrett’s fingernail. This automotive upholstery is wonderful for collecting things.”
“None of those fibers were found on the driver’s side,” I said.
“Right, so check Garrett’s closet,” said Glenn. “I’ll bet you he didn’t have a loosely woven sweater or jacket. Or at least one that he wore very often. He was wearing a well-made suit when he died. The worsted wools and blends like that, the weave is much too tight to shed. Scratch one of your suit coats with a thumbnail sometime and see what you get.”
Glenn used his hankie to shut the door. “Come over here. You’ll like this.”
We followed him to a workbench. Glenn knelt down and keyed open a steel filing cabinet, then stood back up with a paper bag in his hand. The bag was labeled with the date and case number. From inside it he took a small white envelope. He snapped a paper towel from a roll on top of the bench and laid it out, then opened the envelope and tapped it to the towel. He stared down.
“Make of this what you will,” he said. “We found it up front, between the driver’s seat and the console.”
It was a gold earring in the shape of a crescent moon. Sitting inside the curve of the crescent was a blue sapphire. There was a dry black smear on the moon.
Beside the earring was the backing piece, bent out of its likely original round shape.
McKenzie and I traded looks.
“We found the backing in the rear of the Explorer, by the utility compartment,” said Glenn. “It got quite a ride. Maybe that’s how it got bent, too.”
“You found the earring on the driver’s side, not the passenger’s side?” asked McKenzie.
“Yes,” said Glenn. “A struggle could easily account for that.”
He packaged up the earring and backing, put the envelope into the bag, and returned the bag to the file cabinet.
“A hit chick wearing gold and sapphire earrings?” asked McKenzie.
Glenn shrugged. “Women kill.”
“Not like this. We have standards. We have style and finesse.”
He smiled.
I thought of Jordan Sheehan’s straight blond hair and crescent-moon earring. I wondered if she was a person who could blow the brains out of a man sitting next to her in a car. A man she’d met with, smiled at, joked with.
“Come on back to the lab,” said Glenn. “We’ll fire up the microscopes and get a good look at the hair and fiber.”