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The crowd began to get rowdy.
“End police brutality!”
“Fire killer cops!”
“Ho ho, hey, hey, what innocent kid did you kill today?”
“Yen, I refuse to be rushed out of here,” Danni said.
“We’ll do what we can.” Yen and her partner left to address the crowd as the coroner arrived.
“Done with the photos?” he asked the lab tech. When the answer was yes, the coroner looked to Danni.
“Roll him over,” she said, holding her breath. The last time she had a body rolled over by the coroner, it revealed a hole the size of a melon in the center of the man’s chest. Big exit wound.
The coroner gently moved the body to lay flat, faceup, and the first thing Danni noticed was that there was no rigor, the stiffness common a few hours after death and then relaxed as the decomposition process began. This guy had been dead for at least a day. And there was no large, gaping hole in his chest. The odor of decay was there but slight. Danni guessed they were fortunate because of the cool temperature.
“I don’t see anything obvious, besides the entry wound, which is small, possibly a .22,” the coroner said without looking up. He conducted a systematic investigation of the body.
Matt knelt to look this time. “Hmm. He wasn’t killed here, so no bullet, no casing, no evidence.”
The coroner continued with his perusal. “The pallor suggests he lost a large volume of blood, but I don’t see much here. His heart stopped pumping long before he was dumped here.”
“He’s been dead awhile,” Matt said.
“Most likely,” the coroner agreed. “My guess is he was dead before he was shot in the head. The postmortem will confirm or deny that guess.” He picked up a hand and studied the wrist. “There’s another nasty wound here.”
Danni bent over and saw the jagged wound on the man’s wrist. There was dried blood there and bruising.
“Looks like an animal bite.”
Danni felt gobsmacked. It sure did look like a bite. “Any ID?” she asked.
The coroner went through the victim’s pockets. “Sorry; pockets are all empty.”
Danni stood back, staring at the face of the dead man. Was this one of the three who had chased her the other morning? Hobbs was what they called him. If so, why shoot him and then let him bleed out?
She was about to say something to Matt when the crowd at the end of the alley exploded, literally, into chaos with the loud bang of a cherry bomb or an M-80.
