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Chapter4
SO ANYWAY,a dead guy gets murdered.
It sounded like the opening line of an abysmally poor joke. A man terminal with cancer, who would probably be dead within a few days or weeks, gets hurried along to the end by a bullet.
Decker thought this as he leaned against the wall of Meryl Hawkins’s room while the two-person forensic team carried out its professional tasks.
The EMTs had already come and pronounced death. The medical examiner had then made his way over and told them the obvious: death by a single GSW to the brain. There was no exit wound. Small-caliber probably, but no less lethal than a big-ass Magnum with that relatively soft target lined up in its iron sights.
Death was instantaneous, the ME had said. And painless.
But how does anyone really know that?thought Decker. It wasn’t like they could go back and debrief the victim.
Excuse me, did it hurt when someone blew your brains out?
What was significant were the burn marks around the forehead. The muzzle of the gun had to either have been in contact with or within inches of the skin to make that imprint. It was like touching a hot iron. It left a mark that would be impossible if the iron was six feet away. Here, the gun’s released gases would have done the work when the trigger was pulled.
Decker eyed Lancaster, who was overseeing the forensic team. Two uniformed officers were posted outside the door looking bored and tired. Jamison, leaning against another wall, watched the proceedings with interest.
Lancaster finally came over to Decker, and Jamison quickly joined them.
“We’ve taken statements. No one heard anything, and no one saw anything.”
“Just like when Hawkins went to the Richardses’ home and murdered them,” said Decker.
“The rooms on either side of this one are unoccupied. And if the perp used a suppressor can on the gun?”
“When I lived here there was a rear door that never properly locked,” said Decker. “The killer could have come and gone that way and the front-desk person wouldn’t have seen them.”
“I’ll have that checked out. Hawkins’s door was locked until you popped it.”
“Presumably he let in the person who killed him,” said Jamison. “And these doors automatically lock on the way out. Time of death?”
“ME’s prelim is between eleven and midnight.”
Decker checked his watch. “Which means we didn’t miss them by much. If we had come here first instead of the Richardses’ place?”
“Hindsight is absolutely perfect,” noted Lancaster.
“Decker?”
He turned to look down at the woman in blue scrubs and booties. She was one of the crime scene techs. She was in her midthirties, red-haired and lanky, with sprinkles of freckles over the bridge of her nose.
“Kelly Fairweather,” he said.
She smiled. “Hey, you remembered me.”
“That’s pretty much a given,” said Decker, without a trace of irony.
Fairweather looked over at the dead man. “Well, I rememberhim,” she said.
Lancaster joined them. “That’s right, you worked the Richards crime scene.”
“My first year doing this. Four homicides and two of them kids. It was quite an introduction to the job. So, what are you doing here, Decker?”
“Just trying to figure things out.”
“Good luck with that. But I always thought Hawkins should’ve gotten the needle for what he did. I know that doesn’t excuse what happened here.”
