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“Holy shit!” exclaimed Kelly.
“Oh my God,” echoed Jamison.
Decker said nothing. He gingerly moved toward the desk, avoiding the obvious debris on the floor, and stared down at Hugh Dawson, or what was left of him.
The room had now taken on an electric blue shade for Decker as the pall of death cascaded all over the room.
I guess that sensation is going to continue to come and go, he thought.
It had been a particularly violent death.
The man was slumped in his chair with most of his head gone. The desk, chair, floor, and walls were covered with blood and bits of the deceased man.
Kelly and Jamison joined him, taking care not to impact the crime scene.
Decker ran his gaze down the weapon that had done this level of damage. The Remington side-by-side lay on the desk. It had been perched on top of a pile of books and then secured using masking tape. The muzzle was angled up and pointed at the dead man. Decker noted the line of string running from the triggers around the butt of the weapon and then back to where Dawson sat. There it dropped off the edge of the desk and into the kneehole. The man had apparently used the twine to pull the triggers, ending his life, without a doubt.
Decker examined blood and bits on the floor in front of the desk and on the sides.
Kelly shook his head. “I can’t believe this. First Stuart dead, and now Hugh?”
Jamison managed to maneuver herself close enough to the desk to see a piece of paper lying there. It was covered with blood and other matter.
“It’s a suicide note,” she said in a hushed voice.
“What does it say?” asked Decker.
“It says he killed himself because he felt guilty for murdering Stuart McClellan.”
None of them said anything for a long moment as this revelation sank in.
“Does he give a reason for murdering the guy?” asked Kelly, who was standing behind her.
“No. Just that he admits it and felt badly afterward.”
They heard footsteps behind them.
They all turned to see Caroline Dawson rush into the room.
She looked around and then saw them by the desk. Her gaze reached her father’s body and then moved to his destroyed face. Every muscle in her body tensed, she turned deathly pale, stopped moving forward, and screamed hysterically. A moment later she tottered to the side and collapsed to the floor unconscious, hitting her head on the side of the chair on the way down.
And she didn’t move after that.
KELLY SAID, “Caroline is going to be fine. They’ve checked her out. No internal bleeding, but she is concussed. They’re just keeping her for observation. But it could have been a lot worse. She hit her head really hard when she fell.”
He finished the cup of weak coffee he’d bought from the hospital café, tossed it in the trash, and sat down next to Jamison in the visitors room. Decker was leaning against the wall.
Kelly said, “We’ve showed the note to several of Dawson’s associates. They said it looked like his handwriting.”
“I guess it’s probably legit, then,” said Jamison.
“So he blew his head off from guilt,” muttered Kelly. “I never would have believed he had anything to do with McClellan’s murder.”
“Maybe Caroline will have some ideas about that.”
“I doubt she knew this was coming. You saw her reaction.”
“No, I meant whether she knew why her father would want to kill McClellan.”
