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I narrowed my eyes and turned to face him. “Like I said before, I was in a public place. And no one else was listening. Now do you want me to tell you what he said, or are you going to bitch some more?”
“It’s a good thing I love you,” he said, shaking his head and crossing his arms over his chest.
Panic swarmed through my body like angry bees, and I looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “Cut it out, Jack. You’re just trying to stir up trouble.”
“You do that perfectly fine on your own. I was just stating a fact. One which obviously makes you nervous. That’s okay. I figure if I keep saying it, you’ll eventually believe me.”
“Can we please get back to the dead body?”
“By all means,” he said, waving a hand towards me. “What bothered you during this brief period of bad judgment where you felt it was a good idea to question George about his tattoo?”
The growl erupted before I could control it, and I had to close my eyes and count to ten before I could speak.
“George kept saying,They,” I said. “That if we kept digging,they’dcome for us. That if someone tried to leave the organization,they’dtaunt you. As if he knew from experience. But the way he kept sayingtheymade me think he wasn’t a part of it any longer.”
“Well, he’s certainly not now,” Jack said, rubbing his hand over the short length of his hair in what I knew to be a gesture of frustration. “What we have to figure out is who saw you and George talking. Someone knew what was happening, and they acted quickly.”
“The man in the white Cadillac?” I asked.
“Maybe. Or maybe someone else at the auto shop. Maybe George had a partner.”
I went around the other side of the truck and took a deep breath before opening the door. This side of George looked nothing like the man I’d seen this morning. The entry hole of a bullet wound was nice and neat, but it had to come out somewhere. And a .38 wasn’t the kind of gun to leave a pretty exit wound. The whole right side of his face was gone.
I blanked my mind to the carnage and smell, and started gathering brain matter and tissue from the seats and windows. I felt Jack’s hand squeeze my shoulder for comfort just before I climbed inside and got a better look. It was a godawful job.
“George left the garage about ten o’clock,” I said. “And he’s still warm, so he had time to make a stop or two before they caught up to him.”
I reached back and Jack handed me the thermometer from my bag without me having to ask for it. I ran George’s temp just to make sure, and then I pulled back his eyelid and studied the surface of the eyeball. “Eyes are just starting to cloud over. The killer cut it close. Lewis could’ve witnessed the whole thing if he’d been a few minutes sooner. Between the flaccidity of the body, his temp, and the eyes, I’d say George has been dead just over an hour.”
“No chance of self-termination?” Jack asked.
“No. It’s definitely homicide.” I got out of the truck and sucked in a huge breath of fresh air.
“I guess it’s my turn,” he said. “This is the one part of the job I didn’t miss when I moved from the city back to Bloody Mary.” He started his search in the glove box. “Insurance papers and a hundred bucks in cash.” He bagged it all and then ran his hands under the passenger seat. He then crawled inside and did the same beneath the driver’s side. Jack pulled out another gun, and I held out the evidence bag for him this time. There was no way to go about the process of collecting evidence neatly.
“Another .38,” Jack said. “This one will be registered to George.” He moved back out of the truck and popped the lever to lower the passenger seat so he could reach into the back. “A .22 rifle back here and a tool box. Nothing out of the ordinary around this area. We’ll impound it and do a more thorough search, but on the surface it looks pretty clean. I’ll head over with the team and start the search through his house.”
We were both covered in things I didn’t care to think about. Even with the coveralls, I’d be hitting the showers the first chance I got. I called out to the officers who had drawn the short straw to pack up the body. “Let’s get him loaded up and back to the funeral home.”
Jack and I stepped back a few feet and let them go about the messy task.
“You going to tell his parents?” I asked.
George’s parents and grandparents both still lived in Bloody Mary, and if Jack didn’t get over there soon, they’d hear the news of their son’s death from someone else.
Jack winced and said, “Yeah, I’ll swing by there first. I’ll bet you twenty someone has already spilled the news.”
“That’s a sucker’s bet. And I’m no sucker.”
“I’m so proud.” He slapped me on the back and then headed to his cruiser. “I’ll be by later for the autopsy results,” he said, snapping off his gloves and stripping out of his coveralls. He tossed everything in a yellow plastic hazardous waste bag and locked it back in the trunk.
“It’s going to be a few hours,” I called out. “I still have to pick up Mrs. Perry.” I discarded my own coveralls and gloves. “She’s been on ice at the hospital morgue a while. It’s going to be hell rubbing out the rigor.”
“10-4, Kemo Sabe. See you tonight.”
***
I put in a call to Vaughn after I’d deposited George Murphy in my refrigeration unit, and it went directly to voicemail. I left a quick message telling him to get back in touch, and then went to deal with Mrs. Perry at the morgue.
