Dance of Death (5 page)

The detective thanked the doctor, walked out of the room and turned down the hall. He felt light-headed. He needed a stiff drink of water. On the way back from the water fountain, he noticed Robert Edge, the county coroner, standing in the hall talking with Dr. Duffy. The doctor had also briefed the coroner on Brent's injuries and showed them to him.

“Is it okay to remove the victim's clothing for evidence?” Altman asked Edge after he had finished talking with the doctor.

Edge nodded his approval.

Altman had never before taken the clothes off a dead body. And he wasn't too thrilled about having to do it this time. “I'll have to borrow a couple of hospital nurses and ask them to do it,” Altman mumbled as he walked away from the coroner. He wished now he hadn't been so quick to volunteer his services.

Altman found RN Mary Ellen Darragh in the hall and asked her if she would assist him in removing Brent's clothes. Darragh wasn't aware of the detective's revulsion for dead bodies. She did not know it was his first time to undress a body.

“I will get his clothes off for you, but you will have to help me,” she told him.

Altman was eager to get back to the crime scene and share the information he had learned from the emergency responders and the confirmation he'd received from the doctor. But he couldn't until Brent's clothing had been collected and his body settled in. He could have waited until another nurse was free, but if it had to be done and he had to help do it, then he wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.

“Okay. If we're going to do it, let's do it now before I change my mind,” Altman reluctantly agreed.

Darragh grinned at the detective, whose face had quickly turned the color of a red plum.

Altman pulled a white handkerchief from his back pocket and nervously swiped it across his brow. “I'll be in the trauma room waiting for you.”

Darragh shook her head and smiled.

Altman walked into the trauma room and stood over the body a second time. Recalling the doctor's information about the wounds, he stared at Brent's head, cringing at his bloodied and bruised face. The blood had coagulated on both sides of his face in splotches and was a sharp contrast with the young man's thick brown, curly hair and against his fair complexion. His mouth was open; his white teeth separated by the plastic endotracheal tube. An IV of saline solution was still stuck in his arm. His lifeless eyes were an astonishing crystal-clear blue.

If only Brent's lips could have moved, Altman knew he could have told him a lot of things. He just wished Brent would have lived long enough to tell him what had happened. It would have made his job a lot easier and explained a lot of unanswered questions.

But there were answers that no one, including Brent, would ever be able to give him. That was his job. He would have to find out those answers on his own. That was what he got paid for.

“Okay, Detective, we're ready,” Nurse Darragh announced as she entered the room. She had several other nurses, Patty Rathner and Maureen McGinty with her. As they began removing the clothes from the body, a striped shirt, trousers, socks, underwear, and tennis shoes, Altman collected them and dropped them in bags. Those that had any blood on them were placed into a biohazard bag, which was a red plastic bag designed to prevent the blood from seeping out.

Altman handled Brent's clothing very carefully. He realized the potential of obtaining these items for the forensic team and not wanting to destroy any evidence that could later match the killer. There was a lot of blood on Brent. His shirt was soaked in blood and the blood from his head had seeped onto the gurney.

Altman didn't know how much, if any, debris from the killer had stuck to the victim's bloody clothing. If he had struggled at all, it was possible that a hair, a fiber or a piece of flesh that belonged to the shooter may have bedded itself in the blood. If that was the case, then it would be one of the clues they would be looking for to pinpoint the murderer.

When they finished undressing Poole and packing his clothing away, Altman noticed the hair on Poole's legs and pubic area had been shaved.
Must have been a racing cyclist,
he thought. Looking at his taut body, he guessed Brent would be the type that rode at least one hundred miles per day.

Altman had been a cyclist at one time and knew why a rider would want to shave his body hair. It made it easier to apply ointments and medicine to the body after a hard race and also eliminated the possibility of “road rash.” When a biker takes a fall, the hair on the body will get caught between the skin and the asphalt, and will literally be pulled out by the roots, resulting in an even deeper and more abrasive skin tear.

He made a mental note to ask Brent's wife about this. Perhaps her husband rode cycles as well, and he'd learn that the two of them had something in common after all.

Darragh and the other nurses draped a white sheet over Brent, then notified the county coroner that the victim was ready to be pronounced dead. Altman called Lieutenant Bill Frontz, who had since responded to the scene and advised that he was still at the hospital with the coroner.

“Do you want the autopsy to be performed at the Medical University in Charleston or here at Grand Strand Regional Medical Center?” Altman asked.

“Here at the Grand Strand Hospital,” Frontz responded. “You'll have to ask him to call Dr. Edward Proctor, the forensic pathologist, and schedule an autopsy.”

Altman waited with the others for the coroner to examine Brent's body, then pronounce him dead. After he finished his business, Altman gave him the instructions for the autopsy. The coroner called Dr. Proctor and learned the autopsy would be scheduled for 1:30
P.M
. that same day.

Altman helped the nurses wheel the body out of the trauma room. They rolled Brent's body down the hall, behind the cafeteria and into the refrigerated morgue, where the autopsy would be performed. As Brent Poole's body was being transported down the hall, Altman looked back behind them. A trail of blood followed behind them every five to ten feet. One of the nurses alerted a maintenance man and he shadowed them, the entire 150 feet to the morgue, with a mop and bucket and cleaned up the blood along the way. Once inside the morgue, the gurney carrying Brent's body was placed alongside several other bodies covered in white sheets.

Altman's stomach churned. No one said a word.

Altman felt a chill running up and down his spine, like the brain freeze he got as a little boy when he ate his ice cream cone too quickly. He casually passed it off to the nurses as the temperature in the morgue, but privately knew better.

Having completed his job at the hospital, Altman thanked the nurses for their help in disrobing and securing Brent's body. He said his good-byes, then went outside and stood in the parking lot in the night air. The sky looked like an ocean of black and deep purple. The moon looked as if it was hiding its face behind a cloud, perhaps ashamed of what had been witnessed earlier on the beach.

Captain Sam Hendrick was accustomed to his phone ringing late at night. A light sleeper by design, he rolled over in his bed to answer the phone.

“Sorry to wake you, sir,” Sergeant John King drawled, “but there's been a shooting at the beach we think needs your attention.”

King was the on-duty supervisor at the MBPD Investigation Division. It was his responsibility to notify the higher-ranking detectives about a serious case or a shooting. He had been a policeman for fourteen years, inching his way up from a detention officer to sergeant in the investigative unit. Ten of those years, he had worked under Hendrick's command. In fact, the two had been working together so closely that King had developed a sense of when he thought Hendrick needed to be called in on a case. He was convinced this shooting was definitely one of those times.

“What have you got, John?” Hendrick cut the lamp on beside his bed, then patted his wife back to sleep.

“Hate to get you out of bed for this,” King apologized, “but it looks like we have a homicide on the beach. I've already called the lieutenant. I thought you both would want to be in on this one.”

Hendrick had been in law enforcement for twenty-six years—as long as he and his wife, Jennie, had been married. They both accepted the fact his job was always going to be a forty-hour-plus week. Like most police officers, when Sam wasn't working, he was thinking about work. This would not be the first or the last time he would have to crawl out of bed after midnight, put on a coat and tie and drive to the beach to investigate a murder.

Hendrick straightened his tie in the mirror, kissed his wife good-bye, then headed out the door. Without saying so, they both knew it would be some time before he would see his family again. On his way out the door, he remembered being told over the phone that the young man who had just been shot on the beach was twenty-three years old. His own son, Sandy, had just turned twenty-one.

It was a little after 12:30
A.M
. when Captain Hendrick arrived at the Eighty-first Avenue beach access. As he stepped off the boardwalk and onto the beach, there was an assembled crowd of law enforcement officers to greet him. Hendrick recognized there were two elements in working a crime on the beach that he could always count on. Regardless of the time of year, he always found the beach windy at night, and he always had a heck of a time walking on the beach without the gritty sand clinging to his shoes and clothes like a layer of glue.

As chief of the Investigation Division, Hendrick not only had the control of the day-to-day operations with the detectives, narcotics and crime scene investigations, but at any time a major crime occurred every department fell under his jurisdiction for chain of command. Although he didn't directly supervise the beach patrol, he had jurisdiction over them and anything that related to this crime scene. Hendrick expected a full report from every department who was working this case.

“What have you got so far?” Hendrick asked, singling out his sergeant.

Sergeant King looked up. “Good morning, Chief. We've got a robbery here, where this one guy was shot. Wife was with him, but she wasn't shot. She's our only witness. Detective Joyce has her at the station now interviewing her.”

“What is it she said she saw?” Hendrick wanted to know.

King held up his notepad in the light shining from the trucks still parked on the beach. “She told us someone wearing a mask and dressed in black came up from behind them on the beach, robbed them and then shot her husband.”

King lowered his pad and stepped toward Hendrick. He led him a few feet away, cupped a hand around his mouth as a shield, then said in a low voice, “We got the call about ten minutes ago that he died. Detective Altman is still at the hospital talking with the doctors and emergency responders, hoping they'll be able to shed some light on the situation.”

Captain Hendrick and Sergeant King walked over to the cordoned area of the beach, which was being spotlighted by the beach patrol trucks. Careful to stay outside of the immediate crime scene area so as not to contaminate the evidence, they observed from a distance the pool of crimson blood that stained the beach's white sand.

“The wife said the robber made her and her husband lie on their back with their feet together before asking for their money and jewelry,” King continued. “And then, for no apparent reason, he shot her husband.” He paused. “Said he shot him in the head. Shot him twice.”

Hendrick thought about what he had just heard. A few of the details King had given him were a little odd, but he had learned over the years to reserve his comments until all the facts of the story were in. Victims of serious crimes often experience confusion or momentary memory lapse due to the shock and trauma of the moment. Until they got the complete story from the victim's wife, he would take a wait-and-see posture.

“The robber shot him here.” King pointed as they walked around the back side of the yellow-taped area, which was about the same square footage as the standard boxing ring. They moved in for a closer look. The evidence collection team was busy sifting through the sand, searching for any morsel of a clue to the crime. An additional officer, Dean Mayer, who was particularly gifted with a metal detector, had been called in to help examine the area.

King motioned toward the officers, then reported what had already been found.

“They've located several spent shells, so we know the robber shot the guy here. We believe he then took off at a northward angle toward the beach access. The dogs were able to pick up his scent to the beach access, but then they lost the trail there. We figured that is where the gunman probably got into his parked car and drove off.”

“What have you got by way of footprints?” Hendrick asked.

“Well, there were so many people in and out of this area to begin with, especially when the paramedics came down here to treat the body,” King said, “I am afraid we don't have anything solid in that department.”

King knelt down and grabbed a handful of sand. He shook his head as if the fault lay with the grainy material he now had squeezed between his palm and fingers. “Besides, you know how this soft sand is. It never gives a good print.” He opened his hand and let if fall in one clump to the ground, then brushed his hand off against his pants pocket.

“How about the patrol officer, what does he know?”

King nodded toward the officer standing by his truck. “Officer Brown, who found the couple, is over there with his supervisor, reviewing his report.”

Hendrick looked over at the young, clean-shaven and white-walled officer.

“Brown did say he noticed one thing in particular about the victim's wife that was unusual,” King continued. “She had told him the robber made her and her husband lie on their backs, with their feet together before he robbed them. He said when she first approached him on the beach, to say that her husband had been shot, he asked her to sit in his truck. Yet, when she got out of his truck some time later, he looked closely at the back of her shirt and noticed there was no sand on it. Nor was there any sand on the back of the cloth-covered seats where she had been sitting.”

“On the back of her pants, either?” Hendrick asked with a quizzical look.

“No, sir. There was nothing on her pants or the back of her shirt.”

“How about blood?” Hendrick pressed. “Any blood on either her shirt or pants?”

“There was a tiny drop of blood on her pants and some on her hand. But, other than that, there was nothing.”

“And you said she is our only witness of what went down?” Hendrick reiterated.

King answered in the affirmative.

Hendrick walked King away from the crime scene and toward Officer Brown and his supervisor, who were standing at the truck. He wanted to hear it again from the patrol officer and get his perspective.

Hendrick being to summarize the facts. More so for himself than Sergeant King. “So, in essence, we got the robbery of a young couple. The husband is shot and the wife is not. The wife is the only person we have at this point who knows what happened, and the only person we can get any information from.”

“It's the only one we know about so far,” King confirmed. “We believe there might have been other witnesses, but we don't have any at this time.”

“Well, we can't count on finding another witness, so it is possible this girl is all we've got. And, given that her husband is dead, she just might turn out to be the only witness to the shooting.” Hendrick scratched his head. He didn't like the direction this case had taken. “We've got no choice at this point but to stay with the girl and get all we can out of her, if we're ever going to find out what happened here.”

“Yes, sir,” King snapped.

“I agree with that.”

Hendrick stepped up to Officer Brown and his supervisor, huddled around the lit truck. The additional information from Officer Brown could be the piece of the puzzle they needed to help solve this case. Brown repeated what he'd told his supervisor. Hendricks recognized immediately the officer was no raw recruit. Fortunately, this three-year veteran was a well-trained, astute and observant officer, everything Hendrick had aspired for all his men.

“And you're sure, Officer Brown, there was no sand anywhere on her front or backside?” Hendrick asked.

“No, sir.” Brown gestured with his hands. “The only sand I saw on her was on the knees of her jeans. Now, I did see a large amount of sand in my front seat when she exited my vehicle. She had to have gotten that on her when she and I checked on her husband. She had knelt down beside him and held his hand. I'm certain that's where the sand on the seat of her pants came from.”

Hendrick pulled King aside again. “John, we've got to get to this girl. We need to get her story from her and get it fast!”

“Yes, sir, I understand. She is important.”

“She is more than important,” Hendrick emphasized with great emotion, his hands flapping. “This whole case may depend on her and her testimony. In fact, if we don't get it, we may never be able to solve this murder.”

While serving in the army, Hendrick had played a little poker. Although he was never very good at it, he had learned a thing or two about human nature. The men in his outfit who consistently won were those who knew how to read and play other players. If they were ever going to solve this case, he needed a man like that: someone who was a natural at pinpointing changes in facial expressions and reading body language, someone who could hone in on the smallest sigh or bead of sweat on the upper lip, someone who could use that emotion and get the person to betray his or her true feelings.

That someone, Hendrick knew from the very beginning, was Detective Terry Altman.