Flesh and Blood (7 page)

He’s suspicious the wife had something to do with her husband’s murder, and it’s no wonder that would enter his mind early on. But based on what the witness Angelina Brown said and also on what I’m already seeing, Jamal Nari wasn’t taken out by some jealous high school kid packing a pistol. He wasn’t picked off by a contract killer who walked up and shot him and kept on going.

Had a gun been fired on the property someone would have heard it. I strongly suspect that Nari was shot long range by someone experienced and skilled who had a point to make. I retrieve a magnifying hand lens to get a better look at the small tangential hole in the back of the neck at the hairline. I take photographs. I turn the head slightly to the right, and blood spills out of the wound, an entrance wound. I move the head some more and shine a flashlight. Fragments of copper light up like gold in a mush of coagulating blood, hair and brain tissue.

T
HE WOUND TO THE
eye is also an entrance, the bullet smashing through the sunglasses Nari had on. I photograph them on the pavement, the left lens gone, the tortoise frame intact.

Shards of polarized plastic are scattered over his white button-up shirt and on the pavement next to his face. He was down when he was shot through the eye, in the exact position he’s in now, and I back out of the cool shade of my privacy shelter. I look up and around at windows in other homes and town houses. I look at the apartment buildings at the end of the street a block from here, rows of them like barracks, three story, flat rooftops.

Finding a six-inch ruler and a tape measure, I duck back inside my big black box and photograph him from every angle, noting that when the bullet struck his sunglasses, the force and trajectory knocked the frames off his face. They landed exactly three feet four inches to the right of his head, and I palpate his bloody gray hair.

My gloved fingers find what I’m looking for, fractured bones in his occipital skull and lacerations where at least one bullet exited. But no bogginess. He had scarcely any vital response at all. He was dead by the time he hit the ground. I remember the anonymous poem again and its reference to a hangman.

Instant death is rare. It can be caused by the dislocation of the C2 from the vertebral body. When I see this it’s usually in hangings with long sudden drops such as from a bridge or a tall tree, and in motor vehicle and diving accidents when the victim suffers a hyperflexion injury after striking his head on a dashboard or the bottom of a pool. If the spinal cord is severed, the brain is no longer attached to the body. The heart and lungs instantly quit.

“I think you can rule out a drive-by shooting or foiled robbery or anything else that might have involved a handgun,” I tell Machado.

“You think it’s completely out of the question somebody could have come up behind him and shot him in the back of the neck? And when he dropped, shot him in the face?”

“In broad daylight with people around?”

“It’s amazing what people don’t hear or just assume is a car backfire.”

“There’s no stippling or any other evidence indicating the shot was close range.” I look carefully at the wound at the hairline. “If it was a pistol, there are no ejected cartridge cases.”

“The shooter could have picked them up.”

“That’s a lot of activity in a wide open area in the middle of the morning.”

“I’m not arguing,” Machado says. “I just want to cover every base. For example is it possible the bullet to the back of his neck exited through his eye? And we’re talking only one shot?”

“No. The wound to his eye is an entrance, and there wouldn’t be frag under and around his head if he was shot only once and while he was standing.”

“So that bullet—the first bullet—could be anywhere.”

“We’ll know more when we get him to my office. But what I’m seeing so far indicates two different flight paths. One when he was upright and another when he was down. The second shot exited the back of his skull, which is pretty much pulverized, held together by his scalp. The frag is right here.” I indicate the blood under and around the head. “The bullet disintegrated when it exited and struck the asphalt. In other words when he was shot through the eye he was in the position he’s in now.”

“Luck of the draw,” Machado says. “A bull’s-eye.”

“I don’t know if it was a lucky shot but it certainly wasn’t lucky for him except he didn’t suffer. In my opinion this was a lightning strike seemingly out of nowhere because it was made from a distance by someone who was set up for it.”

“How much of a distance?”

“It’s not possible to tell without doing detailed shooting reconstructions. And we will. And I suggest you pay close attention to any buildings around here where someone may have set up with a rifle. The frag appears to be solid copper, and if we’re talking about a handgun round such as a nine-millimeter solid copper hollowpoint, there wouldn’t have been sufficient muzzle velocity for the bullet to fragment like this. I think these were distant shots with heavy loads fired by someone with a high-power-rifle who is extremely precise and deliberate,” I reiterate.

“It’s exactly like I was telling you.” Marino is back, and I notice his shoes behind me again. “Maybe the same damn sniper that took out two people in New Jersey.”

“Jesus.” Machado’s dark glasses stare at the apartment buildings. He scans the nearby houses, pausing on the Federal-style brick multiunit dwelling directly across the street. “There we go with that again.”

“Didn’t you mention that those two victims were shot in the back of the neck?” I ask Marino.

“High up,” he says. “At the base of the skull.”

“And a second shot after they were on the ground?”

“You got it,” he replies. “Like some terrorist sending a message, making us feel nobody is safe taking the ferry or getting groceries out of the car.”

“Someone motivated by terrorism or possibly someone having fun target practicing with human beings.” I rip open a packet and remove a pair of plastic tweezers. “In either case you’re right. It sends a message that nobody’s safe.”

“Me? I’m keeping an open mind,” Machado says with an edge. “I want to find the kid on the bicycle before I start thinking murders committed by some ex-military guy gone berserk.”

“An open mind?” Marino says loudly. “That’s a joke. Your mind’s about as open as the Federal Reserve.”

“Watch it,” Machado says with the metallic ring of a warning in his tone. “You don’t ease up I’ll have you reassigned.”

“Last I checked you don’t supervise me. And the commissioner and me are tight. Threw back a few at Paddy’s the other night with him and the district attorney.”

Their squabbling and swipes are depressingly unhelpful and in poor taste. It’s as if they have forgotten the dead man who was minding his own business when someone violently stole his life and upended the worlds of everyone around him. I’m going to put a stop to the bickering the only way I can. I’ll separate them. I find a Sharpie in a drawer of my scene case.

I label a small cardboard evidence box and with the tweezers begin plucking each fleck and shred of bright copper from hair, from brain tissue and blood. The largest piece of frag is the size of a baby tooth, curved and as sharp as a razor. I place it on the tip of my index finger. I look at it with the magnifying lens and see one land, a partial one, and a groove imprinted into the copper by the rifling of the gun barrel. Then Marino is next to me, squatting, his hands gloved in black. I feel his heat. I smell the dried sweat from his workout in the gym.

“We’ll get ballistics on this right away,” I say to him. “Can you ask the investigators in New Jersey to email photographs from the two cases there?”

“Hell yes. Jack Kuster is the man.”

“Who?” Machado asks rudely.

“Only the top guy in shooting reconstructions who also happens to know more about guns than anyone you’ll ever meet.” Marino is boisterous, and I feel the anger between them.

“Get me anything as fast as you can,” I say to Marino. “The autopsy reports, lab results.”

“What if it turns out the ballistics don’t match?” Machado pushes back at me now.

“My concern at the moment,” I reply, “is that the M.O. and pattern of injuries are quite similar. A fatal shot to the back of the neck followed by a second shot that seems gratuitous and possibly symbolic. A shot to the mouth, a shot to the gut, a shot to an eye. We also have distant shots and solid copper bullets in common. Even if the ballistics don’t match, I suggest that we compare notes with Morristown. It’s in the realm of possibility that a shooter might not always use the same firearm.”

“Not likely,” Machado counters. “If you’re talking about a sniper, he’s going to use what he knows and trusts.”

“There you go with your assumptions,” Marino retorts.

“Jesus,” Machado mutters, shaking his head.

“Somebody’s got to work this intelligently before the fucker does it again.”

“Back off, buddy,” Machado snaps at him.

“I’m calling Kuster right now.” Marino pulls off his gloves and dips into a pocket of his jacket for his phone.

I place the bloody copper frag into the cardboard box. I tape the lid securely, handing the packaged evidence to Machado. I’ve just made it his responsibility to receipt it to the CFC and in the process I’m separating Marino and him. I remind Machado that the bullet fragments should be processed in the Integrated Ballistic Identification System, IBIS, immediately.

“There’s a problem with that. She’s not in …,” he starts to say, and I know what he’s alluding to and find it strange.

My top firearms examiner, Liz Wrighton, has been out sick with the flu for the past few days. I’m not sure why Machado would know about it.

“I’m calling her at home,” I reply.

I need her to use IBIS software to image the marks on the frag and run them through the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, NIBIN. If the firearm in question has been used in other crimes we could get a hit in a matter of hours. I peel off my gloves.

“HELLO?” SHE SAYS STUFFILY.

“Liz? It’s Doctor Scarpetta.”

“I heard about the shooting on the news.”

“Apparently everybody has.” I look around as I talk.

Some of the neighbors are outside loitering on the sidewalks, in the street, and every car that passes slows to a crawl as people gawk. The sound of the news choppers is constant, and I notice a third one in the distance.

“The case is maybe two hours old. The media got here before I did,” I say to Liz.

“I saw it on Twitter,” she replies. “Let me see, I’m looking.
Boston-dot-com
says there was a shooting homicide in Cambridge, victim Jamal Nari. And another tweet reminds us who he is, you know, his
pulled pork powwow
with Obama. And I’m quoting. No disrespect on my part.”

“Can you come in? I’m really sorry. But this is important. How are you feeling?”

“Congested as hell but not contagious. I’m actually at CVS buying more drugs.” She coughs several times. “I can be there in forty-five.”

I look at Machado and nod that he can head to the CFC, and he walks swiftly to his SUV. Next I get my radiologic expert Anne on the phone. I tell her she has a case coming in that I want scanned immediately.

“I’m especially interested to see if he has a hangman’s fracture,” I explain.

A pause, then, “Okay. I’m confused. I thought this was a shooting.”

“Based on the position of the wound at the back of his neck and his lack of a vital response after being shot, I have a hunch we’re going to find a fracture involving both pars interarticularis of C-two. On CT we should be able to see the extent of his cervical spine injury. I’m betting his cord was severed.”

“I’ll do it as soon as the body arrives.”

“It should be there in half an hour. If I’m not back by the time you’re done, see if Luke can get started on the autopsy.”

“I guess no Florida,” Anne says.

“Not today,” I reply, and I end the call and crouch back inside the shelter of the privacy screens.

I tape small paper bags over the hands and a larger one over the head to preserve possible trace evidence. But I don’t expect anything significant beyond copper frag. I don’t think the killer came anywhere near his victim, and I stand up and look at Rusty and Harold still holding back at the CFC van. I motion to them.

They head in this direction as I pack up my scene case. Wheels rattle toward me as they roll the stretcher. Piled on top of it are white sheets and a neatly folded black body bag.

“You want to take a look inside his apartment?” Marino asks me. “Because that’s where I’m headed. I mean if you want to do your usual thing with the medicine cabinet, the fridge, the cupboards, the trash.”

He wants my company. He usually does.

“Sure. Let’s see what kind of meds he was taking,” I reply as a uniformed officer approaches him with paperwork I recognize as a warrant.

I
T’S A FEW MINUTES
past one when Marino walks me around to the back of the Victorian house.

The first floor of it is clapboard, the upper stories and gables shingled. Up close I see the dark green paint is peeling and drainpipes are rusting. What’s left of the yard has been sutured by an ugly wooden fence, and the trunks of old trees crowd against it like something massive and lumbering trying to escape. I can imagine what an estate this must have been in an earlier era. What’s left of the subdivided property is no more than a sliver of land crowded by recently built bright brick town houses on three sides.

The windows of the corner first-floor apartment are small. The curtains are drawn, and the door they used to access their apartment has no patio or overhang. It must have been unpleasant hurrying inside when the weather was bad, especially if one was carrying groceries. It would have been awful in the ice and snow, treacherous in fact.

“So this is the exact way he came after he got out of his car,” Marino says as we walk through unbroken shade, chilly and still beneath leafy canopies, the earth pungent and spongy under my booted feet. “He carried three bags, walked around to the back of the house and let himself in with keys that are on the kitchen counter. There’s a knob lock and a dead bolt.”