No Way to Die (7 page)

I nodded. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“No, thank you.” She looked at me and nodded, as if I’d passed some sort of test with her. “Let’s sit down,” she said. She indicated two guest chairs across from her desk.

When we were seated, she continued, “Dwayne also said you were a special agent for the CID at Fort Lewis.”

I nodded. “Yes, I was. Nearly four years.”

“That’s good, too. You might be all right after all. Then you got out of the army and opened your own detective agency.”

“I did,” I said.

“Why didn’t you come work for the police department?”

I thought for a second, and then said, “I think I’d had enough rigid structure to last me for a bit. I’d just spent seven-and-one-half years in the army. That was plenty. I saw an opportunity to start a business where I could put what I’d learned to good use. Anyway, I look at our jobs—yours and mine—as complementary. We’re not in competition. You guys do the heavy lifting, of course. But we can sometimes go where the police can’t. We can spend more time and look at more places than you guys can. Being in charge of the allocation of resources of my own little company, I’m the one to decide how we spend our time. I like that.”

“I can see where that might have its benefits,” she said. “We get whipsawed around by the bureaucrats pretty good around here.”

“I’ll bet,” I said.

She turned to Toni. “And you, my dear,” she said. “How did you get mixed up in this business?”

Toni smiled. “Danny and I graduated from U-Dub together. We both majored in Criminal Justice. I was his first employee.”

“You two partners, then?” Inez asked.

“No, no,” Toni said. “Danny’s the boss. I’m just an employee.”

“She’s more than ‘just an employee,’” I said. “I rely on her. She’s smarter than me.”

“I can see that,” Inez said. We all laughed. She opened an inch-thick file she had on her desk. “Shall we get down to business, then? You’re here to talk to me about Thomas Rasmussen.”

“We are,” I said.

“Okay,” she said. “Well, let me say at the start that as far as this sort of thing goes, this case was pretty easy. All of the physical evidence—every bit of it—pointed conclusively to suicide. The medical examiner concurred with our findings that the deceased died of a gunshot wound from his own hand. And they found nothing in the autopsy to indicate otherwise. There were a couple of lifestyle questions that seem odd in the case of a suicide, but there’s always something that doesn’t quite fit. Anyway, nothing rose up strongly enough to cause us to change our interpretation of the evidence. Put it all together—the man killed himself. Case closed.”

“Can you tell us about the physical evidence?” I asked.

“Okay. First off, let’s walk through the photos. Before I hand you these pictures, I caution you—brace yourselves. The weapon was a .357 Magnum. A contact wound from a .357 Magnum makes quite a mess.” She handed over a letter-sized bound booklet. “This is a printout of all the photos taken by the officer on scene, myself, and the medical examiner.”

Each of the sixty-four pages contained two five-by-seven images. Most were pretty gruesome, with blood, gore, and brain matter spattered all over the inside of the driver’s side door, window, and headliner. The window had been partially blown out. Several of the scenes showed pictures of the gun lying on the floorboard of the car. The remaining photos were exterior shots showing the car in the parking lot, the parking lot itself, and the surrounding area.

“Any questions? We can talk later about getting you copies.”

We didn’t have any questions yet. “Okay then; next, let’s talk timing,” Inez said. She walked us through the complete timeline of events on scene, from the jogger who called in the findings all the way through releasing the vehicle after the body had been removed. “You can see that the scene was secured almost from the time of the gunshot all the way through our processing.”

“Not much chance of contamination,” I said.

“Virtually none,” she said.

“So it looks like sometime within about a fifteen-minute window after the witness passed the area the first time, Thomas Rasmussen drives up, parks, and shoots himself,” I said.

“That’s right. There was a single shot fired by the victim’s own handgun with his own hand pulling the trigger. We recovered the gun. The casing was still in the revolver, plus four more live rounds. We recovered the spent slug—leastways what was left of it—outside, approximately six meters from the car.”

“Were there fingerprints on the casings?” Toni asked.

“Yes. Thomas Rasmussen’s.”

“Okay. So, based on the photographs, the bullet passed through his right temple, through his left temple, and then through the car window?”

“Exactly. Like I said, a .357 Magnum has a lot of punch.”

I nodded.

Inez continued. “When I investigate this kind of thing, the next question I always ask myself is, where on the body did the gunshot occur? The most common area for suicides is the temple on the strong-hand side of the victim, and that’s where our victim was shot. I was able to confirm with his wife that Rasmussen was right-handed. The single gunshot entry wound is located in his right temple. What’s more, the ME says that the bullet’s trajectory was slightly upward from the entry wound on the right temple to the exit wound on the left. Also, the wound was slightly angled front to back, as well. Again, all this is consistent with the profile of a suicide.”

I nodded.

“Next, we look at how far the gun was from the body when the shot was fired. Suicides are almost always contact wounds or near-contact wounds. In this case, there was clear evidence of a hard contact-range wound. In other words, he was holding the gun tightly to his head when he pulled the trigger. The ME says the wound was ‘stellate-shaped’—star-shaped—and that there was clear evidence of powder tattooing—where the powder residue is literally blown into the skin surrounding the wound. There were burn marks along the edge of the entry wound consistent with the muzzle of the weapon being held tightly against the skin as the round was fired.

“There was residue of unburnt carbon recovered from Rasmussen’s right hand. This occurred when he fired the weapon. We were able to recover the weapon from near the body—in this case, from the floorboard of his car. We recovered a suicide note from the dashboard of his car. Our handwriting analyst confirms that there’s a high probability that the note was written by the deceased.

“Next, fingerprints. The only prints on the gun belonged to Thomas Rasmussen. The car was parked on an asphalt lot—there were no footprints or tire tracks. There were no witnesses, aside from the fellow who was running nearby. He heard the shot, and came to investigate, but he estimates it only took him a few minutes to get to the car from the time he heard the shot. When he got there, he saw nothing.”

“No other witnesses? Nobody else heard or saw anything?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “I should add that the witness reported seeing an SUV and two men in the lot when he ran past, probably fifteen minutes or so before he heard the shot. He says the SUV was gone when he came back.”

“That seems a little suspicious,” I said.

“Maybe,” she said. “But there’s no evidence to support the idea that those fellows had any involvement with the victim. Maybe they were a couple of runners getting ready to go. Rasmussen drives up and fires a shot. They get scared and take off. Or maybe they were a couple of gay lovers meeting for an early morning tryst—who knows? In any case, their earlier presence does nothing to change the very compelling physical evidence found in the car.”

“What you’re saying,” Toni said, “is that if they—or anyone else—were involved, there’s no way to tell based on the evidence.”

“Exactly,” Inez said.

“Or,” Toni continued, “you could also say that if this were a murder, it may well have been a ‘perfect crime’ kind of deal—the only evidence left lying around points solidly in a different direction.”

Inez mulled this over. “I suppose so. If someone told me for certain that this was a murder and not a suicide, I’ve got to say I would be surprised. It just doesn’t appear to be the case here.”

“What else did you find?” I asked.

“I spent a couple of hours on the scene, along with the ME Then, while I waited for the ME’s conclusion and the autopsy report, I interviewed the victim’s spouse and his coworkers. None of them had anything. In fact, no one knew he owned a gun—not even the wife.”

“Is that suspicious?” I asked.

“Well, I can tell you, this isn’t the first time someone bought a gun without telling their spouse. You might not tell your spouse on purpose, especially if you were suicidal. Anyway, we
know
the gun was his. There’s no question about it.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“On January 28, 2012,” Inez said as she referred to her notes, “he bought it. I have a copy of the paperwork. He bought a Smith &Wesson Model M&P 360 .357 Magnum revolver from Redmond Firearms on that date—same serial number as the one I recovered from the floorboard of his car at the scene of his death.”

“Wow,” I said, shaking my head. Pretty damn conclusive.

I thought for a second and said, “What about the points the wife makes regarding their solid family, their solid financial picture—the no-reason-for-suicide argument?” I asked.

“Unfortunately,” Inez said, “it doesn’t amount to much. I’ve seen it a dozen times. People kill themselves for all kinds of reasons—not just those to do with family and money. Even rich people kill themselves. I’ve seen many times where the reason might not be apparent to a spouse. Maybe there was a lover that the spouse didn’t know about. Most suicides come as a surprise, you know.” I think Inez was only partly right here. In my experience, even if the motives were unclear, there almost always was some kind of sign—a behavioral change, something—to tip off a potential suicide. Granted, some of these signs were pretty subtle. They tended to make a lot of sense
after
the suicide.

“To summarize, I didn’t turn up
anything
in my interview or my other background checks that made me want to question my preliminary call—that is, suicide. Then the ME issued his final report. Normal toxicology, death related to the gunshot-wound trauma. The conclusion—death by self-inflicted gunshot wound, same as his preliminary call. Put it all together, and it’s a pretty open-and-shut case of suicide.”

“You sound convinced,” I said.

“I am,” she said.

I nodded. “You’re probably right, too. But we’ve talked to the family and agreed to have a second look. Would that be a problem?” I asked.

“That’s your job; I have no problem,” Inez said. “If we made a mistake and missed something, I don’t have a problem reopening the case. The last thing I want is for someone to get away with a murder. Mind you, I don’t think that’s what happened here.”

“Understood,” I said.

“Give me your business cards,” she said. “When you get back to your office, you send me a copy of your engagement letter and your licenses. Also, fill out this form and have your client sign it. It gives me authorization from the victim’s relatives to release information to you. Then, I’ll zip you a copy of this file.”

“That would be wonderful, Inez,” I said. “We’ll do it.”

“And if you find anything—anything at all—you let me know.”

“Agreed.”

“And you,” she said, looking at Toni.

“Yes?”

“Good luck with your housebreaking.”

AT LOGAN PI, we hold a lot of early morning briefings—a holdover from my CID days, I suppose. On existing cases, we discuss case progress. On potential new cases, we discuss whether or not we even want to accept it. We’re smart enough to realize that not every case fits us. We even have a standing rule—we won’t accept a case where we don’t feel we can add value. Although there are desperate people willing to pay a lot of money for answers, I’m not comfortable simply taking someone’s hard-earned money knowing in advance that we won’t be able to deliver the goods. For instance, although we get asked from time to time, we’re too small to be very good at most personal-protection work—it’s not something we specialize in. I refer this type of work to another agency. We’re best at surveillance, locating missing persons, and recovery of lost or stolen items.

Another of our standing rules is that we won’t accept a case to work with someone who we think is doing something illegal. We don’t need the potential trouble. This rule is actually a subset of a bigger rule that says we also won’t accept any case that might get us turned sideways with any of the law enforcement agencies we have to work with—local, state, or federal. This especially applies to the Seattle Police Department because we work with them all the time. We rely on our relationship with the police to be able to operate effectively. Like I told Inez, we feel our roles are complementary. If it ever got to the point like on the TV shows where the cops seem to loathe the PIs, then we may as well close our doors and go home.

The next morning at 8:45, I was in my office preparing for the nine o’clock briefing when I heard an associate of mine arrive. I listened as he walked down the hall toward his office, swearing softly to himself in Spanish. I leaned into the hallway and said, “What’s up, Doc?” I do a pretty fair Bugs Bunny.