Twenty Blue Devils

'Then the most likely reason is that that side of Tari's head was against some solid object or surface when the gun was fired—'

Viennot's lively eyes lit up. “Ha, exactly as I surmised. I thought as much!'

'—and that it was hard enough and firm enough to keep the slug from completely shattering the bone and exploding out.'

'Viennot raised a finger as if he himself had made a telling point. “Ah,” he said quietly and cocked an eyebrow, “but exactly what was it, this object or surface?'

'Oh, well, you know, it could easily have been...’ He stopped. “Son of a gun,” he murmured. “I see what you mean.” Here he'd been airily treating Viennot to a chowder-head version of Forensic Anthro 101, and Viennot had been three steps ahead of him the whole time. It was only now, thanks to Viennot's persistence, that it struck Gideon that there was a serious inconsistency in Rudy's version of events. Rudy had said that he had grabbed Tari's arm while Tari had been rummaging in a drawer for the gun, and that the gun had gone off instantly.

So how could Tari's head have been leaning against anything?

'Rudy was pretty excited,” Gideon said, thinking out loud. “He'd been stunned a moment before. He might have wrestled Tari against the wall without knowing it. The whole thing was over in a second. In the shock of the moment it would have been easy to forget exactly what happened.'

Viennot shook his head. “I think not. Once shot in this manner, the man would have dropped like a stone—as he did, striking his head upon the hearth. His feet, in such circumstances, would naturally have remained in approximately the location that they'd been in when he was shot. But in this case, they were over a meter from the nearest wall.'

'Ah,” said Gideon appreciatively. Now he was the one getting the chowderhead forensics course. Turnabout time again, and richly deserved. “Then that settles it,” he said slowly. “Rudy didn't quite tell it the way it was, did he?'

'Indeed not,” Viennot said, twirling his cigar for emphasis. “And I think we can hypothesize with some confidence as to what his reason was, don't you, colleague?...Colleague?'

Gideon had taken the skull into his hands while Viennot was speaking and had turned it around to take his first careful look at the other side, the right side, the one with both the round entrance wound and the depressed fracture suffered when Tari struck his head on the hearth in falling. He traced his fingers over the network of cracks between them. Well, well...

'Colleague?'

'Hm?” Gideon surfaced. “Oh, I'm sorry. You were saying... ?'

'That we might hypothesize with some confidence as to what actually happened.'

'I don't think there'd be any point in that, sir.'

The physician's mobile features contracted into a scowl. “No point?'

'In hypothesizing.” Gideon replaced the skull on the butcher paper. “I know what actually happened,” he said with perhaps a little more panache than was strictly required; it was a common failing with him at such moments.

It takes a ham to appreciate a ham, and, as Gideon thought he might be, Viennot was delighted. After an astounded silence during which the cigar stub hung pasted to his lower lip he barked with laughter. “You know!' he cried happily. “How do you know?” He chomped down on the cigar and leaned expectantly forward, elbows on the table, his nose no more than a foot from the bone. Like every true man of science he was at his happiest when about to be instructed.

'I know,” Gideon said, “because cracks don't cross cracks.'

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Chapter 28

* * * *

Cracks don't cross cracks.

Once a year Gideon taught part of a week-long forensic seminar that the Smithsonian put on for law enforcement personnel from across the country. And one of the first tests of scientific observation that his students were faced with came in the form of a hard-boiled egg that had been briskly tapped in three places with the underside of a tablespoon, so that at the site of each stroke was a small indentation in the shell (not at all unlike a depressed fracture), with a network of hairline cracks radiating from it.

'Pretend,” Gideon would say, handing it over for their inspection, “that this is a human skull fractured in three places by blows from a blunt instrument. What I want you to tell me is, which is the first blow that was struck, which is the second, and which is the third?'

Sometimes they would figure it out on their own. More often they would be stymied. “How the hell are we supposed to know that?” some grumpy sergeant who hadn't wanted to be there in the first place could be depended on to mutter.

Which is when Gideon would say: “Cracks don't cross cracks.'

Once that was understood, which never took long, it was a simple matter. One of the dents in the shell would have a network of cracks that was unimpeded; the spidery, radiating lines would extend until they simply ran out of steam and petered out on their own. That was the site of the first blow. The cracks emanating from another one of the dents would also run to their natural limits—except for those that ran into already existing cracks from the first one and were stopped dead by them. That was the second blow. And the cracks from the third dent would stop every time they came to a crack from either of the other two. That, necessarily, was the third blow.