Where There's a Will

PW: I know, but tell me again, please.

DT: Well, he called me... Magnus...and he said—

PW: What time was this?

DT: I don’t know. I was watching Hill Street Blues, so it must have been—

PW: Okay, and what did he say?

DT: He said that Torkel was... that they’d killed Torkel and he had to get out of Hawaii before the same thing happened to him.

PW: Now, when you say he said “they”—

DT: I don’t know who he meant. He said “they,” that’s all I know.

PW: He definitely said “they”? Plural? Not “him” or “her”? No names, no descriptions?

DT: He said...I think he said “they.” I’m not sure, I can’t remember.

PW: Did he say how your brother had been killed?

DT: (Shakes head.)

PW: Did he say there’d been a fire?

DT: I—I’m not sure. I don’t think so. Maybe he did, I’m just not sure. It was all so—

PW: Okay. And what else did he say?

DT: He said he had to leave. He said he’d come back as soon as he could. He said he loved me. He was... he was very excited, I could hardly...

PW: Just take your time, ma’am. Would you like some water or—

DT: He said they were after him, too, and—

PW: Ma’am, why did you wait so long to tell us this?

Why didn’t you tell the police about it last night? DT: He told me to wait. PW: Your brother told you to wait? DT: Yes, until today. Magnus said don’t tell anyone what

he was doing until today. PW: Anyone? Or just the police? DT: Anyone. I keep telling you, he was afraid they were

coming after him, too, and he needed a chance to get away. PW: Did he tell you that? That “they” were coming after him?

DT: No, he didn’t say exactly that. Well, I don’t think so. It was very quick, only a few sentences. He was so excited.

PW: And did he say where he was going? DT: (Shakes head.) He was taking the plane, that’s all he said.

At this point, Sarah returned. “Mission accomplished.” She put another clasp envelope, a thinner one, on the table. “Autopsy photos. And here”—she waved a thick sheaf of paper in her other hand—“is the autopsy report itself. It was less hassle to copy it than to check it out, so I made you one you can keep. Don’t tell anybody.” She slapped it into Gideon’s hand. “Enjoy.”

Dr. Meikeljohn, the deputy coroner, might not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he couldn’t be faulted on exhaustiveness. Or wordiness. His problem was organization. There was no breakdown into external examination and internal examination, no evidence of injury section, no evidence of medical and/or surgical intervention section, no pathology section, no put-it-all-together findings and opinion sections, no explicit structure of any kind. The report was simply twenty-two pages (compared to the usual four or so) of disorganized, densely typed observations, along with many lengthy stream-of-consciousness detours into conjecture, speculation, and hunches that were usually—and for good reason—not found in autopsy reports. It was difficult for Gideon even to locate the part in which the condition of the toes was described. Looking for it, his attention was caught by a few pages that described in fastidious detail the courses and locations of the two bullets found in the body.

Despite the charred condition of the external remains, a five-by-three-centimeter gunshot wound is visible in the ventral aspect of the thorax at the level of the third intercostal space, four centimeters to the left of the lateral border of the sternum. Because of tissue destruction of the dermal layers due to post-mortem thermal injury, the forensically pertinent characteristics of the wound, e.g., the existence or lack thereof of marginal abrasion, soot deposit, stippling, and other adjunct features are not possible to determine.

Subsequent dissection shows that both projectiles entered through this entrance, penetrating the left pectoralis major and proceeding medio-dorsally, grazing the superior border of the fourth costal cartilage and perforating the superior lobe of the left lung. Entering the medial mediastinum, the projectiles transpierced the heart through the right ventricle and the left atrium, separated the descending thoracic aorta—

“No problem positively identifying the cause of death, anyway,” Gideon murmured.

A few paragraphs before, he’d read that no soot or other carbon material had been found in the respiratory passages, proof positive that the victim had no longer been breathing at the time of the fire; he’d been dead when it started. And Meikeljohn’s description of the bullets’ horrific path made the reason for that crystal clear.

Gideon told John what he’d read, eliminating the jargon. “Shot right in the heart, huh?” John said, looking up from the case file.

“Right through the heart. Twice. And if that wasn’t enough, the bullets destroyed the aorta, too. You can’t get much more killed than that.”

“Two bullets,” John mused. “Both in the heart. Well, there you go, see? You had a couple of shooters who knew what they were doing. The cops did get one thing right, Doc. These were professionals, not one old crank shooting another.”