What had once been Colt Rogers’s face was now a grotesque mixture of blood, flesh, bone, and brain tissue. One eye, blown out of its socket, dangled down his cheek like a ball on a string. The other eye had been obliterated upon impact. His nose was gone, along with virtually all of his lower jaw. The back of his head had fared no better, having been utterly destroyed by the blast, which blew open a gaping fist-size hole that exposed a small segment of brain that miraculously had survived intact. Brain matter, blood, and tissue had sprayed across the office to the back wall, where, Dantzler knew, they would likely find the bullet that had inflicted such damage.
Mac Tinsley knelt next to the body, his gloved hands bloody from inspecting the massive wounds. A diminutive man famed for his black horn-rimmed glasses and his meticulous work ethic, Mac had been the coroner for almost four decades. The joke was that Mac had been around so long he performed the autopsy on poor, murdered Abel. But Mac’s days on the job were numbered. With his sixty-fifth birthday less than a month away, he had recently made the decision to call it quits at the end of the year. He had concluded that enough was enough.
“Tell you one thing for certain, Jackie-boy,” Mac said, removing the bloody Latex gloves. “There will be no open casket at Colt’s funeral service. In all my years doing this nasty work, I can only recall two occasions when I’ve seen such extensive damage to a man’s face. Both were suicides, and both victims used a shotgun.”
Dantzler helped Mac to his feet. “Any guess as to how long he’s been dead?”
“The man’s still warm. This happened within the past ninety minutes.”
“The shooter cut it close,” Dantzler said. “I couldn’t have missed him by more than a few minutes.”
Richard Bird entered the office, glanced down at the body, and quickly looked away. Bird, head of the Homicide division, had no stomach for the ugliness of the job. His talent was administrative, not investigative detective legwork. Politics rather than police procedure was his strength. He much preferred his cool office to a vulgar crime scene.
“Damn, I could have gone a lifetime without seeing that,” Bird said, shaking his head. “What a mess.”
“Am I clear to take the body, Jackie-boy?” Mac said. “Did you get everything you need?”
Dantzler looked toward the back of the office, where Milt was overseeing one of the crime scene tech’s efforts to retrieve the bullet. “Milt, any reason to keep the body here?”
“Nope. Feel free to take Mr. Rogers out of his neighborhood.” Milt held up his right hand. “Got the bullet, Jack. Big sucker, too, just like we suspected. In fairly good condition considering the road it traveled. I’m guessing this came from a forty-four or a three-fifty-eight.”
“That makes Clint Eastwood our prime suspect,” Bird said.
“For taking out a lawyer, I vote to give Clint an award.” Milt laughed. “I always felt one of Clint’s old flicks perfectly summed up my feelings toward our barristers-
“That’s not funny, Milt,” Bird said. He looked at Dantzler. “But Rogers was a lawyer. I’m sure he had plenty of enemies.”
“I’m sure he did. But this wasn’t done by an angry client. This is connected to the Eli Whitehouse case.”
“You don’t know that for sure, Jack.”
“Come on, Rich. Think about it. I’m supposed to meet Rogers at six, to talk about Eli’s case, and when I get here, he’s dead. That’s more of a coincidence than I care to accept.”
“What time
“Six, straight up. Mac says Rogers couldn’t have been killed more than fifteen minutes before I got here. That-”
“How did the killer know you were going to be here?” Bird asked, shaking his head. “And how could he possibly know what you were planning to discuss with Rogers?”
“Don’t know. What I can tell you is this has to do with my re-opening the Eli Whitehouse case.”
“But there are differences. You’ve said from the beginning a professional hit man took out those two boys in ’eighty-two. This doesn’t look professional to me.”
“Well, you’re wrong, Rich. We’ve been all over this place and we can’t find a shell casing. That tells me the shooter, despite being in a time pinch, acted in a cool and collective manner. Like a pro. He didn’t panic.”
“You could be right, Jack. But you could also be dead wrong. I don’t want us heading down one path at the exclusion of all others. You want to continue with the Eli Whitehouse case, that’s okay with me. But I’m assigning Milt and Eric to look into Colt Rogers’s murder as a separate case. We clear on that?”
“Perfectly. That’s the way we should approach it.”
Dantzler and Bird watched as the covered body of Colt Rogers was loaded onto a gurney and taken out of the office. Mac Tinsley closed his medical bag, picked it up, and followed the body outside into the darkness.
“Damn, a bullet in the face,” Bird said. “That’d be a hard way to go.”
“Is there ever an easy way?” Dantzler asked.
West Short Street, deserted two hours ago, was now a buzz of activity and energy. Curious onlookers, having learned via the gossip grapevine that a murder had occurred, poured out of the nearby bars and restaurants eager to see what happened. Within a matter of minutes, they were three deep behind the blocked off section and multiplying fast. Nothing draws a big crowd quicker than yellow crime scene tape and rumors of a grisly murder.
Microphone-toting reporters from two local TV stations were on the prowl for interviews, moving rapidly toward anyone who looked even remotely official. A female scribe from the newspaper had Richard Bird cornered against an adjacent building. Bird, at six-six, towered above his inquisitor, who was scribbling at a furious pace, certain she was being given inside information about the murder, when, in fact, she wasn’t. No reporter ever got a scoop from Richard Bird. He possessed a great talent for saying nothing relevant or important while giving the impression he had recently descended Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments. Bamboozled reporters, eager to uncover the big scoop, confused gibberish for gospel.
Outside, in front of Colt Rogers’s office, Dantzler huddled with Milt and Eric. A strategy needed to be put in place, he knew, and now rather than later. While Dantzler didn’t necessarily buy into the long-held consensus that if a murder isn’t solved in the first forty-eight hours, it likely never will be, he did agree that time is of the essence. The killer already had a head start. The trick is to not let him get so far ahead he can’t be caught.
“Ah, shit, man, here come the jackals,” Eric said. “Bad idea coming outside to talk.”
Eric was referring to the two TV reporters running in their direction, one male, one female, both being trailed by hefty cameramen struggling to keep pace. The female, a reed-thin blonde with a mouthful of perfect pearly whites, won the race, easily beating her opposition by five full seconds.
“Detective Dantzler,” she said, three seconds before the cameraman caught up, turned on his light, and focused. “What can you tell us about the murder of Colt Rogers?”
“No comment.”
“Is it true that he was shot to death?”
“No comment.”
By this time the male reporter had joined the group. Breathing hard, he rammed his microphone within inches of Dantzler’s face, causing Dantzler to push it away.
“Look, guys,” Dantzler said, clearly peeved. “You’re not going to get anything from me worth reporting, because at this stage I don’t know much more than you know. We’ve just begun the investigation. We’re not even twenty minutes into it, yet. When we have anything worthwhile to report, you’ll hear about it. Until then, back off and give us room to breathe. And one more thing. In the future, if you have questions, ask the tall guy over there.”
Dantzler pointed toward Richard Bird.
“One more question,” the persistent female reporter said. “Is-”
Dantzler glared hard at her. “Are you hearing impaired? I said no fucking comment. Now get away from me and let me do my job.”
