Dying on the Vine

Gideon laughed. He didn’t think much of the idea either. “All right, tell me this: How did you establish that he killed her? How do you know it wasn’t the other way around? She killed him and then shot herself?”

“How could she? According to you, she was already dead from the fall when she was shot. Pretty damn hard to shoot yourself in the head when you’re dead.”

“Never mind ‘according to me.’ How did you establish it in the first place, during the investigation?”

“Oh God, a lot of things. First, the way she was shot: back of the head, execution style. You saw that in the class. The bullet entered in the lower back part of her skull and then ran slightly upward, hitting the inside of her skull pretty much in the middle of her forehead. Which—as I’m sure I don’t have to tell either of you guys—is the path you get if the victim was kneeling, with her head bowed. Well, how many suicides have you run into where the person shot himself in the back of the head that way? Not many.”

“No,” Gideon said, “but there are some who do.”

“That’s true,” John said. “In fact, you can’t come up with any part of the head that some suicide hasn’t shot himself in: the nose, the eye, the ear, the top of the head, the back of the head, the teeth . . . almost any part of the body, in fact: the crotch, the armpit—”

“Well, you guys are lucky,” Rocco said. “You get to look at a lot more gunshot deaths than we do over here, so I can’t argue with you. But I’ve seen a few suicides and I never saw one that did it back- to-front. I mean, why would they? It’s harder. It can’t happen very often.”

“Well, yeah,” John agreed, “that’s so . . .”

“Yes, it is,” said Gideon, “and your execution-style killing idea was pretty good thinking at the time, but—well, sorry, but it’s not correct. She was already dead when she was shot.”

“Yeah, so you keep saying.” Rocco rolled his eyes. “Jesus, did we get anything right?” His hand flew up. “Don’t answer that.”

“Well, it’s understandable. You didn’t know then what you know now—that she fell off that cliff first, before —”

“No, you know that. I don’t know that, and I’m waiting to hear something that convinces me. I mean, no offence, Gid, I know you’re this great expert and everything, but I need a little more than your word here.”

“Give me a minute, Rocco, I’ll get there. But for the moment just assume I’m right. Now think about it. Here’s this woman. She’s just taken this horrendous fall. She’s about as dead as she can get. Half her bones are broken. Now, for whatever reason, he wants to shoot her. So how—”

Rocco held up his hand again. “Yeah, I see the problem. How is he supposed to get her into a kneeling position?”

“That’s it. What he did do, I’m guessing, was to shoot her where she lay, right on the ground. Prone. Not execution-style at all. The bullet trajectory would have been exactly the same.”

John hunched his shoulders. “I’d say that’s a pretty good guess.”

“Thanks, but it’s actually more than a guess. Remember this afternoon, when I tossed out a couple of reasons why the bullet might not have made it all the way through her skull? Well, there was another reason I didn’t mention, because I didn’t want to muddy the waters at the time—”

“But now you do,” Rocco grumbled.

“I’m a scientist, Rocco. I have to say what I find.”

“That’s what he always says when he does this,” John said cheerfully. “Every single damn time.”

“Okay, so what’s this other reason?” Rocco asked reluctantly.

“It’s something that happens when the spot where the bullet would ordinarily exit is up against something firm, so that the bone is shored up and kept from exploding outward. So the bullet can’t get out either, and it just bounces off and stays inside.”

Rocco nodded his acceptance.

“So if I’m right and she was lying facedown on the ground, and he just leaned over and plugged her, then the earth, or rock, or whatever that was under her head would have kept the bullet from exiting.”

“Well, she was laying on her stomach, all right. Oh boy, I’m starting to think maybe we’re going to have to reopen this whole can of worms after all.” He shut his eyes. “God help me.”

“What about the husband?” Gideon asked. “How was he shot? Was it compatible with suicide?”

“Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure we’re on safe ground there. Couldn’t have been more compatible. Right out of the books. The classic spot for a handgun suicide.” He raised his left hand and jabbed his forefinger at his temple. “Bang. And please, don’t give me any more crap about shooting yourself in the armpit. You know damn well this is where they do it nine times out of ten.”

“I don’t know about your statistics,” Gideon said, “but generally speaking, yes.”

“And righties shoot themselves in the right side of the head and lefties shoot themselves in the left side of the head—”

“But not always,” John put in.

“Oh, come on, you guys, give me a break. What, it’s only ninety-five percent of the time?”

Gideon had to smile. There had been a recent study of just this question, based on an examination of confirmed suicides. The answer: 95 percent.

“And he was shot straight through the left temple,” Rocco continued. “Wanna guess whether he was a lefty or a righty?”

Gideon laughed. “Well . . . this is just a hunch here, but I’m going to take a chance and guess he was a lefty.”

“Bingo. Okay, your turn, Mr. Expert—pardon me, Dr. Expert. Now you’re gonna go ahead and tell me what’s wrong with our theory—why he couldn’t possibly have committed suicide, right?”

“Hey, Rocco,” John said approvingly, “you’re a quick learner.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Gideon said. “You’re right. Sounds like a suicide to me.”

Rocco staggered and clapped a hand to his heart. “I’m shocked . . . shocked.” They stopped walking to let Rocco draw a Marlboro from a pack with his lips and apply a lighter to it.

“Rocco,” Gideon said, “what were the other things that made you so sure he killed her and not the other way around? You said a minute ago that there were a lot of them.”

“Well, two of them, anyway,” Rocco said in a choked, constricted voice while he pulled in his first lungful of smoke. He held it there a moment with his eyes closed and then let it out in a long hoosh. “The other thing was the way their bodies were lying—hers right up against this big rock and his up against hers, which means she would have had to come down first, so how could she have killed him?”

“Well, what about this?” John asked as they began walking again. “Someone else killed them both and tried to make it look like a murder-suicide. You know, rearranged the bodies and all.”

Rocco took two meditative drags. “Look, John, anything’s possible, but there’s just nothing, nothing at all, that points in that direction.” And then, in a muttered afterthought, “Until today, anyway.”

John shrugged. “Okay.” He didn’t think the idea held water either.

“You didn’t come up with any other suspects?” Gideon asked. “At all?”

Rocco bristled. “What do you mean, ‘at all?’ Like we didn’t do a thorough enough investigation or something?” But on reconsidering his words he cooled down. “Well, we didn’t, that’s true. We didn’t do a whole lot of searching. I mean, sure, we interviewed his family, the people who knew him best, and we looked into things, but it was all so obvious. . . . Hell, it seemed obvious. . . . The facts spoke for themselves, you know? He killed her and then he killed himself. Why would we go hunting for other suspects?”

“Yes, I can see that it would have seemed like a waste of money and manpower.”

“Anyway, no, there weren’t any other viable suspects. Oh, wait, there was one other thing: we found the gun. It came down the cliff with him, and it was his, all right. A wartime Beretta. Had it for forever.”

“Any prints?” John said, then jerked his head. “No, what am I talking about? There wouldn’t be, not after all that time out in the weather.”

“As a matter of fact there were. It wound up caught in the opening of his jacket, sort of wedged into his armpit. And it was a good leather jacket, so it was pretty well protected from the elements. So, yeah, we did manage to lift a couple of partials off it.”