Pete dwelling in splendor), not clustering with the geeks for collective security. She remembered he had blue eyes, wide, sad-looking. Several pictures of Corey Hubble lay stashed in the file, a school photo where he glared dourly at the camera, and several family photos. In them, Lucinda and Pete always smiled, Corey always frowned. There was only one picture of him smiling, sitting with his wasting father in a lawn chair, touching his father’s pasty arm. Mr Hubble smiled with the thin certainty of the dying.
She paged through the rest of the file. An immediate search of the county turned up nothing except the boy’s car, parked in a grove of windswept oaks not far from Big Cat Beach, found the day after he was reported missing. A detailed report on the car and its condition indicated no sign of foul play. An interview with one of Corey’s friends indicated the vintage Mustang was Corey’s pride and joy. He couldn’t imagine that Corey would leave it behind if he was cutting out from town. St Leo Bay, Aransas Bay, Copano Bay, and St Charles Bay were searched for his body; nothing. The investigation widened, to San Patricio and Matagorda counties, to Corpus Christi, to South Padre Island, to Houston, to Austin, all places a runaway teen might find attractive. Nothing. The task force disbanded five months after Corey Hubble vanished, although the file stayed open and assigned to one detective: Delford Spires.
Periodic updates followed: a possible sighting in Houston, one from Dallas, one from San Antonio. Nothing resulted in a real lead. He was banished to the limbo of milk-carton photos, pictured on direct mail pieces as a public service. Nothing.
There was little indication in the notes that the FBI or Texas Rangers had proffered much help, although with Lucinda being a state senator one would think every agency in the state would be hunting Corey Hubble. Apparently not, or they had no more success than Delford.
Not a single thing to suggest that Pete Hubble had done away with his brother in the heat of an argument. No physical evidence in the house. No physical evidence in the Hubbles’ small fishing skiff. Nothing.
She stuffed the file in her heavy purse and headed out the door. On the way she talked to Nelda, the dispatcher and main Guardian of the Files. Being a Baptist, Nelda hadn’t gone to happy hour with the others. ‘Do you remember any citizens phoning or asking for information about this case recently? The Corey Hubble file?’
Nelda nodded. ‘Yeah, a guy stopped by. Big guy, late thirties, tall, kind of muscled up some. I remember he wore a lion’s-head chain around his neck, not so classy-looking. I told him to talk to Delford.’
Claudia thanked her. So Pete Hubble, murderer of his own brother, wanted to see the file on Corey.
Why would he need it if he already knew the truth?
25
‘Don’t ever send me a famous body again.’ Dr Liz Contreras, deputy medical examiner for Nueces County, had a voice that reminded Whit of crumpled foil – raspy, bright, a little grating.
‘You finally get some pressure to hurry Pete Hubble along?’
‘I got a call from the governor’s office. Some aide to an aide with a degree in snotitude. I explained to said flunky I don’t have powers over time and space to hurry up blood tests.’
‘Then let me be the first to thank you for your quick work.’
‘Don’t thank me too quick. You need to chew out your evidence people. I’ve already had a chat with your delightful Mr Gardner.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Hubble’s hands weren’t properly bagged. The GSR readings are not going to be particularly accurate.’
Whit had counted on the gunshot residue tests to help him determine if Pete had been holding the gun when it fired. A high level of residue implied suicide.
‘How was the bagging screwed up?’
‘The bag on the victim’s right hand wasn’t fastened properly, and the bag itself has defects – holes, as if torn by rough handling. Now, that said, I found gunshot residue on the right hand, but the amount could have come from Hubble pulling the trigger and then the residue getting worn off with crappy bagging, or because someone stuck the gun in Hubble’s mouth and Hubble’s hand went to the gun or was by his mouth or jaw. It’s not definitive that he pulled the trigger or that he didn’t.’
Crap. If Liz said outright suicide, his ruling became simple. ‘So what can you tell me?’
‘Time of death was between seven and nine o’clock. He’d eaten shortly before he died, most of a pepperoni- and-mushroom pizza, a number of tostada chips, and several glasses of red wine. Death was instantaneous. Bullet entry wound through the mouth – the angle is consistent with a gun placed in a mouth with little or no struggle. So he wasn’t lurching or fighting when the gun fired. That could indicate self-inflicted.’ She made a humming sound, and he pictured her scanning her report. ‘The bullet didn’t exit the skull. I’ve retrieved it and sent it to the crime lab here. Dried blood around the mouth, specks of blood on face and hands. The specks on his face are blowback – blood and tissue bursting forward from the bullet’s pressure moving through the head.’ She paused.
‘What?’
‘Well, this amount of blowback, we ought to have seen it on Hubble’s right hand as well. There’s very little there.’
‘Would the bad bagging of the hands account for that?’
‘Maybe. But I would still expect to see as much blow-back on his trigger hand as on his face. The amount of blowback on the gun itself is consistent with what I would expect with a self-inflicted
shot. Hubble’s prints are readable on the gun, according to the lab. They said there were a couple of partials but not readable enough for an ID.’
He thought of Eddie Gardner, easing the gun out of Pete’s mouth and thumbing the safety.
‘Could that have happened if an officer handled the gun improperly?’ Whit asked.
‘Possibly.’
‘Did he have sex before he died?’ Whit asked.
‘No.’
‘We did find a pair of panties by the bed, mixed in with his clothes.’
‘Then have Gardner check those panties for seminal traces or pubics. We will comb the deceased down for hairs and fibers not his,’ Contreras said.
‘What’s your considered opinion as to homicide versus suicide? A lot of folks are watching me on this one.’
Liz Contreras’s voice softened. ‘That he is lying in the bed, with this bullet angle, is a big suicide supporter. There’s just no sign of struggle. The lack of blowback and gunpowder residue could be attributed to the poor handling. But I can’t say with certainty. If there’s much reason to believe he was depressed or suicidal, you’ll probably be safe in ruling for suicide.’ She paused. ‘He’d had a lot to drink, too. His blood alcohol count was point two – that’s a lot of hooch, might supercharge any depression. Toxicology on narcotics will take a while longer. I’ve sent fingernail scrapings, hairs from up and down, and the bullet to the crime lab, along with hand swabs. They can do a double check on my work there. That’s about it.’ She paused. ‘If your inquest is showing he was suicidal, you’re probably safe in ruling that way, Whit.’
‘Thank you, Liz. If I decide to do a formal inquest, you’ll come testify?’
‘Sure,’ Liz said. ‘Especially if you’ll treat me to one of those Russian hamburgers at your stepmom’s place.’
He chatted with her for a minute more, hearing all about her young daughter’s dominance of the Pee Wee soccer leagues in Corpus Christi, then clicked off.
He called Delford, left a message asking him to call, and then nearly dialed Patsy Duchamp at the Mariner to give a statement. But he felt tired, and oddly disappointed. There was no case here to be solved, really, after all. And Patsy didn’t have a paper hitting the streets again until Saturday. He could talk to her in the morning.
He went home, ate a quiet dinner with Babe and Irina, and was getting into his car to go to Irina’s cafe to borrow her computer when Velvet pulled up. He stood in the yard and waited for her to get out of the car.
‘You got a minute for me?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. I have some news for you,’ Whit said. ‘We have a suicide note.’ He explained to her Sam’s revised account.
She leaned against her car. ‘No way, Whit. I sure don’t believe he killed himself, and I sure don’t believe he
