Double Homicide

by Jonathan Kellerman

  A VIP mezzanine ringed its way above the lower level. The elevated story had its own bars and its own waitresses. Instead of backless stools or wooden director’s chairs, it had plush velvet couches and love seats. The tier was the site of intense tech activity. Even at this distance, McCain could spot a dangling arm.

  He exchanged looks with his partner. Dorothy’s eyes welled up with tears. “I dunno if I’m ready for it. You go up there. Let me find Marcus first.”

  “Good idea.” McCain gave her shoulder a firm squeeze, then headed for the stairwell. The elevator had been roped off with yellow crime scene tape. As he approached the hub, his stomach started churning. The hot dog he’d eaten at the game laser-sliced through his gut. What was that all about? He pushed through the crowd until he was afforded a clear view. Swallowing to keep from retching.

  Three hours ago, this boy had played the game of his life. Now the handsome face of Julius Van Beest was waxen and soulless.

  Eyes without light, mouth open, rivulets of blood dripping down the left temple. The kid had taken hits to his head, right arm, right shoulder.

  McCain felt someone touch his back, and he jumped, pivoting. Cory Wilde was holding an evidence bag, looking guarded.

  Wilde was in his mid-thirties, a balding man with a bland face except for having one green eye and one brown eye. As a result, he seemed asymmetrical.

  “What are you doin’ here, Micky?”

  “Keeping my partner company. Her kid’s here. He called her up.”

  “No shit! Who is he?”

  “Marcus Breton, BF guard.”

  A shake of the head. “I’ve been busy up here.”

  “What happened?” McCain asked.

  Wilde glanced at the body. “We got a shooter cuffed downstairs.”

  “I saw. What was the flash point?”

  “Some argument about the game.” Wilde rubbed his nose against his shoulder because his hands were latex-gloved. “You were at the game?”

  “Me and Dorothy both.”

  “Somebody clobbered Julius on court?”

  “Someone fouled him hard. He the shooter?”

  “I dunno if it was him personally, ’cause I wasn’t at the game. But it looks like the teams took it off the court. Lot of name-calling. Then when Julius made a move on a girl, there was a scuffle. The bouncers broke it up. The offending party left and everything was fine and peaceful, la-di-da. Then the OP comes back with a couple of buddies and, bam, bullets start flying.”

  “He came back looking for Julius?”

  “Looks that way. If you see the way he fell down . . . C’mere.” Wilde took McCain over to the body. He took his gloved hand and stuck his pinkie into an elongated bullet hole on Julius’s shoulder. “You can feel the upward path of the trajectory. Now, anyone shooting towards the big guy’s head would have to shoot upward. But this angle’s pretty damn steep.” He took his finger out. “Wanna see for yourself?”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Has to be that the bullets came from below and were fired upward. And that isn’t the picture we’re getting from the witnesses.”

  McCain bent down and sniffed the wound. No strong odor of gunpowder leaked from the man’s clothing—consistent with a long-range shot. “Julius the only fatality?”

  “So far, yes. Paramedics have taken a couple of people who look to be in fairly serious condition, but they was talkin’ on the gurneys—a good sign.”

  McCain nodded. “What’s the name of the sweetheart who shot Julius?”

  “B-baller named Delveccio. Guy’s got a very hard attitude, and he’s not saying anything except for you know what.”

  “‘I didn’t do nothin’.’”

  “What else?” said Wilde. “When the bullets started, there was mass panic. Asshole claims he was just there, someone else did the shootings, the only reason he was singled out was because he was from Ducaine.” Wilde frowned. “When we searched him, we didn’t find a weapon.”

  “Find it anywhere else?”

  “Hey,” said Wilde. “You must be a detective. Yeah, that’s the problem. We found weapons. As in plural. Lots of weapons.” He shook his head. “It’s like every idiot in the place was packing. Man, this one’s gonna take up lots of time. It would sure make it easier if someone confessed.”

  McCain nodded. He knew the drill. Detectives would go through the confiscated firearms and try to pair each weapon to its owner using gun ID numbers—if they hadn’t been filed or acid-burned off—state reg numbers, latent prints. But prints were often hard to pull from a fired weapon, because when a gun was discharged, hands jerked and slid and stuff got smudged. Even so, Ballistics would be required to discharge each recovered firearm into gelatin blocks to get the tool markings. Hopefully, one set of markings would line up with the fatal bullet. It was tedious, tedious business.

  “I’ll help if you want.”

  “That’d be a good thing.” Wilde held up the paper evidence bag. “I’m gonna take these bullets over to the lab as soon as the ME’s done. Gomes found some casings downstairs where we think the perp fired off his rounds. The angle looks good, but the shooting team will let us know for sure. Where’s Dorothy’s kid?”

  “With the other witnesses.”

  “I’ll go talk to him.”

  “Why don’t you let me do it, Cory?”

  Wilde looked at him. “You’re a little close to this, Micky.”

  “I can get more out of him than you can.”

  Wilde snorted. Gave it some thought. “Not with Dorothy around.”

  He was right, but it was going to be a trick to separate Mama Lion from her cub.

  “I got an idea, Wilde. Why don’t you take the bullets over to Ballistics and get some shut-eye and Dorothy will wait for the ME. She’ll bring you up to speed in the morning.”

  “That ain’t protocol, Micky. What’s she looking to get out of this?”

  “She knows the mother—Ellen Van Beest.”

  Wilde considered that. “You’re saying she definitely wants in?”

  “I’m just making an educated guess about my partner.”

  “And you?”

  “We’re partners. Here’s the deal: I’ll help you mix and match weapons. And the sooner you get the rounds over to Ballistics, the sooner we’ll have information on the type of weapon fired. It’ll narrow down the search. Meanwhile, you can catch some shut-eye. You look like shit.”

  Wilde glared. “Sure. Send her up here.”

  “You could do worse,” said McCain. “Dorothy has a nose for reconstructing crime scenes.”

  “Well, we need something. Man, it’s nothing but confusion.” Wilde shook his head. “So either you or her will let me know what the ME says?”

  “You bet.”

  McCain stared down at Julius Van Beest’s lifeless body.

  Like he needed a doc to tell him that the poor bastard had been shot to death.

  6

  Dorothy Breton was a big woman, but it took McCain over ten minutes to find her. Interspersed in the throng were much bigger people: the giants of college basketball. They loomed over Dorothy, making her appear average height. Still, she was a presence, and it was her voice that McCain homed in on.

  She was sitting at the bar, a hand on Marcus’s arm. A gesture of comfort, but it did little to calm the boy. His face was raw pain. He was shouting at her.

  “I keep telling you I don’t remember, Mama! Why do you keep going over it again and again?”

  “Because every time we talk, you remember more than you think.”

  McCain elbowed his way through the crowd and took the seat next to his partner. “You’re wanted upstairs,” he told Dorothy. She threw him a puzzled look. “I told Wilde you’d be there when the ME came. No one’s bagged the hands yet.”

  “You notice any powder residue?”

  “Couldn’t see a damn thing in this lighting, but I didn’t smell it. Still, we need to assume and make sure. If the shysters go for the self-
defense angle, and no one checked his hands for powder, we’re gonna look like asses.”

  “Did you find a discharged weapon near him?”

  “No, but there was a couple of shells in the area. Could be old ones, but we gotta check it all out.”

  “So there is a possibility that Van Beest shot back . . . or shot first.”

  “It’s possible.” McCain shrugged. “Anyway, Wilde just left to take the ammo down to Ballistics. The bad boys look like .32 caliber.”

  “How many?”

  “Four, I think.”

  “Any other victims in that area other than Julius?”

  “Not that I could tell,” McCain said.

  “So someone unloaded on him.”

  “We were told that there was conflict between Julius and one of the Ducaine players. The offending person left and returned later, spoiling for a battle. We don’t know who shot first or if Julius shot at all. That’s why we gotta go up there and bag the hands before the ME comes.”

  “Why didn’t you do it?” Dorothy asked. “I’m busy.”

  “I’ll take over what you’re doing.”

  Dorothy glared. McCain shrugged her off. “I told Wilde that you got a nose for crime scenes. He said to send you upstairs and look around.”

  “I got a nose for bullshit. Someone’s trying to get rid of me.”

  McCain didn’t answer. Dorothy frowned and got up from her seat. As she walked away, she looked over her shoulder at her son. “I’ll deal with you later.”

  “Goddamn!” Marcus swore out loud after his mother was gone. “What does she want from me? I didn’t see anything!”

  McCain put his hand on the young boy’s shoulder. “Maternal concern.”

  “Fuck, I’m concerned, too.” The kid was yelling. “I’d help if I could, but I hit the ground just like everyone else after the shooting started.” Marcus’s eyes narrowed in defiance. “Can I go now?”

  “Give me a few minutes.”

  The boy’s eyes rolled to the back of his head.

  “C’mon, indulge me, Marcus.” McCain stood up. “Let’s take a walk. Looks like you could use some air.”

  Marcus didn’t respond. Then, abruptly, he shot to his feet and grabbed his overcoat. “Anything to get the hell out of here.”

  The deputy medical examiner was a child, although in Dorothy’s perception everyone under fifty was a child. But this one really was a baby with her fresh white face and her big, round “omigosh” blue eyes and her skinny body and little skinny wrists that were covered by latex gloves. Expensive coat, looked like cashmere or at least a blend.

  Obviously a virgin, ’cause after you messed up a nice piece of threads on human body fluids, you learned.

  Dorothy walked up and introduced herself as Detective Breton from Boston Homicide, and the little girl said she was Tiffany Artles. “MD” on her name tag, but she was not using the title. Like she was embarrassed. Or patronizing.

  All that did was further piss Dorothy off. If you’re a goddamn doctor with a goddamn degree, use your goddamn title. She wasn’t goddamn threatened.

  Stupid people. Though for all she knew, Tiffany Artles’s MD was from Hah-vuhd.

  It just showed how the city, as liberal as it was, really didn’t give a rat’s ass about the death of a black boy. If it did, no green-around-the-ears cashmere coat would’ve been sent.

  Look at her, actually shaking as she opened her doctor’s bag. Of course, it didn’t help that Dorothy was glaring at her. She knew she wasn’t being fair, but she didn’t give a damn about that, either.

  “Has the shooting team been down here yet?” Artles asked.

  Little, tinkling voice. Smooth, shiny chestnut hair. It took all of Dorothy’s will not to mimic her.

  “No, I don’t think so. Not that anyone would tell me anything.”

  “Okay.” Artles’s voice rose even higher. “I just wanted to know if I should move the body or—”

  “The paramedics did CPR,” Dorothy snapped. “His shirt is open, and those are bruise marks on the chest. They obviously tried to revive him. They must have moved him at that time, because the splatter patterns are not consistent with the position of the body. See here . . . all the blood on the tabletop. Looks to me like he fell forward, and then the EMTs turned him over. I know the photographer has come and gone. So just do what you need to do.”

  Dr. Tiffany regarded Julius’s inert body. Her lip curled. “I’m sorry. I must look like a doofus. I just didn’t expect to recognize the victim.”

  “They didn’t tell you who it was?”

  “No. Just that there was a shooting in Pharaoh’s Genie and there was a fatality.” She looked at Dorothy. “I saw him play a week ago. I took my younger sister to the game. What a waste!”

  She bent down. “Okay.” Talking to herself. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

  Dorothy kneeled next to the young woman, who cradled Julius’s head, then moved it to the side to scrutinize the gunshots at the temple. “Two graze wounds. They run into one another, but you can see two distinct ellipses. The right one’s a bit deeper than the left, but to my eye, it doesn’t look like either is the cause of death. There is bleeding, but it’s not excessive, not like you’d see in arterial bleeding.”

  She lifted Julius’s limp arm.

  “No rigor, obviously. No way there’d be, this soon . . . When did the call come in, Detective?”

  “About an hour ago. Maybe a little longer.”

  “So time of death isn’t in question.” Artles examined the arm. “There are two bullet wounds in the arm. In and out and not at close range. I’d say judging by the entrance wound, the distance was in the fifty-to-seventy-feet range. To hit him in the head, the shooter must have been good or lucky or both and have had a clear field. No one else was killed, right?”

  “No.”

  “The size of the holes . . . I’d say a thirty-two, something like that.” She focused her blue eyes.

  “You’d be right. Detective Wilde is taking the ammo down to Ballistics as we speak. We found some shells down below.” Dorothy stood up and pointed. “Right there, at the left-hand corner of the dance floor. So we’re talking maybe a forty-five-degree trajectory.”

  “I’ll measure the angle of the pathway between entrance and exit wound, see if you’re on target. This shot”—she showed the wound to Dorothy—“this one tore through the muscle, so I don’t really have a clean tunnel to work with. But the bottom one was in and out.” She lowered his arm. “As far as his shoulder wound, the bullet appears to have entered right under his armpit, went behind the scapula, and . . .” With effort, she lifted up Van Beest’s body just enough to peek under him. “Oh . . . it came out here, through the back of the neck. It probably blasted through the carotid. Although there’s not a lot of lividity, pooling of the blood due to gravity—”

  Tiffany Artles stopped herself. “You know what lividity is.”

  Finally, Dorothy graced her with a smile. “Go on, honey, you’re doing fine.”

  Tiffany smiled full force. “This is my second day on the job, Detective Breton. I guarantee you that if the powers-that-be had known it was someone semifamous, they would have called a senior ME.”

  “But who cares if it’s just another black boy being shot up?”

  “It’s not that, Detective. White or black, this was called in as a case where the cause of death was easily determined. There was no need to wake up the boss. Except when it comes to someone famous . . . someone who might make the papers.”

  She stood up and snapped off her gloves. “I can’t say for sure which shot was the fatal one until he’s opened up.”

  “When do you think that’ll be?”

  “Probably soon because of who he is . . . was. I’d say maybe two to three hours. They’ll want to dispose of the autopsy quickly because the papers will want answers.” She gave Dorothy her card. “I don’t know if I’ll be doing the cutting. I suspect not. But you can call me anyway.”

  “Tha
nk you, Doctor.”

  Tiffany smiled weakly. “So I’ll tell the guys in the wagon to take him to the morgue—unless you need to examine him for forensics.”

  “Techs and I checked out what we needed. Photographer has the postmortem shots.” As Dorothy got to her feet, her kneecaps cracked. “How about we let the poor boy rest in private?”

  7

  McCain walked Marcus through the club and out. The air was bitter, burning McCain’s throat and lungs with each inhalation. Flashes of light danced through the inky sky, from the blinking strobe bars atop emergency vehicles, the hazy streetlamps, cops’ flashlights, the intrusive winks of cameras. McCain hadn’t walked more than a few steps before a microphone was shoved in his face.

  That Hudson guy—night-shift drone on one of the local stations.

  “Derek Hudson, Detective. Can you tell us what’s going on inside?”

  McCain regretted keeping his shield pinned to his coat. “Not really.” He pulled the brim of his cap over his ears and kept a firm hand on Marcus’s arm while scanning the area for an empty cruiser.

  Just as McCain got past Hudson, a young woman pushed her way to the front, a face McCain didn’t recognize. She was covered head to toe in outerwear and had to lower the scarf around her mouth to talk. “Liz Mantell from CNN. We’ve seen lots of gunshot victims being taken away on stretchers. What led up to the shootings, Detective?”

  Her teeth were chattering as she spoke. A minute of exposure and already the bottoms of McCain’s feet felt like ice. And this without winds coming off the Back Bay. Even in the dim light, the reporter’s nose was bright red. McCain felt sorry for her, shivering in single-digit temperatures. But not that sorry.

  “No comment.”

  She tagged along. “So there definitely was a multiple shooting?”

  “Nothing has been confirmed.”

  “What about members of the basketball team from Boston Ferris being involved?”