Impulse

by Frederick Ramsay

  Bits of fabric and metal had been stuffed into plastic bags. Ledezma picked one up and peered through the plastic, a buckle of some sort, too small to be from a belt. He didn’t recognize much else, khaki that might have come from a pair of shorts or slacks, some denim and coins. He sifted through the pile looking for personal belongings. Nothing. Curious.

  “What’s this?” he said pointing to a pile of bleached canvas on the next table.

  “That’s what covered her, probably why they never spotted her on the flyovers. It was the same color as the ground, see?”

  He flipped a corner of the material, noted the bit of white trim on one edge, and then turned his attention back to the bones. Forensics he left to others, but he knew a bullet hole when he saw one. He moved to the head and inspected the skull. He took a new pencil from his pocket and inserted it in the eye socket, then rolled the skull on its side. He peered at the shattered bone at the back, then at the larger hole in the front. If he remembered right, the entry wound indicated she took the shot in the back of the head, like an execution, almost. He frowned. That didn’t fit, but he’d wait for the ME to fill him in.

  “Where’s her wedding band?” he asked.

  Barnett shrugged. “None came in so I guess the crime scene guys who picked up the body didn’t find one, or they decided that since she was dead she didn’t need it anymore.”

  “No ring, no jewelry at all?”

  “Nada.”

  He rolled the skull back in place. The ME did not like people tinkering with his work-ups. Ledezma scanned the rest of the skeleton looking for breaks, anything out of the ordinary.

  “Healthy sixty, plus-minus, female,” the ME boomed from the door. “Don’t touch.”

  The medical examiner was a big man. He stood something over six seven, probably went three hundred and fifty pounds and had one of those voices you expect to hear on an opera stage. He didn’t talk, he projected. Ledezma jerked his hand away from the skeleton like a kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar.

  “Are you Ledezma?” the ME intoned, a little recitative before the big aria.

  “Yeah, Sergeant Ledezma.”

  “Your case, isn’t it?”

  Ledezma resisted the impulse to sing. “Yes, it is.”

  “You have the dental records?”

  “I do.” He handed the papers to the ME, who looked at them briefly, then, Hamlet-like, picked up the skull and stared at its teeth.

  “Need dental forensics in here for the official determination, but I’d say this is your woman. The amalgam filling is the clue, see….” He pointed to a molar. “Hardly anybody does amalgams unless they don’t show or their dental plan is a bad one. It’s an old one and in the right place. And there is a gold crown in the back. Yep, this is your woman.”

  Ledezma nodded his head. Now it begins.

  “How’d she die?” he asked. He knew, but he wanted the ME to have the privilege of telling him. The ME snapped on a pair of latex gloves.

  “Big bullet in the base of the skull just above the occipital foramen, see?” He held the skull so that Ledezma could look at the hole again. “Then it comes out here in the frontal bone right where it joins with the parietals.”

  “That means she got popped in the back of the head,” Barnett volunteered. The ME shot him a withering look and Barnett shrunk an inch or two and skulked away.

  “Shot in the back of the head, as our Deaner says, in the nape of the neck, bullet comes out through her forehead. Poses an interesting problem. I wish I’d been there at the scene.”

  “What kind of problem?” Ledezma did not want a problem. He wanted a nice clean homicide. Shoot and drop.

  “Well. It means that to figure out the who, see, I need to know the how. Your suspect—the husband—describe him. He’s not a dwarf, is he, or a jockey, a short guy?”

  “No, average build, for an old guy, five eleven—”

  “See, there’s the problem.”

  “I don’t see.”

  “She took the bullet here,” he said, pointing to the back of his own head with his left forefinger, “and it came out here.” Right forefinger high on his forehead. “Now, she would stand five six or five seven, so if he shoots her he has to be kneeling on the ground or she has to be standing on a stepladder, you see?”

  “No. Why on a stepladder?”

  The ME picked up the skull again and, taking the pencil from Ledezma’s pocket, ran it through the two openings. He held the skull level and Ledezma saw the angle it made. The pencil pointed at the ceiling. A man Smith’s height would have shot level or down.

  “He’s sitting on the ground.”

  “Possible, but think about it. If you’re going to shoot someone, are you going to sit down and shoot her in the back of the head or are you going to stand and take careful aim?”

  “Stand, I guess.” Ledezma’s heart sank. “Suicide?”

  “No, rule that out. There’s no way someone can twist their arm around and shoot themselves in the back of the head like that. Why would they even try?”

  “So Smith is out, too?”

  “Oh no, it’s just the bullet holes present a problem. Problems are what we specialize in here, Sergeant. No, of course she wasn’t on a ladder. Silly idea. I just mention that to show the difficulty of shooting her standing up and getting this wound track.”

  “Doc, I appreciate the lecture, but could we get to the punch line?”

  “Patience, Ledezma, patience. See, if you really want to nail your man, you need to go through this with me. Otherwise some smart lawyer will shred you on the stand.”

  “Sorry. So show me.”

  “Right. We have two possibilities. First, the shooter has the gun in his hand and presses it flat against the back of her neck like this.” He made a pistol with his hand and pressed it against Ledezma’ neck. “Then, bang. But it’s not a natural way of holding a gun. Now if the victim was lying on the ground, then you could get this track. Say she’s lying on her stomach, face in the sand. He’s at her feet.” The ME took a position at the foot of the steel table, pointed at the skull with his forefinger, and cocked his thumb and fired. “Bang.”

  “So you think that’s it?”

  “It works, but I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?” Ledezma shifted from foot to foot. His low tolerance for the morgue and its aroma began to creep up on him. In a minute or two, he’d have to leave. Leave or heave. He wanted the ME to stop showing off and get on with it.

  “Well, let’s consider the normal reaction one has lying face down in the sand. Do you stick your nose in it or do you turn your head to one side or the other?”

  “Turn my head.”

  “Right again, so the track would be behind one ear and out through the temporal or opposite parietal. Not the case here.”

  “Finish this for me, Doc, I’m fading fast here.”

  “Okay. Here’s how it must have happened. She is kneeling. Look at these photographs.” He pulled a sheaf of pictures from an envelope. “This is how they found her. Her knees are together and turned a little to the left, legs angled out a little. See that? And her arms are under her, hands together.”

  “Look, you’re the expert, but if she’s kneeling and he shoots her from behind, the bullet would go in high and come out low, the opposite of what we have here.”

  “Very good. So what conclusion do you draw from that?”

  “I don’t know. Just tell me.”

  “Okay. She’s kneeling. Look at the picture. Hands together, no sign of them being tied, and—this is the good part—she has her head bowed. She’s praying. Bang, bullet in here, out there.”

  “She’s praying?”

  “That’s what it looks like. For mercy, for release, for her killer perhaps.”

  Praying, for god’s sake—yes, for God’s sake, indeed. That ought to pop loose some resources. The scenario worked. It had to be. A poor woman kneeling and praying to her god and he blows her away, the son of a….“Get me the conf
irmation on the ID,” Ledezma snapped, “pronto. And give me your best guess on the caliber of the gun.”

  Ledezma almost ran to the door, his cell phone out and to his ear.

  “I need a team of divers,” he said. “Yes, today. Okay, tomorrow. And metal detectors, the kind that work under water.” The door’s glass rattled dangerously as it banged shut behind him.

  “He didn’t ask me about the canvas,” the ME said. He frowned and moved the bones forming the left ring finger over to the right. “He should have asked me about the canvas.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Frank woke up feeling like Conan the Barbarian spent the night rampaging around in his skull. He still wore his slacks. He’d shed his coat, shirt, and tie and they lay in a heap on the floor. He shook his head and sat up. Somewhere downstairs he heard his grandchildren arguing. The aroma of bacon and coffee filled the room. Sunday morning breakfast, the meal that surviving the week made worthwhile. The trick this morning was to survive waking up. He pulled on a sweater, made a quick trip to the bathroom and went downstairs. His daughter looked at him like he was three-day-old fish.

  “Good morning,” he said, ignoring the look. She mumbled something he couldn’t make out.

  “What are we going to do today?” Tooth asked.

  “You’re not supposed to ask,” his brother said and punched him on the arm.

  “Ow. Mom, Jesse punched me.”

  “Jesse, stop punching your brother.” A mother’s reflex.

  “Can you take us to the ball game?” Tooth asked and this time managed to avoid his brother’s fist.

  “What time?” Frank asked. A ball game might be just the thing. Would Rosemary go? Why did he care if she did or didn’t?

  “Three o’clock.”

  “Let me make a call first, but yeah, we can go to the game.”

  “Yay,” Tooth cheered.

  “Not so fast,” his mother said. Her tone sounded ominous. “I need to talk to your grandfather first.”

  Tooth scowled. “But—”

  “No buts. Go get ready for church—now.”

  The kids scuffled out of the room, leaving the field clear for whatever major engagement their mother had in mind.

  “Dad, it’s none of my business, but where were you last night?”

  “You’re right, it’s none of your business. Look, if I’m in your way here, I’ll move out. The plan was for me to leave today, anyway. I can still do that. Solving the school’s mystery can be left to someone else. Or, I can move into a motel.” His head still throbbed. If it hadn’t, he might have been a little more civil. But he was beginning to resent his daughter’s insistence he be treated like a naughty boy.

  “Or move in with Mrs. Mitchell?”

  Frank studied his daughter. He supposed she had a right to be upset, what with her mother’s whereabouts still in limbo, but she should also know her limits.

  “I don’t have any plans to cohabit with Mrs. Mitchell,” he said, his voice hovering on the thin edge of anger. “If I had, I wouldn’t have come home last night at all, if you must know. I’ll get a motel room. That way, you won’t have to worry about what time I go to bed.”

  “Or with whom.”

  It was his turn to give her a look. Their eyes locked for a moment and then, feeling foolish, he started to leave the room.

  “You haven’t eaten your breakfast,” she said.

  “No. Thanks, anyway. I’ll be out of your hair in an hour or so.” He left.

  “Grandpa, are we going to the game?”

  “Not this trip, guys. Sorry.”

  Frank went to his room and rummaged in his coat pocket for his cell phone, retrieved it, and called Rosemary. Sometime during the past two days her number had made it into his speed dial program.

  “Hi. I seem to have your car in my daughter’s driveway.”

  “No problem. I hoped you’d take it. I worry about you.”

  “I’m flattered but I’m fine. Look, I need to get the car back to you and then I want to book into a motel while I work on this project for Scott.”

  “We.”

  “What?”

  “While we work on the project for Scott. Nick and Nora, remember? And why a motel? Why aren’t you staying with your daughter?”

  “Long story. How about I pick you up—”

  “And take me to church and to lunch afterward?”

  “Ah…well, why not. In an hour?”

  “Yes.”

  He hung up and called his home number, entered his code, and listened to the messages in his voice mail. The fifth and last changed the expression of bored attention to concentration. He frowned, pushed the appropriate button, and listened again.

  Important I speak to you as soon as possible. There’s been a development. Call me.

  Frank knew the number but hesitated. What kind of development? What had Ledezma turned up now? No need to get panicky, at least not yet. They didn’t know where he was, and until he knew what had developed, they wouldn’t. He snapped the phone shut and began making a pile of his clothes on the bed.

  “Dad?” Barbara stood in the door, hands clasped, face worried. “I’m sorry. I spoke out of turn. I didn’t want to upset you. I…please don’t feel you have to go.”

  “It’s for the best, Barbara. I love you, but you and I are not going to stay friends very much longer if I remain here. And anyway, there is a hotel near Scott. Then I won’t need a car, see. I can walk to the school to ask my questions. It’s near the Metro, too, so I can get downtown if I have to, and I have a ride if I need one.” He saw the momentary flash in her eyes and realized he should have skipped the last part.

  She sighed and nodded. “You don’t have to, you know. Really, I feel bad about this…the ball game—”

  “I’d still like to take them, if that’s okay,” he said.

  She nodded again, searched his face, and then retreated back into the hall. He listened until her footsteps faded out of earshot. He redialed Rosemary.

  “Church, lunch, then to the ball park with not one, not two, but three handsome men—one old coot and two rather dashing youths. Suit you?”

  “It’ll be like a tea dance at the Naval Academy, so many men, so little time.”

  ***

  Sunday. Against his better judgment Brad made up his mind to go to the woods. He reckoned nobody would be around, at least not in the morning. He hadn’t set foot in the woods since his return to Scott, but now it called to him, tugged at him, sirens singing from the rocks on some mythic shore. He tried to remember his mythology. Who were the sirens and who called whom? Jason and the Argonauts? What happened to them? He thought he remembered something about ear wax but couldn’t be sure. Or maybe it was Odysseus.

  He showered and dressed. Judith still lay sprawled across their bed in the same position he’d left her the night before. He watched as a fly landed on her shoulder and started a pilgrimage across her chest. She brushed it away without waking. He rearranged the sheets again. In the raw morning light, she didn’t look quite as alluring, quite as desirable.

  He made himself a cup of instant coffee and two slices of toast, slathering a glob of peanut butter on each. He stalled, picked up the Sunday paper, thought about reading. He stared at the wall, drummed his fingers. Then he realized if he didn’t go soon, before his wife woke, he wouldn’t go at all. He swallowed the last of his coffee, made a face, walked down the steps to the basement, and slipped out the sliding glass door.

  It took him ten minutes to walk down the hill and into the woods. Ten minutes in real time, a quarter of a century in his mind. He hesitated, and then plunged in, afraid he might be sick, afraid of what he might remember, but mostly, just afraid.

  ***

  The ME stared at the skeleton spread out on the table. He had a clipboard in his hand and checked off items as he counted. Early desert sunlight filled the dingy room, etching the peeling iron rafters with unforgiving light. He needed to be absolutely sure. In his world, every detail co
unted. Now cops, he thought, cops would skip over things. “Not important,” they’d say, “just give me the big picture,” they’d say, and then they would miss one small thing and some bad guy would stay on the street to kill again. This guy, Ledezma, impulsive, always in a hurry, can’t wait. Like some TV cop, “Just the facts, ma’am.” And he never asked the right questions,

  He scratched his bald spot with latex-gloved fingers, pulled his eyebrows together to squint at the bones again. Only three bones, some phalanges, interested him now. Left or right ring finger? He picked them up, one by one, and replaced them. He checked the articular facets of the adjoining carpel bone just to be sure. Definitely the right hand. He would check with the state’s forensic anthropologist to be sure, but he felt absolutely certain he had it right.

  “I guess she wasn’t praying after all,” he said and made a note on the clipboard.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Rosemary swung the car into the hotel’s portico. No eager bellman leapt to open the door or handle luggage. Frank had spent the trip from the ball park looking at her out of the corner of his eye. He thought she looked tired. The lines on her face were deepened with fatigue. Her face had also started to turn pink from the sun—except around her eyes where she’d worn sunglasses. The heretofore missing freckles had finally surfaced. In an hour she would look like a reversed-out panda. “Frank, is it okay if I just drop you off? I am exhausted. Too much fresh air, too many hot dogs, and too much fun for this old lady to take in, in one day.”

  “Not old, Rosemary. Old is like—for castles. Old is for sea tortoises, old is for Methuselah. Do you know how they describe a used Mercedes in my part of the world? Experienced, not used, not old, but experienced. That’s us. We’re not old, we’re just experienced.”