Known Dead (12 page)

‘‘Sure.’’ Hester half squinted. ‘‘Let’s see, then one shooter was above . . . but according to the diagram was maybe less than a foot higher?’’

‘‘Close enough,’’ said Dr. Peters. ‘‘The ground measurements place the, oh, geographical I suppose, height of the shooter about five to six inches above the target location. If the shooter was taller, a foot could be right. We only have an angle of a few degrees.’’

‘‘How much taller?’’ I asked.

‘‘Well,’’ chuckled Dr. Peters, ‘‘that’s not an easy one. There’s just such a variety of shapes involved in the human body . . . but unless the shooter was deformed,’’ he continued, ‘‘I’d say he was probably four inches taller than little Mr. Phelps here.’’

‘‘Ballpark taller?’’ asked Hester.

‘‘Ballpark taller,’’ said Dr. Peters. ‘‘But fairly reliable. The ground there isn’t quite level. Let’s say about fivenine or five-ten.’’ He looked at me. ‘‘And fairly strong.’’

I looked at Dr. Peters with my eyebrows raised, over the top of my reading glasses. He was waiting for that.

‘‘Not much rise from the recoil. First round hits just below and to the right of the victim’s navel, really, and they travel upward and to the shooter’s left. But not much. Last one entered in the torso just below the victim’s right collarbone. Mean distance of about eleven inches, but a rise of about nine.’’ He paused for a second. ‘‘The principal head wound would, initially, appear to have come from above, but I feel that it, along with at least one of the others, was made while the victim’s body was folding at the waist, as it traveled backward. This would place the head slightly down in relation to the trajectories of the bullets. That explains why the round entered about the middle of the forehead, and exited at just about the external occipital protuberance . . . the bump near the base of the skull,’’ he added hastily.

‘‘All from the first shooter’s POV,’’ stated Hester.

‘‘Right.’’

‘‘Depending on the range . . .’’

‘‘Depending on the range, Carl. Twenty-seven and some-odd feet.’’

‘‘So the muzzle rose?’’

‘‘Just a few inches.’’

‘‘Full auto?’’ asked Hester, just before I did.

‘‘Absolutely,’’ said Dr. Peters. ‘‘Then the second shooter, probably from that location just behind the first one, and to the right as you look at it, fired at least twice. Once into the lower chest, and once into the head. Hard one to find,’’ he said, smiling, ‘‘but there was just a little notch on the right side of Mr. Phelps’s head, where the skull had been blown apart by the head shot delivered by the first shooter. The second one came in at an angle, and left just about a perfect semicircular notch in the edge of the first wound.’’ He took a sip of coffee. ‘‘Judging from the size of the semicircle, it was probably a 7.62 mm round. Just too big for a 5.56, as far as I’m concerned. Even assuming an angle of some sort . . .’’

‘‘And just for the record,’’ asked Hester, ‘‘how do we know this?’’

Dr. Peters leaned back in his chair and reached for a doughnut. ‘‘Let me count the ways.’’ He grinned. This really was one of his favorite things.

‘‘First,’’ he said, talking around his first bite of doughnut, ‘‘we have the fact that Phelps’s shotgun was discharged, and in the general direction of the shooter. From the severed leaves that you, Hester, pointed out to me at the scene, we know it was discharged upward but below a forty-five-degree angle.’’ He reached for his coffee cup. ‘‘That tells me that our Mr. Phelps observed either one shooter or something suspicious just before he fired his shotgun. The officer who saw him, and survived, can’t remember, but thinks Phelps carried the shotgun in his right hand, roughly parallel to the ground, when he saw him. If that’s the case, and the shotgun was discharged a few seconds later, it’s reasonable to believe that Phelps probably brought the gun to his waist level before firing.’’ He sipped his coffee. ‘‘If he’d brought it to his shoulder, he probably would have discharged it at a much shallower angle.’’

Logic. Logic and medical knowledge, and physics, and ballistics, and logic again. Peters was really good at this, and I enjoyed just listening to him.

‘‘Toxicology,’’ said Dr. Peters, changing gears, ‘‘shows that our man Phelps had some THC in his system. Tests on his blood, brain tissue, urine, liver tissue, spinal fluid, and vitreous fluid indicate THC levels of about . . .’’ He looked at his file. ‘‘Umm, four hundred ten nanograms per milliliter of 11-nor-9-carboxy-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol.’’ He took another sip. ‘‘A buzz, more or less, from smoking a joint, but not incapacitated by any means. Perhaps slightly slower reactions and perceptions.’’ He grinned. ‘‘Slower, but happier.’’

‘‘Okay,’’ I said.

‘‘So,’’ he continued, ‘‘Phelps sees the shooter. In time to start bringing his gun up. The shooter and Phelps fire, at nearly the same time. By Johansen’s account the shotgun probably fired first. Phelps was likely startled. He certainly wasn’t sufficiently intoxicated to have it affect his aim to that degree.’’

Another bite of doughnut found its way into my mouth. Chalk it up to enthralled.

‘‘The first shooter, who is now under attack, fires a burst, which hits Howie just about dead center. The combination of the sound, the flash, and the impacts tend to have Howie Phelps thrown back by his own reflexes, assisted by the impact of the rounds.’’ He took a long swig of coffee this time. ‘‘All of which, by the way, struck the victim while he was more or less erect.’’

Aha! Cool.

‘‘And he would have remained erect . . . ?’’ asked Hester.

‘‘Not much longer than a second, if that,’’ said Dr. Peters.

‘‘Five rounds in a second,’’ I said.

‘‘Less than a second, most likely,’’ said Dr. Peters. ‘‘About as fully automatic as you get.’’

‘‘Sure.’’

‘‘And,’’ he said, ‘‘the pattern of the projectile strikes are consistent with full auto. As was the distribution of spent cartridge cases.’’

Hester grinned.

So did Dr. Peters. ‘‘Making Hester correct in her on-scene analysis.’’

‘‘Once again,’’ said Hester.

Dr. Peters barked out a laugh. ‘‘Well, at least, not for the first time.’’

‘‘Let me interject something here,’’ I said.

‘‘Go right ahead,’’ said Dr. Peters.

I told him about my observations at the crime scene. About my theory that the shooters were hunting the cops, and not Howie. About how Howie’s presence had been a factor that was not predictable by either the shooters or the cops, and how Howie had prematurely triggered what I thought was an ambush for the officers.

Dr. Peters thought about that for a second.

‘‘I had a little experience in my Army days with that sort of thing. I think you’re absolutely right. Advancing to contact,’’ he muttered. ‘‘Quite reasonable.’’

I had been browsing the autopsy photographs as Dr. Peters was talking. ‘‘Can you tell the caliber of the rounds from the wounds or debris?’’

‘‘Ah . . .’’ Dr. Peters reached behind his chair and pulled out a manila envelope that measured something like a yard on a side. He pulled out a series of huge X-ray films. ‘‘Phelps. Let’s get these up to the light,’’ he said, promptly hanging them on a bank of X-ray viewing panels, and flipping the switch. Flash, blink, and we had our X-rays.

‘‘See the debris fields on this one,’’ he asked, ‘‘what we call the ‘snowstorm’ field?’’

I could. There were what appeared to be hundreds of particles scattered in rough fan shapes, widening toward the back of the body. Some were relatively large, most minute. Some were hazy, and I knew that those were very small particles of nearly vaporized bone. One large object caught my eye.

‘‘This,’’ I said, rising half out of my chair and stretching out my hand with my pen extended. ‘‘This looks like part of a jacket . . .’’

‘‘Good eye,’’ said Dr. Peters. ‘‘You overweight people concentrate so well.’’

‘‘Hey!’’ I said. ‘‘You brought the doughnuts!’’

‘‘For your concentration,’’ he said, grinning. ‘‘Works with him every time,’’ he said to Hester.

‘‘I wish he’d had one before he lost his raincoat,’’ she said.

Dr. Peters pushed another doughnut toward me. ‘‘You might need this,’’ he said. ‘‘What that is, is part of a metal jacket from a projectile. Fortuitously, it contains the imprint of the tail of the round. A small, circular impression. It’s at the DCI lab now,’’ he added. ‘‘What was nice about it was that it wasn’t steel. Copper. Seemed to be a ‘boat tail’ round, as the diameter was slightly less than 7.62 mm. Commercial, probably a semijacketed soft point, judging from the jacket and the exit wound, which appears to have been the largest of the group. Which leads to another interesting point . . .’’

‘‘Mmmph?’’ I asked. Concentrating.

‘‘This isn’t the only round that struck the spinal column, as you can see. But the other one which did, here,’’ he said, pointing, ‘‘didn’t fragment the projectile at all, and left a rather neat, or at least relatively neat, exit wound, associated with tumble, but not with significant deformation.’’

‘‘Which means?’’ asked Hester.

‘‘Well,’’ said Dr. Peters, ‘‘I believe that the others may have been standard steel-jacketed military rounds, possibly manufactured in a Warsaw Pact country, exported, and mixed locally with commercial ammunition.’’

Well, like, wow.

‘‘How did you know that?’’ I bit.

‘‘Well, mostly from the printing on the recovered ammunition boxes,’’ said Dr. Peters with a laugh. ‘‘But it
is
consistent with the rest of it.’’

I just love it when he does that.

‘‘Nice,’’ said Hester.

Dr. Peters nodded, smiling.

‘‘A matchup with the cardboard ammunition boxes that we found,’’ I said.

‘‘Exactly.’’

‘‘So,’’ I said, ‘‘the shooter mixed his ammunition in his magazine.’’

‘‘Specialists do that,’’ said Hester.

‘‘So do people who can’t afford a lot of ammo,’’ I answered.

We were quiet for a moment. I believe all of us were beginning to conjure up a picture of the shooter.

‘‘Shall we do Officer Kellerman?’’ asked Dr. Peters.

‘‘Sure,’’ I said.

‘‘Right. Well, here we have something a little different,’’ said Dr. Peters, opening the binder on Kellerman. ‘‘For one thing, as we already knew the day of the shooting, he’s struck by projectiles of two different calibers. Two of them 7.62 mm and three 5.56 mm.’’

‘‘You said as much that day, yes,’’ said Hester.

‘‘So,’’ said Dr. Peters, ‘‘likely two shooters.’’ He looked up from his binder. ‘‘Because of the deformation, which we’ll get to in a minute, there will remain a possibility, however remote, of a third shooter. I don’t believe so, but in court this must be considered.’’

‘‘Understood,’’ said Hester.

‘‘It appears,’’ said Dr. Peters, pushing a copy of his autopsy diagrams toward each of us, ‘‘that the rounds struck at virtually the same time, from two slightly different directions.’’

We looked at the diagrams.

‘‘On the sheets there,’’ he said, ‘‘they’re numbered one through five. Two and five are the 7.62 mm rounds. They’ve come from what I believe are the shooters of Arthur Phelps, although, since Officer Kellerman was moved during the engagement, I can’t be positive.’’ He flipped through his notes. ‘‘Right, now one, three, and four are 5.56 mm, I believe. That shooter was to the left of the other shooter, and was firing, I believe, from the position Hester labeled as ‘three’ at the scene. Placing him also to the rear of the first shooter by about fifteen yards.’’

‘‘That would be about right,’’ said Hester. ‘‘And just a bit higher up-slope.’’

‘‘Yes,’’ said Dr. Peters. ‘‘Now, these projectiles strike at a slightly different angle in the horizontal plane, but without noticeable difference in the vertical. That’s one of the main reasons I think they were fired virtually simultaneously with the 7.62 mm rounds.’’

He reached back and pulled out a second envelope of X-rays. Dr. Peters hung them in place of the Phelps pictures.

‘‘One of the main problems here,’’ said Dr. Peters, ‘‘is that Officer Kellerman was wearing a Kevlar ballistic vest. All that accomplished, with the type of rifle involved, was to deform the projectiles
before
they actually came into contact with his body. So,’’ he sighed, ‘‘the entry wounds weren’t the neat little round holes they were on Mr. Phelps. In fact,’’ he said, ‘‘they were already beginning to tumble, as well as being deformed. As a consequence, the path of the bullets to the point of exit was not exactly straight.’’

In looking at the X-rays, it was pretty easy to see what he was talking about. There were fragments, particles, missing rib sections, and debris paths that seemed to diverge from each other. It was really weird.

‘‘Four of the five rounds,’’ said Dr. Peters, ‘‘penetrated the front panel of the vest, transected the victim, and exited through the rear panel of the vest. Or, at least, the most massive fragments did.’’ He pointed at a white blob on the X-ray. ‘‘This little bastard,’’ he said, ‘‘was one of the 5.56 mm rounds, and it tumbled enough to strike the rear panel of the vest in a flat attitude, with the long axis of the projectile being parallel with the plane of the vest.’’ He looked up. ‘‘It slapped the rear panel, flattened the round, but it stayed inside the nylon shell.’’

He pushed a photograph of a badly deformed bullet toward us. ‘‘This is the one. I sent it to the lab. But you can see that it’s almost intact. Remarkable, if you think about it.’’

He was right. But it had also hit the back of the vest hard enough to have imprinted the weave of the Kevlar onto the bullet.

‘‘The jacket’s peeled off this one, isn’t it?’’ I asked.

‘‘Yes, but, unlike the one in Mr. Phelps, this jacket has come apart in so many pieces that they’re not distinguishable visually. A metallurgist, perhaps . . .’’

‘‘Oh.’’

‘‘And, unfortunately, the fragments in Officer Kellerman and in his vest are ballistically worthless. At least from an identification point of view. You could never match them to the weapon that fired them.’’

Well, I hadn’t really expected that they’d be worth much. But they were able to be used to tell the caliber, which was something.

‘‘So,’’ I said, ‘‘we have two shooters.’’