on some gal, and she bit him.”
One of the detectives let slip a snort of laughter, hastily stifled. Roan said dryly, “Yeah, that sounds about like Jase. You said a couple of things. What else?”
The doctor turned away from the table and gestured for the others to follow as he moved to some articles of clothing spread out on a stainless-steel countertop. He paused in front of the light gray Western-style shirt that was liberally soaked with blood, shifting to allow Roan and the SCU guys to move in close. He pointed, careful not to touch. “Okay, this is interesting—there’s some blood here on the left sleeve—see that? Now…look at the way he went down. Fell backward, arms went straight out, right? Never came in contact with either of his wounds.”
One of the state detectives—Kurt Ruger—cleared his throat and frowned. “Spatter, maybe?”
The doctor shook his head. “It’s a smear, not a spatter. And it’s on the back side of the sleeve. Again, the way he fell, there’s no way spatter would’ve hit there. No…look here. Think about it. What do you do when you get hit in the nose or mouth, and you’re bleeding? You wipe with your sleeve, right?” He demonstrated. “That puts a smear right about where this one is.”
“Okay, so he got his lip bit and wiped the blood on his sleeve.” Roger Fry sounded as if he wanted to add, “So what?”
Roan waited. He knew Doc better than the two newcomers did, well enough to know he wasn’t finished.
Salazar took a breath, threw the three lawmen an expectant look, and backed up a step. “Okay. Now look at his other sleeve. The right one. You got more blood smears here, see? But on the inside this time. Now, you try wiping your mouth with that part of your sleeve.” Again he demonstrated. “It’s awkward—unnatural. You’d have to really twist your arm to put a blood stain where this one is. Anyway, I thought that seemed odd, so…I tested it.” He paused, eyes gleaming. “Just a preliminary, so far, but I’ll tell you this, it doesn’t match Jason’s blood type. And something else. It’s female.”
Roan felt a chill go down his spine, but he kept his arms folded and said mildly, “You got a scenario in mind, Doc?”
The coroner nodded. “If I may…Detective…Ruger, is it? Mind if I borrow you for just a second?”
The muscular blond cop half grinned and lifted a wary eyebrow in his partner’s direction, but allowed himself to be maneuvered into an awkward sort of embrace with the slightly built ME, who narrated as he demonstrated.
“Okay, I’ve just been bitten by this lady, right? What’s my first reaction gonna be? If I’m the sort of guy to force myself on a woman to begin with, I’m probably gonna strike back.” The doctor doubled up a fist and grazed Ruger’s square chin with it, as Ruger obligingly offered a falsetto squeal of pain. “So, I smack you a good one,” Salazar went on. “Your mouth is bleeding, too, now. But that’s not enough for me, I’m good and riled up, not to mention intoxicated—”
“Is that theory, Doc, or fact?”
Salazar jerked Roan a look over his shoulder. “Fact—blood alcohol level was way up there. Anyway, now I’m really gonna get rough with this lady. Something like this…” Turning his demo partner around, he placed his right arm across the detective’s broad chest. “Now, she’s gonna be struggling, trying to get loose, so I tighten my hold, pull my arm higher, up to her neck…like this, see? And my sleeve brushes across her mouth—or anyway, the blood from it.” He let go of Ruger and held up his right arm, pointing to the wrist in triumph. “Voila! Right there, and that’s just where you see that smear on the victim’s sleeve.” The ME subsided, looking expectantly from one member of his audience to another.
Roan and the two SCU detectives looked back at him, not saying anything for a moment or two, none of them smiling. Then Fry pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, gave a small cough and said what they were all thinking.
“So, are we thinking rape, here?”
Roan dragged a hand over his face and let out a breath. Ruger glanced at him, eyebrows raised. “Hey, if the victim raped somebody—or tried to—and got shot in the process, that makes it self-defense, maybe.” He shrugged and looked doubtful. “I don’t know if the senator is going to buy that, though.”
A vision of that crime scene flashed into Roan’s head in full living color: Jason Holbrook stretched our flat on his back in his driveway beside his brand new Chevy truck, a third eye, bloody and black, in the middle of his forehead. He shook his head, but didn’t say anything. Too soon, he told himself, to be jumping to any conclusions.
He knew one thing, though. Whoever had shot Jason Holbrook, man or woman, it hadn’t been self-defense, not in the legal sense, anyway. It had been more like an execution.
“Strange, though,” Salazar continued in a musing tone, peering interestedly down at the body, “she puts her ‘take that’ shot here, in his heart. Most women…uh, payback for rape…I’d think they’d aim farther south…” He pointed delicately at the part of the body modestly concealed beneath the drape and lifted his sharp black eyes to Roan. “Know what I mean?”
Chapter 2
It was half past eight when Roan walked into Buster’s Last Stand Saloon, which put it right about the time family dinner hour would be finishing up. He’d learned this was the best time to catch the regular crowd of Friday-night drinkers, just when they were starting to get their tongues loosened up but before they’d quit making any kind of sense at all.
He and the two SCU detectives had agreed Roan should be the one to question the victim’s last-known associates, since it stood to reason locals were more likely to open up to one of their own. Ruger and Fry had drawn straws to see who’d get the honor of driving to the airport in Billings to meet the senator’s plane. Ruger lost, so that left Fry to accompany the victim’s clothing and vehicle to the state crime lab in Helena.
The state detectives were nice enough guys, Roan allowed, easy to get along with and willing to let him take the lead in the case. No doubt they did know their stuff. Still, he was just as glad to have them out of his way, even though he’d been the one to call them in on the case in the first place. Which, to be honest, he’d done mainly because he knew the first thing Clifford Holbrook would want to know when his feet hit the tarmac in Billings was whether Roan had called in the big guns from state yet. Roan didn’t take it personally; the senator’d most likely be wanting to call in the FBI, the CIA and Homeland Security, too, if he could think of an excuse to do it.
However, Roan figured he was smart enough to know and man enough to admit when he was in over his head, and also confident enough to know when he wasn’t. In this case, the victim’s father might be a national figure, but the crime looked to be down-home local. The fact was, someone in this town—his town—had shot Jason Holbrook, most likely someone Roan knew well, somebody he’d spoken to, looked in the eye, maybe even gone to school with, played baseball with…or danced with, he thought, remembering that female blood evidence on the vic’s shirt sleeve.
Why do I keep calling him the vic? His name was Jason. Jason Holbrook. The guy was a bully and a sonofabitch—maybe even a rapist—but he was also my brother.
Buster Dalton, the owner of the Last Stand Saloon, was where he could be found most nights after the dinner hour—behind the bar, riding herd on his regular drinking customers. When there wasn’t a rodeo in town, Buster ran a fairly tight ship, and since he topped out at six four and 350 pounds—and looked even bigger
