Blood threaded the man’s hair and pooled out around him. The bullets had nearly destroyed his face.
Without warning, Marion’s legs turned rubbery. Her stomach lurched and the sour taste of bile filled the back of her throat. She swallowed and forced herself to remain standing.
Three other men stood in the room. Two of them were deputies. Another wore a plain black suit and a white beard. All of them watched Marion with bright interest.
Since she’d been with the D.A.’s office, Marion had seen the violence people could do to each other. She’d taken statements from families who had lost loved ones in an altercation and from rape victims and domestic abuse victims in the local E.R.s. The hardest investigations had been those involving children. Those still haunted Marion.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” Keller’s voice was quiet and controlled.
Marion started to reply, then thought maybe her voice wasn’t up to the task. She nodded contritely. Even that made her head swim.
The bearded man in the suit studied Marion. He took a cigar from inside his jacket and lit up. He waved the smoke out of his face.
“You runnin’ sightseein’ tours now, Frank?” the man asked.
“Not hardly, Doc. This is Assistant District Attorney Marion Hart. Turnbull sent her over to cover tonight’s festivities.”
“Oh.” The man’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “He sent a woman to something like this?”
Resenting the man’s question and his attitude, Marion took a breath to keep herself in check.
Be calm, Marion told herself. “Who are you?” she asked the man pointedly.
The man smiled. “Takes her job seriously, doesn’t she?”
Marion waited but made no comment.
“I’m Dr. Benjamin Shetterly. I serve as medical examiner for the state of Arizona. I’m here to assume custody of the body.”
Marion wrote the information down. “You were called out to the murder scene?”
“I don’t rely on a crystal ball, if that’s what you mean.”
The two deputies in the background laughed out loud.
Ignoring the sarcasm, Marion asked, “Who called you?”
“Sheriff Keller. He usually does for one of these. And sometimes he calls me for poker night if he’s got an empty chair.”
“You’ve worked murders before?”
“Of course. I’ve logged plenty of court hours on the witness stand.”
Marion wrote that down. Turnbull would probably already be familiar with Doc Shetterly.
“Dr. Shetterly,” Marion said.
“Call me Doc,” the man requested. “Everybody does.”
“Thank you. What can you tell me about the victim?”
Doc flicked ash from his cigarette into a plastic bag in his pocket. “He was shot to death. Close range.”
“How do you know that?”
Shetterly regarded her thoughtfully. “How strong is your stomach?”
“Strong enough.”
A smile thinned Shetterly’s lips. “I guess we could test it then. If you really want to know the answer to that question, come here.”
That’s a challenge. Marion knew the invitation for what it was. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she tried to ignore the stench of fresh death in the room and crossed over to Shetterly’s side. This is what you signed on to do. Get it done.
The coroner took an ink pen from his pocket. Leaning over the dead body, he pointed toward black spots on what was left of the dead man’s face.
“Do you see this?” Shetterly asked.
Marion had a hard time discerning the black spots at first. All she could see was the gory ruin of Marker’s face. Broken ivory bone showed through the crimson pulp. Blood covered the bed sheets.
Not trusting her voice, Marion nodded.
“Those are tiny burns from the muzzleflashes of the murder weapon. When you hold a firearm close enough, when you shoot, it’ll cause those.”
“I’ve seen them before,” Marion said hoarsely.
“Really? Where?” Shetterly seemed immediately interested.
“In classes on physical evidence. Never—” Marion’s voice broke. She sipped a quick breath. “Never in person before.”
Shetterly nodded. “Burns like these generally mean the murder was personal.”
Marion seized on that. “You think Marker knew his killer?”
“I’ve got near a lifetime spent working things like this,” Shetterly said. “Somebody kills this close up, it’s because there’s a lot of emotion involved.”
“It also means the killer wanted to make sure the job was done,” Keller added.
“Was Marker awake when she killed him?” Marion asked.
“That’s hard to answer.” Shetterly moved his face within inches of the dead man’s. He used a stainless steel forceps to sift through the wreckage. The physician breathed out smoke and the gray vapor flushed across the torn and broken flesh. “If he was awake, she didn’t allow him to sit up.”
“How do you know?”
Shetterly slid the dead man’s head over to reveal the ragged mattress below. “I expect we’ll find the bullets in the floor below.”
Marion’s stomach flipped a little. “How many times did she shoot him?”
Keller answered that. “When we took the .357 Magnum off her, all the rounds had been fired.”
Grateful for the chance to turn away from the corpse, Marion looked at the sheriff. “How many rounds does the pistol hold?” She thought she knew, but she wasn’t certain. She didn’t like to assume.
“Six.”
She fired six rounds into a man’s face at point-blank range. Marion tried to imagine what would drive someone to do something like that. She had no idea.
“I think he was awake for a moment,” Shetterly said. “But only just.”
Marion swiveled back to the physician. “Why?”
Lifting the dead man’s left arm, Shetterly indicated the torn flesh across the knuckles. “Those tears are fresh. I think he managed to hit his killer before she killed him.”
Leaning
