The Edge, page 5
“Drug overdoses,” replied Guillaume immediately.
“Specifically, that fentanyl shit,” growled Harper.
Guillaume nodded. “It’s blowing up the OCME’s budget. Full autopsy and full tox and blood workups are not cheap. They’re building a new OCME facility in Augusta with more capacity, but it’ll be a while before it’s online. We used to only fully autopsy for those cases necessary for criminal prosecution, or unexpected deaths in people under fifty-five or where there’s a public safety concern like an infectious disease. But now, because of the fentanyl crisis, the decision has been made to fully autopsy all decedents under age thirty if there is any question as to cause of death. But with, say, a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head, we’re not going to autopsy. Jenny was otherwise in remarkable physical shape, probably would’ve lived to be a hundred.”
“Time of death?” asked Devine as he watched Harper and Fuss watch him.
“Between nine and eleven p.m. on the night she was found.”
“You’re comfortable with that window?” asked Devine.
“The deputy ME was, and I concurred. Your ME signed off on it, too. It’s not just based on forensics, but also the time window from when she was last seen alive and then found dead.”
“I understand a military ammo casing was found at the scene?”
Harper answered. “A ‘federal’ round. You think one of her own killed her?”
When Devine looked at him, the man’s expression was mocking, and Devine had to fight back the urge to voice his displeasure at the comment.
“Early days yet,” replied Devine. “Can you describe more fully the damage you saw in the wound track?”
“It was substantial,” said Guillaume.
“Define substantial.”
She looked a bit put out by this query.
“I’m not trying to be a jerk,” said Devine. “But a .300 Norma Magnum round is a high-velocity ordnance with a heavy load. It’ll drop large game with no problem.”
“You doubt the casing we found matches the bullet that hit her?” said Harper.
“Since the actual round was not found, I’m just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.” He looked expectantly at Guillaume.
“I would say that a high-velocity round was indeed used. The kinetic energy was substantial, as was the exit wound, where, as I already showed you, there was a large amount of bone and tissue extruded from the wound. The bullet was not a dumdum, because there was no evidence of mushrooming in the wound track. It went pretty much straight through her head and out the rear.”
“Then maybe a full metal-jacketed, or ball round, as the military often refers to it?” said Devine.
“It’s certainly possible.”
“What does that matter?” asked Fuss. She looked genuinely curious.
Devine said, “Most NATO military forces only use FMJ—or full metal-jacketed—ammo because of a Hague Convention international treaty signed well over a century ago. They banned the use of expanding bullets, even though FMJs have a greater risk of hitting unintended targets. Mushrooms tend to stay in the body. That’s why cops all around the world use dumdum ammo, because they put the target down with little risk of doing damage to nontargets.”
Guillaume interjected, “But the tumbling effect does catastrophic damage to the target.”
Devine continued, “The U.S. never ratified the treaty, but they’ve followed it, mostly. However, the Army now uses hollow points in some of their ammo chains. Sidearms and the like. The Hague treaty only applies to wartime—but let’s face it, the landscape of war has changed. It’s more like urban and rural street fighting rather than big armies going at each other over far-flung, isolated ground.”
Harper looked at Guillaume. “So just to be clear, Jenny was not shot by a dumdum? But by something that would include this .300 Norma round?”
“Correct,” said Guillaume. “I believe I already said that.”
Harper looked triumphantly at Devine. “Satisfied?”
“For now. Did she see anyone while she was up here? Her sister or brother?”
“We don’t know,” said Harper. “Leastways about Alex and Dak.”
“You haven’t spoken to them after all this time?” said Devine. He might not be an experienced investigator, but he knew the importance of collecting statements from persons of interest as quickly as possible because memories rapidly faded or became distorted. Or stories could be made up, practiced, and falsely corroborated.
“They’re grieving,” replied Fuss. “We’ll talk to them at the appropriate time. It’s how we do things up here.”
Devine glanced at Guillaume, who was staring at him as though awaiting his response to this professional slap.
“Okay, did you manage to talk to anyone else who wasn’t grieving?” Devine asked, his ire rising and uncomfortably so.
Dial it back, Travis—you have to work with these folks.
“A few people saw her around, nothing more than hello,” replied Harper curtly.
“Where was she staying? Jocelyn Point?”
“No,” said Harper. “Putnam Inn. Same place as you. Didn’t you know that?”
Fuss looked like she might start laughing.
Small town, thought Devine. Everybody knows everybody else’s business. Even the outsider’s.
“So she spoke to the owner?”
“Sure, she’s known Pat for years. Nothing of any note though, meaning their conversation. Just ‘hi, how you doing.’ Nothing about why she was up here.”
“Did she say whether Silkwell appeared nervous or out of sorts?”
“No, nothing like that. She visited up here pretty much every year,” said Fuss.
“Did you find anything relevant when you searched her room?” he asked.
Fuss said, “We haven’t searched it.” Before Devine could comment on that she added, “We secured it, taped it off, and waited for you to show up, because that’s what we were ordered to do from the get-go. By your folks.”
Harper didn’t look happy about this, and Devine could hardly blame him. And now he somewhat understood their unfriendly behavior toward him.
“So any idea why Silkwell was in town?” He was holding back what Clare Silkwell had told him—that Jenny was coming here to settle some unfinished business.
“No idea, yet. But like you said, early days,” added Fuss while Guillaume covered the body and then turned away to line up some instruments on a metal table. However, Devine could see from the woman’s tensed manner that she was intently listening to every word.
“Tell me about Earl Palmer, the man who found the body.”
Fuss and Harper exchanged a quick glance that Devine couldn’t readily interpret. And Guillaume’s shoulders had stiffened and then immediately relaxed when Palmer’s name had been mentioned.
Harper took a moment to clear his throat while Fuss looked away. Clearly she was going to let her boss handle this one. “Earl’s lived here his whole life. Retired lobsterman and a damn fine one. His wife, Alberta, died recently. And it rocked him to his core. He’s salt of the earth. And his wife was, too.”
“Okay. How did he happen to discover the body? She died between nine and eleven at night. But I understand that he called the police at one forty-five in the morning. What was he doing out at that hour?”
“Hell, lobstermen, like dairy farmers, don’t really sleep,” scoffed Fuss with a forced grin tacked on. “Even retired ones,” she hastily added when she saw Devine was about to interject.
“Granted, but how did he find the body? I was told it was in an isolated place.”
Harper said, “Earl likes to walk the shoreline. Ever since Bertie—that was what everybody called Alberta—died, he can’t sleep. Just drives around or goes out and walks. He likes to hear the ocean. He spent enough of his life on it to where it’s in his DNA.”
Devine slowly nodded and decided he was going to get no farther on this. “Did Jenny have a rental car?”
“Yep,” offered Fuss.
“Was it found near the crime scene? Did she drive it there?”
“No. It’s back at the Putnam Inn. White two-door Honda, you might have seen it. New York plates.”
Devine had seen such a car there. “So, like the room, have you not searched it yet?”
“Those were our instructions,” said Harper sharply. “Federal instructions.”
“Did anyone see her the night she died?” asked Devine. “Dr. Guillaume mentioned a time window.”
“Pat Kingman saw her walk out of the inn around seven thirty,” said Fuss. “She didn’t see which way she went.”
“How far from there was she found?”
“Three point two miles. I clocked it in the car,” answered Fuss.
“Weather that night?”
“Raining like cats and dogs,” answered Fuss.
Devine shifted his focus to Guillaume. “Anything else I should know? Signs of a struggle? Defensive wounds? Skin of an assailant under her nails? Any other forensic evidence at all?”
“No,” said Guillaume. “Just the casing.”
“Are you still looking for the round?”
Fuss said, “It was heading toward the ocean after it left Jenny’s body. Long gone by now, don’t you think?”
Devine glanced at her and noted the condescending expression. He had seen that look sometimes on superior officers of his, the ones who had been several degrees removed from the actual conditions on the ground, but thought they knew better. He hadn’t liked it then and he didn’t like it now.
“Any luck on tracking down the person she was with?”
“Whoa now, who said she was with anyone?” exclaimed Harper.
“I doubt she walked over three miles in the pouring rain to where she was killed. And she obviously didn’t drive herself.”
A wide-eyed Harper said, “Hell, you think she drove over there with someone?”
“Well, it’s our job to find that out, right? So let’s go to the crime scene.”
When Devine looked at Guillaume, she was giving him a tiny smile. He returned it.
I’ll take any support I can get right now, thought Devine.
It was like he was back in Afghanistan looking for a friendly face.
And I never found many. Let’s hope I do better on American soil.
CHAPTER
9
A LIGHT DRIZZLE WAS FALLING AS Devine followed the pair in the muddy cruiser with a bent front ram bar. Devine knew they would learn little at the crime scene in the darkness. But he needed to get a feel for its structures, its parameters and possibilities.
He had been right in telling Campbell that he was not a trained investigator, but the old general had also been correct in informing Devine not to sell himself short in that regard. He had solved the mystery in New York. But he’d had help, and he’d also allowed himself to get shot. With his own gun! That still hurt his pride.
In the Middle East he had done countless battlefield assessments. The Army documented everything. Battle assessment methodologies, collateral damage assessment, munitions effectiveness, reattack recommendation methodologies, post–campaign operations actions. In this regard they were looking for the smallest clues and telltale signs as to why a combat operation had not gone according to plan or why damage was above expectations. Or how an IED had been able to get close enough to kill its intended target. So his mind was trained to see certain things.
Sometimes things went sideways just due to shitty luck, Devine knew. When many people were gathered in close quarters trying their best to kill one another, there wasn’t a report or methodology in the world that could cover all the possible contingencies or outcomes. Humans under threat of death were just too unpredictable; some turned into cowards, and others into heroes, and still others into both.
Devine had, on numerous occasions, successfully interrogated people he thought were allies and those he knew to be enemies, and found out vital information in most of those cases. He had not done it with brute force, though on occasion he had wanted to as he stared into smug expressions projecting unearned superiority. They were the hardened countenances of people who would do absolutely nothing to help you and absolutely anything to do the opposite to you. He hoped whatever talent he possessed for this sort of work was enough for this case. Campbell seemed to have faith in him, justified or not.
He looked over, and there stood Jocelyn Point like a lighthouse on the coast, only with very little light to offer. Offshore a collection of blackened clouds was gathering and perhaps pondering whether to come onto land and pummel the puny scattering of humans who dwelled there.
A few minutes later the cruiser pulled off to the side of the road, rubber gripping mud, and stopped. Devine slipped his Tahoe in behind and got out.
So she died not that far from her old homestead.
The wind seemed fiercer at this point. He didn’t know if it was due to the approaching storm or some weird topographical feature at this spot. But as he walked up to join the two officers of the law, Devine thought this was a perfectly macabre backdrop for violent death. It was essentially Edgar Allan Poe–esque in its deep sense of potentially sinister intrigue.
He stood there for a few moments and gave a sweeping gaze across the landscape, taking in all points that seemed to him of interest. Fuss held one powerful light, and she produced another from the cruiser and handed it to Devine. He used it to illuminate a stand of scrub pines off to the left. There was also an open field of grass and wild plants that seemed to thrive even in the stark chill. Another stand of deciduous trees was off to the far right, their trunks and naked branches registering as shadows in the dark. Thick, burly bushes were everywhere, with many of them also bereft of leaves.
Devine had been to Maine before on training exercises with the Rangers. He knew it held the highest percentage of wooded land of any state, at nearly ninety percent. And he had become something of an amateur horticulturist, so as to determine the types of trees and bushes for suitable concealment while being shot at or attempting to sneak up on an enemy, as well as what one could safely eat when one’s own food ran out. And which bark and herbs and flowers were viable for treating wounds when there was no more medicine at hand. Thus, he knew the Maine state tree was the eastern white pine, several of which he could see here now. The state flower was the white pinecone.
He eyed his two companions, who were staring resolutely at him.
Time to turn from botany to homicide.
“Where was she found?” he asked.
They led him along a broad, rutted path through the trees and kept going until they reached the end of land.
More than a dozen feet below there was nothing except a shelf of blackened and eroded rocks and boulders that acted as a natural sea wall against the pounding surf. It was close to high tide now, and hard spray from the incoming water meeting this immovable boundary of stone nearly reached them where they stood.
Fuss shone her light on one spot and held it.
“Right about there,” she said.
“The body had fallen from here to there after Jenny was shot,” explained Harper.
Devine looked at where they were all standing and then down at the rocks. “You’re sure that’s what happened? She was shot and then fell down there?”
“Pretty damn sure, yeah. I mean, what else?” said Harper.
“How was the body facing?”
Harper looked at Fuss, who said, “Best as I can remember, head to land and feet out to the ocean. She could’ve flipped over on her way down, since she was shot from the front.”
“Best as you can remember? Didn’t somebody take pictures? Didn’t the feds go over it before the body was moved?”
Fuss barked, “Hell, we couldn’t leave her there. Tide was coming in and there was a storm. She would have been washed out to sea if we waited another minute.”
“But you have pictures, before she was moved?”
“Look, Devine, you weren’t here, okay?” said Fuss. “The water was all over Jenny when we got here. You heard Doc Guillaume. Time of death was between nine and eleven. We didn’t get here until after two in the morning. We had to move fast, real fast. And we’re not CSI. We got one ambulance and two volunteer EMTs in Putnam. I called in everybody I could, including some men I knew from the county with climbing experience to go down there and help bring her up. Before they got here we put a rope around Jenny to keep her from getting swept out. We all got soaked to the skin, and the water was so cold it damn well burned. We had to use a truck with a winch to bring her up, but we did our best to make sure we did as little damage to the body as possible. We didn’t have hours or days to plan this out, we had minutes,” she ended with a bark, her posture all defensive and annoyed.
“Okay, okay,” said Devine. “I get it. Where was the casing found?”
They led him back to a spot that lined up with where Jenny had been shot and gone over the edge. Devine gauged it to be a little over three hundred or so yards from where Jenny had purportedly been shot. There was a cleft in the tree line here with an unobstructed sight line to the edge of the bluff.
On his voicing this opinion on the distance, Fuss told him, “It’s three hundred and twenty-one yards. I measured it myself.”
Devine worked the sight line and trajectory in his head. While officers could not become snipers in the Army, Devine had supervised several teams of snipers and spotters. He was intimately familiar with the weapons and ammo used, the physiological processes involved, and the ballistic calculations that went into ending the life of another human being over substantial distances using a long-barreled rifle and scope. And he came away with the conclusion that things were not making sense. “You’re sure this is the spot?” he asked.
Fuss said angrily, “I marked it myself! We did have the time to work the scene up here. That was where the casing was found and I’ll swear to that in court.”
Devine knew they were upset that the feds were looking over their shoulders and controlling the investigation and the processing of the evidence. But was there something else behind Fuss’s look of vitriol?
