Haunted in Death (In Death 22.50)

"Got to her before I could steer him off. Upsets her, you know? He figured he could sweet talk her out of a good chunk for this investment. Get rich deal - always a deal." Now Cliff scrubbed his hands over his face.

"They fight about it?" Eve asked him.

"No. My mother’s done fighting with him. Been done a long time ago. And my father, he doesn’t argue. He… he cajoles. Basically, she told him to come by again when Hell froze over. So he settled for me, on the sly, and the five hundred. He said he’d be in touch when the ball got rolling, but that was just another line. Didn’t matter. It was only five. I don’t know how to feel. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel."

"I can’t tell you, Mr. Gill. Why did you remove Hopkins from your legal name?"

"This place - Gill School of Dance. My mother." He lifted his shoulder, looked a little abashed. "And well, it’s got a rep. Hopkins. It’s just bad luck."

Three

Eve wasn’t surprised MD Morris had snagged Hopkins. Multiple gunshot wounds had to be a happy song and dance for a medical examiner. An interesting change of pace from the stabbings, the bludgeonings, strangulations and overdoses.

Morris, resplendent in a bronze-toned suit under his clear protective cape, his long dark hair in a shining tail, stood over the body with a sunny smile for Eve.

"You send me the most interesting things."

"We do what we can," Eve said. "What can you tell me I don’t already know?"

"Members of one family of the fruit fly are called peacocks because they strut on the fruit."

"Huh. I’ll file that one. Let’s be more specific. What can you tell me about our dead guy?"

"The first four wounds - chest - and the leg wound - fifth - could have been repaired with timely medical intervention. The next severed the spine, the seventh damaged the kidney. Number eight was a slight wound, meaty part of the shoulder. But he was dead by then. The final, close contact, entered the brain, which had already closed down shop."

He gestured to his wall screen, and called up a program. "The first bullets entered at a near level angle."

Morris continued as the graphics played out on-screen. "You see, the computer suggested, and I concur, that the assailant fired four times, rapidly, hitting body mass. The victim fell after the fourth shot."

Eve studied the reenactment as Morris did, noting the graphic of the victim took the first two shots standing, the second two slightly hunched forward in the beginning of a fall.

"Big guy," Peabody commented. "Stumbles back a little, but keeps his feet for the first couple shots. I’ve only seen training and entertainment vids with gun death," she added. "I’d have thought the first shot would slap him down."

"His size, the shock of the impact," Morris said, "and the rapidity of fire would have contributed to the delay in his fall. Again, from the angles by which the bullets entered the body, it’s likely he stumbled back, then lurched forward slightly, then went down - knee, heels of the hand taking the brunt of the fall."

He turned to Eve. "Your report indicated that the blood pattern showed the victim tried to crawl or pull himself away across the floor."

"That’d be right."

"As he did, the assailant followed, firing over and down, according to the angle of the wounds in the back, leg, shoulder."

Eyes narrowed now, Eve studied the computer-generated replay. "Stalking him, firing while he’s down. Bleeding, crawling. You ever shoot a gun, Morris?"

"Actually, no."

"I have," she continued. "Feels interesting in your hand. Gives this little kick when it fires. Makes you part of it, that little

jolt. Runs through you. I’m betting the killer was juiced on that. The jolt, the bang! Gotta be juiced to put more missiles into a guy who’s crawling away, leaving his blood smeared on the floor."

"People always find creative and ugly ways to kill. I’d have said using a gun makes the kill less personal. But it doesn’t feel that way in this case."

She nodded. "Yeah, this was personal, almost intimate. The ninth shot in particular."

"For the head shot, the victim - who as you say had considerable girth - had to be shoved or rolled over. At that time, the gun was pressed to the forehead. There’s not only burning and residue, but a circular bruising pattern. When I’m able to compare it, I’m betting my share that it matches the dimensions of the gun barrel. The killer pressed the gun down into the forehead before he fired."

"See how you like that, you bastard," Eve murmured.

"Yes, indeed. Other than being riddled with bullets, your vic was in reasonably good health, despite being about twenty pounds overweight. He dyed his hair, had an eye and chin tuck within the last five years. He’d last eaten about two hours prior to death. Soy chips, sour pickles, processed cheese, washed down with domestic beer."