Текст книги "Beach Strip"

Автор книги: John Lawrence Reynolds

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

14.

I had avoided reading newspapers since Gabe’s death, but over the next three days I scanned them for news about Wayne Weaver Honeysett. The first day’s coverage reported that a man’s body had been found beneath the lift bridge and police were investigating it as either a suicide or homicide. What was the other option? Natural causes? The victim’s identity would not be released until his next of kin had been notified, but he was believed to have been a resident of the beach strip.

The following day, the newspaper carried a much smaller story, saying only that the police were investigating the possibility of foul play in the death of the man found beneath the lift bridge on the beach strip. “Foul play”? It sounded like something an announcer might say when covering a baseball game on television. Crushing a man’s head to the thickness of a sheet of paper was well beyond “foul,” no matter how it happened.

That evening, it rained in the manner that told me summer was on its way back home to Florida. It wasn’t the soft, warm rain of an August afternoon, but the hard, cold rain of a September night, arriving early and unwelcomed.

The rain and cool weather made me feel desperate enough to call Tina. Her husband, Andrew, answered. Most men named Andrew are called, at some point in their lives, Andy or perhaps Drew. Andrew is always called Andrew, except, I assume, when he is called Dr. Golden.

Andrew informed me that Tina was either shopping or visiting the anthropology museum, and he said it with a total absence of irony in his voice. These two activities, after all, bookended the values of Tina’s life: either filling her head with things to talk about at bridge parties or filling her closet with Prada to wear to the bridge parties.

Andrew told me he was very sorry to hear about Gabe, whose company he said he had always liked, which struck me as an unnecessary and unusual thing to say, then promised to inform Tina of my call “the minute she returns.” Dr. Andrew Golden, I suspected, had the bedside manner of a kitchen appliance.

Minutes after I hung up the telephone, the damn thing rang again, and I assumed that Appliance Andy had contacted Tina on her mobile phone and she was calling me back. On a silly impulse I picked up the telephone and said, “So what’d you buy me?”

Instead of hearing Tina’s giggle, followed by a shopping list, I heard a male voice with a distinctive leer in it saying, “What would you like?” I know a leer is a facial expression and you’re not supposed to be able to hear one, but the leer was definitely there.

Naturally I asked who it was.

“Who would you like it to be?” the voice asked.

Damn. Get rid of one pervert and another takes his place.

I hung up the telephone. It didn’t ring again. Not even from Tina.

The following day, a story in the newspaper confirmed that the man whose body had been found beneath the lift bridge had been Wayne Weaver Honeysett, a former jeweller and prominent businessman who had suffered from depression since the collapse of his once-thriving business and the death of his wife. His two daughters were arriving from out of town to attend his funeral service. Police, the report said, were still trying to determine how he had died, which I found either chilling or amusing, depending on my mood and the time of day.

Tina called at noon, apologizing for not getting back to me sooner and asking what I wanted. I told her I wanted to know how she was doing. She said she was well. I said, “Good,” and hung up. When the telephone rang less than a minute later, I assumed it was either Tina or Pervert Number Two. Talking to either was equally uninteresting to me, so I let it ring.

Later, Mel called a couple of times, “checking in,” he explained. Harold Hayashida called as well, to ask if I had seen the newspaper reports and if I could recall anything else about the night that Honeysett, if that’s who it was, spoke to me from beneath the bridge like the troll my father had teased me about when I was a child. I answered “Yes” and “No,” in that order, then asked if the police still believed it had been suicide.

“That’s the general consensus,” Hayashida replied.

“Is that the same as a verdict?” I asked.

“The file’s staying open.”

“So you think there’s a possibility that he might have been murdered.”

Hayashida said something that grew first more sinister as time went on, and eventually more perceptive. “The question,” the detective said, “is how.”

The next morning, the newspaper carried Honeysett’s death notice:

HONEYSETT, Wayne Weaver—Beloved father of Wendy of Calgary and Joyce of Halifax, and grandfather of Jacques, Michael, Lowell, and Christine. Predeceased by his wife, Jacqueline, who was the world to him. Mr. Honeysett was the founder and proprietor of Honeysett’s Credit Jewellers for many years, and the family is grateful to all of his former customers and associates who have expressed their sadness at his sudden passing. Visitation at McRae’s Funeral Home, Wednesday from 2 to 4 p.m. Cremation to follow. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that you make a donation to your local mental health clinic.

The next day was Wednesday. I decided to attend. I was, after all, perhaps the last person to whom Honeysett had spoken. And he had known me. Maybe going to his funeral would make up for not having one for Gabe. Or maybe I just needed a reason to wear a dress again.

IF FUNERAL HOMES HAVE NO RIGHT to look pleasant and inviting, McRae’s was doing it correctly. Its original red brick exterior had acquired a patina of black soot, and the building had been designed to look like something between a small prison and a large animal shelter. Its front door opened directly from Barton Street with neither room nor intention for landscaping to soften the impact of its facade. Stepping inside from the late-morning sunlight, I wasn’t surprised to encounter darkness. But when my eyes adjusted to the dim interior, I was amazed to encounter a familiar face. It was Harold Hayashida, who was more shocked to see me than I was to see him.

“I was unaware that you knew the deceased so well,” he said, wearing that half-smile people display in a funeral home.

“And I didn’t know police officers attended the funerals of suicide victims,” I said.

We were in an alcove with plaster walls the colour and texture of oatmeal, and I looked down the corridor to see a small sign reading honeysett above an open doorway. I turned back to Hayashida, who was scribbling something in his notebook, just as a middle-aged couple entered and stood blinking and looking around, waiting for their sight to be restored, as I had.

If Wayne Honeysett had been a groper, he had made friends in spite of his perversion. Or maybe they enjoyed it, because the room was crowded with sombre people speaking in low isn’t-it-awful tones, and most were women. I saw this while standing at the entrance, waiting for two blue-haired women in dark textured suits to finish speaking to two younger women, whom I assumed were Honeysett’s daughters, Wendy and Joyce.

When the first younger woman greeted me, I offered my hand and looked into attractive grey eyes set in a round face framed in thick golden hair. I had nothing to say, except, “I’m so sorry.”

“How did you know my father?” the woman said.

“We were neighbours,” was the best I could answer. “On the beach strip.”

She smiled, nodded, and dropped her eyes, which would have been a cue for me to step forward and greet her sister, who was taller and heavier, with short dark hair, except that the first sister still gripped my right hand. When I tried pulling away, she tightened her grip, looked at her sister, and said, “Joyce.” Joyce smiled at me, then she too dropped her eyes to my hand.

They were looking at the ring I had decided to wear, the ring Gabe had given me a few weeks earlier, the black opal that Tina had commented on. I managed to pull my hand away from Wendy’s grip and fold it within my other hand. “Where did you get that ring?” Joyce asked.

“It was a gift,” I said. “From my husband. Why do you ask?”

“Because,” Wendy said, “it belonged to our mother.”

“That’s impossible,” I said, and walked to a corner chair some distance from the door. I’m not good at improvising dialogue. I was remembering what Gabe had told me about the ring. I got it from a jeweller, he said. And it hadn’t been stolen, he promised. That ring cost thousands, Tina said.

A carved wooden box sat at the front of the room among several long-stemmed roses. The box, I assumed, contained Wayne Honeysett’s ashes. Was everybody cremated these days? Were we that short of land that nobody was buried anymore? Flanking the flowers were two large sheets of plywood covered with snapshots and advertisements for Honeysett’s Credit Jewellers. Behind the display a door led down the corridor to the left. Small knots of people moved past the photographs, bending to examine them closely, dredging up memories. I waited for the flow to ebb, then rose from the chair and walked across the room to the display, planning to check out a couple of pictures, put a face to the man who had died without a head, then leave through the door.

How did we remember people before photographs? And what will they be doing at funerals fifty years from now—watching 3-D videos of Uncle Farley riding his tricycle or cutting a birthday cake? I didn’t know, but with cremation becoming as popular among old folk as sweatpants and athletic shoes, we need those pictures to remind us of who we are mourning, and why.

Wayne Honeysett may not have been a large man, but he had been something of a cutie. He also looked familiar, and I realized I had probably seen him on the boardwalk or somewhere on the beach. He had a warm smile, crinkly eyes, and, I noted in the family photographs, an attractive wife who wore her hair shoulder-length, as I did. They looked like a close family, the girls as small children and in their teenage years, smiling and laughing in a manner that said they truly loved being in the company of their parents. I mentally slapped down the cynic in me, who suggested that no one would display photographs of the family in any other mood but happy at a time like this.

I wondered, standing there admiring the father, mother, and two attractive daughters whose ripening with time had been recorded by the camera, if our lives traced an arc of happiness, if at the end of our allotted time on earth we could look back and recognize the summit, the day and the place where we had achieved the highest level of joy we would experience, and place our finger on it, touch it, and say, “I was never happier in my life than I was on that day.”

I was actually reaching out to touch a snapshot of the Honeysetts, taken somewhere palm trees grow, when I felt a hand at my elbow and heard Hayashida speak in the special voice police officers use when they are being polite but would rather not. “Mrs. Marshall,” he said when I turned to look at him, “do you suppose we could step into the hall for a moment?”

He moved aside and indicated the open door leading to the corridor, where the two sisters were standing, their arms folded across their chests, and their expressions no longer reflecting the pleased-you-could-come look they had applied to greet mourners. He herded us deeper into the funeral home, past the coat racks and into a small office area with one desk and two chairs. “May I see that ring?” Hayashida said, closing the door behind us.

I removed the ring and handed it to him. He took a small penlight from his pocket and shone it onto the inside of the ring, near the front where the stone was mounted. “Describe your father’s mark, please,” he said. He was not speaking to me.

Both sisters began to speak, but it was Wendy who raised her voice to drown out her sister. “It’s a W over an H,” she said. “The sides of the H, the upright parts, spread into the W above it. My father put that inside every ring he made.”

I remembered seeing the tiny mark and thinking nothing of it. It was just as she said—a trademark, a maker’s mark, whatever they call them.

Hayashida, squinting to see the mark, nodded and looked at me, his eyebrows raised.

“Okay, so your father made it,” I said. “That doesn’t mean it’s stolen.”

“Nobody said it was.” This from Joyce, the bigger and now angrier sister. “Funny you should suggest it was stolen, isn’t it?”

Hayashida held his hand up to silence her. “Where did you get it?” he asked.

“It was a gift from my husband,” I said. “From Gabe.”

Joyce hissed, “Bullshit!” and Hayashida waved his hand in her direction again.

“These ladies, Mr. Honeysett’s daughters, say that the last time they saw this ring it was on their mother’s finger.”

“Right here,” Wendy said. “In this funeral home. It was on my mother’s hand while she lay in her coffin.”

“I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about,” I said to Hayashida. “So Honeysett made the ring. So what? Maybe he made more than one—”

“He did not!” Joyce spat at me.

“We have a picture of it,” Wendy said. She was calmer now, and she rested a hand on her sister’s arm, as though to restrain her. “My father had all of our jewellery appraised and insured. The photograph with the appraisal shows the markings on the black opal. Every opal is unique. The markings will match, for sure.”

Hayashida looked at her. “How much was the ring appraised for?”

Joyce took a deep breath, as though she wanted to reply with all the power available in her impressive chest. And she did. “Six thousand dollars.”

“Was Gabe in the habit of buying you gifts that expensive?” Hayashida asked.

I had been eyeing a particularly ugly wooden chair set against the wall, thinking that a chair so dark and elaborately carved could only have been made for a funeral home. I walked over to it and sat down. “Gabe was not in the habit of giving me gifts that expensive,” I said. “Except for my wedding ring, that’s the only jewellery he ever bought me.”

“Did he say where he bought it?”

“No.”

“Or how much he paid for it?”

“No.”

“Was it a special occasion when he gave it to you?”

“No.”

I would have answered Hayashida the same way if he had asked if the earth revolved around the sun. The truth is, I wasn’t hearing him. I was hearing the voice calling to me from the shadows beneath the bridge, the voice that I knew had belonged to Wayne Weaver Honeysett. I know what happened, the voice had said. Listen to me. I know what happened.

Hayashida was speaking to the sisters, saying he would be dropping by after the service to retrieve the appraisal photo. The sisters left, reluctantly I sensed, for I was busy counting my fingers, and Hayashida closed the door behind them. “I don’t suppose you have a sales receipt for that ring,” he said. He had settled a corner of his butt on the desk.

“No,” I said. “I never saw one.” I looked up at Hayashida. “Are those women suggesting that Gabe took the damn ring off their mother’s corpse?”

“Nothing like that at all. But somebody did.”

“Her husband. Mrs. Honeysett’s husband.”

He nodded. “Probably. Before the coffin lid was closed. That’s not unusual.”

“So maybe, when he ran into money problems, he could have sold the ring to Gabe, right?”

“Sure. That makes a lot of sense. Except.”

“Except what?”

“Did Walter Freeman ask you if Gabe had made any expensive purchases lately, or acted as though he had come into a large sum of money?”

“You know he did.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said no. You probably know that too.”

Hayashida nodded, a little sadly, I thought. “Do you remember when Gabe gave you that ring?” He withdrew his notepad from an inside jacket pocket as he spoke.

“Two, three weeks ago. Maybe a month.”

“Why didn’t you tell Walter about it?”

“Because Walter’s a jerk. And I was upset, and I wanted to hold on to everything about Gabe that mattered to me. How’s that?”

Hayashida nodded again, writing in his notepad.

I stood up. I wanted to leave as quickly as possible. “That man in there,” and I raised my arm, pointing back into the room where Wayne Honeysett’s ashes were, “he’s the guy who talked to me. I know it. He told me that he knew what happened. He meant what happened to Gabe, I know that too. And now there’s a connection between him and Gabe, isn’t there?”

Hayashida finished making his notes, snapped the pad shut, put it back in his jacket pocket, and slipped off the desk. He opened the door and gestured for me to leave. “Just between you and me,” he said as I passed, “I think Walter’s a jerk too.”

15.

Driving home from Wayne Honeysett’s funeral service, without the ring Gabe had given me, I thought about cormorants and decided to start acting like one, which had nothing to do with swimming after fish and everything to do with taking charge of my life. At home I made a pot of tea, dumped a gurgle of brandy into it for flavour, and sat at my table, making a list.

On Saturday mornings, my father always made a list of things to do. The list would include all the chores he planned to finish by Sunday night. I do not know what was on the list or whether he did everything he promised to do. I only know that, while my father was not the brightest or the most successful man I ever knew, he was the most satisfied, and satisfaction sounded very appealing right now.

Here is the list I wrote:

Gabe is dead, and he did not kill himself.

Gabe was shot with his own gun, and the paraffin test showed whatever it is that says he fired a gun.

Gabe would never give his gun to somebody else.

Honeysett was a pervert.

Honeysett knew or saw what happened (with Gabe?).

Honeysett called to me from under the bridge.

Honeysett is dead, and he did not kill himself.

Gabe gave me the ring Honeysett made for his wife.

Walter Freeman thinks Gabe was involved in something crooked.

Walter Freeman is a creep.

Gabe was investigating a drug dealer named Grizz. Why can’t

they find a guy named Grizz?

Some frantic guy was here looking for Grizz—why?

I have a part-time job and no husband.

Mel Holiday has the bluest eyes I have ever seen.

I added the last one because who wants to make a list with thirteen items? Then I used a magnet shaped like a daisy to fasten my list to the refrigerator door, where I could see it and remind myself about what I knew and what I needed to know, about where I was right and where I was wrong. I was wrong too often.

I sat reading the list over and over, and when I finished my tea and brandy I poured another drink, but this time I left out the tea. Which was when Dewey Maas called.

“Would you like to talk?” Dewey said. “I’d love to see you. Just for a few minutes. I’m not far away. Down by the lift bridge.”

“What are you doing down there?”

“I heard about the man they found here the other night. It’s not in the papers, but there are rumours that he put his head under the bridge when it came down. Can you imagine that?”

I told Dewey I would meet him, but not on or near that damned bridge. If he came to the gate behind our house, we could sit in the garden and have tea.

“THIS IS SO PRETTY.”

Dewey and I were seated at the small, round metal table in the middle of the garden. He was wearing a golf shirt, a pair of chinos, and loafers with no socks. Dewey never wore socks.

If you wanted a specimen of a middle-aged man worth considering for a life partner or a weekend fling, Dewey would make the cut. He’s tall, blond and muscular. His nose is hooked and his teeth are crooked, but his eyes crinkle when he smiles, which is often, and he has the kind of gentle disposition you get when you spend more time around dogs than around people.

“I’m a little confused,” I said, pouring iced tea for both of us.

“About what?”

“About why you’re here. It’s been how long? Three, four years?”

“Nearly five.” He sipped his tea, watching me over the rim of the glass. “Four years, eight months. Since we talked, since I saw you last.”

“You’re kidding me. Not that it’s been that long, but that you remember so accurately.”

“Josie.” His hand reached across the table and rested on mine. “You know I’m a little, uh, confused about things, um …”

“Dewey—”

He pulled his hand away. “Do you know why I never made a serious pass at you?” He frowned and looked away. “I didn’t, did I? Did I?”

I assured him that he hadn’t, that he had been a perfect gentleman in my presence, warm and funny and sweet.

“The reason I didn’t,” he said, “was because, if I had and if you had turned me down or been insulted, we wouldn’t, we couldn’t be friends. Not the same way. And I loved you as a friend. I really did. But I also wanted to love you in other ways.”

“Dewey—”

“But women …” He leaned back in his chair, frowned, and shook his head. “Women are so turned off when a man is less than totally masculine, they call it.” He leaned forward again, speaking faster. “I mean, some men, I knew one guy especially, they get really turned on about the idea of having a relationship with a bisexual woman, thinking, I guess—”

“Dewey—”

“—they can fulfill some threesome fantasy about them and two women together and there’s no threat to them, the man, if the women start getting it on because—”

“Dewey!” A little sharper this time.

It worked. “What?”

“I don’t care about fantasies, and I don’t care who or what you sleep with, and I’m not even sure I understand deep friendships between men and women that don’t have a sexual connection. But that’s okay, to hell with it, let Dr. Phil or somebody else work that one out. I just want to know why, after four years and whatever—”

“Eight months.” He smiled, embarrassed.

“Why, after all that time, you suddenly call me. I mean, after you called to say how sorry you were to hear about Gabe.”

He seemed to consider that for a moment. Then, taking a deep breath, he said, “I always wanted to call you. Just to talk with you. But calling a married woman, especially one married to a police officer, a detective? It was just too … too risky, I guess. I was happy for you, Josie, really. I just haven’t been so happy myself since you left the shop and got married.”

I believed him. Dewey was that sweet. Who wouldn’t believe him? “So,” I said. “Who’s minding the chihuahuas?”

“The dogs? It’s Wednesday. I’m closed Wednesdays now. Give myself some time off.” He looked around the garden. “This is so pleasant. I’ve never seen it from this angle before.”

“This angle?”

“Well, I’ve seen it from, you know …” He was blushing. “The boardwalk back there. The beach, usually.”

“You’ve been here?” I said. “Looking into my garden?”

“Only from the beach. A lot of people walk on the beach, Josie. It’s a public beach, and sometimes I thought we might bump into one another, just to talk. I mean, I thought if we met here we could talk.”

I was working this over in my mind when he added, “I saw your husband. I saw Gabe a couple of times, him out in the garden here. I don’t know where you were. I introduced myself once, and we kind of chatted about things—”

“You introduced yourself to my husband?” I said. “Did you explain how you knew me?”

“I said we’d been friends, Josie. That’s all. I said we were friends, and Gabe wanted to know how we met, and I explained how I used to come into the veterinarian’s now and then to help with the dogs.”

“Gabe never told me he spoke to you.”

“He seemed like a nice fellow. Really nice. He came over to the gate to talk to me. I was never in the garden, not like now. I told him I thought he was a lucky man to be married to you. That’s what I said to him. ‘You’re a lucky man.’”

“And what did Gabe say?”

“He said he knew. Every day he knew just how lucky he was to be your husband.” Dewey thought for a minute, then added, “I had a feeling he was preoccupied with something. I mean, he had been sitting right here, at this table, writing in a little notebook, and I think I interrupted him. He seemed to be doing more thinking than writing, so I didn’t stay long.”

“When was that?”

“The last time I saw him. He said you were out. He thought you were out shopping. That’s the last time I was here, which was a week ago last Monday.”

I sat back in my chair. “The day before he died.”

“That’s right.” Dewey nodded. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I mean, that’s really weird, isn’t it?”

I told Dewey I had errands to run, places to go, and gathered up the empty glasses. We shook hands, and I told him it was all right to call me again sometime, maybe in another week or so.

I didn’t have places to go. I just had one place to go, and I should have gone there much earlier.

CENTRAL POLICE STATION HAS NO PARKING SPACE for visitors. I drove through the lot, passing spaces marked for judges, lawyers, cruisers, detectives, emergency vehicles, and maintenance workers. No one, I suppose, is expected to visit Central unless they’re either official or arrested. I parked two blocks away and walked back, through the late-summer afternoon. It seemed everything had slowed to a crawl, including law enforcement investigations.

The uniformed cop behind the desk asked who I wanted to see. I told him I wanted to see Sergeant Hayashida. If he wasn’t available, I would see Sergeant Mel Holiday. If he wasn’t in, I’d settle for Walter Freeman, the asshole. I didn’t say “the asshole” aloud, but I was thinking it, just to keep me in the mood.

The cop stayed cool, said he would call Hayashida, and asked me to sign in please.

THE FIRST THING I LEARNED ABOUT COPS after I married Gabe was that they are lousy housekeepers. Even the women cops I’ve encountered work among stacked files, dirty coffee cups, scribbled sticky notes, and general chaos. How can they find bad guys when they can’t find a sharp pencil? Hayashida was no different, but he dressed better than other detectives—button-down shirt, knit tie, summer-weight jacket, pressed trousers, tasselled loafers. Not a GQ magazine cover, maybe, but he was the most fashionable thing in his work cubicle, except for me in my pink ruffled blouse and black pencil skirt, plus the alligator pumps I bought at Saks in New York on a holiday with Gabe. If you’re going into a den of lions, it helps to look like a lioness.

“What’s up?” Hayashida said when I’d settled into the only other chair in his cubicle.

I took my time crossing my legs, tugging my skirt over my knee, folding my hands primly, and taking a deep breath. “I want to see the report on my husband’s death,” I said. “The one that says he killed himself.”

Hayashida seemed faintly amused. “Why?”

“Because I’m his wife,” I said. “His widow, actually. And don’t give me that stuff about it being confidential. It’s a public document, and if I have to get a lawyer to demand a copy, I’ll get a lawyer.”

“I can’t let you keep a copy.”

“I don’t want a copy to take with me. I just want to see it. Let me read it and I’ll hand it right back to you.” I smiled and tilted my head. “Okay?”

“What do you think you’ll learn from it?”

“I have no fucking idea.” I really did say “fucking.” It was part of my attitude.

Hayashida handled it perfectly. “Well, in that case,” he said, and swivelled to face the computer terminal on his desk, which he turned at an angle to prevent me from seeing the screen. With a two-fingered typing style, he entered whatever he needed to find the file on Gabe and slapped a few more keys. From the corridor beyond his cubicle, I heard the soft whir of a printer. Hayashida rose and left the cubicle, dropping three sheets of paper in my lap when he returned. “No pictures, okay?” he said. “If you want pictures, you’ll need that lawyer.”

“I don’t want pictures,” I said.

Hayashida sat at his desk and began scribbling something on a notepad. It might have been his grocery list. I didn’t care.

The top sheet was headed “Non-Accidental Death Report” and listed everything I already knew—Gabe’s name, address, birth date, all of that, plus the description of his body on the blanket, names of witnesses, with reference to the files containing their statements, and next of kin, which was me. Gabe’s gun was identified as a standard-issue Glock G22 model, serial number HPD7836. Three Determination of Death choices were provided: Homicide, Suicide, and Undetermined. Someone had checked the box next to Suicide. The form was signed by Walter Freeman, Chief Investigating Detective, and Melville Holiday, Assisting Investigator.

I turned to the second sheet, headed “Autopsy Report,” which made me sit up straight, anticipating what I was about to read. It was easier than I expected.

The deceased, I read, had been a man in his early forties, 183 centimetres tall, 81.7 kilograms in weight, and in apparent good health. It listed his scars, eye colour, dental work, everything that I knew far better from the living Gabe than any coroner could expect to learn from the dead one.

Near the bottom of the sheet was a diagram of a body, one of those simplified genderless drawings with no hair and no genitals. A line had been drawn into the head, at a slight downward angle. Beneath the drawing, I read:

Projectile entered 2 centimetres above the right temporal line, 6.5 centimetres posterior to the aural canal, proceeding in a posterior angle of approximately 18 degrees from the lateral axis and 40 degrees from the vertical axis, penetrating the temporal lobe, medulla oblongata, lodging in the left temporal lobe as indicated. Powder burns noted, indicating close proximity to weapon muzzle. Brain matter emerging from entry wound weighed at 16.8 grams. Projectile is in good condition, confirmed as standard-issue Remington model 9-GM. Death attributed to massive destruction of brain, severe swelling resulting.

I turned the sheet over to find more bureaucratic ways of saying someone’s brains had been blown out. The coroner had been provided with a choice of four boxes beneath Determination of Death—Accidental, Homicide, Suicide, and Unknown. He had checked Unknown. Now I had a buddy who disagreed with Walter Freeman. But then, most people did.

The third sheet was headed “Forensics Report,” beneath an impressive stamp of the Attorney General’s office. This one included four photographs embedded in the report, but they were of bullets not bodies. One bullet was pristine and pointed and, let’s be honest here, penis-like. The other was crumpled at the front. Two other photographs showed dark angled lines on metal, as seen through a microscope, rifling marks they were called, made from the grooves inside guns to make the bullets spin when they leave the barrel, helping the little devils fly more directly to their destination in flesh and bone. God, I hate guns. I hate them so much I wish I didn’t know so much about them.