(2005) 'Whispers In the Wind' (3 page)

He looked at the huddle of people in the driveway in front of the house, recognizing the CS (Crime scene) people, the coroner and the Forensic pathologist among them, Dr. Holt Lambert. The ambulance and the EMT’s were there, as well as some regular units and the usual TV crew. One of the Crime Scene people was busy taking pictures of the body lying in the driveway and he could see another one making the sketch. He sighed deeply, knowing that in a matter of minutes, the reporters from every major newspaper would be descending on them also. A crying woman, heavy-set and with rollers in her hair, dressed in a garish looking housecoat, was being supported by another female and he surmised it was the wife and probably a neighbor. He ducked his head under the yellow tape that said ‘Police Line, do not cross’ and found himself among the small huddle of men who were busy with the scene. He made his way to Lambert, who saw him coming and waved a hand at him. The man was slight of build, with horn-rimmed glasses in a face that was long and pale, his head almost void of any hair, a cantankerous ‘young’ man of sixty. They had known each other for years, had worked together on numerous murders and knew each other’s habits and strong points. They were more than just co-workers, and despite the age difference, they were friends. Both men were professionals, given to small talk, never assuming anything or taking anything for granted when working a murder. Besides being a forensic pathologist, he was also a medical doctor and the best man Turner had ever seen at performing autopsies. That was important now, Turner thought, since they had a cop decapitated, just a few feet from his house.

He glanced at Holt, taking in the steel gray eyes behind the glasses, red rimmed now from lack of sleep, just like his own. The man had spent most of the night doing an autopsy on a recent murder, one that Turner himself had been working on and now he looked exhausted and ill at ease. His eyes glanced up an down at the CS crew working steadily, making sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing. He was a stickler for professionalism and he always wanted everything done just right, which was one of the reasons Turner liked working with Holt Lambert. Once the man told you something was done, it was done, taken care of precisely the way it should have been.

“You look like shit, Holt”, Turner said softly, his eyes taking in the gruesome sight in front of him. Dunbar’s head had rolled a few feet away from the body, the sightless eyes open, an expression of utter terror etched on the pale face. Dunbar had been a big, strong man and the body had bled profusely, coloring the white snow a bright red. The blood spurt had shot quite a few feet away from the body and then, as the heart pumped ever more slowly, it had puddled just inches from the neck stem. He looked at the scene with professional eyes, eyes that had seen his share of murders and other gory things during his years as a cop. But he didn’t remember ever seeing a man decapitated like this, especially a cop. A black hat lay close to the body, next to the left hand and there were a few footprints on the snow, most of them unrecognizable by now. He shook his head at that. No matter how many times the order had gone out for people to stay the hell away from crime scenes until the lead investigator arrived, somebody always managed to fuck up, destroying evidence by their clumsiness. The good thing about this one was that Holt was there and he would make his best effort to piece everything together. Whoever had crossed the police line tape would be recorded on a pad and their footprints checked against whatever they could lift from the scene.

“You don’t look too damn good either”, Holt said, scribbling something on the pad in his hand, giving Turner a tired smile. They both had spent most of the night working another murder, plus the autopsies that Holt had performed during the course of the day. But then, this was Chicago and dead people were nothing new for them, averaging three or four cases in a week per crime zone, sometimes more.

“What do you have for…me?” Turner asked, walking a few paces away from the body, reaching for a cigarette and lighting it, taking a sip of the rapidly cooling coffee in his hand.

“Not much…. of anything”, Holt said, irritation in his voice, long, tapered fingers producing a cigarette from his coat pocket, reaching for Turner’s hand with the lighter and lighting it. He was a man of boundless energy and his fingers were constantly performing some kind of work, including helping him to smoke close to three packs of cigarettes a day and when the mood struck him, an occasional cigar. “This got to be one of the most sterile crime scenes I’ve ever seen. All we have is a dead body, a head and a lot of blood splattered everywhere. Someone came from behind apparently, took his head off…with something like an axe…or some very sharp object, a sword, or machete. Right now, it looks like one blow, given from right to left.” He stopped briefly, looking at the pad in his hand. “No eyewitness…nothing but him. There are some footprints close to the body, some made by the first officer on the scene and the subject that found him…a jogger. Dunbar was found around 5:40 by him. The guy…was on a morning run, happened to glance at the bundle laying on the snow and came to investigate, saw the blood all over the place and the body and immediately knocked on the door and notified Dunbar’s wife”. He took a deep drag of the cigarette, flicking the butt way from him, exhaling slowly, the gray smoke spiraling upwards, continuing the summary of his report slowly; “She went hysterical on him, so he managed to get the phone and call 911.” He scribbled some more in his note pad, his forehead furrowing with his thoughts, and then resumed his report. “First officer on the scene is him, Officer Williams”, he said, his head signaling toward a uniformed officer standing by, taking notes and smoking a cigarette. “He strung the tape as soon as he got here, staying away from the body as much as possible…and that’s about it for now,”

“Weapon…?” Turner asked, his eyes drifting toward the head lying on the snow.

Holt shook his head, taking a drag from the cigarette.

“Like I said…probably an axe, maybe a very sharp machete or a sword. I’ll know more after the autopsy is completed. Right now, as you well know…everything is speculation.”

Turner shook his head slightly, asking, “How long…ago?”

“Not long…that’s for sure. Despite the cold, his internal temperature was still high when I inserted the rectal thermometer, meaning that maybe…one hour, at the most hour and a half before the body was discovered and the first officer arrived and we were called to the scene. It was cold as hell this morning, so I’ve to take that into consideration There is some blood on the SUV, but I’m pretty sure it’s his blood, not the killer’s. As you can well see, there is no sign of a struggle, no other wounds that are apparent as of now. Again…I’ll know more when I’m finished with him and the preliminaries.”

Turner nodded his head, taking a drag from the cigarette, exhaling slowly, his eyes taking in the dead man again, sipping the coffee slowly, waiting for Lambert to continue.

“Body has not been moved by anybody but me and not much at that, just enough to insert the rectal thermometer after we swabbed him. We are just about finished here unless you find something interesting. We have the blood samples, the sketch, measurements and the photographs…and not much of anything else right now”, Lambert said softly, the frown on his forehead creasing deeper.

Turner nodded his head in acknowledgement and ran his fingers through his short, black hair as he walked a few feet toward the body and squatted down, checking the way the man had fallen, the position of the hands, the blood mist. His eyes took in the black leather wallet laying open on the dead man’s buttocks.

“What’s with the…wallet? He asked, his head turning toward Holt

“His badge is…gone” Holt said softly. “I checked myself and it’s gone. Everything else…I believe, is there. We took pictures before we moved him for the rectal thermometer, but I’m positive that’s where the wallet was when we arrived at the scene. I looked in it…found money, credit cards, but no badge. I put it back exactly where it was found”.

Turner grunted, shaking his head as he looked at the feet, the way they were turned, and again at the body. It appeared that it had fallen on its chest and the right hand was under the body, the left extended upwards, close to the black hat. He reached for the corpse, lifting him slightly with a grunt. His nose turned in disgust as the sharp smell of urine and human feces got to him. He shook his head and pulled harder on the fast cooling body. The hand was on the grip of the pistol, still in its holster, but unbuttoned, meaning that he had realized that something was amiss, had reached for his pistol and was killed a second after. He had seen the killer, even if only momentarily, or had heard a noise, turning his body around halfway, probably in an attempt to see what was coming from behind. But it had been too late. Whatever had come from behind him had been fast, way too fast for him, putting a very abrupt end to his life.

He glanced at the head and then at the blood spatter on the snow. In all probability, the killer had come from behind, taking the head off with one blow. The arterial blood had gushed up and away from the body every time the heart pumped, covering a big area. He looked closely in the expanse of snow that was covered with blood, finding no footprints on the blood splatter. If the killer had come from behind, then it was likely he had not gotten any blood spatters on him, or maybe he had managed to jump away from the body, succeeding in not leaving any prints on top of the blood. ‘So, what do we have here? a very…careful killer?’, he asked himself, shaking his head slowly.

Turner stood up in one swift move, his head turning and looking at the trampled snow just behind the body, in the direction from which the killer had probably come. His eyes rested on the snow, trying to make sense of what he was looking at. He moved to the car, to the driver’s side, eyes fixed on the ground, staying away from the footprints. He could see where Dunbar had stepped away from the car, coming around, heading for the gate at the back of the driveway. He had been killed just a step away from the back gate and Turner could see the imprint of his shoes clearly until that moment when he was hit. He was a big man, heavy and the imprint of his large shoes was clear in the soft snow. He had been a tall man, meaning that the killer had to be as tall or taller than Dunbar, and incredibly strong to handle an ax or a machete that way, decapitating a man in a seemingly easy way. He followed Dunbar’s footprints, reaching the body. He searched the snow fleetingly, looking at what he thought were the jogger’s footprints, the one that had found the body, and he noticed the service footwear of the policeman who was first on the scene. There were a few other prints, but nothing that looked like Dunbar’s size. ‘Surely the damn killer didn’t float in the air’, he told himself, shaking his head, irritated. He glanced at the houses, which were not too close together, realizing that the killer could have been hiding in any one of them. He walked to the nearest one across the street, checking the doorway, looking for cigarette butts or anything that would give him an indication where the killer had come from. He was sure that the man had not driven to the spot. A car makes noise and Dunbar would have been alert and suspicious of a car driving close to him that late in the morning. If someone in a car had approached him, Dunbar would in all probability have turned around and watched the subject; he would not have been caught almost unaware, from behind. He had been killed with a weapon that required stealthy movements, had been killed at close range, meaning the killer had come from behind, walking. And it had to be a big man, strong and heavy in order to wield the weapon like he did. A man like that had to leave footprints, he told himself as he continued his search for clues. He looked around some more houses, his eyes on the ground, feeling the damn cold seeping slowly into his body, feeling like he was wasting his time looking for something that was not there. He made his way back empty handed, shaking his head. He had to talk to the man that had found Dunbar and then he would wait for the autopsy, but from the look of things, this one was going to be a mess. He glanced at Holt, who was bending over the body, noticing that the head had been picked up and the body covered with a blanket. The wife was gone too, probably inside the house by now. An unmarked unit made its way to the scene and he saw two of his men, Thompson and Miller, exiting the car and glancing around. He signaled for them and they made their way to him.

“Police officer…guy by the name of Dunbar”, he started, shrugging his shoulders into his overcoat as a strong gust of wind slammed into them. “Somebody took his head off…with an axe or sword or machete. There are no witnesses, no weapon left and no evidence of struggle.”

“Jesus H. Christ…” Miller exploded, his head turning toward the body, glancing at the blood stain that covered most of the driveway. “I knew him. He was not the sweetest guy you ever met…but, shit…this is crazy.”

Bob Thompson didn’t say anything, just glanced at the body, his blue eyes hooded and a frown on his face. He was forty-five years old, with more than fifteen years in the force, a quiet, dependable cop, street smart and usually a man of few words unless something needed to be said.

“Let’s do the usual. You guys know the drill. Talk to the neighbors…see if anybody has seen anything, heard anything.” Turner said.

He stopped talking, his head nodding toward where the body lay. “Somebody was waiting for him, which makes it personal…so we need to find a motive.” He paused again, taking a sip of the cold coffee now, grimacing at the taste, his forehead creased in thought. “If I have to guess, this is going to be a crime of passion…somehow. To take a man’s head off with a sword or axe involves a great deal of rage or hate, so…think about it”. He took another drag of the cigarette, glanced around and back at the two detectives. “Let’s do it.”

The two detectives nodded their heads in unison, finishing with their notes. Turner could see that they were slightly unnerved, something that he understood perfectly. He could bet that just like him, they were wondering if this was just the beginning of something new, if someone out there was declaring open season on cops. Miller and Thompson were professionals, had been around for a while, worked their share of murders and weird cases, so he knew that they would do their job no matter what and keep their personal feelings out of the case.