neck at the hairline. I take photographs. I turn the head slightly to the right, and blood spills out of the wound, an entrance wound. I move the head some more and shine a flashlight. Fragments of copper light up like gold in a mush of coagulating blood, hair and brain tissue.
CHAPTER 7
T HE WOUND TO THE eye is also an entrance, the bullet smashing through the sunglasses Nari had on. I photograph them on the pavement, the left lens gone, the tortoise frame intact.
Shards of polarized plastic are scattered over his white button-up shirt and on the pavement next to his face. He was down when he was shot through the eye, in the exact position he’s in now, and I back out of the cool shade of my privacy shelter. I look up and around at windows in other homes and town houses. I look at the apartment buildings at the end of the street a block from here, rows of them like barracks, three story, flat rooftops.
Finding a six-inch ruler and a tape measure, I duck back inside my big black box and photograph him from every angle, noting that when the bullet struck his sunglasses, the force and trajectory knocked the frames off his face. They landed exactly three feet four inches to the right of his head, and I palpate his bloody gray hair.
My gloved fingers find what I’m looking for, fractured bones in his occipital skull and lacerations where at least one bullet exited. But no bogginess. He had scarcely any vital response at all. He was dead by the time he hit the ground. I remember the anonymous poem again and its reference to a hangman.
Instant death is rare. It can be caused by the dislocation of the C2 from the vertebral body. When I see this it’s usually in hangings with long sudden drops such as from a bridge or a tall tree, and in motor vehicle and diving accidents when the victim suffers a hyperflexion injury after striking his head on a dashboard or the bottom of a pool. If the spinal cord is severed, the brain is no longer attached to the body. The heart and lungs instantly quit.
“I think you can rule out a drive-by shooting or foiled robbery or anything else that might have involved a handgun,” I tell Machado.
“You think it’s completely out of the question somebody could have come up behind him and shot him in the back of the neck? And when he dropped, shot him in the face?”
“In broad daylight with people around?”
“It’s amazing what people don’t hear or just assume is a car backfire.”
“There’s no stippling or any other evidence indicating the shot was close range.” I look carefully at the wound at the hairline. “If it was a pistol, there are no ejected cartridge cases.”
“The shooter could have picked them up.”
“That’s a lot of activity in a wide open area in the middle of the morning.”
“I’m not arguing,” Machado says. “I just want to cover every base. For example is it possible the bullet to the back of his neck exited through his eye? And we’re talking only one shot?”
“No. The wound to his eye is an entrance, and there wouldn’t be frag under and around his head if he was shot only once and while he was standing.”
“So that bullet—the first bullet—could be anywhere.”
“We’ll know more when we get him to my office. But what I’m seeing so far indicates two different flight paths. One when he was upright and another when he was down. The second shot exited the back of his skull, which is pretty much pulverized, held together by his scalp. The frag is right here.” I indicate the blood under and around the head. “The bullet disintegrated when it exited and struck the asphalt. In other words when he was shot through the eye he was in the position he’s in now.”
“Luck of the draw,” Machado says. “A bull’s-eye.”
“I don’t know if it was a lucky shot but it certainly wasn’t lucky for him except he didn’t suffer. In my opinion this was a lightning strike seemingly out of nowhere because it was made from a distance
CHAPTER 7
T HE WOUND TO THE eye is also an entrance, the bullet smashing through the sunglasses Nari had on. I photograph them on the pavement, the left lens gone, the tortoise frame intact.
Shards of polarized plastic are scattered over his white button-up shirt and on the pavement next to his face. He was down when he was shot through the eye, in the exact position he’s in now, and I back out of the cool shade of my privacy shelter. I look up and around at windows in other homes and town houses. I look at the apartment buildings at the end of the street a block from here, rows of them like barracks, three story, flat rooftops.
Finding a six-inch ruler and a tape measure, I duck back inside my big black box and photograph him from every angle, noting that when the bullet struck his sunglasses, the force and trajectory knocked the frames off his face. They landed exactly three feet four inches to the right of his head, and I palpate his bloody gray hair.
My gloved fingers find what I’m looking for, fractured bones in his occipital skull and lacerations where at least one bullet exited. But no bogginess. He had scarcely any vital response at all. He was dead by the time he hit the ground. I remember the anonymous poem again and its reference to a hangman.
Instant death is rare. It can be caused by the dislocation of the C2 from the vertebral body. When I see this it’s usually in hangings with long sudden drops such as from a bridge or a tall tree, and in motor vehicle and diving accidents when the victim suffers a hyperflexion injury after striking his head on a dashboard or the bottom of a pool. If the spinal cord is severed, the brain is no longer attached to the body. The heart and lungs instantly quit.
“I think you can rule out a drive-by shooting or foiled robbery or anything else that might have involved a handgun,” I tell Machado.
“You think it’s completely out of the question somebody could have come up behind him and shot him in the back of the neck? And when he dropped, shot him in the face?”
“In broad daylight with people around?”
“It’s amazing what people don’t hear or just assume is a car backfire.”
“There’s no stippling or any other evidence indicating the shot was close range.” I look carefully at the wound at the hairline. “If it was a pistol, there are no ejected cartridge cases.”
“The shooter could have picked them up.”
“That’s a lot of activity in a wide open area in the middle of the morning.”
“I’m not arguing,” Machado says. “I just want to cover every base. For example is it possible the bullet to the back of his neck exited through his eye? And we’re talking only one shot?”
“No. The wound to his eye is an entrance, and there wouldn’t be frag under and around his head if he was shot only once and while he was standing.”
“So that bullet—the first bullet—could be anywhere.”
“We’ll know more when we get him to my office. But what I’m seeing so far indicates two different flight paths. One when he was upright and another when he was down. The second shot exited the back of his skull, which is pretty much pulverized, held together by his scalp. The frag is right here.” I indicate the blood under and around the head. “The bullet disintegrated when it exited and struck the asphalt. In other words when he was shot through the eye he was in the position he’s in now.”
“Luck of the draw,” Machado says. “A bull’s-eye.”
“I don’t know if it was a lucky shot but it certainly wasn’t lucky for him except he didn’t suffer. In my opinion this was a lightning strike seemingly out of nowhere because it was made from a distance
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