by Dan Simmons
“No entrance or exit holes,” said Dar. “Except in Billy Jim.”
“Windows rolled up?”
“Yeah. It was raining hard the night Billy Jim was driving out from his favorite fishing hole.”
“After dark, right?” said Syd.
“Right. About eleven P.M.”
“I’ve got it,” said Syd.
Dar stopped walking. “Really?” It had taken him two hours at the scene to figure it out.
“Really,” said Syd. “Billy Jim didn’t have a .22 rifle or pistol along, but I bet he had a box of cartridges in the cab, right?”
“In the glove box,” said Dar.
“And I bet Billy Jim’s headlights went off on the way out.”
Dar sighed. “Yeah—my guess was about a mile and a half short of the bridge.”
Syd nodded. “About how long it would take for the. 22 cartridge to heat up and discharge,” said Syd. “I know those Ford pickups. The fuse box for the lights is right under the panel in front of the steering wheel. Your Billy Jim is driving along, the headlights go out, he can’t keep driving in the rain but he wants to get home, so he pokes around, figures the fuse has blown…hunts around for something in the cab the right size to replace the fuse… A .22 cartridge fits perfectly… He drives on, not thinking about the cartridge heating up. And then it fires…”
“Well, I guess it wasn’t much of a mystery after all,” said Dar.
Syd shrugged. “Hey, I’m starved. Can we have lunch before we tackle your real mystery?”
They made roast beef sandwiches for lunch, grabbed beers, and took them out onto the porch. The day was getting hot and they had long since doffed their denim jackets. Syd wore an oversized T-shirt with the tail out, to cover the holster on her hip. Dar wore a faded old black T-shirt with equally faded blue jeans and running shoes. The cabin itself was shaded by tall ponderosa pine and small birch, but the valley opening before them was bright with summer grass and willows, all seeming to ripple in the wind and heat haze. They sat on the edge of the high porch and dangled their legs.
Syd asked, “Doesn’t all the death, pain, suffering you witness…investigate…weigh you down after a while?”
If she had asked Dar that question twenty-four hours earlier, he probably would have answered I imagine it’s a little like being a doctor. After a bit you become…not calloused, that’s not the word…but you have a perspective for it all. It’s your job, right? And he would have believed it. But now he was not so sure. Perhaps something had changed him over the past decade or more. All that he knew at this instant was that—contrary to all intentions and expectations—he would like to kiss Chief Investigator Sydney Olson on her full lips, press her back against the redwood deck, feel the softness of her breasts against him…
“I don’t know,” he managed to say, chewing on his sandwich. He had forgotten her question.
The file was in a regular manila folder, was stamped Closed, and was at least three inches thick with documents. Dar set two wheeled chairs at his desk near the large CAD computers. Syd sat to his right as he laid out the documents in front of her.
“You see the date of the accident,” he said.
“Seven weeks ago.” Syd glanced down at the LAPD Traffic Collision Report. “East L.A…. a little far afield, weren’t you?”
“Not really,” said Dar. “Some of these cases take me as far north as your neck of the woods… Sacramento and San Francisco…and even out of state.”
“Did the LAPD Traffic Investigation Unit call you in freelance on this one? I know both Sergeant Rote of the TIU and Detective Bob Ventura, whose name is on the investigation report here.”
Dar shook his head. “Lawrence was in Arizona working a case, so Trudy asked me to follow up on this. The client was the van rental company.”
Syd looked at the initial collision report. “A GMC Vandura…red. Small moving van?”
“Yeah. Read the reporting officer’s statement.”
Syd read it aloud:
“COLLISION LOCATION, 1200 MARLBORO AVE. (N. FRONTAGE ROAD).
“ORIGIN: AT ABOUT 0245 HRS., MAY 19, I WAS TRANS PORTING A PRISONER TO THE EAST LOS ANGELES WOMEN’S DETENTION FACILITY WHEN I HEARD A REPORT OF A FATAL ACCIDENT IN THE AREA OF MARLBORO AVE. AND FOUNTAIN BLVD. I ASKED THE DISPATCHER IF SHE COULD FIND A UNIT THAT COULD MEET ME AT E. 109TH ST. AND I–5 SO AS TO TRANSPORT MY PRISONER THE REST OF THE WAY TO THE DETENTION FACILITY, SO I COULD IN TURN RESPOND TO THE ACCIDENT. OFFICER JONES #2485 RESPONDED IMMEDIATELY AND TOOK OVER THE TRANSPORT. I ARRIVED AT THE SCENE AT ABOUT 0300 HOURS. WHEN I ARRIVED THE SCENE HAD BEEN SECURED BY PATROL UNITS. SGT. MCKAY, #2662 (TRAFFIC SUPERVISOR), OFFICER BERRY #3501 AND OFFICER CLANCEY #4423 WERE ALREADY ON SCENE. THE 1200 BLOCK OF MARLBORO WAS BLOCKED OFF TO ALL THROUGH TRAFFIC FROM FOUNTAIN BLVD. TO GRAMERCY ST.
“STREET DESCRIPTION: 1200 MARLBORO AVE. (N. FRONTAGE ROAD) IS A WEST BOUND ONE-WAY STREET. FOUNTAIN BLVD. TO THE EAST IS A NORTH AND SOUTH BOUND STREET. GRAMERCY ST., TO THE WEST, IS ALSO A NORTH AND SOUTH BOUND STREET. 1200 MARLBORO AVE. (N. FRONTAGE ROAD) HAS A .098 W/E GRADE, UPHILL. THE CLOSEST LIGHTING ON THE STREET WAS PROVIDED BY OFF STREET LIGHTS AND INTERSECTION LIGHTS. THE UN-POSTED SPEED LIMIT IS 25 MPH FOR THAT STRETCH OF ROADWAY.
“WEATHER CONDITIONS: AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT IT WAS CLOUDY AND OVERCAST. IT WAS RAINING AND THE TEMPERATURE WAS COOL AND SLIGHTLY WINDY. IT WAS NIGHT TIME AND THE MOON WAS NOT SHINING THROUGH THE CLOUD COVER.
“VEHICLE IDENTIFICATION: THE GMC VANDURA (V-2) DISPLAYED LARGE U-RENTAL TRUCK DECALS ON ALL 4 SIDES. A CHECK OF THE VEHICLE’S LICENSE PLATE REVEALED THERE WAS NO RECORD TO BE FOUND.
“DRIVER IDENTIFICATION: MISS GENNIE SMILEY WAS IDENTIFIED AS THE DRIVER OF THE VEHICLE PER HER CALIFORNIA DRIVER’S LICENSE, HER OWN STATEMENT, AND DONALD M. BORDEN’S STATEMENT.
“VEHICLE DAMAGE: THERE WAS SLIGHT DAMAGE TO THE FRONT GRILL OF THE GMC VANDURA. THE GRILL WAS BENT INWARD APPROXIMATELY THREE INCHES AT ITS FURTHEST INCURSION AND THERE WERE FIBERS FROM THE VICTIM’S SWEATER EMBEDDED IN THE GRILL.
“INJURIES: RICHARD KODIAK SUFFERED FATAL MASSIVE HEAD TRAUMA. PETERSON #333 AND ROYLES #979 (SAMSON’S PARAMEDIC UNIT #272) RESPONDED TO THE SCENE. KODIAK WAS PRONOUNCED DEAD AT THE SCENE BY DR. CAVENAUGH OF EASTERN MERCY HOSPITAL VIA THE RADIO…”
Syd quit reading and flipped through the next few pages. “All right,” she said at last. “We have this thirty-one-year-old male, Richard Kodiak, dead of head injuries. He and his roommate, Donald Borden, were in the process of moving from East L.A. to San Francisco when a female friend, Gennie Smiley, seems to have hit Mr. Kodiak straight on with the van and then, somehow, managed also to run over him with the van’s right front wheel.” She flipped a dozen more pages. “Mr. Borden and Ms. Smiley sued the truck rental agency, stating that the brakes were inadequate and the headlights deficient—”
“Hence my involvement,” said Dar.
“—and they also sued the owners of the apartment building for not providing adequate lighting.” She flipped back twenty or thirty pages. “Ah…here it is in her statement… Ms. Smiley said that bad exterior lighting and poor rental truck headlights prevented her from seeing Kodiak when he stepped out in front of the van. They wanted six hundred thousand dollars from the van rental company.”
“And another four hundred thousand from the apartment building owner,” said Dar.
“An even million,” mused Syd. “At least they knew what their friend was worth.”
Dar rubbed his chin. “Mr. Borden and Mr. Kodiak had lived at that same address for two years and were universally known as Dickie and Donnie to their neighbors, shop owners, local restaurateurs…”
“Gay?” said Syd.
Dar nodded.
“Then who was Gennie?”
“It seems that Mr. Borden… Donnie…swings both ways. Gennie Smiley was his secret girlfriend. Dickie discovered them together…there was a row that lasted three days, according to the neighbors…and then Dickie and Donnie patched things up by agreeing to move t
o San Francisco.”
“Sans Gennie,” said Syd.
“Sans Gennie indeed,” said Dar. “But as a gesture of goodwill, she helped them pack up the van in preparation for moving.”
“At two forty-five A.M. on a rainy morning?” said Syd.
Dar shrugged. “Dickie and Donnie were two months in arrears on their rent. It seems they were skipping.” He turned on one of the twenty-one-inch CAD monitors and tapped out a code. “OK, here are some of the accident-scene photos as recorded by Sergeant McKay of the Traffic Investigations Unit.” An electronic version of the black-and-white photo appeared on the large screen. And another. And another.
“Uh-oh,” said Syd.
“Uh-oh,” agreed Dar.
One photo showed Mr. Kodiak’s body lying in the middle of the street about thirty feet west of the main doors of the apartment building. The body was lying facedown to the east—head toward the van—and there were visible patches of blood and brain matter spilled in both directions. Another photo showed broken glass, a single shoe, shoe scuff marks, and body scuff marks directly in front of the apartment building’s main doorway. Another photograph showed continuous, nonstriated skid marks running back almost to the turn from Fountain Boulevard some 165 feet east of the impact site. In all of the photos, the van was backed east of the point of impact, its own skid marks running at least thirty feet in front of it.
“Gennie backed up when she heard a noise and thought she may have hit something,” said Dar.
“Uh-huh,” said Syd.
“Donnie was the only witness to Dickie’s death,” said Dar, pointing to the thick sheaf of statements. “He said that the two of them had been arguing. When Gennie arrived, they asked her to drive around the block and come back…”
“Why?” said Syd.
“Donnie said that they didn’t want to argue in front of her,” said Dar. “So she came around the block, traveling about thirty miles per hour, according to her estimate. She didn’t see Dickie, who had stepped off the curb, until it was too late to stop.” Dar ran the photos across the computer screen again and then froze on the widest shot. He turned on the second monitor and tapped up a program. A three-dimensional view of the same scene appeared, but this one was computer-animated.
“You do three-D accident reconstruction videos,” said Syd. “I didn’t see the CAD monitors in your loft.”
“They’re there,” said Dar. “Tucked away in a corner behind some bookcases. Preparing these provides a big share of my income.”
Syd nodded.
“So, Chief Investigator,” said Dar, “do you see some irregularities in this accident?”
Syd looked at the dossier, at the photograph on the screen, and then at the 3-D image that showed essentially the same picture as the photograph. “Something’s wrong here.”
“Correct,” said Dar. “First I investigated the lighting under similar conditions with a specialized light meter.”
“At two-forty-five A.M. on a cloudy, rainy night,” said Syd.
Dar raised his eyebrows. “Of course.” He tapped some keys.
Suddenly numbers appeared on the 3-D image of the street scene. Dar moved the mouse and rotated their viewpoint until they were looking straight down at the street, east to west, with the van near the bottom of the screen, the body centered, and the rest of the block visible. Areas on both sides had small rectangles of data listed as FC.
“Foot-candles of light,” said Syd.
Dar nodded. “Despite Donnie and Gennie’s claims, it was fairly well lighted for such a poor neighborhood. You can see that at both intersections, there are large pools of light covering most of the street at three foot-candles. The lighting at the front steps of the building puts out about one and a half foot-candles, and even in the middle of the street beyond where Dickie was hit, the lowest reading was one foot-candle.”
“She should have seen the victim even if the van’s lights weren’t working,” said Syd.
Dar touched the screen with a stylus and a red line appeared, running most of the way back to the intersection with Fountain Boulevard from whence the van had come. “Gennie came around through rather bright lighting—three foot-candles—and moved through this long area of two foot-candles of light until just before the impact. The van headlights were both intact and working. In fact, she had the brights on.”
Dar tapped keys and the visual on the screen disappeared, to be replaced by a real-time animation. Two men, three-dimensional but featureless, emerged from the front door of the apartment building. Suddenly the viewpoint switched to an aerial shot. The van accelerated around the corner from Fountain Boulevard and continued to accelerate. One of the figures stepped out into the street and faced the oncoming van. The van slammed on its brakes and slid most of the distance from the intersection to the impact site—finally hitting the man head-on and continuing to skid for another thirty feet or so. The featureless victim—Dickie—flew through the air and landed on his back in the roadway, head away from the van.
Dar tapped keys and the earlier aerial animated view was superimposed over this one. “This is the actual position of the van and body at the scene.” Suddenly the van was at least forty feet back up the street to the east and the body had also moved east—at least twenty feet from its actual point of rest, its head now pivoted around toward the van.
“Quite a discrepancy,” said Syd.
“It gets better,” said Dar. He pulled a six-page typed statement out of the dossier and let Syd glance over it. “Officer Berry, number 3501, took this statement from the first witness to drive down the street…a Mr. James William Riback.”
Syd’s eyes flicked back and forth down the pages. “Riback says that he saw a van pull away from the scene, almost cut him off, and then he saw Dickie—Mr. Kodiak—lying on his back in the street. Riback stopped his Taurus, got out, and asked Richard Kodiak if he was alive. He reports that Kodiak said, ‘Yes, go call an ambulance.’ Riback left his car in the street and ran to a friend’s apartment around the corner—3535 Gramercy Street—awoke his friend, told her to call 911, grabbed a blanket, and rushed back to the scene…where he found Mr. Kodiak lying in what Riback thought was a different location, certainly turned in a different direction, in much worse shape and unconscious. The paramedics arrived seven minutes later and Kodiak was pronounced dead. The van was parked where it is in the police photos.” Syd looked up at Dar. “The bitch drove around the block and ran over Dickie Kodiak again, didn’t she? But how do you prove it?”
“The details are pretty boring,” said Dar.
“Details don’t bore me, Dr. Minor,” said the chief investigator coolly. “They’re the core of my job, too, remember.”
Dar nodded. “OK, first I’ll run through the data and equations and then show you the forensic animation that results from them,” he said. “I prefer metric units in this sort of work, though I usually translate to English units of measurement for demonstrations.”
Dar typed and the street scene appeared again without a van, with only the two men emerging from the apartment building and one of them stepping into the street. The viewpoint swooped down again as if the viewer were looking from a van turning west onto Marlboro Avenue from Fountain Boulevard. The figure far down the street was clearly visible.
“Nighttime visibility studies show that even on a dark country road, even with the van’s dim lights on, the pedestrian—in dark clothing—would be visible for about one hundred seventy-five feet, even if the driver had poor to mediocre eyesight. It’s one hundred and sixty-nine feet from the Fountain Boulevard intersection to the point of impact with Mr. Kodiak.”
“She saw him as soon as she came around the corner,” mused Syd.
“Had to,” said Dar. “Whether he was still on the curb or had stepped out. Her high beams would have picked him out at more than three hundred forty-three feet away. Hell, if she’d had no headlights on at all, she could have seen him from one hundred fifty feet away because of the streetlights and sp
ill light from the apartment building main lobby.”
“But she accelerated,” said Syd.
“She sure did,” said Dar. “The front tires of the van left skid marks for a total distance of one hundred thirty-two feet. That is, she kept skidding for twenty-nine feet beyond the point of impact where Mr. Kodiak left his right shoe and scuff marks from his left shoe.”
“She says she ran over him at that point,” said Syd.
“Impossible,” said Dar. “Once we have the skid marks, everything becomes a matter of simple ballistics. Velocities and distances traveled—for the van, the man, and the body—can be figured easily. Shall we skip the equations?”
“No,” said Syd. “I meant it when I said that I liked details.”
Dar sighed. “All right. Both the LAPD Accident Investigations Unit and I conducted separate skid tests on this street with vehicles equipped with bumper guns—”
“Pavement spotters,” said Syd.
“Right. The test vehicles’ speeds were determined by radar. The test skids yielded a consistent value for a drag factor, f, to be 0.79. From that we can find the initial velocity of the pedestrian at the contact point… Remember, all testimony says that Mr. Kodiak was struck while standing still and facing the van. His velocity can never be greater than the van’s. So we use this equation—
vi = √ ve2 - 2ad
The values are simple. The van skidded to a full stop, so its velocity can be given as ve = 0. The value for acceleration, a, is given by a = fg. As I explained, we determined the drag factor, f = 0.79. The figure for g, the pull of gravity, = 32.2 feet per second in U.S. measurement.”
“Or 9.81 meters per second per second,” Syd said quietly.
Dar blinked at her. “You think in metric equivalents,” he said. “Shall I skip the rest of these equations and go to the animation? You’re probably ahead of me.”
Syd shook her head. “Details. Show me.”
“OK,” said Dar. “Because the van was decelerating, a has to be a negative number. Gennie’s van skidded a total of one hundred thirty-two feet. Therefore, we just substitute back into the equation for initial velocity—
