AHMM, October 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  She touched her leaf to a bush and let the beetle crawl across, then took her father's hand. They strolled down the green-canopied path toward the barking dog.

  "Just a bowl of butterbeans,” McKinney sang. “Pass the cornbread if you please. I don't want no collard greens. Just a bowl of good ol’ butter beans!"

  "What is that horrible noise you're making, Dad?"

  "It's called singing, wise guy. You've heard me sing before."

  "Yeah, but this is worse than usual. What's the song?"

  "It's a parody of an old hymn, ‘A Closer Walk With Thee.’ I learned it from my zoology teacher, Professor Boyd. You met him once. Your mother and I had him over for dinner."

  "It's too bad Mom couldn't come with us,” Angelina said. “This is such a perfect spring day. It even smells like spring.” It had rained two days earlier, and the air was filled with the scent of damp undergrowth and fresh chlorophyll. She pointed into the woods, to a patch of yellow and blue. “Look, there are flowers already.” Her voice quavered a little.

  McKinney looked at her sun-dappled face and sighed. He gave her hand a little squeeze. “Your mom wanted to come with, but she needs to rest. We'll pick some flowers to take her on the way back to the car."

  As they rounded the bend, the big black dog came bounding toward them. He barked once and turned to run back down the path. He stopped in front of something large on the ground. As they got closer McKinney realized it was a man, lying facedown across the path. He released his daughter's hand. “Stay here,” he said, advancing toward the dog.

  Hendrix had stopped barking, but his head was down and he was growling. McKinney stopped and pointed to the ground at his feet. “Hendrix, front!” he said. On command, the dog trotted over and sat where McKinney had pointed. McKinney dug around in his pocket for a dog treat, offered it to the dog, and snapped on his leash. He handed the leash end to his daughter. “Hang on to this for me, Bella.” He scanned the path in front of him and approached the prone figure slowly, taking care not to step on any footprints.

  The man had the shapeless appearance bodies get when there's no longer any muscle tension to give them form, like a water balloon or a half filled bag of leaves. The part of the face that was exposed was smeared with some kind of dark grease, but the skin that shone through was bone white. McKinney knelt and put two fingers to the side of the man's neck. No pulse. The body was cold, but it didn't smell as bad as most of the corpses McKinney had seen. The man was dressed in black military fatigues with black leather boots and gloves. A dark stain, possibly blood, had seeped out from underneath him and soaked into the dirt.

  McKinney looked around. The path was covered with footprints, some new, most old. Only one set, though, came from the woods beyond the body, and McKinney could see reddish splotches along the trail. He bent over the body to look at the liquid that had pooled beneath it. It was definitely blood. He could just make out the torn shirt and the jagged edges of a wound. He didn't want to roll the man over to expose the wound.

  He then noticed a clump of blowfly eggs in the blood on the ground. He took a pencil out of his pocket and used the eraser tip to pull the man's eyelid away from the eye; a small raft of eggs had been laid there too. If they were from the first flies to arrive then the man had probably died fairly recently. Maybe within hours. McKinney would ask the crime scene techs to collect the eggs. He looked at the bottoms of the black leather boots and stood up. He was moving around the dead man to get a look at the footprints coming from the woods when he heard the scuffle of feet on the path behind him.

  "No, Hendrix! Stay here! Dad, Hendrix wants to go with you. I don't think I can hold him."

  Angelina was struggling to hang on to the excited dog. McKinney turned and walked back down the path. He was here as a father today, not as a criminalist. He would walk Angelina and Hendrix back to the car and use his cell phone to call the police. They were only about ten minutes from the parking lot. He wasn't sure if Schiller Woods was within Chicago's city limits, but he'd call the Chicago Police Department anyway. He knew some of the detectives who worked the northwest side. He was curious about where the man had come from and how he'd been killed. He took the leash and put his arm around his daughter's shoulder. “Come on, Bella. Let's head back to the car."

  The girl looked up at him. “Is that man dead?” she asked. McKinney nodded. They turned and walked in silence back to the car. When they passed the little grove of wildflowers, neither stopped. The only sounds were the wind in the trees and the dog, sniffing through the weeds growing alongside the path.

  * * * *

  McKinney kept his hands in his pockets as the crime scene tech bagged the last of the guns. He was tempted to help, but he knew it wasn't his place. After he had led the police to the corpse in the woods, he stayed and watched as they took photos and searched the path near the body. When the detective in charge of the scene, Scott Bryson, arrived, McKinney followed him down the blood-spattered trail into a clearing. They had met on McKinney's first day at the Illinois State Police Forensic Science Center and immediately hit it off. Bryson was a transplanted South Side cop whose wardrobe was built around a collection of polyester sport shirts and leather jackets. He spoke out of one side of his mouth because the other side was perpetually chewing on an unlit stogie.

  McKinney enjoyed working with Bryson. He was a thorough investigator who relied on the physical evidence, both for investigative leads and in building a case against a suspect.

  "Counting this nasty-looking shotgun,” McKinney said, “that makes six guns. All assault weapons, all empty and smelling like they were recently fired."

  "That's a Franchi,” Bryson said. “Semi-auto with a folding stock. Very concealable. It'll fire a round as fast as you can pull the trigger. They've been illegal to import into this country for years.” He pointed to a black nylon backpack at his feet. “You oughta see what's in here. This guy had enough ammo to take out a platoon.” He looked into the pack. “Nine millimeters, shotgun shells, even a box of fifties."

  "Fifty calibers?” McKinney asked. “Those are what snipers use to shoot down airplanes.” He looked up at the condensation trails criss-crossing the morning sky. A big jet drew a fresh one as it soared off to the west. “We're not too far from the airport here.” He shuddered at the thought.

  "I know,” Bryson said. “This guy was ready for anything. There's a bottle of energy drink and a handful of protein bars in here too. And a stack of pictures, just like those.” He pointed with his cigar to the circle of trees ringing the little clearing. They were covered with photographs of bearded men wearing turbans, kufis, and Afghan pakols on their heads. One wore a kaffiyeh. Most of the photos had bullet holes in them. Some had been turned to confetti by a shotgun blast.

  McKinney looked around the clearing. The grass had been trampled down and near where Bryson found the backpack was a muddy area. Even from across the clearing he could see footprints in the mud. A trail of blood led from there to where he stood. He started to walk toward Bryson when the detective held up his hand.

  "Watch where you step. The ground is covered with ejected casings. I want all of them collected and matched up to the weapon they were fired from."

  "Sure,” McKinney said. He knew the procedure and was embarrassed that he had to be reminded. “I don't want to mess anything up. It'd just make my job harder.” He turned to go. “I'm heading back. Angelina's waiting in the car and I don't like to leave her by herself too long."

  Bryson waved from across the clearing. “I'll call you at the lab and let you know what we find,” he said.

  On his way back down the path McKinney stopped and picked two bunches of wildflowers, one for his wife and one for his daughter. When he got back to the car, he found Hendrix sitting up front in the passenger's seat, and Angelina lying across the seat in the back. Her eyes were closed, but he could tell she wasn't asleep by her breathing; it was too irregular. McKinney noticed that her cheek and the back of her hand were damp, as thou
gh she had been crying. He slid into the front and twisted around in his seat. “Everything okay back there?” he asked.

  Angelina sat up. “How did that man die, Dad?"

  "Looks like a gunshot wound, Bella.” He hesitated. “Why do you ask?"

  "Did someone kill him?"

  "We don't know yet,” he said. “Change seats with Hendrix, will you? I don't want him riding up front without a seat belt."

  She crawled forward between the seats of the little Rav4 and pushed Hendrix into the back. The dog barked once to register his disapproval, then lay down and started licking his paws. McKinney handed Angelina the two small bunches of wildflowers.

  "Here, Bella,” he said. “One for you and one for your mother."

  She held them in her lap and looked out the window as they drove home, not speaking.

  * * * *

  McKinney was sitting at his desk in the Trace Evidence Unit, writing up a report on his analysis of some paint chips found at the scene of a hit-and-run, when he finally got a call from Scott Bryson. The detective wanted to know what he had learned from the evidence that had been collected in the woods, and McKinney was ready for him. In addition to the victim's clothing he had analyzed the microscopic material that had been collected from the man's gloves and shirtsleeves. It was gunshot residue with a high concentration of particles containing the right combination of barium, lead, and antimony. McKinney had allowed the fly eggs to mature and checked the weather service for the temperature that night. As he had guessed, the man probably died several hours before he'd been found on the path. McKinney also collected a number of hairs and fibers from the victim's clothing, but without a suspect there was nothing to compare them to. He had compared the soles of the man's shoes to the shoeprint casts that had been taken at the scene and learned that all the useful prints in the clearing had belonged to the victim.

  "It looks to me,” McKinney said, “like the guy was all alone out there, at least in the clearing. Maybe he accidentally shot himself."

  "That's fine,” Bryson said. “But there are a few things that don't jibe with that theory. I talked to Pulaski in the Firearms Unit before I called you. He tells me there were no shell casings to match the slug the M.E. pulled out of the body. I went over to the morgue and picked it up yesterday. It's a big shotgun slug, a twelve gauge with a plastic wad still attached and some flattened down ridges on the sides that look like they were little fins. I think it's a Brenneke. All of the spent shotgun shells we found were Remington target loads, the kind you use for skeet shooting. They fire little BB shot. The unfired shells in his backpack were the same. None of them could have fired the slug."

  "Maybe he was a reloader. You know, picked up his fired shells and put his own charge in them. Maybe he loaded one with a slug instead of BB shot."

  "Could be. But then there's the lack of burnt powder on his shirt. I asked the Firearms Unit to do a distance determination test. I thought maybe he had shot himself too. They couldn't tell me the distance the slug had been fired from, which means it was probably more than twelve feet away."

  "So you think someone else was down there?"

  "I do,” Bryson said. “The guy didn't have any ID on him, but we found his car in the forest preserve parking lot. His name was James Talcott. Delivery driver, early forties, divorced, spent the last eight years living in his mother's basement. She and I talked for over an hour, and then she took me down to see his room. It was filled with stuff about 9/11."

  "You mean the terrorist attacks?"

  "Yeah, he was obsessed with it. There were three bookcases filled with books and DVDs about the Middle East and posters of Bin Laden and the Twin Towers on all the walls. We brought his computer back here and it was filled with the same stuff. His Internet browser had its homepage set to one of those forums where people can post their opinions. This one is devoted to discussions of terrorism. Guess what his user name was."

  "I don't know, the Lone Ranger?"

  "Christian Soldier,” Bryson said.

  "As in ‘onward Christian soldier,’ huh. So, was he going to start his own crusade?"

  "Uh huh. His mother says he called the basement the ‘command post.’ She also told me that he hasn't been to church since he was a kid."

  "So you think someone from the forum was in the woods with him."

  "Yeah. It could still have been an accidental shooting. Maybe he and a friend were practicing shooting terrorists and the friend pegged him, got scared, and ran off. I went back out to the woods. There's a deer stand in a tree just outside the clearing. A sniper could have sat up there watching him shoot up those pictures, then—POW! What do you think?"

  "I don't know,” McKinney said. “Did you find anything in the tree? Any indication that someone was up there?"

  "Naw,” Bryson admitted. “I just don't see how he could have shot himself from twelve feet away."

  * * * *

  Even though it was springtime in Chicago, the mornings were cool. McKinney's fleece was zipped up to his chin as he and Hendrix walked the same path they had taken weeks before. The dog didn't seem to mind, but the mist that hung in the air had chilled McKinney to the bone. It wasn't too long after sunrise, so the chain was still across the entrance to the forest preserve parking lot. Man and dog had walked an additional half mile from where McKinney parked on Cumberland. He wanted to have one more look around the clearing. The techs had cleaned the area and removed the yellow warning tape, but he wanted to get a look at the deer stand where Bryson thought a shooter might have fired at Talcott.

  When they arrived in the clearing, the first thing McKinney noticed was how different it looked. The pictures were gone, the empty cartridges had been picked up, and the flattened-down grasses had started to spring back. Nature was claiming her own.

  McKinney walked around the glade, looking up at about forty-five degrees. He spotted the deer stand easily. It was just a crotch in a tree, fifteen or twenty feet off the ground. Someone had nailed sections of two-by-four on the side of the tree as a makeshift ladder. The tree was beyond the clearing's perimeter and it was obscured from view by a number of branches. It had been night when Talcott was there; even so, it seemed strange to McKinney that Talcott could have failed to notice someone sitting in the deer stand.

  McKinney found the spot where Talcott had most likely been standing. The crime scene photos and his own recollection identified it as having had the most footprints and blood spatters. McKinney wanted to climb up to the deer stand to see if a shooter, sitting in the tree, would have had an unobstructed view of that spot. That's why he brought Hendrix. He would leave the dog in the clearing and climb up to the deer stand with a spotting scope. He pulled a spiral pet stake out of his pocket and knelt down to screw it into the ground. The sun was just starting to burn off the haze, and as McKinney clipped the dog's leash to the stake he noticed something sparkle in the grass, about five feet to his left. Hendrix licked his cheek and lay down in the grass. McKinney crawled on hands and knees to where he saw the reflected sunlight and pulled the matted grasses apart until he found the source of the reflection, an empty shotgun shell. He looked at the plastic casing. It was a 12 gauge Brenneke KO. If McKinney recalled correctly, the KO had a muzzle velocity of over sixteen hundred feet per second. Quite a recoil compared to the light Remington target loads Bryson had found. Unlike the skeet shot in the Remington, the Brenneke fired a heavy slug. McKinney crawled back to Hendrix, took out his spotting scope, and sat. He could see right away that there was a large, twisted tree between him and the deer stand. He looked through the spotting scope, and before he could focus on the deer stand, he saw a knotty growth on the big tree right in front of him, about fifteen feet off the ground. A light patch on the burl showed where a chunk of bark had recently been dislodged. McKinney groaned. He knew he'd have to climb up there to examine it, and he hadn't even had his morning coffee yet.

  McKinney leaned back against the handmade quilt Catherine had sewn. It was draped across the headb
oard of their daughter's bed. He struggled to keep his eyes open. It seemed like he was tired all the time lately. Angelina had called to him as he was passing her room and asked him to sit with her. They had stopped reading her bedtime stories two years ago when she had decided she was too old. Lately though, she'd been having a hard time falling asleep. He put an arm around her shoulder. “What's up, Bella?” he asked.

  "I keep thinking about that man out in the woods, Dad. Why did he have all those guns?"

  "He was just afraid, honey. He was worried that terrorists were going to attack and he was practicing shooting at them."

  "Did someone kill him?” she asked.

  "No.” McKinney shook his head. “It was an accident."

  "Oh.” She was quiet for a minute. “We were afraid, too, weren't we? I mean about Mom."

  "Yeah,” he said. “But we're not afraid anymore, are we? Your mother's going to be fine. She just needs to get a lot of sleep after her chemo and radiation appointments. That's when our bodies do the most healing, when we're asleep."

  "I know,” Angelina murmured.

  He smiled down at her shaved head. Its peach fuzz tickled his arm. “You should get to sleep too. School tomorrow."

  "Okay."

  Within minutes she was asleep. He slid his arm out from under her and crept out of the room. He stopped as he passed his bedroom and stood for a moment, watching his wife sleep. When he was able to detect the rise and fall of her chest he moved on down the hall to brush his teeth. McKinney looked at his haggard reflection in the bathroom mirror. He thought about James Talcott and his woodland target practice. McKinney had climbed up the gnarled tree and dug out a hunk of the burl with his pocketknife. There was a silvery smear on the wood that elemental analysis with the Scanning Electron Microscope showed was of the same lead-heavy composition as the lethal slug. It appeared that Talcott had accidentally loaded the Brenneke along with his practice shot shells and hadn't been prepared for the extra recoil. It kicked the barrel of the gun skyward and the slug had ricocheted off the hard wood burl, right back down into his chest.