uniformed officers stood guard.
Frank walked over, flashed his badge and entered.
It seemed the height of irony that one of the wealthiest men in the
world had chosen a place like this to die. Walter Sullivan had been a
walking poster child for Horatio AJger tales. Frank admired a man who
had risen in the world on his own merit, sheer guts and determination.
Who wouldn’t?
He 4ooked again at the chair where the body had been found, the gun
beside it. The weapon had been pressed against Sullivan’s left temple.
The stellate wound, large and ragged, had preceded the massive bursting
fracture that had ended the man’s life. The gun had fallen on the left
side of the floor. The presence of the contact wound and powder bums on
the deceased’s palm had prompted the locals to file the case away as a
suicide, the facts of which were simple and straightforward. A grieving
Walter Sullivan had exacted revenge on his wife’s killer and then taken
his own life. His associates had confirmed that Sullivan had been out of
touch for days, unusual for him. He rarely came to this retreat and
whenever he did, someone knew his whereabouts. The newspaper found
beside the body had proclaimed the death of his wife’s suspected
murderer. All the signs pointed ‘to a man who had intended on ending his
life.
What bothered Frank was one small fact that he had purposefully not
shared with anyone. He had met Walter Sullivan the day he had come to
the morgue. During that meeting, Sullivan had signed off on several
forms related to the autopsy and an inventory of his wife’s few
possessions.
And Sullivan had signed those forms with his right hand.
It was inconclusive in itself. Sullivan could have held the gun in his
left hand for any number of reasons. His fingerprints were on the gun
clear as day, maybe too clear, Frank thought to himself The physical
condition of the gun: it was untraceable; the serial numbers had been so
expertly obliterated that even the scope couldn’t pull up anything. A
completely sterilized weapon. The kind you’d expect to find at a crime
scene. But why would Walter Sullivan be concerned about anyone tracing a
gun he was going to use to kill himself? The answer was he wouldn’t.
But again the fact was inconclusive since the person providing Sullivan
the weapon could have obtained it illegally, although Virginia was one
of the easier states in which to purchase a handgun, much to the dismay
of police departments in the northeast corridor of the &@ country.
Frank finished with the interior and paced outside. The snow still lay
thickly on the ground. Sullivan had been dead before the snow had
started, the autopsy had confirmed that.
It was fortunate that his people knew the location of the house. They
had come looking for him and the body had been discovered within
approximately twelve hours of death.
No, the snow would not help Frank. The entire place was so isolated
there was no one even to ask if anything suspicious had been observed on
the night of Sullivan’s death.
His counterpart from the county sheriff’s department climbed out of his
car and -hustled over to where Frank was standing. The man carried a
file with some papers in it. He and Frank conversed for a few moments
and then Frank thanked him, climbed in his car and drove off.
The autopsy report indicated that Walter Sullivan had died sometime
between eleven P.m. and one o’clock in the morning. But at twelve-ten
Walter Sullivan had called someone.
THE HALLWAYS OF PS&L WERE UNSETTLINGLY QUIET. THE capillaries of a
thriving law practice are ringing phones, pealing faxes, mouths moving
and keyboards clicking. Lucinda, even with the firm’s individual
direct-dialing lines, was normally the recipient of eight phone calls
per minute. Today she leisurely read through Vogue. Most office doors
were closed, shielding from view the intense and often emotional
discussions going on among all but a handful of the firm’s lawyers.
Sandy Lord’s office door was not only closed, it was locked. The few
partners with the temerity to attempt a knock on the thick portal were