“What time did you get the call?” I asked Marino, who was moving slowly near the tunnel, probing its tangled growths of vines and brush with his light.
“One of the neighbors heard a gunshot coming from this area and dialed 911 at seven-oh-five P.m. We found your car and him maybe fifteen minutes after that, So we’re talking about two hours ago. Does that work with what you’re finding?”
“It’s almost freezing out. He’s heavily clothed and he’s lost about four degrees. Yes, that works. How about handing me those bags over there. Do we know what happened to the friend who was supposed to be driving Lucy’s Suburban?”
I slipped the brown paper bags over the hands and secured them at the wrist with rubber bands to preserve fragile evidence like gunshot residue, or fibers or flesh beneath fingernails, supposing he had struggled with his assailant.
But I did not think he had. Whatever had happened, I suspected Danny had done exactly as he had been told.
“At the present time we don’t know anything about whoever his friend is,” Marino said. “I can send a unit down to your office to check.”
“I think that’s a good idea. We don’t know that the friend isn’t somehow connected to this.”
“One hundred,” Marino said into his portable radio as I began taking photographs again.
“One hundred,” the dispatcher came back.
“Ten-five any unit that might be in the area of the medical examiner’s office at Fourteenth and Franklin.”$
Danny had been shot from behind, the wound close range, if not contact. I started to ask Marino about cartridge cases when I heard a noise I knew all too well.
“Oh no,” I said as the beating sound got louder. “Marino, don’t let them get near.”
But it was too late, and we looked up as a news helicopter appeared and began circling low. Its searchlight swept the tunnel and the cold, hard ground where I was on my knees, brains and blood all over my hands. I shielded my eyes from the blinding glare as leaves and dirt stormed and bare trees rocked. I could not hear what Marino yelled as he furiously waved his flashlight at the sky while I shielded the body with my own as best I could.
I enclosed Danny’s head in a plastic bag and covered him with a sheet while the crew for Channel 7 destroyed the scene because they were ignorant or did not care, or maybe both. The helicopter’s passenger door had been removed, and the cameraman hung out in the night as the light nailed me for the eleven o’clock news. Then the blades began their thunderous retreat.
“Goddainnsonofabitch!” Marino was screaming as he shook his fist after them. “I ought to shoot your ass out of the air!”
CHAPTER 10
A CAR WAS DISPATCHED THERE, I ZIPPED THE body inside a pouch, and when I stood I felt faint. For an instant I had to steady myself as my face got cold and I could not see.
“The squad can move him,” I told Marino. “Can’t someone get those goddamn television cameras out of here?”
Their bright lights floated like satellites up on the dark street as they waited for us to emerge. He gave me a look because we both knew nobody could do a thing about reporters or what they used to record us. As long as they did not interfere with the scene, they could do as they pleased, especially if they were in helicopters we could not stop or catch.
“You going to transport him yourself?” he asked me.
“No. A squad’s already there,” I said. “And we need some help getting him back up there. Tell them to come on now.
He got on the radio as our flashlights continued to lick over trash and leaves and potholes filled with muddy water.
Then Marino said to me, “I’m going to keep a few guys out here poking around for a while. Unless the perp collected his cartridge case, it’s got to be out here somewhere.” He looked up the hill. “Problem is, some of those mothers can eject a long way and that goddamn chopper blew stuff all the hell over the place.”