“So some asshole was shooting fish in a barrel,” Marino said.
I did not answer him as I directed the light at grass and trash leading up to the street.
Drops of blood glistened dark red on a flattened milk carton whitened by weather and time.
“What about his wallet?” I asked.
“It was in his back pocket. Eleven bucks and charge cards still in it,” Marino said, his eyes constantly moving.
I took photographs, then knelt by the body and turned it so I could get a better look at the back of Danny’s ruined head. I felt his neck, and he was still warm, the blood beneath him coagulating. I opened my medical bag.
“Here.” I unfolded a plastic sheet and gave it to Marino.
“Hold this up while I take his temperature.”
He shielded the body from any eyes but ours as I pulled down jeans and undershorts, finding that both were soiled.
Although it was not uncommon for people to urinate and defecate at the instant of death, sometimes this was the body’s response to terror. “You got any idea if he fooled around with drugs?” Marino asked.
“I have no reason to think so,” I said. “But I have no idea.”
“For example, he ever look like he lived beyond his means’? I mean, how much did he earn?”
“He earned about twenty-one thousand dollars a year. I don’t know if he lived beyond his means. He still lived at home.
The body temperature was 94.5, and I set the thermometer on top of my bag to get a reading of the ambient air.
I moved arms and legs, and rigor mortis had started only in small muscles like his fingers and eyes. For the most part, Danny was still warm and limber as in life, and as I bent close to him I could smell his cologne and knew I would recognize it forever.
Making sure the sheet was completely under him, I turned him on his back, and more blood spilled as I began looking for other wounds.
“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.