"It's a toss-up," said Stella.
She had thrown back the hood of her raincoat to give herself a better view of the scene and whatever bodies she might find. Her hair tumbled in front of her eyes. She ran her fingers through it to keep it back. She pulled a thick rubber band from her pocket and awkwardly, the arms of her raincoat swishing heavily together, tied her hair back. Devlin smiled in appreciation of Stella's high forehead and Grecian features. Stella was aware of the fireman's appreciation. This wasn't the time or place. Stella knew it. Devlin knew it. They also knew from their jobs that feeling guilty about small natural reactions wasn't worthwhile.
"We pulled ID on all four of the dead men. They all had wallets," said Devlin.
He took a notebook from an inner pocket and shielded it with his jacket to read the names.
"This one is Frank Zvitch," said Devlin. "One next to him is Anthony DeLuca."
Stella pulled back the nearby tarp to reveal the headless body of DeLuca.
"Back there"- Devlin pointed- "Malcom Cheswith. Looks like he was the cook."
Stella raised an eyebrow.
"He's wearing an apron, has a grease burn on his palm. We found him just outside the kitchen."
Stella nodded.
"There, where the front door used to be." Devlin pointed to a tarp covering an inflated shape. "Henry Doohan, owner. Papers in his pocket."
"He's carrying ownership papers in his pocket?" asked Stella.
"Ownership, licenses, insurance, inspection sheets," said Devlin.
"Odd," said Stella.
"Odd," Devlin agreed. "Why would he be carrying them?"
Stella wished she could tent all four dead men, but they only had one tent in the trunk, just a small one that could handle one body, not big enough to stand in.
"We'll take it from here, Lieutenant," she said, removing her camera from the kit she put down.
Devlin nodded and moved away, wiping his face with his gloved hand.
"One more thing," he said. "Again, we have to wait for an arson investigator and I may be wrong, but it looks to me like the charges went off before they were supposed to."
"Could be," Stella agreed. "Dry dynamite is relatively safe to handle, but when it gets wet, it's highly unstable and volatile. It doesn't take much to set it off."
"That's what I was thinking," Devlin said. "You're Greek, right?"
"Right."
"Thought so," he said with a smile and walked away.
She shook rain from her face and eyes and started to take pictures. She was about to suggest that Hawkes examine the bodies, but when she looked over her shoulder she saw that he was already squatting next to the body of Henry Doohan.
Hawkes, kit on the ground beside him, leaned over the corpse, wiped rain from his eyes and looked at Doohan's bruised and dirty face. He turned the body on its side. He was sure.
Stella had just taken her last photograph when she heard Hawkes call out, "This one was shot."
She put the camera away and was about to step toward the kneeling Hawkes when he said, "I think I hear something."
He pointed down a few feet from Doohan's body.
Stella backhanded rain from her face and looked in the direction Hawkes indicated. It was time to change gloves, but it wouldn't be easy taking off and putting on wet ones.
A sound. A crack. A deep breath from the earth.
Stella looked toward Hawkes to see if he had heard the sound. But Sheldon Hawkes had disappeared.
"What've we got, Montana?" Danny asked Lindsay after they had photographed the scene. "Make what's left of my morning interesting."
He looked toward the front of the room, where the dead teacher lay over his desk.
"Testing me again?" Lindsay asked, crossing her arms.
"Would I do that?" he asked with a grin.
"Whenever you can."
She smiled.
They were standing in the back of the chemistry lab against a whiteboard with a list of chemicals carefully written on it in black marker. Three slate-topped lab tables were lined up in front of them. On each tabletop were burners, retorts, test tubes and a built-in sink. The room smelled of sulfur and a blend of chemicals not unlike those in the crime scene lab. The difference was that the Wallen School lab looked out of date by a century. But that, both Danny and Lindsay could tell, was an affectation like the hallways. The equipment was new, clean, modern. The cabinets were stocked with hundreds of neatly labeled bottles and jars, and two computers with high-speed Internet connections sat on each lab table.
Beyond these tables lay Alvin Havel, chemistry teacher, soccer coach and winner of Teacher of the Year for the past four years according to the plaques placed tastefully on the wall next to the only door to the room.
"Someone strong or very angry or both," said Lindsay. "Both wounds. I'll get a package of pencils on the way back to the lab."
"Two packages," said Danny.
"Right," agreed Lindsay.
Two different kinds of red pencil had been plunged into Alvin Havel. One, a normal #2 into his eye, the other an extra thick #4 into his neck.
She didn't have to say more on this issue. She would take the pencils, get a dead pig from the refrigerator and determine exactly how much pressure it had taken to plunge the pencils in as deeply as they had gone. The body density of a pig was remarkably close to that of a human.
"What else?" Danny asked, arms folded.
"Wound to the neck was first. That's what killed him. He was standing. The blow is straight across. If he were sitting, it would be downward. To strike straight across while he was sitting would mean the killer would have to be on his- "
"Or her- "
"Knees or squatting. Not much leverage and judging by the depth of the pencil, the blow was hard."
"That it?" asked Danny, looking at the dead man.
"Blood splatter from the neck wound supports what I just said."
"And the pencil in the eye?"
"Not as deep," she said. "We've got a puzzle with that wound. He was already dead when the eye trauma happened. No blood splatter. No beating heart."
"Someone stabbed a dead man?" asked Danny.
"Maybe they didn't know he was dead?"
"Pencil plunged into his neck, eyes open. Hard to miss."
"Puzzle," Lindsay agreed. "Two different attackers?"
"Maybe."
"The killer had blood, lots of it, on him- "
"Or her."
"Security tapes," she said.
The security cameras in the Wallen School halls were not concealed, nor were they obvious. Their purpose was to let students know they were being watched at all times. Danny knew schools all over the city that had dummy cameras mounted on the walls. Real working ones were too expensive. Wallen School, however, would have the money to have working surveillance.
"None in this room," said Lindsay.
"Teachers don't like them in the classrooms," said Danny.
"Academic freedom," she said.
"Something like that. We look at the tape, but first we talk to the teacher who discovered the body and the students who were in the class when Havel was killed. Maybe we get lucky and get a Perry Mason."
A Perry Mason was a confession out of the blue by a distraught, angry or vindictive killer. Perry seldom relied on forensics. He counted on courtroom confessions and he was inevitably rewarded. No mess. Danny wondered what it would be like with no mess. He wouldn't like it. No challenge. He loved his job.
"We wish," Lindsay said.
"He was a popular guy," said Danny.
"Not with everyone," said Lindsay.
4
DR. SID HAMMERBECK PURSED out his lower lip and looked over the top of his glasses at the corpse of Patricia Mycrant on the autopsy table. Mac stood at his side as the medical examiner probed with gloved hands and tools.
"Interesting," he said, pausing to bite his lower lip.
"What?" asked Mac.
"Eleven discernible wounds and some vaginal damage so extensive that I'm not sure yet how many cuts and tears there are. Your killer was very angry or very crazy or both. Blade of the knife is three inches. Fold up. Carry it in a pocket. It's sharp. Very sharp. As sharp as one of my scalpels. The owner of this knife has treated it lovingly."