Never Tell (Detective D.D. Warren #10)(44)

D.D. gave him her best scowl. “I don’t want theoretical. I need practical. I’m drowning here in half lies, past assumptions, and a family with a whole new brand of crazy. I think Phil is actually scared of the mom. Probably for good reason.”

“Interesting. I like it. And you know you do, too.”

She rolled her eyes. Another sip of wine for them both. Then Alex set down his glass on the coffee table and grew serious.

“All right. Let’s take it back to the evidence.”

“By all means.”

“I’m assuming a pump-action shotgun?”

“Yes.”

“Contact point?”

“The chest. Evie’s official statement was that she’d picked up the shotgun, was trying to figure out how to clear the chamber when it went off mere inches from her father’s torso.”

“Okay. We can work with that. So the issue with suicide by long gun is trigger access; it’s a reach to get it. Given that, like I said, most victims balance the tip of the barrel against their own bodies to help hold it in place. In a head shot, the most common contact point is the underside of the chin. In a chest shot, the ME should have evidence of a contact burn—against the ribs, if not right below the rib cage.”

“I’ll pull that report.”

“Just to play devil’s advocate—victims sometimes recoil as they’re pulling the trigger, flinching away from the barrel. In which case, you’ll get soot markings on the skin, versus an actual sear pattern. Soot means the barrel of the shotgun was held between three-quarters of an inch and a foot from the skin. Unfortunately in your case, such stipling could still go either way, as the girl testified she was standing just inches from her father, right?”

“So searing means the gun was definitely pressed against him—contradicting her statement. Soot means it still could’ve been suicide but he flinched, or that indeed she shot him from a close distance. I’m going to need more wine for this.”

“Ah, but now we need to factor in trajectory. One hallmark of a suicide with a long gun is that there’s nearly always a sharply angled trajectory, the bullet having tracked up, with the entrance wound distinctly lower than the exit wound. Think of trying to hold out a loaded shotgun level in front of you with one hand and pull the trigger with the other. It can’t be done naturally. I mean maybe if the butt of the weapon was wedged against a wall or some other object, or some machination was in place to hold the barrel level, but you have no sign of that, right?”

“He went down in front of the refrigerator, open space in front him.”

“Toppled chair, by any chance?”

D.D. had to think about it, then shook her head. “I honestly don’t remember. I’ve put in a request to pull the old file, which should have photos.”

“If you are thinking suicide, one scenario is that he positioned the butt of the gun on a kitchen chair, placed the tip of the barrel against his torso, and pulled the trigger. Depending on how tall he was—”

“Six feet.”

“Then you’re still going to have a fairly angled trajectory versus the daughter’s scenario, where she’s holding the gun up, messing with the chamber, and accidentally pulls the trigger, shooting her father square in the torso.”

“Okay.”

“Which brings us to the last point of consideration: directionality of spatter.”

“Ah yes, what would an evening in our house be without a discussion of spatter?”

Alex picked up his wineglass, clinked it against hers.

“There can be blowback from shooting directly into a torso. But the directionality of that spatter on skin and clothes is not at all the same as what might happen from the suicide scenario, when again, the force of the blast is going to be up and out of the body, distributing a pattern higher up on the wall behind the victim, possibly even on the ceiling.”

“She said it dripped down on her when she walked into the room. She could feel the heat of it.”

Alex’s face was serious. “Wouldn’t be the first time. But again, the two scenarios—her shooting her father from mere inches away square in the chest, and her walking in after he’s fired an upward shot through his chest cavity—lead to very different blood evidence. Very different.”

“So review the photos, and whatever spatter evidence we still have from the scene.”

Alex nodded.

“Okay. Got it. Thank you.”

“There is a third possibility, you know.”

D.D. sighed heavily. Because in this case, why not? “Which is?”

“There is searing on his skin, the trajectory is a steep angle passing through his torso, and the blood pattern from the blast is up and out.”

“I thought that meant it was suicide.”

“Or someone placed the barrel against his chest and pulled the trigger from a position beneath him. Forensics gives us position and angle, but it still can’t tell us everything that might have led up to such a scenario.”

D.D. eyed her husband. “As in, there could be other possibilities. Say, a struggle. Two people vying for the shotgun. Other person got it first. Hopkins stood up, tried to step back. Second person jammed the shotgun into his ribs and pulled the trigger. Self-defense. Or possibly murder. Wait a minute! I’ve lived with you long enough. In that scenario, we’d have a void in the spatter evidence, basically a blank spot where the shooter stood, got hit with blowback, and then exited out the door, removing that piece of the puzzle.”