Never Tell (Detective D.D. Warren #10)(53)

Evie lost focus first. Nodded at whatever asinine comment D.D. was making while her gaze drifted to the head of the table, the growing stack of yellowing papers, frayed photo edges, dirty manila files. Records were all supposed to be scanned and stored electronically these days. And yet, if the average bureaucrat ever walked through the warehouse, saw the full magnitude of the job …

Walking the stacks to manually retrieve an evidence box wasn’t going away anytime soon.

“That’s evidence from my father’s case,” Evie said suddenly. The woman was agitated. Not even bothering to sip her water but spinning the bottle in her hand.

“That’s right.”

“You have photos?”

Delaney spoke up. “I would like to go on the record that I don’t recommend my client be here today, taking these questions, Sergeant Warren—”

D.D. kept her focus on Evie: “Do you remember your statement from that day?”

“A little.”

“Let me read it to you, from my notes: sixteen-year-old subject, female, white, appears in state of shock and/or traumatized. Subject states she had been in the kitchen with her father, Earl Hopkins, fifty-five-year-old male, white, after two thirty on Saturday. Father was showing her how to unload a recently purchased Model eight-seventy Remington pump-action shotgun. Father was standing in front of refrigerator when female subject, in her own words, picked up shotgun off the kitchen table and attempted to clear the chamber. According to female, shotgun discharged into her father’s torso from a distance of mere inches. Female states father fell back against the refrigerator, then sank to the floor. Female claims she set down gun and attempted to rouse her father without success. Female further claims she then heard screaming from the doorway, where her mother, Joyce Hopkins, forty-three-year-old female, white, stood. Mother claimed she’d witnessed the shooting. Detective Speirs interviewed independently.”

Evie didn’t say anything while D.D. read, just kept staring at the box. D.D. set down her notepad. “Does that fit your memory?”

Evie finally looked at her. “What do the photos say?”

“Phil?”

Phil stepped forward with the first set. They were gruesome. A shotgun blast at close range did a tremendous amount of damage. Evie had sat through the real event. In theory, there was nothing here she hadn’t seen before, though in D.D.’s experience, memory had its way with things over time. Meaning the photos could look far worse than Evie had allowed herself to remember, or more likely, given the woman’s burden of guilt, far less awful than the images that replayed in her head night after night.

D.D. spread out the first three photos in front of Evie and her lawyer. Delaney inhaled sharply but didn’t look away. He’d been there that day, too. A friend of the family, summoned by Evie’s mom, who hadn’t thought to call 9-1-1 but knew immediately to dial the family lawyer. Said something about the woman’s mental state right there.

“Long guns are used in suicides more often than people think,” D.D. stated now. She kept her voice even but soft. No need to play hardball just yet; that would come later. “This particular shotgun, the Model eight-seventy Remington, comes in two different barrel lengths for the twelve-gauge. Your father had purchased the slightly shorter version, but even then, the barrel length is twenty-six inches, the full length of the shotgun forty-six and a half inches. In instances of suicide, the victim will generally press the tip of the barrel against his own body to stabilize the weapon while he reaches for the trigger. Hence, one of the most common indicators of suicide by long gun is a clear burn pattern against the victim’s skin from the heat of the barrel.”

Evie glanced up at her. “I don’t see a burn mark. It would be on his stomach yes? I just see … soot.”

“Scorch marks,” D.D. provided, “indicating the shotgun was in close proximity to the victim at the time of discharge, but not actually touching the victim’s skin. In fact, the scorch marks are consistent with your initial statement, a scenario of someone standing mere inches away from the victim, pulling the trigger.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The second indicator of suicide by long gun is trajectory. It’s nearly impossible to hold a long gun level and pull the trigger, meaning inevitably the impact of the blast should be up and out. The projectiles enter lower on the body, travel in an upward diagonal until exiting higher on the body. In this case”—D.D. tapped a photo—“we can see the entrance wound was beneath your father’s lower ribs. But according to the ME, the shotgun pellets didn’t follow any diagonal path. Instead, they traveled nearly straight through the body, shredding his organs and intestines along the way.”

“Sergeant!” Delaney objected.

Evie, however, did not look away. “The gun was fired level. From someone standing directly in front of my father.”

“Which, again, would be consistent with the story you provided. You picked up the shotgun. You were trying to inspect the chamber, and instead, you pulled the trigger while standing directly in front of your father. Hence no burn marks, no upward trajectory.”

“Except I didn’t! We’d been out. Myself and my mother. We parked on the driveway. I’d just opened the car door and I heard a noise. We entered the kitchen. And there … I saw … There was my father.”