Zero Day (John Puller, #1)(47)

“I’m just trying to understand the playing field here, nothing more. If I offended you, I’m sorry.”

His frank manner defused her anger.

“Randy’s the youngest. Just turned thirty and sort of lost his way in life. We’re hoping he finds it again. Real soon.”

“I take it no one sent him away to a military academy.”

“Maybe someone should have.”

They climbed into the cruiser.

Puller clicked his seat belt. “Any hits on that guy from your BOLO?”

“None. Something tells me he left Drake a long time ago.”

She clipped her seat belt across her and fired up the engine. “What’d you do with the laptop and briefcase?” she asked.

“On their way to USACIL via military courier.”

“Good place?”

“Best place. You can tell right from the moment you walk in when you see it on the floor.”

“See what?”

“The lab’s logo. Bought it back in the fifties from some guy for a buck.”

“What is it?”

“Detective Mickey Mouse. The guy who sold it was named Walt Disney.”

“A crime lab’s logo is a cartoon character?”

“When you’re that good, who cares what your logo is?”

“If you say so.”

They left the Trent mansion behind and headed back to the real world.

CHAPTER

33


DR. WALTER KELLERMAN had once been a far heavier man but had dropped a lot of weight, noted Puller, when they arrived for the autopsies. He deduced this from his sagging facial skin and his belt having four additional holes cut in the leather to accommodate his shrinking waist.

The bodies had been transported from the funeral home to Kellerman’s surgery. It was in a two-room brick building behind his office, which clearly used to be someone’s home and was located about a mile from the downtown area. Portable refrigeration beds had been brought in to hold the bodies.

“Is the man sick or eating better?” Puller asked in a low voice to Cole as they slipped on surgical gowns and gloves.

“Little of both. He’s walking more, cutting out the red meat, and eating less. They took out his gallbladder and left kidney about a year ago. He knows if he wants to see his seventies he needs to get it together.”

“You attended autopsies before?” asked Puller.

“More than I wanted to,” she replied.

“Lindemann said the last murder you had was ten years ago.”

“They do autopsies for other reasons. Accidents mostly. In coal mining country you have quite a few of those. And car accidents. Have quite a few of those too.”

“Okay.”

“And if you’re wondering whether I’m going to start puking when he starts cutting, the answer is no.”

Kellerman had a trim white beard, blue eyes, little hair on his head, and a friendly manner. When he was introduced to Puller he said, “I pulled one stint in the Air Force. Two years in Vietnam, but the GI Bill helped pay for college and I went on and got my medical degree.”

“See, Uncle Sam can do things right,” said Puller.

“I never regretted it. Makes you stronger.”

“If you survive it,” said Cole.

Puller noted the body on the steel table with the sheet over it. “Who’s first?”

“Colonel Reynolds.” Kellerman glanced at the portable cold beds. “I have two trained assistants helping, but it’s still going to be a long day.”

“We’re just here to observe and ask questions,” said Cole.

“You’re very welcome to do both. I looked over the bodies this morning. An interesting mixture of wounds. Shotgun, small-caliber handgun, strangulation, and blunt force trauma.”

“Any idea what was used to kill the teenagers?” asked Puller.

“Probably a hand.”

“How can you be sure of that?” asked Cole.

“I’m not sure. He asked if I had an idea. And that’s it.”

“But why a hand?”

“A bat, metal tool, or other foreign object would have almost certainly left some sort of residue or telltale mark on the skin. Did one post where you could make out the logo of a Louisville Slugger bat on the deceased’s chest. But the hand leaves a distinctive mark too. And I found trace embedded in the neck of the boy.”

“What was it?” asked Puller.

“Looks to be a bit of black leather.”

“Meaning they wore gloves.”

“How I see it, yes.”

“It’s not easy to hit the medulla just right to kill someone,” noted Puller. “It’s only about three inches long.”

“I’d say you were looking for someone with special training. Maybe martial arts.”

“Or military,” suggested Cole.

“Right. Or military,” agreed Kellerman.

He slid down his clear face mask, lifted the sheet from the dead colonel, and readied his instruments.

“Shall we?”


Even with the two assistants’ help the seven bodies took many hours to properly autopsy. Puller had boxed up quite a bit of the evidence in special containers, carefully marked, that he would ship down to USACIL. He would include with the packages specific instructions for the lab at Fort Gillem when they processed the evidence. And he would follow up those instructions with an email and a phone call.