Free Even Steven by John Gilstrap Page B

walker to climb the hill. Tim liked that image—a man so hopelessly out of shape and over-the-hill that he needed assistance climbing the trail. Tim smiled at the thought of it, then turned back to the business at hand. He had an investigation to run up here, and no matter how much of the glory Coates ultimately stole, this one was going to go down in the books as strictly by-the-numbers.
    And if it got thrown out of court one day because Coates had yet again screwed up the chain of evidence, then Tim would have over a dozen witnesses to testify to the fine job he’d done up until the time when incompetence arrived on the scene.
     
    One glance told Russell that Tim Burrows had a good handle on things. Judging by the hundreds of feet of barricade tape that had been stretched among the trees, he saw that the crime scene was a big one, roughly defined as the entire mountain. A sheriff’s deputy challenged him as he approached, but stepped aside when Russell flashed his credentials.
    Tim looked more like a jungle grunt than an FBI agent, dressed in camouflaged BDUs with his H&K nine-millimeter strapped low on his thigh in a Velcro and nylon holster. Russell wondered if there’d ever been a time when he himself could have looked that good in a uniform. As it was, Russell sucked in his gut so it wouldn’t bulge over the waistband of his jeans.
    “Hey, Tim,” Russell opened as he approached his ASAC. “Bring me up to speed.”
    Burrows imitated a warm smile and led with his hand. “Hey, Russell. How’s the golf game?”
    “Didn’t even bring the clubs. Decided to rip the lips off fish instead.” After years of stress at the end of a golf club, Russell had finally determined that it wasn’t his game. He’d take a smooth lake or a roaring surf anytime. Just him and the fish.
    Tim handed Russell two heavy rubber bands for his shoes—all investigators wore them to differentiate their footprints from the others—and led the way toward a blue paper sheet that they’d anchored against the breeze with a half dozen stout rocks. Russell figured correctly that the star of this investigation lay underneath. As they approached, a potbellied deputy kicked the rocks off one long side of the sheet and let the wind flop it over to reveal the corpse.
    “I figure time of death at twelve to eighteen hours,” Tim said. “He’s rigored up tight, and you can see the lividity for yourself.”
    Indeed Russell could. The dead man lay on his stomach, and all the low spots of his body had turned purplish black from the stagnant blood pooled in his tissues.
    As he followed Tim in close to the body, Russell did his best to conceal his revulsion at the odor. Local homicide investigators had the luxury of getting used to this sort of thing. As infrequently as Russell did it, every murder was a new adventure in stamina.
    “The guy’s a cop. Thomas Stipton from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We found his badge and ID in his back pocket.”
    Russell’s right eyebrow scaled his forehead. He nodded toward the empty holster on the corpse’s hip. “Where’s his weapon?”
    Tim shook his head. “Haven’t found it yet. Doubt that we will.”
    “Shot with his own gun, you think?”
    “Hard to say till ballistics gets done with the bullets. Here, take a look at the entry wounds.” As Tim spoke, he pointed out the different holes with the point of his pen. “We’ve got one here in the shoulder, sort of between his shoulder blade and his collarbone, one here at the supersternal notch, and another here on the top of his head.”
    Tim dug using phrases like supersternal notch. Russell would probably have called it the top of the breastbone, or maybe the base of the throat.
    “High, downward angles,” Russell observed. “You figure the killer was hiding in a tree?”
    Tim shook his head. “I thought that at first, yes. But look down there in the woods. You see that orange evidence marker? That’s a stray bullet lodged in a tree