Free Final Appeal by Lisa Scottoline Page A

and his receding hairline is a gentle gray roll, like a wave.
    “How can you tell that it made contact?”
    “I can’t say—”
    “I’m just asking a question. Not in this case or anything. Hypothetically.”
    “Hypothetically?” A faint smile appears.
    “Yes. If I were to say to you, How can you tell if something is a contact wound, what would you say?”
    “How we know it’s a contact wound is the gunpowder residue. If it’s a contact shot it sprays out like a little star. A shot from a coupla inches away, the gunpowder sprays all over.”
    I try not to think about the gunpowder star. “Okay. What else do you see with a typical suicide? Educate me.” I imagine I’m taking a deposition of a reluctant witness, and I’m not far wrong.
    “Gunpowder residue on the hand, and blowback.”
    “Blowback?”
    “Blood on the hand that held the gun. Blood on the gun, too.”
    I try not to wince. “Okay. Anything else?”
    “Cadaverous spasm.”
    “And that is?”
    “The body’s reaction to the pain of the blast, the shock of it.”
    “How does the body react? Generally?”
    “The hand grips around the gun and stays that way. After death.”
    “Is there anything else?”
    “No. That’s mostly all of it.”
    “I see. Now. If you don’t have this type of evidence, the three things you mentioned, the case is not one hundred percent. Is that right?”
    “Right. In a case where there’s no note.”
    I almost forgot. “Is it odd there was no note? I mean, in the typical case do you see a note?”
    “Most times there is a note. Most suicides lately are your AIDS people, people who know they’re going to die. They leave a note. They prepare.”
    “So if there’s not a note, does that tell you it’s not a suicide?”
    “Not at all. It doesn’t tell me anything, one way or the other. Lots of suicides leave their notes way in advance—depression, preoccupation, withdrawal.” His tone grows thoughtful, more relaxed; he’d rather talk psychology than pathology. So would I.
    “But Judge Gregorian wasn’t depressed.”
    “According to the secretary, he did become depressed about this time of year. Something about Armenians.” He brushes dust off the typewriter keys. “The press was all over him because of that death penalty appeal. Not that I’m talking about the actual case.” The sly smile reappears, then fades.
    “But he seemed to handle that fine.”
    “The senator said his mother committed suicide. It runs in families, you know.”
    “But it’s not inherited.”
    “They get the idea. All of a sudden it becomes a possibility. It’s like kids in high school, they come in clusters.” He looks sad for a moment. “People kill themselves all the time, for lots of reasons we can’t understand. Who can understand something like that, anyway?”
    I consider this and say nothing, sickened by the image of Armen slumped over, his lifeblood seeping out. A lethal black star on his temple. His own blood spattered on his hand.
    “The judge had a watchdog, too. A good watchdog.”
    Bernice. “What about his dog? Did you see her that night?”
    He laughs. “I would say so, it tried to take my arm off. We had to lock it in the bathroom, wouldn’t let us near him. I read the wife donated it to the Boys Club.”
    So much for his detective work; Bernice is in my wagon out front, she fussed so much I decided to take her with me to work. “So you figure that in, right? The dog would have attacked a stranger.”
    “Yeah. Sure.”
    “But not someone she knew.”
    He shrugs. “So?”
    “So if he was killed, the killer was someone he knew.”
    “He wasn’t killed. All the evidence is consistent with him killing himself.”
    “It’s only consistent with him putting a gun to his right temple. What if someone made him do it?”
    He shakes his head. “There would be signs of a struggle, or a forced entry, and there aren’t any.”
    “But it’s possible.”
    “I doubt it.”
    “But is it possible?