Free The Graving Dock by Gabriel Cohen Page A

party. Who knows? Maybe this doc was some kind of Death Wish urban vigilante type, out looking for trouble…”
    Halpern was clearly making an effort not to look skeptical. “How would that work? The kid’s the one with the gun.”
    Vargas nodded. “Okay, but let’s say the doc shot the kid, and then the kid managed to get the gun away from him, and fired back before he went down for the count.” She turned to Jack.
    He shrugged. “It’s possible. But look at this outfit.” He pointed at the doctor’s skintight running gear. “There’s nowhere to conceal a piece. I doubt he would just roam around carrying it in the open.”
    Vargas nodded thoughtfully “You’ve got a point there.”
    Jack frowned. “The missing Walkman is what bothers me. I mean, maybe somebody came along after the shooting and snatched it up, but who’d want to get involved in something this bad?” He called out to Anselmo Alvarez. “Can we get an on-site residue analysis on these guys? Just the hands…”
    Alvarez nodded and had his men go back to their truck and pull the necessary equipment. When a gun was fired, primer residues usually landed on the shooter’s skin and clothing. Normally, tests would be conducted in a lab, but new technology had made it possible to check for them at the scene.
    Jack took another look around the bodies. “The spatter doesn’t feel right. I think there was another shooter.”
    A few minutes later Alvarez came over, shaking his head. “Well, well, well: It looks like neither of our friends here fired a gun today.”
    All three detectives reacted the same way: They turned to scan the empty woods. The real shooter was out there, somewhere else.
    Jack turned back to the scene. “Here’s the way I see it. I don’t want to discount the possibility that our doctor could have started things, but let’s begin with a likelier scenario. Our jogger comes up the path and there’s two perps waiting for him, maybe up on that ridge. One of them, Mr. Michelin here, runs out in front. The shooter takes up a position behind the vie to box him in. They ask for his wallet and his Walkman. Maybe he tries to be brave, thinks he’s gonna pull some macho stunt. That’s when everything goes haywire.” He turned to his task force colleague. “Remind you of anything?”
    Linda Vargas laughed.

CHAPTER ten
    “W AIT, BACK UP A minute,” said Jack’s son, Ben, at dinner that evening. “What did the splatter thing tell you?”
    The young man had barely touched his dinner, a meal Michelle had gone to a fair amount of trouble to make, but she didn’t mind. Ben looked more animated than she had ever seen him. He was a tall, gangly kid, and he was usually quiet and withdrawn. (Or maybe he was just shy about the remnants of acne that still spotted his narrow face.) Even though he lived in Brooklyn, it was rare that he came by Jack’s apartment.
    Jack finished chewing a bite of chicken. She was surprised by his robust appetite, after such a gruesome day. “It’s spatter ,” he said. “That’s the way blood sprays out from a gunshot or other wound.”
    Michelle considered asking if they could finish this particular conversation after dinner, but she refrained. Not only because Ben seemed to be getting along with his father, but because it was one of the few times she had ever heard Jack talk so openly about his work.
    He reached out and moved the salt and pepper shakers in front of him. “It’s a simple matter of geometry. If two people face each other and they shoot, the spatter’s gonna go in opposite directions.” He made a couple of little explosive gestures with his fingers to demonstrate. “The weird thing here, though, was that it faced the same way for both. Let’s say one guy shoots the other guy first…” He marshaled the shakers like toy soldiers. “Now, somehow, the second guy would have to move all the way around the first guy before he got popped.” He shrugged. “Not impossible, mind you, but