Heartsick

CHAPTER 38

Archie was standing in the backyard with Henry and Anne when the mayor arrived with half a page of handwritten notes, ready for a press conference. Like the front yard, the backyard was mowed to within an inch of its life. It took a serious commitment to keep a lawn that manicured during the rainy season. A small ready-made aluminum shed sat in the back corner, its contents removed by police and stacked around its perimeter. A cedar fence with a lattice top ran along the property line. Archie saw the mayor spot him and head over. He was wearing a black suit and tie, and his silver hair was plastered into place. Buddy had always been able to pull off the suit and tie thing. The first words out of the mayor’s mouth when he reached Archie were, “This the guy?”

“Looks like it,” Archie said.

Buddy took a pair of black Ray-Ban sunglasses out of his interior coat pocket and put them on. “Where’s the girl?”

Archie glanced at Anne. “In the river, probably.”

“Shit,” the mayor said under his breath. He took a deep breath and nodded a few times, as if listening to a pep talk only he could hear. “Okay. So, let’s focus on the fact he’s off the streets.” He looked at Archie over his sunglasses. “You look like shit, Archie. Why don’t you throw some water on your face or something before we get started.”

Archie forced a smile. “Sure.” He shot a wry look at Henry and Anne and walked back into the house.

Inside McCallum’s kitchen, a voice said: “You Sheridan?”

Archie had to stop and take a few slow breaths to acclimate to the ripe odor. “Yeah,” he said.

A young black man with shoulder-length dreads, wearing a white Tyvek suit over his street clothes, sat on the kitchen counter, swinging his legs and writing on a clipboard. “I’m Lorenzo Robbins.”

“You’re with the ME’s office?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Look, man, I just wanted to let you know that there are a few issues with your dead guy.”

“A few issues?” Archie asked.

Robbins shrugged and wrote something on the clipboard. “A thirty-eight isn’t a small gun,” he said.

“Right,” Archie said slowly.

“It’s got a kick. With this sort of central nervous system injury, you expect to see one of two things. Either the gun’s a few feet away or your guy suffers a cadaveric spasm, right, and his hand’s frozen around the weapon.” He held a clenched latex-gloved hand out to demonstrate.

Archie turned and looked at where McCallum still lay facedown on the table. The gun was gone, already bagged. “A death grip.”

Robbins let his hand drop. “Yeah. If the body’s fresh, you can tell. The hand’s frozen. Body’s not. But when I got here, he was in full rigor. Maybe a cadaveric spasm kept that gun in his hand. It’s possible. Thing is, death grips are kinda rare. Something you see more in the movies.”

“So what does that mean?”

“Maybe nothing,” Robbins said. He started writing on the clipboard again. “He’s got a nice muzzle imprint, so the gun was definitely against his skin when it was fired.” He scribbled something else. “Then again, there wasn’t any blow-back on his hand. There was blow-back on the gun. But not on his hand.”

Archie reached out and plucked Robbins’s pen out of his fist. “Are you saying that this wasn’t suicide? That someone shot him and put the gun in his hand?”

“No,” Robbins said. He looked at where Archie held his pen out, then at Archie. “I’m saying that death grips are pretty rare and he didn’t have blow-back on his hand. It was probably suicide. We’ll cut him up and have a look-see. I’m just giving you a preview. Make it more exciting.”

“Shit,” Archie muttered, leaning his head back in frustration. The ceiling was white. A single globe light fixture hung over the middle of the room. The light was off. “Did you turn off the light?” Archie asked.

Robbins looked up at the light fixture. “Do I look like it’s my first day? ’Cause it’s not.”

Archie spun around and poked his head out the back door. “Anyone turn off the light in here?” he hollered. The cops in the backyard looked at one another. No one volunteered.

He shut the door and turned back to Robbins. “So if we accept the premise that no one fucked up and hit the switch-”

Robbins took his pen from Archie’s hand and casually slipped it behind his clipboard clamp. “He probably didn’t shoot himself in the dark. Sunset’s around six, six-thirty. Sorta indicates that he did it before then.” He looked down at the corpse. “But not by much.” He smiled. His brown skin made his teeth look especially white. “Or maybe one of the dozen cops who’ve been through here turned off the light.”

Archie could taste the sour burn of stomach acid on his tongue. Addy Jackson had gone to bed at ten.

“You feel okay?” Robbins asked.

“I feel terrific,” Archie said. “Never better.” He found an antacid loose in his pocket and put it in his mouth. Its sweet chalky taste was muted by the smell of rotting flesh.