Read Online April at the Antique Alley by Bill McGrath - Free Book Online
Authors: Bill McGrath
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than one gun used. If, on the other hand, the bullets were all the same kind then they would continue with the next step. The next step would be to search the gun manufacturers literature and build a list of which gun types might have been used. Then they would examine each bullet under a microscope to see what marks were left on the bullet as it scraped its way out of the barrel of the gun.
If all the bullets had similar rifling marks it would indicate that a single gun was used. The rifling could then be used to narrow down even further the list of possible guns. Finally, of course, they would compare the specific rifling marks against another cops’ database that had test fires from specific guns so that a specific weapon might be identified. All of this weapons forensics though would be done by highly qualified professionals and not by yours truly, and unfortunately not immediately.
My cell phone chirped to life and when I picked it up I found Eric Samuels on the line. He reported two things of interest to me. The first was that the autopsy on Lola’s body had been completed. It hadn’t yielded any specific clues other than the obvious gun shot wounds were the cause of death. They still had not found any next of kin so the body would be buried in a county funded funeral sometime in the next few days. I suggested that they schedule it for the following Monday because the antique shops would all be closed that day so it would give her comrades an opportunity to attend the service and pay their last respects. He told me which funeral home would be handling the details and requested that I contact them and make the arrangements. I really did not want the task but accepted it.
The second bit of news Samuels had for me was about Lola’s estate. A CPA that worked for the police had gone over her books and found what he could. Eric gave me a summary of the report over the phone but also promised me a copy next time I saw him. Lola’s father had died twenty years ago and almost all of what she had today she had inherited from him. She owned the building the store was in and the land it was on and they were totally paid for but the taxes on them were pretty stiff. She had operated the business by herself for that past twenty years and never really made any profits from it but also had not lost money on the deal either. What little profit she got from selling junk paid the bills and taxes but could not have supported her. She owned the contents of the store but no inventory had yet been done, and unless they could find a next of kin in the next thirty days the contents and the building would be auctioned off. She owned and lived in a house just two blocks from her store but so far no one from the police department had yet visited the house and done an inventory. Samuels asked if I might want to do that task for
them and at this point he suggested that they would pay me my standard fees for doing so. I accepted that assignment as well and promised to pick up the keys from him the next morning.
In addition to the business and the house, her father had also left Lola a small bundle of stocks that were worth about half a million the day he had died.
She had done very little with the stocks. She had not bought or sold any shares of anything, and most of them paid quarterly dividends, and apparently that is what she had been living on. The value of the stocks now was about one point two million and the next quarters dividends would top out at around eighty-five thousand. She had a checking account with two thousand dollars in it and a savings account with twenty-five thousand in it. In addition she had four different CDs with different values and maturity dates. If left to mature they would total another two-hundred thousand. If Lola had a next of kin it is sure he or she would like to know about the estate.
Even though the county was arranging her funeral the CPA had figured out a way to get Lola’s saving account to pay
If all the bullets had similar rifling marks it would indicate that a single gun was used. The rifling could then be used to narrow down even further the list of possible guns. Finally, of course, they would compare the specific rifling marks against another cops’ database that had test fires from specific guns so that a specific weapon might be identified. All of this weapons forensics though would be done by highly qualified professionals and not by yours truly, and unfortunately not immediately.
My cell phone chirped to life and when I picked it up I found Eric Samuels on the line. He reported two things of interest to me. The first was that the autopsy on Lola’s body had been completed. It hadn’t yielded any specific clues other than the obvious gun shot wounds were the cause of death. They still had not found any next of kin so the body would be buried in a county funded funeral sometime in the next few days. I suggested that they schedule it for the following Monday because the antique shops would all be closed that day so it would give her comrades an opportunity to attend the service and pay their last respects. He told me which funeral home would be handling the details and requested that I contact them and make the arrangements. I really did not want the task but accepted it.
The second bit of news Samuels had for me was about Lola’s estate. A CPA that worked for the police had gone over her books and found what he could. Eric gave me a summary of the report over the phone but also promised me a copy next time I saw him. Lola’s father had died twenty years ago and almost all of what she had today she had inherited from him. She owned the building the store was in and the land it was on and they were totally paid for but the taxes on them were pretty stiff. She had operated the business by herself for that past twenty years and never really made any profits from it but also had not lost money on the deal either. What little profit she got from selling junk paid the bills and taxes but could not have supported her. She owned the contents of the store but no inventory had yet been done, and unless they could find a next of kin in the next thirty days the contents and the building would be auctioned off. She owned and lived in a house just two blocks from her store but so far no one from the police department had yet visited the house and done an inventory. Samuels asked if I might want to do that task for
them and at this point he suggested that they would pay me my standard fees for doing so. I accepted that assignment as well and promised to pick up the keys from him the next morning.
In addition to the business and the house, her father had also left Lola a small bundle of stocks that were worth about half a million the day he had died.
She had done very little with the stocks. She had not bought or sold any shares of anything, and most of them paid quarterly dividends, and apparently that is what she had been living on. The value of the stocks now was about one point two million and the next quarters dividends would top out at around eighty-five thousand. She had a checking account with two thousand dollars in it and a savings account with twenty-five thousand in it. In addition she had four different CDs with different values and maturity dates. If left to mature they would total another two-hundred thousand. If Lola had a next of kin it is sure he or she would like to know about the estate.
Even though the county was arranging her funeral the CPA had figured out a way to get Lola’s saving account to pay
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