Read Online Before She Dies by Steven F. Havill - Free Book Online

across the road. She stepped close to Enciños’s car and pointed at the roof. “One of the pellets glanced off the roof, right here, just above the center pillar between the front and back doors.”
    I saw a four-inch scar—at first only a faint lead mark on the paint and then becoming deeper until it actually showed a trace of bare metal. The end of a piece of nylon line had been carefully taped to the roof of the car so that it lay in the missile track.
    “That’s not going to be exact,” Estelle said, “but it gives us a starting point.” She indicated another hole, this one in the top window frame of the back door. “This one is a relatively clean puncture of the first two layers of metal. Enough to establish a probable angle.” She turned and pointed back across the highway, along the stretched lines.
    “How many contact points did you establish?” I asked, and then counted the lines for myself. Seven strands ran from the car across the highway.
    “The rest either struck Paul or passed behind him, over the back window and trunk of the car,” Bob Torrez said.
    “All right. It makes sense. That’s the first shot.” I backed away a step. “You’ve got two others.”
    “The killer walked across the highway after firing the first time,” Torrez said. “He got to about here,” and he rested a hand lightly on the camera tripod, “and fired again. One round was fired downward…” He hesitated and glanced at me. “Estelle thinks Paul was on the ground, by the back tire, trying to get up.”
    “That accounts for the smeared blood on the fender,” I said.
    “Yes. The second shot was fired from close range.” Torrez indicated the pattern path from the tripod and then knelt down, his knee near the second bloodstain that trailed under the car. One of the nylon strands ran from the tripod to a spot actually under the rear rock guard of the patrol car, some fourteen inches behind the tire.
    “This is the only pellet mark we found, sir,” Estelle said as Torrez touched the tack that had been pushed into the macadam to hold the fishing line. “From the second pattern.”
    “If there are others, they’d be lost in the loose gravel there,” I said. “And the third round went into the car?”
    “Yes, sir.” I walked around the other side of the car, following Estelle. “One of the pellets cut across the top of the seat.” She indicated one of the lines that attached just above where the passenger’s left shoulder would have been. “We found a total of nine pellet holes or tracks that show the shot was fired from a point two or three paces from the driver’s side door, through the window.”
    “About ten to fifteen feet,” I said. “The pattern wouldn’t have been very big.”
    “No, sir. The majority of the blast went behind Linda’s head, shattering the right rear window and tearing the window post. We think she was also hit by some of the pellets that deflected off the driver’s side upper window frame.”
    I bent down and squinted. “So the killer was shooting a little high and to the right. Otherwise Linda Real would have taken the full charge right in the face.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    I straightened up with a grunt. “So the son of a bitch fired once from across the road as Paul stepped from the car. Then he walked across the road and fired once more at Paul, point-blank, while the deputy was on the ground.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And in the dark, with all the confusion of the headlights, maybe even the spotlight, he might not have noticed that Paul had a passenger until he crossed the highway. Then he saw Linda and fired a third time.”
    Estelle nodded. “I think that’s the way it went, sir.”
    “What did you want the picker for?”
    “I’d like photographs from above, sir. The sun is just right to glint off the lines. If he parks the truck over behind the pole, then we can adjust the angle from there.”
    Nelson Petro idled the truck forward under Bob Torrez’s directions. He