Read Online the Viking Funeral (2001) by Stephen - Scully 02 Cannell - Free Book Online
Authors: Stephen - Scully 02 Cannell
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small, the other large. First, and least important, was the fact that Mark Shephard had his shoes on. Most suicides, approximately 80 percent, remove their shoes before killing themselves. The why had never been adequately explained to him, but they did it nonetheless. It was troubling only in conjunction with his two other observations. The large event was the bullet itself. It had entered Mark Shephard's right temple, but had not come out again. The gun was on the floor where it had supposedly been thrown from his hand by the recoil after the shot. It was the same checkered-grip .38 that Shane had seen on his belt in Shephard's office Friday morning. Shane knew that a f full-load, 110-grain .38 caliber slug travele d a t a velocity of 995 feet per second and had 240 foot pounds of muzzle energy. These were manufacturer's stats. So the big, hard - to-explain piece was why the bullet had not exited the other side of Shephard's head, taking half his skull with it like it was supposed to?
The third thing Shane noticed was that at the edge of the wound, there was "tattooing" from the exploding gunpowder coming out of the barrel. Most tattooing from guns held close to the head made a tight pattern around the wound. The tattooing around Mark Shephard's wound, however, was about an inch from the exterior circumference of the bullet hole, indicating that the bullet Commander Shephard had used to take his life was most likely a standard-police - issue, light-load cartridge. Light loads were the hated ordnance of all street cops because they contained half the gunpowder of a full load. The reasoning was that if a police officer got into a gunfight in the street, the bullet would carry only half as far and not kill an innocent civilian feeding a parking meter a mile away. It also had damn little velocity, so when fired close-up, it left this wider tattoo.
Mark Shephard was a cop. Cops were issued light loads. A light load wouldn't necessarily go all the way through Shephard's head and out the other side. It would cause this wider tattoo. That's physics. That's the way the cartridge is designed. So what's the problem? What's wrong with this picture?
Only one thing.
Shane had been on the job for almost twenty years, and in all that time he'd seen or heard of hundreds of cops screwing their service revolvers into their mouths or ears and doing a Dutch Treat. But in all of those cases-- every single one--the cops used full loads. Not one of them had tried to kill himself with a light load, and the reason for that was obvious: there was a high degree of probability that a half load wouldn't get the job done, like in the street, where it sometimes failed to even slow down an enraged assailant. Half loads, most of the time, managed only to maim or cripple.
Why had Mark Shephard used the underpowered cartridge? Was this a suicide, or could it be a murder? Had somebody used the commander's gun to kill him, unaware that it contained Remington Lights? While these thoughts were going through his mind, the situation became even more complicated when he heard Alexa sobbing.
He looked over and saw her sitting on the sofa, her head in her hands, crying. He'd only known her well for half a year, but she was not a weepy woman. Why was this street - trained police officer who had witnessed the worst of man's inhumanity to man sitting on the sofa crying like a heartbroken relative?
Shock? Yes.
Dismay? Of course.
Anger and depression? You bet.
But tears, uncontrollable tears, at a crime scene?
What the fuck is going on here?
Chapter 10.
AFTERMATH
THEY DIDN'T GET out of Mark Shephard's house for hours. Buddy had to take a cab to the airport, and Chooch drove the Acura home. Shane and Alexa stood on the Good Shepherd's neatly trimmed lawn while the ME and lab techs did their gruesome work: bagging the corpse's hands, photographing the body with its growing colony of fly larvae.
Alexa watched in silence. Somewhere around six, the body was
The third thing Shane noticed was that at the edge of the wound, there was "tattooing" from the exploding gunpowder coming out of the barrel. Most tattooing from guns held close to the head made a tight pattern around the wound. The tattooing around Mark Shephard's wound, however, was about an inch from the exterior circumference of the bullet hole, indicating that the bullet Commander Shephard had used to take his life was most likely a standard-police - issue, light-load cartridge. Light loads were the hated ordnance of all street cops because they contained half the gunpowder of a full load. The reasoning was that if a police officer got into a gunfight in the street, the bullet would carry only half as far and not kill an innocent civilian feeding a parking meter a mile away. It also had damn little velocity, so when fired close-up, it left this wider tattoo.
Mark Shephard was a cop. Cops were issued light loads. A light load wouldn't necessarily go all the way through Shephard's head and out the other side. It would cause this wider tattoo. That's physics. That's the way the cartridge is designed. So what's the problem? What's wrong with this picture?
Only one thing.
Shane had been on the job for almost twenty years, and in all that time he'd seen or heard of hundreds of cops screwing their service revolvers into their mouths or ears and doing a Dutch Treat. But in all of those cases-- every single one--the cops used full loads. Not one of them had tried to kill himself with a light load, and the reason for that was obvious: there was a high degree of probability that a half load wouldn't get the job done, like in the street, where it sometimes failed to even slow down an enraged assailant. Half loads, most of the time, managed only to maim or cripple.
Why had Mark Shephard used the underpowered cartridge? Was this a suicide, or could it be a murder? Had somebody used the commander's gun to kill him, unaware that it contained Remington Lights? While these thoughts were going through his mind, the situation became even more complicated when he heard Alexa sobbing.
He looked over and saw her sitting on the sofa, her head in her hands, crying. He'd only known her well for half a year, but she was not a weepy woman. Why was this street - trained police officer who had witnessed the worst of man's inhumanity to man sitting on the sofa crying like a heartbroken relative?
Shock? Yes.
Dismay? Of course.
Anger and depression? You bet.
But tears, uncontrollable tears, at a crime scene?
What the fuck is going on here?
Chapter 10.
AFTERMATH
THEY DIDN'T GET out of Mark Shephard's house for hours. Buddy had to take a cab to the airport, and Chooch drove the Acura home. Shane and Alexa stood on the Good Shepherd's neatly trimmed lawn while the ME and lab techs did their gruesome work: bagging the corpse's hands, photographing the body with its growing colony of fly larvae.
Alexa watched in silence. Somewhere around six, the body was
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