“That ain’t protocol, Micky. What’s she looking to get out of this?”

“She knows the mother-Ellen Van Beest.”

Wilde considered that. “You’re saying she definitely wants in?”

“I’m just making an educated guess about my partner.”

“And you?”

“We’re partners. Here’s the deal: I’ll help you mix and match weapons. And the sooner you get the rounds over to Ballistics, the sooner we’ll have information on the type of weapon fired. It’ll narrow down the search. Meanwhile, you can catch some shut-eye. You look like shit.”

Wilde glared. “Sure. Send her up here.”

“You could do worse,” said McCain. “Dorothy has a nose for reconstructing crime scenes.”

“Well, we need something. Man, it’s nothing but confusion.” Wilde shook his head. “So either you or her will let me know what the ME says?”

“You bet.”

McCain stared down at Julius Van Beest’s lifeless body.

Like he needed a doc to tell him that the poor bastard had been shot to death.

6

Dorothy Breton was a big woman, but it took McCain over ten minutes to find her. Interspersed in the throng were much bigger people: the giants of college basketball. They loomed over Dorothy, making her appear average height. Still, she was a presence, and it was her voice that McCain homed in on.

She was sitting at the bar, a hand on Marcus’s arm. A gesture of comfort, but it did little to calm the boy. His face was raw pain. He was shouting at her.

“I keep telling you I don’t remember, Mama! Why do you keep going over it again and again?”

“Because every time we talk, you remember more than you think.”

McCain elbowed his way through the crowd and took the seat next to his partner. “You’re wanted upstairs,” he told Dorothy. She threw him a puzzled look. “I told Wilde you’d be there when the ME came. No one’s bagged the hands yet.”

“You notice any powder residue?”

“Couldn’t see a damn thing in this lighting, but I didn’t smell it. Still, we need to assume and make sure. If the shysters go for the self-defense angle, and no one checked his hands for powder, we’re gonna look like asses.”

“Did you find a discharged weapon near him?”

“No, but there was a couple of shells in the area. Could be old ones, but we gotta check it all out.”

“So there is a possibility that Van Beest shot back… or shot first.”

“It’s possible.” McCain shrugged. “Anyway, Wilde just left to take the ammo down to Ballistics. The bad boys look like.32 caliber.”

“How many?”

“Four, I think.”

“Any other victims in that area other than Julius?”

“Not that I could tell,” McCain said.

“So someone unloaded on him.”

“We were told that there was conflict between Julius and one of the Ducaine players. The offending person left and returned later, spoiling for a battle. We don’t know who shot first or if Julius shot at all. That’s why we gotta go up there and bag the hands before the ME comes.”

“Why didn’t you do it?” Dorothy asked. “I’m busy.”

“I’ll take over what you’re doing.”

Dorothy glared. McCain shrugged her off. “I told Wilde that you got a nose for crime scenes. He said to send you upstairs and look around.”

“I got a nose for bullshit. Someone’s trying to get rid of me.”

McCain didn’t answer. Dorothy frowned and got up from her seat. As she walked away, she looked over her shoulder at her son. “I’ll deal with you later.”

“Goddamn!” Marcus swore out loud after his mother was gone. “What does she want from me? I didn’t see anything!”

McCain put his hand on the young boy’s shoulder. “Maternal concern.”

“Fuck, I’m concerned, too.” The kid was yelling. “I’d help if I could, but I hit the ground just like everyone else after the shooting started.” Marcus’s eyes narrowed in defiance. “Can I go now?”

“Give me a few minutes.”

The boy’s eyes rolled to the back of his head.

“C’mon, indulge me, Marcus.” McCain stood up. “Let’s take a walk. Looks like you could use some air.”

Marcus didn’t respond. Then, abruptly, he shot to his feet and grabbed his overcoat. “Anything to get the hell out of here.”

The deputy medical examiner was a child, although in Dorothy’s perception everyone under fifty was a child. But this one really was a baby with her fresh white face and her big, round “omigosh” blue eyes and her skinny body and little skinny wrists that were covered by latex gloves. Expensive coat, looked like cashmere or at least a blend.

Obviously a virgin, “cause after you messed up a nice piece of threads on human body fluids, you learned.

Dorothy walked up and introduced herself as Detective Breton from Boston Homicide, and the little girl said she was Tiffany Artles. “MD” on her name tag, but she was not using the title. Like she was embarrassed. Or patronizing.

All that did was further piss Dorothy off. If you’re a goddamn doctor with a goddamn degree, use your goddamn title. She wasn’t goddamn threatened.

Stupid people. Though for all she knew, Tiffany Artles’s MD was from Hah-vuhd.

It just showed how the city, as liberal as it was, really didn’t give a rat’s ass about the death of a black boy. If it did, no green-around-the-ears cashmere coat would’ve been sent.

Look at her, actually shaking as she opened her doctor’s bag. Of course, it didn’t help that Dorothy was glaring at her. She knew she wasn’t being fair, but she didn’t give a damn about that, either.

“Has the shooting team been down here yet?” Artles asked.

Little, tinkling voice. Smooth, shiny chestnut hair. It took all of Dorothy’s will not to mimic her.

“No, I don’t think so. Not that anyone would tell me anything.”

“Okay.” Artles’s voice rose even higher. “I just wanted to know if I should move the body or-”

“The paramedics did CPR,” Dorothy snapped. “His shirt is open, and those are bruise marks on the chest. They obviously tried to revive him. They must have moved him at that time, because the splatter patterns are not consistent with the position of the body. See here… all the blood on the tabletop. Looks to me like he fell forward, and then the EMTs turned him over. I know the photographer has come and gone. So just do what you need to do.”

Dr. Tiffany regarded Julius’s inert body. Her lip curled. “I’m sorry. I must look like a doofus. I just didn’t expect to recognize the victim.”

“They didn’t tell you who it was?”

“No. Just that there was a shooting in Pharaoh’s Genie and there was a fatality.” She looked at Dorothy. “I saw him play a week ago. I took my younger sister to the game. What a waste!”

She bent down. “Okay.” Talking to herself. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Dorothy kneeled next to the young woman, who cradled Julius’s head, then moved it to the side to scrutinize the gunshots at the temple. “Two graze wounds. They run into one another, but you can see two distinct ellipses. The right one’s a bit deeper than the left, but to my eye, it doesn’t look like either is the cause of death. There is bleeding, but it’s not excessive, not like you’d see in arterial bleeding.”

She lifted Julius’s limp arm.

“No rigor, obviously. No way there’d be, this soon… When did the call come in, Detective?”

“About an hour ago. Maybe a little longer.”

“So time of death isn’t in question.” Artles examined the arm. “There are two bullet wounds in the arm. In and out and not at close range. I’d say judging by the entrance wound, the distance was in the fifty-to-seventy-feet range. To hit him in the head, the shooter must have been good or lucky or both and have had a clear field. No one else was killed, right?”

“No.”

“The size of the holes… I’d say a thirty-two, something like that.” She focused her blue eyes.

“You’d be right. Detective Wilde is taking the ammo down to Ballistics as we speak. We found some shells down below.” Dorothy stood up and pointed. “Right there, at the left-hand corner of the dance floor. So we’re talking maybe a forty-five-degree trajectory.”