Until Judgment Day Read online

  “He says he’s not.”

  “Even so, onset of noticeable symptoms from a serious head injury often takes weeks or months. By then it could be too late. I don’t mean to scare you unnecessarily, but you need to be damn sure he has that MRI.”

  “You know Dave when he makes up his mind.”

  “Try, Katie. Try hard. His life could depend on it.”

  • • •

  When Granz arrived, Nelson slid on latex gloves, pushed a black plastic brick-shaped block under the corpse’s head to hold it up for examination, switched on two intense white overhead lights and a camera, pulled down a microphone, and started dictating.

  “The body is that of a well-developed, well-nourished Caucasian male, late fifties to early sixties, seventy-six inches in length, weighing about two hundred forty-five pounds. Rigor mortis is absent. Hair is medium-length gray. Nose and ears are unremarkable.”

  He lifted the upper and lower lips. “Teeth normal.”

  He rolled the body from side to side to examine the back of the torso, then lifted each arm and leg to check underlying tissues. He looked into the ears, nose, mouth and eyes, then visually inspected the other body openings.

  “Chest is symmetrical, abdomen flat,” he dictated in a soft monotone. “External genitalia normal, upper and lower extremities show no deformities. Hands and nails clean and evidence no injury. No visible scars or tattoos.”

  Then, Nelson directed his attention to the head. “A single contact gunshot wound displaying black soot outside the skin, lacerated skin that has been seared by the weapon’s discharge gasses, and lack of powder stippling. Entry wound is in the center of the forehead, five centimeters below the hairline.

  “Projectile perforated the medial anterior cortex on a front-to-back”—he consulted the X ray hanging on the lighted film reader—“slightly downward track. The opening measures approximately six-point-five millimeters. There is no exit wound.

  “Pull up your face masks,” Nelson instructed. “There’ll be some aerosolization—airborne particulate material is unavoidable with a cranial saw.”

  Granz and Mackay, both wearing surgical scrubs, placed their masks over their faces.

  Nelson combed the corpse’s gray hair forward, then covered his own nose and mouth and switched on the Stryker saw, a special vibrating instrument that cuts bone but not soft tissue.

  It bogged down slightly as the blade bit into the occipital bone, and threw off a faint mist of powdered bone and smoke as the saw cut toward the front, around the periphery of the skull below the hairline.

  “Now for the fun part.” He set aside the saw. “Gotta be careful when I lift this off so the dura—the cover of the brain—stays with the calavarium.”

  He tugged gently. As the top lifted free the skull grated together, like two halves of a split coconut being twisted, and made a slight sucking sound. He set the skull aside, then severed the spinal cord attachment and tentorium, lifted the brain out, and set it on the table.

  “I’ll put it in a jar of formalin for a couple of weeks to firm up the tissue before dissection,” he explained, “but first I’ll remove the bullet.”

  With long-nosed, soft-plastic forceps Nelson carefully probed the wound, pulled out the bullet, and dropped it in a clear plastic evidence bag, which he handed to Granz, who sealed and initialed it.

  “The slug’s not badly deformed. DOJ shouldn’t have any trouble IDing the weapon that fired it.”

  He rolled the body onto its right side and slid another body-block under the back, forcing the chest to protrude and the arms and neck to fall back. Then he pulled a black-handled Buck knife from a leather case, sharpened it on a sheet of extrafine sandpaper, and drew the razor-sharp blade down an eight-by-ten sheet of paper. The paper sliced cleanly into two pieces, which he tossed in a trash basket.

  “Better than a scalpel.”

  He sliced V-shaped incisions from each shoulder to the abdomen, and a horizontal cut from hipbone to hipbone, then pulled the chest flap over the face, and peeled the skin off the rib cage. With a small battery-powered Stryker saw, he removed the rib cage to expose the inner organs.

  He nudged the innards with his hand, but before lifting out the lungs and organ block, he glanced at Granz. “I see nothing unusual. Cause of death was the bullet to the brain. Why don’t you two take off.”

  “Gladly.” Granz removed his scrubs and helped Mackay with hers. “Wanta stop at Starbucks for coffee on the way home, Babe?”

  “Sure,” she told him. “I could use it.”

  “Me too.” Granz turned to Nelson. “Give us an hour, then if you find anything unexpected, call me at home.”

  “Will do.” Nelson started to lift the organ block out of the body, but stopped.

  “Kate?” Morgan called at their backs.

  She turned. “Yeah?”

  “Remember what I told you.”

  Chapter 7

  “WHAT’DDOCTORDEATH mean by ‘Remember what I told you’?”

  A newspaper had once run an article that hung the nickname on Morgan Nelson, and it had stuck, at least with the cops.

  Granz bit a corner off his lemon tart, set it back on the saucer, and washed it down with a cautious sip of steaming espresso.

  “Please don’t call him that,” Mackay said.

  “Sorry. What’d he mean?”

  They sat at a window table in the mall Starbucks, watching last-minute shoppers hustling back to their cars loaded down with bags of food and Christmas presents.

  “He reminded me to be sure you keep your promise,” Mackay said.

  “I always keep my promises.” He took another sip of coffee. “What promise?”

  “That you’d go in for an MRI.”

  “I said I’d think about it after the holidays if I didn’t feel a hundred percent. I feel two hundred percent.”

  “Have you been having headaches lately?” she asked.

  “No worse than usual.”

  “I didn’t know you usually had them.”

  “Don’t twist my words, Babe. Everyone has headaches.”

  Mackay rolled her eyes. “Not everyone got knocked unconscious and landed in the hospital less than a month ago.”

  “They’re nothing,” he assured her.

  “How often are you having headaches?”

  “Not too often.”

  “That’s helpful. How bad are they?”

  “Not too bad.”

  “Don’t be evasive.”

  He grinned. “Sorry.”

  “So—how bad are they?”

  “I’ll bet at law school you got an A-plus in ruthless cross-examination, but I already have a mother.”

  “I’m not trying to be your mother.” She set her coffee down and picked up one of his hands. “I’m your wife. I love you and I worry about you.”

  “I love you, too, but there’s no need to worry.”

  “Promise?”

  He held up his right hand. “Scout’s honor.”

  “Don’t be insincere. How bad are they?” she persisted.

  “I told you, if I don’t feel better after the holidays I’ll think about an MRI .”

  “You’d better, because I’m going to bring it up again on January second.”

  “Figures,” Granz conceded with a lopsided grin. “Can we talk about something else?”

  “Like what?”

  “Reverend Thompson’s murder.”

  “Sure.”

  Granz finished his espresso. “What do you think?”

  “I think Emma and I would be devastated if anything happened to you.”

  He kissed the back of her hand. “I meant what do you think about the murder.”

  “I know what you meant.” She slipped her hand from his and thought for a moment. “His desk drawers weren’t dumped, the room hadn’t been ransacked, and the raffle proceeds were inside the community hall. His wallet was in his pants pocket with almost a hundred dollars in it when his body arrived at the morgue. It wasn’
t a robbery.”

  “That’s my take on it. What else?”

  “I suppose he could’ve gotten in an argument with someone, it heated up, ended in a shooting. But there were no offensive or defensive injuries on his body.”

  Granz contemplated. “That bothers me, too.”

  “An execution?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “Even as old as he was, Thompson was still a big man, an ex-jock.”

  “Ex-jocks can’t get executed?”

  “Sure, but if it were an execution pure and simple, why would the shooter get close enough to chance having to fight off a man that size?”

  “You tell me.”

  “He wouldn’t. He’d stand out of arm’s reach, shoot Thompson, and walk away. No muss, no fuss, no risk.”

  “Maybe the murderer was bigger than Thompson, or a martial arts expert, someone confident in his ability to defend himself.”

  “Even then, why risk it?”

  Granz shrugged. “Damned if I know.”

  “I think Thompson either expected his killer or knew him well enough to let him in while remaining seated,” Mackay speculated. “Someone he didn’t perceive as a threat until it was too late.”

  “And someone who wanted to see the fear in Thompson’s eyes up close and personal when he pulled the trigger.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Instinct. I think we’d better rummage around in his past—see what skeletons he’s got in his closet.”

  Chapter 8

  TUESDAY AFTERNOON, DECEMBER 24

  BENEATH A GRAINY PHOTOGRAPH of a Catholic priest with a bald head and thick horn-rimmed glasses, the Teen Beat Section of the Santa Rita Centennial’s Christmas Eve edition carried an article that read:

  LOCAL ATHLETES HEAD FOR MIDDLE EAST

  High School principal/coach Reverend James Benedetti and four varsity basketball team players will spend January in war-torn Afghanistan, assisting Christians in rebuilding their churches. During its 20-year reign of terror, the Taliban regime destroyed nearly all non-Muslim places of worship.

  To permit the volunteer athletes to embark on their “mission of mercy and compassion,” Benedetti’s players voted unanimously to forfeit its five January games. The paper losses will disqualify the team from the State Championships at Sacramento’s Arco Arena in March. Many pundits thought the Mustangs had a solid chance of winning the state title this year.

  The team’s star center, 6‘10” Tim Bethay, considered one of the best high school athletes in the country, is being heavily recruited by many major colleges. Asked how this affects his chances of getting a scholarship from a top program, Bethay said, “I’m sure college recruiters realize that a few basketball games mean nothing compared to the suffering of our Afghan brothers and sisters. It’s an honor to help them.”

  Benedetti said he and his players will celebrate Christmas at home, and leave for Afghanistan from San Francisco on December 26.

  “These are sooo yummy.”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full, please.”

  Emma swallowed her cookie and washed it down with a sip of milk. “Can I have another cookie?”

  “Where do you learn that grammar?” Kathryn Mackay asked her daughter.

  “Huh?”

  “May I have another cookie?” Kathryn corrected.

  “Sure, go ahead,” Emma told her, “but if you get to eat another one, so do I.”

  Kathryn smiled. “Deal, but only if you promise not to tell Dave how many I had.”

  Emma grabbed a frosted bell with red sprinkles, broke off a corner, popped it into her mouth, then handed her mother a green Christmas tree. “Cross my heart.”

  The kitchen was warm and cozy, filled with the comforting aroma of cinnamon, almond, and vanilla. As the late winter sun melted into the horizon, its rays refracted through the tiny prisms formed on the fogged-up window, and fractured into tiny rainbows that splattered the walls and ceiling with dots of primary colors.

  A rack of brightly decorated Christmas sugar cookies cooled on the counter while a timer on the range ticked off the minutes until the dozen baking in the oven would be ready.

  Kathryn Mackay wore Ann Taylor jeans and a black T-shirt, both spotted with flour and powdered sugar. She hummed softly.

  “I like cooking together, Mom,” Emma said.

  “Me, too, honey, but with work and all I never seem to have time. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay, I understand.”

  “Thanks.”

  Emma contemplated the likelihood that she might be able to compound her mother’s goodwill into one final treat.

  Kathryn spotted her daughter coveting the plate. “I know what you’re thinking, young lady. Forget it.”

  “Jeez, I thought we were having a Hallmark Moment. They’re better with a cookie in your hand.”

  Kathryn laughed. “You crack me up. That’s worth one more, but that’s it. I don’t want you to spoil your dinner.”

  “What’re we havin’?”

  “After Dave finishes his last-minute shopping, he’s picking up French bread and a deli tray for us to nibble on while we decorate the Christmas tree.”

  Kathryn retrieved the last tray from the oven and slid the cookies onto a cooling rack.

  As Emma savored her cookie and prolonged the pleasure, she glanced at the newspaper that lay on the table, left over from breakfast. It was turned to the Teen Beat Section, where she had left it. “I’m sure glad I don’t go to high school till next year.”

  Kathryn shook multicolored sprinkles over the fresh, steaming, star-shaped wafers. “Why?”

  “When me ’n’ Ashley ’n’ Lindsey go to high school, our basketball team’s gonna win the state championship every year.”

  Kathryn arched her eyebrows but resisted the urge to correct her daughter’s grammar. “Really?”

  “Yup, but they won’t win it this year.”

  “They won’t?”

  “Nope, listen to this.”

  Emma read the article about Benedetti and his players out loud. “Those guys’re so dumb.”

  “Those boys are doing a fine thing. You should be proud of them.”

  Emma shrugged. “I s’pose, but I’d be a lot prouder if they won the state championship.”

  “Emma—”

  The phone interrupted her. “That’s probably Dave, wanting to know what we want for Christmas.”

  “Let me get it!”

  Emma picked up the phone, listened, then a frightened look crossed her face. Wordlessly, she handed the phone to her mother.

  Kathryn frowned, wiped her hands on a paper towel, and held the handset to her ear.

  “Hello?”

  “I have a message for Sheriff Granz.”

  The hair on Kathryn’s neck bristled when she recognized the eerie monotone generated by an electronic voice changer. The artificial voice was high pitched, like a female, but that told her nothing about the real caller’s identity.

  “Who is this?” she demanded.

  “I have an urgent message for Granz,” the falsetto voice repeated.

  “How did you get this number?”

  The caller ignored her question. “I need to talk to Granz immediately.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s not here,” Kathryn said.

  “Where can I reach him?”

  “You can’t. Give me your number, I’ll ask him to call you as soon as possible.”

  “That’ll be too late.”

  “Too late for what?” Kathryn asked, but the line was dead.

  “Who was it, Mom?” Emma wanted to know.

  “I don’t know, honey.”

  “What did she want?”

  “To talk to Dave.”

  “’Bout what?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “She had a weird voice. What was wrong with it?”

  Kathryn absently sprink
led powdered sugar on the final batch of Santa Claus cookies. She picked one up and nibbled off Santa’s head.

  “I don’t know.”

  Chapter 9

  SHINY POOLS OF STANDING WATERleft over from a rain storm littered the empty parking lot in the early evening darkness. On the far side, a mercury-vapor light lit up the side entrance to Holy Cross High’s gymnasium.

  He crossed the abandoned school grounds, stopped beneath the light to glance briefly at Reverend James Benedetti’s photograph on the cover page of the Centennial’s Teen Beat Section, then wadded up the newspaper sheet and dropped it in a deep puddle of muddy water.

  The door was locked—no problem for professional tools. With expert manipulation, three carefully selected picks inserted into the pick gun and stuck in the key slot released the tumblers with a gentle snick.

  He replaced the tool in his pocket, cracked the door to listen, stepped inside, eased the door shut, and paused to let his eyes adjust to the dim light.

  The baskets used for varsity games, at opposite ends of the main court, had been winched up into the open-beam ceiling by steel cables, and two sets of cross-court intramural baskets lowered.

  Except for one ten-foot section that remained open, the built-in retractable wooden bleachers that paralleled both sidelines of the main court were nested into the walls. A gym bag, a heap of clothes, and a spare basketball sat on the lower bench of the open bleachers section.

  He watched the lone man in gym shorts and sweat-soaked Holy Cross Mustangs T-shirt mop his shiny, hairless pate and brow on a towel with one hand, and bounce a basketball with the other. He was tall, skinny, and stooped, but looked to be in good shape and wasn’t wearing glasses.

  Clamping his palms over his ears to drown out the sound didn’t work—the bouncing ball’s deafening echo slammed around the huge room like marbles in an empty bucket, landed on his head, and amplified through his brain.

  Benedetti tossed the towel to the floor.

  “On this holiest of Holy nights—” the Reverend spoke aloud, putting the final touch on his Christmas Eve sermon in his most efficacious pulpit voice, “let us learn from the example set by our selfless basketball players, who have sacrificed an extremely important event in their young lives to help less fortunate people in Afghanistan.”