Known Dead_ A Novel - Donald Harstad [47]
We were quiet for a moment. I believe all of us were beginning to conjure up a picture of the shooter.
‘‘Shall we do Officer Kellerman?’’ asked Dr. Peters.
‘‘Sure,’’ I said.
‘‘Right. Well, here we have something a little different,’’ said Dr. Peters, opening the binder on Kellerman. ‘‘For one thing, as we already knew the day of the shooting, he’s struck by projectiles of two different calibers. Two of them 7.62 mm and three 5.56 mm.’’
‘‘You said as much that day, yes,’’ said Hester.
‘‘So,’’ said Dr. Peters, ‘‘likely two shooters.’’ He looked up from his binder. ‘‘Because of the deformation, which we’ll get to in a minute, there will remain a possibility, however remote, of a third shooter. I don’t believe so, but in court this must be considered.’’
‘‘Understood,’’ said Hester.
‘‘It appears,’’ said Dr. Peters, pushing a copy of his autopsy diagrams toward each of us, ‘‘that the rounds struck at virtually the same time, from two slightly different directions.’’
We looked at the diagrams.
‘‘On the sheets there,’’ he said, ‘‘they’re numbered one through five. Two and five are the 7.62 mm rounds. They’ve come from what I believe are the shooters of Arthur Phelps, although, since Officer Kellerman was moved during the engagement, I can’t be positive.’’ He flipped through his notes. ‘‘Right, now one, three, and four are 5.56 mm, I believe. That shooter was to the left of the other shooter, and was firing, I believe, from the position Hester labeled as ‘three’ at the scene. Placing him also to the rear of the first shooter by about fifteen yards.’’
‘‘That would be about right,’’ said Hester. ‘‘And just a bit higher up-slope.’’
‘‘Yes,’’ said Dr. Peters. ‘‘Now, these projectiles strike at a slightly different angle in the horizontal plane, but without noticeable difference in the vertical. That’s one of the main reasons I think they were fired virtually simultaneously with the 7.62 mm rounds.’’
He reached back and pulled out a second envelope of X-rays. Dr. Peters hung them in place of the Phelps pictures.
‘‘One of the main problems here,’’ said Dr. Peters, ‘‘is that Officer Kellerman was wearing a Kevlar ballistic vest. All that accomplished, with the type of rifle involved, was to deform the projectiles before they actually came into contact with his body. So,’’ he sighed, ‘‘the entry wounds weren’t the neat little round holes they were on Mr. Phelps. In fact,’’ he said, ‘‘they were already beginning to tumble, as well as being deformed. As a consequence, the path of the bullets to the point of exit was not exactly straight.’’
In looking at the X-rays, it was pretty easy to see what he was talking about. There were fragments, particles, missing rib sections, and debris paths that seemed to diverge from each other. It was really weird.
‘‘Four of the five rounds,’’ said Dr. Peters, ‘‘penetrated the front panel of the vest, transected the victim, and exited through the rear panel of the vest. Or, at least, the most massive fragments did.’’ He pointed at a white blob on the X-ray. ‘‘This little bastard,’’ he said, ‘‘was one of the 5.56 mm rounds, and it tumbled enough to strike the rear panel of the vest in a flat attitude, with the long axis of the projectile being parallel with the plane of the vest.’’ He looked up. ‘‘It slapped the rear panel, flattened the round, but it stayed inside the nylon shell.’’
He pushed a photograph of a badly deformed bullet toward us. ‘‘This is the one. I sent it to the lab. But you can see that it’s almost intact. Remarkable, if you think about it.’’
He was right. But it had also hit the back of the vest hard enough to have imprinted the weave of the Kevlar onto the bullet.
‘‘The jacket’s peeled off this one, isn’t it?’’ I asked.
‘‘Yes, but, unlike the one in Mr. Phelps, this jacket has come apart in so many pieces that they’re not distinguishable visually. A metallurgist, perhaps . . .’’
‘‘Oh.’’
‘‘And, unfortunately, the fragments in Officer Kellerman and in his vest are ballistically worthless. At least from an identification point of view. You could never match them to the weapon