Until Proven Guilty - J. A. Jance [44]
I left the room as I found it and returned to the hall, where the night clerk hovered nervously, wringing his hands. He was anxious about adverse publicity. I assured him that whatever had happened was no reflection on the Warwick. Asking him to keep me informed of any developments, I went downstairs to wait for Peters. I had the sickening feeling that we’d been suckered, that Carstogi had played us for a couple of fools. Peters’ Datsun screeched to a stop about the time I hit the plate glass door. He hadn’t taken time to go by the department for another car. I gave him a couple of points for that.
“Carstogi’s not here,” I said, folding my legs into the cramped front seat. “We’d better go straight to Faith Tabernacle.”
Two uniformed cops were standing guard when we got there, holding off a horde of media ambulance chasers, to say nothing of neighborhood curiosity seekers. We hadn’t discussed it during the drive to Ballard, but I knew that getting the recorder out of Faith Tabernacle undetected was imperative. Whatever was on it would be totally inadmissible as evidence, but it might provide vital information. Information that would lead us to the killer.
We found Suzanne Barstogi near the pulpit at the front of the church. She lay on her left side with one leg half curled beneath her, as though she had been rising and turning toward her assailant when the bullet felled her. She was still wearing the same dowdy dress she had been wearing earlier in the day. It had been ripped from neck to waist. Her bra had been torn in two, exposing overripe breasts. In addition to the bullet hole that punctured her left breast, her upper torso was covered with bloody welts. Before she died, Suzanne Barstogi had been the victim of a brutal beating.
There was little visible impact damage. The bullet had entered cleanly enough, but behind her, where the emerging slug had crashed out of her body, Suzanne Barstogi’s lifeblood was splattered and pooled on the pulpit and altar of the Faith Tabernacle.
Peters looked at her for a long time. “He didn’t nickel-dime-around, did he?”
No one was in the church with us right then, but they would be soon. Peters quickly retrieved the recorder and put it in his pocket. We found Pastor Michael Brodie in the middle of his study. He was sprawled facedown and naked on the blood-soaked carpet. Peters and I theorized that he had heard noises in the church and come to investigate. Again there was only one bullet hole.
Shooting at such close range doesn’t require a tremendous amount of marksmanship, but you’ve got to be tough. Tough and ruthless. A hand shaking out of control can cause a missed target at even the shortest distance. Then there’s always the chance that the victim will make a desperate lunge for the gun and turn it on his attacker. And then there’s the mess.
“I would have bet even money that Carstogi wouldn’t pull something like this,” I said.
“I hate to be the one to break this to you, Beau, but you did bet money. We both did. Our asses are on the line on this one. Your friend Max will see to it. You just hide and watch.”
There’s an almost religious ceremony in approaching a crime scene. First is the establishment of the scene parameters. In this case, to be on the safe side, we included the entire church. Then come the evidence technicians with their cameras and measurements. They ascertain distances, angles, trajectories. They look for trace evidence that may be helpful later. The secret, of course, is approaching the scene with a slow deliberation that disturbs nothing. This is one place where peons take precedence over rank. Sergeant Watkins paced in the background, observing the technicians’ careful, unhurried efforts.
The medical examiner himself, the white-haired Dr. Baker, arrived before the technicians