Up Against It - M. J. Locke [73]
“What about the windshield?” Sean asked. “Safety glass, I take it? No way a fragment could have done this?”
“Nope,” Bassinger said. “Shatters into fuzz balls. Like cotton candy.”
“And the impact with the vat was dead-on,” Duran pointed out. “His hands were on the controls at that time. Or at least his right hand was, as we saw. The fingers should have been crushed, not severed. And even if they had been severed, they would have been torn off, not cut off.”
“And they ended up far from the impact site,” Wilkes said, “as if they’d been flung there. On the right side of the crane.” She mimed the impact with her arm as she had done while they had watched the video, by bringing it to her chest. She wiggled her fingers, positioned against her left shoulder. “Based on the video evidence, we can’t come up with any way for those fingers to be flung out the right cab window. They should have ended up on the left.”
“And there’s more,” Dr. Bassinger said. “I mentioned we found MDHRA. But not in a distribution pattern that we would expect.”
“What do you mean?”
“There was less of the drug in the capillaries than at the point of severance. Far less. The concentration drops off precipitously within a millimeter or so of the plane of the cut. And we found significant quantities on the skin and nails as well.”
Sean frowned, still confused. “What are you saying?”
Bassinger said, “The only explanation that fits the facts is that he sliced off his own fingers with some kind of surgical instrument”—he mimed slicing off his fingertips—“and then sprayed the tissues with the drug and tossed them out the window.”
“But then how did he—”
“Remember how his arm disappeared for a moment,” Wilkes asked, “just before the dumpster fell? He must have severed his own fingers and tossed them out for us to find.”
Sean shuddered. “My God. But why?”
Wilkes shrugged. “To place himself at the crash? To make us think he did it because he was drugged up, and hide the real reason, perhaps?”
“I just don’t get it,” Sean said. “Why go to all that trouble?”
“It seems clear to me,” Wilkes said, “that he was trying to mask the fact that this wasn’t just the desperate impulse of a man in pain. That this was overt and deliberate sabotage.”
“Then … with that and the link to the mob in his past, we have the evidence we need!”
“Well, yes and no,” Duran said. “It’s solid evidence that Kovak’s motives weren’t what he tried to make us believe they were. But his bank account shows no unusual activity. And his spouses and children are well out of reach.”
Wilkes told him, “We still have nothing that directly links his actions to the Ogilvies.”
* * *
The precinct bullpen was even more chaotic when Sean returned than when he had first arrived. The din was overwhelming. Jerry invited him into his office for a quick discussion, and closed the door.
“What the hell is going on out there?”
“We’re processing the people picked up in the riot,” Jerry told him, “trying to ID the looters and rioters. God, I love my job.” He ran his fingers through his thinning hair with a sigh.
“I need more, Jerry. I need firm proof that Ogilvie is behind this.”
“We’ll keep on it. I promise you.”
They dealt with the deputizing. Jerry gave him a badge, swore him in, and assigned him the rank of captain. He also gave him a police radio earpiece, and offered him a gun, but Sean turned it down and opened his jacket to display his own holster. “I’m covered,” he said.
Jerry raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
As he was pushing his way toward the exit, someone yelled “Sir! Sir!” and tried to grab his arm. He looked around and was startled to see one of the ice-slinging bikers who had discovered Carl’s body. Sean gave a nod to the police officer escorting the boy. The officer paused.
“Sir.” The young man was panting. “Tell them I’m not a criminal. I was just in the bank to report a sugar rock and help my friends—no one believes me. I think they may be in trouble—you have to help us—”