It wasn’t in him to quit. In three quick steps he held Amber’s long, auburn ponytail in his fist. He tugged, not too hard, but none too gently.
She’d had enough for one day.
She reached up and freed her hair from his grasp with a tug and a toss of her head, and then spun around. She reached to push him away but he stepped back. She stopped and crossed her arms as he taunted her. “Scaredy Cat. Scaredy Cat.”
Amber’s eyes flared and she stepped closer, but Alfie turned and loped ahead. She followed, angry now, not afraid of the bully.
A few steps in front of her, Alfie stopped short. The look on his face made her forget her anger as she followed his gaze toward the row of bushes along the side of the tracks.
Her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened. She brought her hands to her face, covered her eyes, and peeked carefully between her fingers at the startling sight in front of them.
Alfie moved in a step. The branch in his hand no longer served as a torture device, but was now being used to prod at the foot of the man who lay on the ground beside a bush.
Alfie crouched down and looked a little closer. He was pretty sure the man was dead. The only other person he’d seen dead before was his grandmother and that was a long time ago. But his grandmother didn’t have flies buzzing around his head like this guy did.
And grandmother didn’t have blood all over her like this guy did.
Alfie looked up at Amber. She stepped back, her face still turned toward the body, her eyes clamped shut, her arms wrapped around herself.
He stood and turned toward her. “It’s a dead body,” he said. “Amber, don’t you wanna see the dead guy?”
Her eyes remained sealed and she shook her head vigorously.
“Scaredy Cat,” he said.
She turned her back on him as he crouched and continued his visual examination. The man’s eyes were open, staring at the sky, but Alfie was pretty sure the guy couldn’t see anything.
“I’m afraid,” Amber said, her voice quivering. “We’d better tell a grown-up.”
“Scaredy Cat,” he said, continuing to eye the body curiously. “The guy’s dead. He can’t hurt nobody.”
Amber walked away.
He crept up behind her, yelled “Boo”, and she jumped, spun toward him, and glared.
He leaned in and laughed. “Scaredy Cat.”
Amber turned and walked away, her head high.
He sighed, stood, and followed her.
Amber stopped. “There’s a house,” she said, pointing. “Maybe there’s somebody home.”
They were less than twenty feet from an access lane running from the tracks, past a house, and to the street beyond.
She led the way, Alfie following, across the back lawn to the house. He stepped past her, climbed up on the back porch, and banged on the door.
An old woman finally answered, a curious frown on her face. She was at least as old as Alfie’s mom and he figured she must be at least thirty-five. Maybe more.
Alfie looked her in the face, turned sideways, and pointed toward the tracks. “There’s a dead guy back there. I ain’t afraid but my sister is.”
The woman frowned, looked at Alfie, and then looked at Amber who was furiously nodding her head. “There really is,” Amber said. “He lies a lot but he’s telling the truth this time. I saw it too.”
The woman looked back and forth between the two kids and then raised her eyes toward the back of the property. She turned, slipped on a pair of shoes, and stepped out onto the back porch. “Show me,” she said, her tone revealing she wasn’t certain whether or not to believe the far-fetched story.
Alfie marched off, leading the way. Amber stayed close at the woman’s side as they followed him across the lawn and up the lane. He stopped and pointed.
The woman gasped, took a step back, seized Amber by the arm, and half-dragged her to the house.
Alfie took a last glance at the man on the ground and then turned and followed, swishing the stick through the air and wondering if all girls were scaredy cats like these two.
Chapter 28
Wednesday, 3:54 p.m.
RHPD WAS NOTIFIED when the 9-1-1 call came in and cruisers were dispatched immediately to secure the scene. Hank was informed, and by the time he and King pulled to the shoulder of the road behind a cruiser, its lights still flashing blue and red, the CSI van had already arrived.
The access lane leading to the tracks was taped off, and the main focus of attention seemed to be near a group of bushes, down the lane, along the side of the railroad tracks.
The coroner’s van pulled in behind Hank’s vehicle and Nancy Pietek stepped from the passenger side. She joined the detectives. “Lovely afternoon, Hank, King,” she said.
“Nice day to be alive,” Hank answered.
King nodded, grunted, and said nothing.
The small group went up the lane where investigators did what they do best. Trace evidence was being photographed, collected, and documented. Most of it would be meaningless, but the search for any elusive piece of telltale evidence would be thorough.
Hank approached Rod Jameson, lead CSI. “What do we have?” he asked, glancing at the body on the ground a few feet away.
Jameson consulted his clipboard. “Thirty-three year old male. Looks like he was shot in the chest. I’ll defer that to Nancy. According to his driver’s license, his name’s Michael Norton.”
Hank whistled. “Michael Norton?” He moved closer to the body and leaned over. There was no mistake; the pale white face was that of Michael Norton. The body lay flat on its back, facing upwards, the arms resting at each side. He looked like he might be sleeping, except his eyes were open, and he was very, very dead.
Nancy stepped over beside Hank and crouched down. She pulled aside the red, plaid shirt, soaked with crimson, and made an examination of his chest wound.
“Gunshot wound to the heart,” she said. “Small caliber weapon.” She pointed to the shirt. “Appears to be gunshot residue on the front of the shirt. As close as I can guess right now, he was shot from a distance of eighteen to twenty-four inches.”
“Close up and personal,” Hank said.
Nancy rolled the body slightly and examined the back. “Livor mortis shows he might’ve been killed here, or dropped here within a few minutes of death.” She pointed to a light, purplish discoloration of the skin. “See how the blood has begun to settle. It starts to pool a few minutes after death and congeals after a few hours.”
Jameson had come over, listening to Nancy’s report. “It makes sense he was killed elsewhere, Hank,” he said, pointing to the laneway. “We found evidence the body was dragged from over there. And there are trace amounts of blood on the ground. That would indicate he was dead already.”
“Or at least, mortally wounded,” King added.
“I’d say he was already dead at the time the body was deposited here,” Nancy said. “The shot would’ve killed him immediately.”
King turned to Jameson. “Probably brought here in a vehicle. Any tire tracks?”
Jameson shrugged. “They’re still looking closely at that, but the ground is hard. It’s possible, but unlikely.”
“Time of death?” Hank asked Nancy.
“Rigor mortis hasn’t started to set in,” Nancy replied. “I’d put the approximate time of death at two to three hours ago.”
“So he was dumped here in broad daylight,” King said.
Nancy nodded. “Almost certainly.”
Hank crouched a little lower and rolled the body halfway over. “Looky here,” he said. “He’s carrying a weapon.” He pulled a pair of surgical gloves from his pocket, worked them on, and then carefully removed a pistol from behind the back of the victim’s belt. He held it up.
“A .38-caliber revolver,” King said.
“Werner Shaft was killed by a .38,” Hank said. He stood and turned to Jameson. “Better bag this.”