“Of course not, but why make him feel even worse? The men almost always pass out. And the bigger the man, the faster.”
Sylvia pointed out various areas of Canney’s wounds with a long stainless-steel rod. “As you can see, the supratentorial of the brain was pretty much eviscerated, not unexpected with a shotgun wound.”
She put down the rod and her face clouded over. “Canney’s father came in to see his son. I advised him not to, that the wounds were very bad, but he insisted. That’s the toughest part of this business. He was able to give a presumptive ID from a birthmark and a scar on his knee from an old football injury. We obtained a positive ID from dental records and fingerprints.”
Sylvia took a deep breath. “My heart went out to him, although he took it pretty stoically. I’ve never had children, but I can imagine what it would be like, having to walk into a place like this and…” Her voice trailed off.
Michelle let the silence hold for a few moments and then said, “And Canney’s mother?”
“She died several years ago. I guess that was a blessing of sorts.”
Sylvia returned to her examination. “Determining the firing range on shotgun wounds is tricky. The most reliable way is to fire the same ammo from the exact same gun with the same choke setting. We don’t have that luxury here, but you’ll note that the entrance wound has no scalloping of the margin and no satellite lesions. So the distance between muzzle and victim was contact to less than two feet.” She covered what was left of Canney’s head with a small sheet.
“Do you know the make of the ammo?”
“Oh, yes. The wadding from the shotgun round was recovered from the wound. All the pellets also stayed in him. That’s why the wound is so devastating. All the kinetic energy’s used up internally.” Sylvia looked at her notes. “It was a twelve-gauge loaded with nine double-ought pellets of Federal manufacture.”
“And Pembroke died the same way?”
“She was shot in the back. The injuries were instantly fatal but not as devastating. There were numerous bits of the shattered windshield glass embedded in her skin as well. Conclusion: the killer fired the first shot through the windshield. Looking at the wounds alone, you’d think the range of weapon to victim was far greater. However, I think the barrel of the shotgun was near the windshield when it was discharged, or a total distance of about three feet to Pembroke. The entrance wound on her back has a characteristic scalloped margin, and there are additional satellite lesions as individual pellets separated from the main mass. Because the pellets had to break through the glass, it appears as though the shot was fired from a greater distance than was actually the case.”
“Why do you think her back was to the windshield?”
“They were having sex,” Sylvia said. “There was spermicidal residue from Canney’s condom in her vagina. She was probably astride Canney and facing him when it happened, with her back to the windshield. That’s a very natural position for intercourse in the close confines of a car. Her body acted as a shield; otherwise, Canney would have been killed from the first blast as well.”
“You’re sure he wasn’t?”
“There were two rounds total fired. The number of pellets we found showed that. There were nine in each body. Symmetry in death,” she added dryly.
“I suppose no ejected shotgun shells were found.”
Sylvia shook her head. “Either the killer picked up the spent casings or the weapon was a nonpump where the fired casings have to be manually extracted.”
“I guess since it was a smoothbore barrel, there’s no possibility of a ballistics matching if we find a suspected weapon.”
“Sometimes irregularities at the end of a shotgun’s muzzle will impart scratch marks on the plastic wad. That was actually the case here. I’m not a ballistics expert, but the police may have enough to do comparisons if they ever find the shotgun. And we have the slug from Rhonda Tyler’s body as well for ballistic analysis.”
“There was talk that the shotgun blast that killed Steve Canney might have stopped his watch, giving the time of death.”
“No. The watch was placed on him postmortem. It was stopped because the stem was pulled out. I noted that at the crime scene. I found embedded glass in his left wrist, right where the watch would have been.”
“Any idea why the watch was put on him after death?”
“As a calling card perhaps? I noted that it was set to three. Pembroke’s was set to around two. That also might confirm their order of death.”
“And Jane Doe slash Rhonda Tyler had on a watch that didn’t belong to her either and that was set to one o’clock. And it was a Zodiac.”
Sylvia looked at her. “And now we have a Zodiac-style letter.”
“And three people dead.”
“So I guess the next one will be four o’clock, representing the fourth victim?”
“If there is a next one,” said Michelle.
“There’s little doubt of that. The first victim was an exotic dancer. However, the next two victims were local kids making out in a car. Once they start their murders, serial killers usually stick to one segment of the population. This guy’s already showing us he’s not playing by the same old rules.” She paused and added quietly, “So the real question becomes, who’ll be next?”
CHAPTER