Mastermind

Morgan was sleeping soundly when suddenly her beeper went off. It was Tuesday, 3:30 a.m. She was on scene call overnight and morgue duty today. The beeper lit up and she checked the number. It was the medical investigators’ number at the office. The “0” dark thirty call meant there was a scene someplace in the county and the police wanted a medical examiner to attend. It usually meant a homicide; but it could be anything the police thought was a bit suspicious or something high profile.

She took a deep breath, sat on the edge of the bed and focused her eyes on the phone. She had the number programmed for just such occasions as this so that she only had to hit one button to dial.

“Bexar County Medical Examiner, Investigator Santos.”

“Hi, Miguel. What’s up?” she asked.

“Hello, Doc. Sorry to wake you. SAPD is asking if you can make a shooting scene. Looks like a single gunshot to the head, probably suicide but the Detective says the family is convinced she didn’t kill herself and there’s no history of depression or drugs. Victim just got a big promotion last week. Oh yeah, and she was going to become the Senior District Attorney. She was working on a big drug running case involving the Mexican Mafia.”

“Sue Culmer?” she asked in disbelief. Morgan met her once and immediately liked her. She was a gutsy woman that had a ‘take no prisoners’ attitude. “Sure, I’ll make the scene. What’s the address?” she scribbled the address down on a note pad she kept by the bed and he gave her the map grid co-ordinates for easy reference. “Thanks, Miguel. Who’s the lead detective?”

“Um, it’s Kabala, Lt. Kabala; I’ve got his number. He wants you to call him.”

She wrote the number on the same page with the address. “OK. I’ll be there in about half an hour.” She hung up and called Lt. Kabala. Nice guy. She remembered meeting him. It was at the First Wednesday Homicide Luncheon. That was something she had come up with when she was first appointed Chief ME not that long ago. She thought it would be a good idea for the ME office and the detective squad to have a joint meeting once a month; go over cases, share ideas, develop better rapport between the agencies. At first some of the detectives were a bit reluctant; didn’t have time or some other excuse. So, she made it a luncheon. Everybody’s got to eat and the police love to eat, especially if her office was footing the bill. Now after only a few months, it was catching on and she could see a real rapport and respect developing.

Morgan called the lieutenant and he filled her in and apologized for getting her out to a suicide even though it was going to be a high-profile case. She assured him she was happy to come out as she put on her black BDU cargo pants, a black golf shirt, with the ME logo on the pocket and black tennis shoes. All black. What a cliché, she thought, but it was also practical. Dirt and other “stuff” didn’t show up as easily. You never know what kind of scene you’ll walk into. She clipped on her cell phone and beeper and unplugged her camera battery pack that had been charging overnight, and stuffed it into her scene bag. She checked that she had her ID badge holder and slid it into her front pocket. She didn’t like to wear the badge until she actually arrived at the scene, just in case there was somebody around who might want to take a shot at a badge not knowing that she wasn’t a cop, only the ME.

She drove to the scene thinking about Sue Culmer. She was an up and coming star who had made a name for herself in a relatively short time. She had the respect of the District Attorney and all of the judges. She knows suicide is not a rare thing and the families of the victims rarely ever admit that their loved one was suicidal. But someone like Sue? She just couldn’t believe it. She had everything going for her. A great job she was obviously good at; and liked very much, and an upcoming promotion that would make most people very happy. What was missing? She was a young, single, professional, female on the fast tract. She shook her head; and thought, “I guess you never know what goes through peoples’ minds”. This was going to be a high-profile case and a very long day.

The scene wasn’t hard to find. Just get to the general vicinity and look for the flashing lights. It was an upscale neighborhood downtown. She lived alone in a nice, well-kept house not far from where she worked and had just made Assistant District Attorney at the age of 32. That was pretty good in her book.

Morgan pulled up to the traffic officer and he noticed the Medical Examiner logo on the door. He waived her through and motioned for the next uniform to hold up the crime scene tape for her go under. She pulled up to the driveway behind three cop cars and parked. As she got out, she looked at the neighborhood, at the neighbors who had gathered on their front lawns and glanced at the houses with no lights on wondering if they were inside looking out or simply oblivious to the tragic scene in their neighbor’s yard. She nodded to the uniform standing at a new Mercedes. “Lt. Kabala here?” she asked.

“He’s interviewing the neighbors, Doc.”

“Ok. Let’s get stared. The sooner we can get her taken care of and out of here, the better.” The officer stepped aside and pointed to the car.

“She was found here; sitting in her Mercedes. What a waste of a fine car.” He said. “And a fine person.” she remarked back. He didn’t seem to get it. The car was parked squarely in the front driveway of her two-story craftsman style home.

“The doors were locked and the windows rolled up. Driver’s side shattered with the exit”, the officer was saying as she walked around and looked inside. Glass fragments were on the driveway beside the car.

“Any of the neighbors hear anything?” she asked.

“LT is checking that out now.”

“OK, Thanks. I’ll take it from here”, she said and stepped back several feet to get a wide angle shot of the whole scene. She took photos first from a distance, then medium range and then focused on the car. “Ok, let’s open it up.”

She photographed the inside of the car, put on gloves and examined her head. There was a single gunshot wound to the right temple. It was a contact wound with a nearly perfect muzzle imprint on the skin. Her long dark blonde hair was bloody and matted. It was difficult to see well, but the crime scene techs offered to hold their flashlights so she could get a better look. She saw and felt an exit wound and there was blood on the left side of her head. She asked the body removal service to take her out of the car.

They are the most mysterious guys at the scene. They’re the ‘Men in Black’ with white shirts and black ties, who show up with their black van and body bags and are always willing to help. They’re the ones the news cameras focus on to show the typical body bag on a gurney being loaded into a panel van and whisked away to the morgue. A place most people think of as a cold, damp and darkly lit crypt in the basement of some old unidentified building. In actuality, her morgue was located in a modern, new building right on the University Campus, with lots of light and not at all damp. She agreed with the cold part however.

“Hi Doc,” a deep voice behind her said.

“Lieutenant.” She smiled as they shook elbows. It was a common practice to touch elbows instead of shaking hands, when she was gloved or already working.

He looked inside and picked up the gun from her lap with his one gloved hand. The body transport men lifted her out and she noted that her seatbelt was not fastened. Had she come out here purposefully just to off herself? Odd she thought. They laid her on a clean white sheet, out of view of the neighbors and the crowd that was gathering. She was dressed as if she had been out, perhaps on a date or in work clothes from the office. Morgan examined her clothing and the rest of her body to confirm there were no other injuries. There was a stellate shaped exit wound on the left temple. She’d get a better look in the morgue later this morning.

Detective Kabala held up the Glock 9 mm semiautomatic. “There’s nine cartridges still in the clip and we found one casing in the back seat. No projectile yet, but the CSIs are still looking and have the metal detector out.”

“Anything in the house of interest? A note?” she asked.

“No note so far.”

There was no suicide note; but that was not unusual. Only about 50% of all suicides leave notes. The crime scene tech took gunshot residue swabs of both hands and will fingerprint the weapon and the casing. She photographed the casing, the weapon and the inside of the car then filled out a Morgue Tag requesting that her staff not wash her or fingerprint her until she got there. However, she did ask that they weigh and measure her and x-ray the head before she got in. It seemed like a straightforward suicide until she saw her in the morgue later that morning.

There was a contact wound to the right temple. But the appearance of the muzzle imprint with soot in the wound tract, searing around the edges AND a wide area of coarse tattooing was very unusual and disconcerting. Tattooing is caused by small particles of unburned gunpowder and debris that come out of the barrel when the gun is fired. It’s not powder burns as some new media and TV shows call it. It’s actually particles that cause tiny abrasions or scratches on the surface of the skin and it can’t be wiped away. It helps us estimate the distance of the gun when fired and is extremely rare when there is a contact wound because the tattooing would penetrate the wound tract and go beneath the skin surface, not be left on the surrounding skin. She had seen it once when the cylinder of a revolver was defective and loose; a bit of tattooing or stippling was ejected. But otherwise, by definition, you just couldn’t have both, unless two shots had been fired; one close to the head and emitted the stippling and then the victim shot themselves. But there was only one shot fired.

The tattooing on Sue Culmer was three inches in diameter and away from the entrance wound indicating that the muzzle was approximately 6 to 8 inches away from the head when fired, but there was also a muzzle imprint. How could she have both? She couldn’t by definition and she couldn’t explain it. She called Detective Kabala and told him her findings. He was skeptical.

“Well, Doc, what are you saying? It’s clearly a suicide, yes?” he asked. “You’re not thinking someone offed her?”

“No, I’m not willing to go that far….yet. BUT I can’t explain it. This just isn’t the typical pattern we see in contact wounds.” He was quiet. She could tell he was thinking and the last thing he wanted was to have a high profile homicide on his hands.

“There was only one cartridge fired?” she asked.

“Yeah, you saw it; I secured the gun myself.”

“Is it possible the weapon has a faulty frame or any other explanation you can think of for the tattooing.”

“No, I didn’t see anything and Glock is a very well made gun. I’ll have the firearms guy take a look at it with that in mind. With their heavy case load they don’t usually go out of the way to look at suicides. I’ll make an exception.”

“Great, I’d feel better about it. Something just doesn’t feel right.”