The Overlook

the body to get a better look.
    “We’ve got a man who was brought here or came here for whatever reason and was made to get down on his knees.”
    Felton pointed to the victim’s pants. There were smudges of orange dirt on both knees.
    “Then somebody shot him twice in the back of the head and he went down face first. The facial injuries you see came when he hit the ground. He was already dead by then.”
    Bosch nodded.
    “No exit wounds,” Felton added. “Probably something small like a twenty-two with the ricochet effect inside the skull. Very efficient.”
    Bosch realized now that Lieutenant Gandle had been speaking figuratively when he mentioned that the victim’s brains had been blown across the view from the overlook. He would have to remember Gandle’s tendency toward hyperbole in the future.
    “Time of death?” he asked Felton.
    “Going by the liver temp I would say four or five hours,” the medical examiner replied. “Eight o’clock, give or take.”
    That last part troubled Bosch. He knew that by eight it would have been dark and all the sunset worshippers would have been long gone. But the two shots would have echoed from the overlook and into the houses on the nearby bluffs. Yet no one had made a call to the police, and the body wasn’t found until a patrol car happened by three hours later.
    “I know what you are thinking,” Felton said. “What about the sound? There is a possible explanation. Guys, let’s roll him back over.”
    Bosch stood up and stepped out of the way while Felton and one of his assistants turned the body over. Bosch glanced at Walling and for a moment their eyes locked, until she looked back down at the body.
    Turning the body had exposed the bullet entry wounds in the back of the head. The victim’s black hair was matted with blood. The back of his white shirt was spattered with a fine spray of a brown substance that immediately drew Bosch’s attention. He had been to too many crime scenes to remember or count. He didn’t think that was blood on the dead man’s shirt.
    “That’s not blood, is it?”
    “No, it’s not,” Felton said. “I think we’ll find out from the lab that it’s good old Coca-Cola syrup. The residue you might find in the bottom of an empty bottle or can.”
    Before Bosch could respond Walling did.
    “An improvised silencer to dampen the sound of the shots,” she said. “You tape an empty plastic liter Coke bottle to the muzzle of the weapon and the sound of the shot is significantly reduced as sound waves are projected into the bottle rather than the open air. If the bottle had a residue of Coke in it, the liquid would be spattered onto the target of the shot.”
    Felton looked at Bosch and nodded approvingly.
    “Where’d you get her, Harry? She’s a keeper.”
    Bosch looked at Walling. He, too, was impressed.
    “Internet,” she said.
    Bosch nodded though he didn’t believe her.
    “And there is one other thing you should note,” Felton said, drawing attention back to the body.
    Bosch stooped down again. Felton reached across the body to point at the hand on Bosch’s side.
    “We have one of these on each hand.”
    He was pointing to a red plastic ring on the middle finger. Bosch looked at it and then checked the other hand. There was a matching red ring. On the inside of each hand the ring had a white facing that looked like some sort of tape.
    “What are they?” Bosch asked.
    “I don’t know yet,” Felton said. “But I think-”
    “I do,” Walling said.
    Bosch looked up at her. He nodded. Of course she knew.
    “They’re called TLD rings,” Walling said. “Stands for thermal luminescent dosimetry. It’s an early-warning device. It’s a ring that reads radiation exposure.”
    The news brought an eerie silence to the gathering. Until Walling continued.
    “And I’ll give you a tip,” she said. “When they are turned inward like that, with the TLD screen on the inside of the hand, that usually means the wearer directly handles radioactive materials.”
    Bosch stood up.
    “Okay, everybody,” he ordered, “back away from the body. Everybody just back away.”
    The crime scene techs, the coroner’s people and Bosch all started moving away from the body. But Walling didn’t move. She raised her hands like she was calling for a congregation’s attention in church.
    “Hold on, hold on,” she said. “Nobody has to back away. It’s cool, it’s cool. It’s safe.”
    Everybody paused but nobody moved