Two to Worry About

Chapter 2

They established the body was in the middle of the intersection as advertised. A quiet residential intersection where two streets met, with each street filled with tree-lined old homes setting in the middle of decent sized yards of green grass. The homes were old but well kept. Harking back to a past when this part of the city’s residents were the mavens of society. But time changes all things. People move out. People move in. A different generation lives here now. Today, this part of town were just great, old, family homes filled with children, dogs, and an assortment of mortgages a blue-collar family of four could just about afford. Around the body was a small assembly of residents, staring at it and/or talking among themselves in quiet whispers. The crowd parted when Turner and Frank flashed their detective badges toward them.

For a second or two they stared down at the body in silence. A dead cowboy. Fitted out in blue jeans, a Western-styled long-sleeved shirt, wearing cowboy boots obviously caked with dark, foul smelling manure. Covering the man"s thighs were a pair of heavy, leather chaps. Lying beside him on the pavement was a battered-looking dirty Stetson cowboy hat. Stuffed in the man"s belt was a pair of old leather gloves. Working gloves that had absorbed quite a large amount of hard work on a ranch or farm.

The cause of death wasn"t hard to figure out. In the middle of the man"s blood-soaked back was a hole about the size of a man"s fist. A big bore handgun or rifle had taken the man down with one shot. Depending on how you looked at it, it was either a very good way to die or a very bad one. Messy as hell. But fast. There would have been no lingering. No suffering. Punch a hole that large through a man"s chest and death was instant.

"Anyone recognize this man?" Turner asked, turning slowly around to look at the crowd as Frank bent down and began to look more closely at the body.

Everyone kept silent. A few shook their heads silently. All looked pale and in shock. A couple of the young mothers held their small children close to them. A few of the men looked grim and angry. Obviously, veterans who had witnessed death before. Used to it already. But angry that something like this would desecrate their neighborhood and terrify those around them whom they loved.

"Anybody hear the shot or see who killed him?"

"That"s the funny thing, officer," one of the older men, dressed in a business suit with his tie pulled down and his collar open, said, looking up to stare into Turner"s face. Perhaps in his early forties. Freshly shaven. A businessman, more like a salesman, going to work at 6:30 in the evening. "No one heard a thing. No gunshots were fired. No one racing away at high speeds. Nothing. A couple of us thought we saw a pickup turn the corner and disappear down Roach. But that"s it. I came out of my house and was about to get into my car when I saw the body."

"Anybody get a license plate number or the color of the pickup?"

"Black," a young boy piped up, his head peeping around the back of his mother. "It was black. With a smashed up tailgate. Smashed up like someone had driven into it with something."

Turner looked at the boy. About ten or twelve years old. Big blue eyes and shaggy blond hair. A spitting image of his silent mother standing in front of him. She was dressed in slacks and wore a bright yellow blouse. Perhaps forty or a little more. Pretty, but not much else. She was eyeing her boy silently, but not making any effort to hush him up. She looked terrified. But resilient. Which wasn"t unusual. He was never surprised about how many good people who had witnessed such horrors wanted to help the police do their job.

wanted"Ladies and gentlemen, go home. We"ll take it from here. Sometime tonight or tomorrow I and my partner, or some other officer, will come by and take your statements. And don"t worry about something like this happening again. It won"t. It appears fairly clear this man was murdered somewhere else and his body dumped here. Probably a random act. I promise you the department will find those who committed this act, and we"ll bring them to justice. Now, please. Go home and let us do our work. Thank you."

Slowly, in ones and twos, the crowd broke up and traipsed back to their respective homes. Turner watched the blond boy and his mother disappear into a big, sprawling home with a wraparound front porch sitting at one corner of the intersection. He and Frank would be talking to them soon enough.

He turned to look down at his partner. Frank fished out the dead man"s wallet. It was empty. Empty of anything which might designate a human being once owned it. No driver"s license. No money. No Social Security card. No photos. Nothing. A barren piece of leather.

Turner grunted. That he found most curious.

ThatFrank nodded in agreement.

"We got a dead cowboy lying in the street of suburbia. With not an iota of identification on him. No change in his pockets. No car keys. Nothing in his wallet," the red-headed giant began, frowning. "And take a look at this. Look at his fingers."

Turner knelt on the other side of the body and, after pulling on a pair of fresh surgical gloves he pulled out of a coat pocket, reached down and grabbed one of the dead man"s wrists. Rigor Mortis was already setting in, but the arm moved. Lowering his head Turner took a close look at the fingertips of the dead man and grunted again in interest.

"No fingerprints," Frank said, nodding. "Thought that"d catch your attention."

"A conundrum," Turner commented casually.

"Indeed, Sherlock," Frank agreed, flickering the corners of his lips. "An enigma of Brobdingnagian proportions."

Turner smiled knowingly and came to his feet.

"Been watching The Big Bang Theory again, haven"t you?"

The Big Bang Theory A television show. The most highly rated comedy on TV. Smart people using big words. Somehow making it hilarious. He knew his partner and the big guy"s entire family loved the show. He enjoyed it as well.

Frank came to his feet, pulling off the surgical gloves covering his hands.

"So, we get the coroner out here and a few of the uniforms and start canvassing the residents. Can"t do a thing until we identify the stiff."

Turner nodded in agreement, pulling off his surgical gloves as he stood up, still looking downward at the body.

"Maybe Joe can look at the man"s boots and give us some indication of where he came from. We find a location and we might find somewhere to start."

Joe was Joe Weiser. The best forensics tech in the state. What the guy could do in a laboratory was phenomenal. If anyone had a chance of pulling something off the dead man and giving them something to work on, it would be him.

Frank pulled out his cell phone and thumbed a number. A few words later he thumbed the phone again and returned it back to its pocket.

"One patrol unit is available. Flattery and O"Connor. They"ll be here in eight minutes."

Odd.

For both detectives. Standing over the form of a dead man in the middle of a residential intersection and waving gawkers driving by slowly in automobiles to move on while they waited for the uniforms to arrive and help them out. But not so odd after all. Both men would tell you straight away they did stranger things while investigating a homicide. Much stranger.