Never Tell (Detective D.D. Warren #10) - Lisa Gardner Page 0,63
more likely, given the woman’s burden of guilt, far less awful than the images that replayed in her head night after night.
D.D. spread out the first three photos in front of Evie and her lawyer. Delaney inhaled sharply but didn’t look away. He’d been there that day, too. A friend of the family, summoned by Evie’s mom, who hadn’t thought to call 9-1-1 but knew immediately to dial the family lawyer. Said something about the woman’s mental state right there.
“Long guns are used in suicides more often than people think,” D.D. stated now. She kept her voice even but soft. No need to play hardball just yet; that would come later. “This particular shotgun, the Model eight-seventy Remington, comes in two different barrel lengths for the twelve-gauge. Your father had purchased the slightly shorter version, but even then, the barrel length is twenty-six inches, the full length of the shotgun forty-six and a half inches. In instances of suicide, the victim will generally press the tip of the barrel against his own body to stabilize the weapon while he reaches for the trigger. Hence, one of the most common indicators of suicide by long gun is a clear burn pattern against the victim’s skin from the heat of the barrel.”
Evie glanced up at her. “I don’t see a burn mark. It would be on his stomach yes? I just see … soot.”
“Scorch marks,” D.D. provided, “indicating the shotgun was in close proximity to the victim at the time of discharge, but not actually touching the victim’s skin. In fact, the scorch marks are consistent with your initial statement, a scenario of someone standing mere inches away from the victim, pulling the trigger.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The second indicator of suicide by long gun is trajectory. It’s nearly impossible to hold a long gun level and pull the trigger, meaning inevitably the impact of the blast should be up and out. The projectiles enter lower on the body, travel in an upward diagonal until exiting higher on the body. In this case”—D.D. tapped a photo—“we can see the entrance wound was beneath your father’s lower ribs. But according to the ME, the shotgun pellets didn’t follow any diagonal path. Instead, they traveled nearly straight through the body, shredding his organs and intestines along the way.”
“Sergeant!” Delaney objected.
Evie, however, did not look away. “The gun was fired level. From someone standing directly in front of my father.”
“Which, again, would be consistent with the story you provided. You picked up the shotgun. You were trying to inspect the chamber, and instead, you pulled the trigger while standing directly in front of your father. Hence no burn marks, no upward trajectory.”
“Except I didn’t! We’d been out. Myself and my mother. We parked on the driveway. I’d just opened the car door and I heard a noise. We entered the kitchen. And there … I saw … There was my father.”
“The third thing we’d look at for a suicide,” D.D. continued relentlessly, “is the blood spatter. If someone else was in the room, if someone else pulled the trigger, that person would be subject to blowback, or spray from the impact of the shotgun pellets entering the body. Meaning we should have at least one person covered in spatter.”
She stared hard at Evie, who sputtered: “I walked in … the blood … it dripped down on me …”
“We’d also have a void in the spatter. A clean spot in, say, the floor or countertop, where the shooter’s body blocked any droplets from landing.” D.D. tapped a third photo, where, sure enough, bloody spray appeared above and to the sides of Hopkins’s body, but directly in front …
“Your father didn’t commit suicide,” D.D. stated firmly. “The evidence has now been reviewed several times by several different experts. There was someone else in the room, and that person shot him.”
Evie opened her mouth, shut her mouth. “You think I’m lying now,” she whispered at last.
“I think your story sixteen years ago is a better fit with the evidence than the line of bull you tried to feed me yesterday.”
“Sergeant,” Delaney started again.
“Why would I lie? I only did it back then to protect my father.”
“You father, or your mother?”
“My mother was with me! We’d gone out shopping. Surely, you can find a witness, pull store security tapes. A credit card receipt. Something that proves we were together.”
“From sixteen years ago?”
“I thought he’d killed himself! He’d been … off. Not himself. And genius and suicide …” Evie shrugged, sounding genuinely