The Penitent One (Boston Crime Thriller Book 3) Brian Shea (good book club books .txt) 📖

the pathology,” Charles said. “But one thing’s for certain, this isn’t a boating accident. And the killing most likely happened off location."

"Just how long were you guys out here before we got called?" Kelly allowed a little bit of his edginess to show, partly from the hangover and partly from annoyance that he was playing catch-up on what would undoubtedly be his case.

"You'll see why." Charles gave a wry smile.

Kelly didn't like the games being played and knew Charles well enough to recognize that this was not his doing. He would tease, yes, but this holding back of information and bleeding it out slowly was not his way.

"Well, I guess we better get down there and see," he said, letting his annoyance rise to the surface.

Halstead was unfazed. His cobalt blue eyes turned toward the body. "Follow me," he said, slipping under the police tape.

Charles and Dawes shuffled alongside him while Kelly and Barnes trailed the small gaggle as they made their way down to the shoreline.

As the tarp flapped in the breeze, Kelly caught a glimpse of the body face down on the icy bank. Depending on how long the man had been submerged, there would most likely be bloat. What Kelly could tell from his brief visual snapshot was the dead man, in life, had been heavyset.

The patrolman standing watch over the body stepped aside and, at Halstead’s direction, unveiled him.

The victim’s hair was gray, whiter because of the frost coating it. His skin was a strange translucent, zombie-like color. The gaping hole in the back of his skull was covered in ice.

“Gunshot wound to the head. Exit appears to be to the rear of the skull,” Kelly said to himself. He edged around the body, stepping carefully, and looked at the dead man’s face, half buried in the snow. Even in the victim’s current physical state, Kelly recognized him instantly.

He looked back at Barnes and then everybody else. "You know who this is?"

Halstead was deadpan.

"This is Turtle O'Toole," Kelly said, looking back down at the dead man. "Connor Walsh's number two man. This is his long-time running mate. These guys came up together. You're telling me somebody whacked the Turtle?" Kelly looked around at the people with him and the officers in the distance, half expecting to see Connor Walsh watching from the crowd.

"I'm familiar with Mr. O'Toole," Halstead said. "But that's not the whole reason our squad's been brought in on this."

Charles, again taking Halstead’s cue, walked around and adjusted O'Toole's left arm. The ice crunched as he lifted it at the elbow, exposing the bagged left hand. “Take a look.”

A knot formed in Kelly’s stomach as he bent low.

Shielding his eyes from an icy blast of wind, he peered through the bag’s clear plastic coating.

It took a second to see it. On O'Toole’s left hand was the clearly visible cross carved in the web of flesh between his thumb and index finger. Kelly shot a glance past Charles and met Halstead’s cobalt blues.

"Looks like your Tomlin case just got reactivated."

19

They spent the morning in the icy cold while processing the body and ensuring no other evidence was left behind before clearing the scene. Kelly had spent the remainder of the day working hand in hand with Charles, going over what little evidence they had collected. The ME's office took a preliminary look at the body on scene but offered nothing in the way of anything useful. No window of time for the murder, and stated a TOD was unlikely even after the formal autopsy was conducted.

Kelly doodled on his notepad while he waited. The phone was cradled against his ear as he scribbled a wavy line.

“You still there?” Best asked.

“Yup. Not going anywhere,” Kelly said.

“Unlike our date,” Best chided.

“Any amount of groveling going to get this to stop?”

“Not likely. Working around the dead is a bit boring. Thinking of new ways to give you a hard time is one of my favorite pastimes.” Best laughed at her own joke.

“Glad I can provide such amusement.” Kelly gave a moment’s pause before shifting the conversation back to the reason for the call. “What’s the definitive on the time of death?”

“It’s anything but definitive. The window of time is adjusted for a multitude of variables, in this case the two most counterproductive being the temperature of the water and the water itself. Both retard the body’s typical postmortem changes.”

“Give me the layperson’s explanation. I’m going to need to note this in my report.” Kelly cradled the phone between his neck and shoulder and flipped to a fresh page in his notepad.

“The water temp was forty degrees with a slight variance over the last twenty-four hours. The shallow water was slightly colder, dipping just below thirty-two. After death, the body’s temperature begins to slowly adjust to the ambient air surrounding it. In this case we’re dealing with near freezing temperatures. Under optimal conditions, the human body lowers 1.5 degrees every hour. In pathology we use that to establish a baseline comparing the body’s internal temperature to the external. Cold water, like where O’Toole was found, would accelerate the cooling process and thus throw off the equation. His core temp was taken rectally while on scene and registered sixty-five degrees. I did a test of his liver when he arrived here. The liver gives the most accurate reading. It read sixty-one degrees. I did some timeline extrapolation and have settled with sixty-three degrees as O’Toole’s core temp at the time of the recovery.”

Kelly tried to shorthand the information. If this was the layman’s explanation, he’d hate to see the official calculations.

Best continued rattling off the information. “Applying the decreased body temp to the standard equation would make it appear the time of death to have occurred approximately twenty-four hours previously.”

“So, the TOD is roughly twenty-four hours from the time the body was located?”

“No. I wish it were that easy. Like I said, the cold and the water change the game by speeding up the cooling process and slowing the