Jessica Heathrow was the county medical examiner, who’d bagged up the body. Smart as a whip.
“Cause of death is gunshot wound to the head, perforation of the brain. The shot that blew off half his face passed through. The one through the eye did him in.”
“The bullet didn’t lodge in his brain?”
“Nope. Blew out the back of his head.”
“You find the other casing?”
“Only the one. Bagged it up. Will get it logged and sent to ballistics at sun up, and we’ll search again for the other.”
“Probably in the woods under a pile of deer shit. Is her gun bagged up?”
I nodded.
Colson shook his head. “She was carrying agunwith her at midnight in the city park. A freakingnine millimeter.Ruger, right?”
I nodded.
“What the hell is a woman doing carrying that thing around?”
I reminded him that almost everyone in Berry Springs carried a weapon of sorts. Hell, everyone in the South did, for that matter. A concealed carry license was as common as a driver’s license. To his point, though, a nine millimeter was a significant weapon, especially for a “woman.”
“I meant,” Colson corrected, “who carries a gun with them during a jog? Because that’s what it appears she was doing based on her clothing and running gear—forget that it’s the middle of the night. If itwasself defense, again, who carries that kind of gun?”
“Someone who takes security very personally. The fire power alone suggests a fair amount of knowledge about guns.”
Colson’s brows squeezed together. “The most common Ruger pocket pistol for concealed carry is a 380, not a nine millimeter. I understand carrying one in her purse or something, butjoggingwith one in her waistband? Why not carry a taser or a shiv like a normal person?”
It was something I filed away as interesting, too. Very interesting.
“What about the knife found next to the victim’s body?”
“Bagged up, too.”
“No blood on it?”
“No.”
“No knife wounds on the vic?”
“Nope. And the medic said her wound wasn’t from a knife.”
“A random knife on the scene. This just gets weirder and weirder. We need to figure out if it’s hers or the vics, then verify the prints.”
I nodded. “You started trying to track down his next of kin yet?”
“Not yet. That’s next on my to-do list.”
We didn’t know much about the victim other than what I’d pulled from the wallet in his back pocket. His name was Julian Griggs. A five-foot-eleven, brown-eyed, organ-donating twenty-two year old Berry Springs resident. His wallet contained two credit cards, a debit card, a coupon for a free ice-cream at Donny’s, two sticks of wintergreen gum, and six dollars cash. According to the fast-food receipt in his pocket, he’d had a double-cheese burger, large fries with extra ketchup, and a large soda two hours before Sunny Harper blew off his face in the park. A ring of keys were in his right pocket, along with some lint. He’d been wearing a black T-shirt, navy blue shorts and white joggers, now speckled with blood. A password-restricted cell phone from his other pocket and one private social media account gave us nothing. A black Chevy was parked at the trailhead, which was assumed to be his considering the keys found in his pocket unlocked it. I told Darby to run the truck plates to confirm, and if so, gather a list of his previous addresses so we could begin the arduous task of finding the next of kin to contact. If that failed, I instructed him to check Julian’s birth certificate or check for marriage licenses. All thatafterhe found out everything he could on Sunny Harper, of course.
“Erickson was positive he saw her shoot the guy in the face?” I asked.
“That’s what he said. Said he was driving home from the hospital?—”
“What was he doing at the hospital?”
“His niece just had her first baby?—”
