Jack stood next to me with his hands on his hips, looking down at a future that would never have a chance to blossom.
The boy had dark hair that clung to his damp face. He had Asian features, and he was tall and lanky, his jacket and shoes high quality.
I took some pictures of the scene from overhead. Jack squatted down beside him and checked his pockets for identification, and he pulled a wallet from inside his jacket pocket.
“Mark Lee,” Jack said, holding a driver’s license up to the light. “Age nineteen.”
I took an evidence bag and held it open so he could drop the wallet inside, and then I waited while Jack checked the rest of his pockets. There were car keys, a ticket stub, and a pack of gum, but not much else to tell us the story of Mark Lee.
“Seven o’clock showing,” Jack said, looking at the ticket stub. “They must have just been coming out from seeing the movie.”
Jack moved around to the other side and picked up the small purse, looking for the girl’s identification.
“Tatiana Russo,” Jack said. “Age seventeen.” He put her purse in another evidence bag and then checked her coat pockets, but there was nothing in them. “We’ll send the grief counselor and the police chaplain to her address to talk with her parents since she’s still a minor.”
“It’s okay if you need to go check on Doug,” I told him, kneeling down next to the boy.
“Doug’s okay,” Jack said. “He’s texted a couple of times and said that Sergeant Smith is pretty funny. We’ll go in and see him together once you’re done here. They deserve to not lie here any longer than they have to.”
I nodded, knowing he was right. Our first priority had to be to the victim. We were all they had.
The bullet had caught the boy square in the chest. I unzipped his jacket and parted it, exposing his blood-soaked hoodie.
“Center mass,” I said. I used my finger to probe around the entry wound and then took the small ruler from my bag and measured the size of the hole. “About half an inch. I don’t see any other trauma to the front of the body. No other GSWs. Let’s turn him and see if it exited.”
Jack helped me turn Mark Lee to his side and I whistled. “I guess it exited.” A softball-size hole had bloomed open in his back from where the bullet had found a way out.
“You’re looking at a .44 or maybe a .357,” Jack said. “That’s the kind of gun meant to kill if you pull the trigger.”
“But where did it go?” I asked, rolling Mark back to the ground.
Jack and I both got to our feet, and he took his high-beam flashlight out of his pocket. I looked at the positioning of the bodies and the entry wounds and then I walked toward the ticket booth.
Jack shone his light against the concrete wall between the ticket booth and the exit doors, and about three feet from the ground was the bullet embedded in the wall.
“There’s one of them,” Jack said.
I handed him a pair of tweezers and a smaller evidence bag, and I took the flashlight. He called one of the officers standing guard and asked for a yellow evidence marker to put in place and then he carefully removed the bullet from the wall.
I recognized the officer—his last name was Derby, though I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard his first name—but we’d never worked a case together before. I didn’t have a lot of interaction with the guys that worked nights.
“Any casings found?” Jack asked.
“No, sir,” Derby said. “Smith and a couple of us checked as we walked off the perimeter.”
“There are cameras,” I said, pointing to the black globes on the ceiling. “Maybe between these and the parking lot cameras we can get an identity.”
Jack nodded and then stuck the bag in his jacket pocket. “Who else is on scene?”
“Well, Nash was on call, but he said he’s stuck on Moor Gate Road. There’s a tree down and he can’t get across. Otherwise it’s just me, Sarge, and Walters.”
“Y’all did good,” Jack said. “The scene is tight. Now we just have to find the other bullet. Why don’t you and Walters track down the manager and start looking through camera footage. If we can get a good facial clip we can get it out for the early morning news. Maybe someone will recognize him.”
“Yes, Sir,” Derby said and whistled at Walters for him to go with him.
“Found it,” I said, shining the flashlight onto the pavement. “This one fragmented.”
Jack used the tweezers and collected what he could find of the fragments, and then he placed another marker for the crime scene techs.
“I’m going to look at the female,” I told Jack, and headed back under the tent.
Her small frame hadn’t stood a chance against a .44. The entry wound was in the upper shoulder, and she was a good bit shorter than her date. Which was why her bullet trajectory had ended up in the pavement. Mark had most likely died instantly, but she had probably lingered a couple of minutes before she bled out.
It didn’t take me long to come to the same conclusion on her as I had for Mark—no other wounds, no other trauma. Cause of death was a single gunshot wound. I’d have to do an autopsy to make it formal, but it was just to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.
Jack came back over just as I was finishing up. “Anything else?” he asked.
“Nope, we can move them to the lab,” I said. “We’re going to need some transport help.”
“EMTs are still here,” he said. “Let’s get them bagged and loaded and then go see Doug. I want to find out what happened here.”
Chapter Eight
The EMTs helped us bag and load the victims on the two ambulances at the scene, and Jack and I were finally free to find Doug. It hadn’t been long since we’d gotten the initial call, but it seemed like an eternity.
“Derby,” Jack said, once we were inside. “Any luck on the cams?”
“Yeah, they’ve got a full system in place—interior, exterior, and parking lot. We’ve got the make and model of the vehicle, but we’re hoping maybe IT can clean up the visual of the perp. Between the rain and the camera quality it’s not the best shot.”
“I’ve got someone who can work on it tonight,” Jack said. “Any trouble with the manager and getting copies?
“No, sir,” Derby said. “He’s been very cooperative. Walters is getting the copies now.”
“Where have they stashed the witnesses?” Jack asked.
“Theater one,” Derby said, pointing to a door across the lobby. “Sarge has everyone in there, and he’s been taking statements. Should almost be done.”
“Thanks, Derby,” Jack said. “Good work tonight.”
“Yeah, well, I hope we catch the bastard,” Derby said. “Kids should be able to go to the movies without having to worry about stuff like this. Especially in King George.”
That was the thing about evil—it permeated and crept its way into the cracks and crevices that had been left vacant or no one paid attention to it any longer. The naïvety of people never ceased to amaze me. They believed in things like peace on earth and that evil would cease to exist if we just loved more.