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Sanchez told us the Columbia medical examiners had found confused lividity patterns on Brubaker&039;s body that in their opiniontossed in the alley Lividity is what happens to a person&039;s blood after death The heart stops, blood pressure collapses, liquid blood drains and sinks and settles into the lowest parts of the body under the siravity It rests there and over a period of time it stains the skin liverish purple Somewhere between three and six hours later the color fixes peruy who falls down dead on his back will have a pale chest and a purple back Vice versa for a guy who falls down dead on his front But Brubaker&039;s lividity was all over the place The Coluured he had been killed, then kept on his back for about three hours, then dumped in the alley on his front They were pretty confident about their estimate of the three-hour duration, because three hours was the point where the stains would first start to fix They said he had signs of early fixed lividity on his back and major fixed lividity on his front They also said he had a broad stripe across the middle of his back where the dead flesh had been partially cooked

"He was in the trunk of a car," I said

"Right over the muffler," Sanchez said "Three-hour journey, plenty of tes"

"It explains why they never found his Chevy in Columbia"

"Or any witnesses," I said "Or the shell cases or the bullets"

"So what are we looking at?"

"Three hours in a car?" I said "At night, with e up to a two-hundred- circle," Sanchez said

"A hundred and twenty-five thousand square miles," I said "Approximately Pi ti about it?"

"Dropping it like a hot potato It&039;s an FBI case now"

"What does the Bureau think about the dope thing?"

"They&039;re a little skeptical They figure heroin isn&039;t our bag They figure we&039;re more into marijuana and amphetamines"

"I wish," I said "I could use a little of both right now"

"On the other hand they know Delta guys go all over Pakistan, South America Which is where heroin comes from So they&039;ll keep it in their back pocket, in case they don&039;t get anywhere, just like the Colu their tiuy like Brubaker would die first"

"They&039;re thinking maybe he did"

His end of the line clicked off I killed the speaker and put the handset back

"It happened to the north, probably," Suh We should be looking for his car somewhere up there"

"Not our case," I said

"OK, the FBI should be looking"

"I&039;m sure they already are"

There was a knock at the door It opened up and an MP corporal came in with sheets of paper under his arm He saluted smartly and stepped a pace forward and placed the sheets of paper on ain

"Copies of the gate log, sir," he said "First through fourth of this month, times as requested"

He turned around and walked back out of the room Closed the door I looked at the pile of paper There were about seven sheets in it Not too bad

"Let&039;s go to work," I said

Operation Just Cause helped us again The raised DefCon level meant a lot of leave had been canceled No real reason, because the Pana deal, but that was how theDefCon levels if they couldn&039;t be raised up and dropped down, no point inthem at all if there weren&039;t any associated consequences No point in staging little foreign dramas unless the whole establishment felt a re leave without giving people so to fill their ti sessions and daily readiness exercises Most of the bonus for us was that alone out to celebrate New Year&039;s Eve was back on-post and in the rack relatively early They led back around three or four or five in the ate activity recorded after six

Inco at on New Year&039;s Day totaled nineteen Su from Green Valley and DC after thetrip and the visit to Walter Reed We crossed ourselves off the list

Inco personnel other than ourselves on January second totaled sixteen Twelve, on January third Seventeen, before 2000 hours on January fourth Sixty-two nahty-six-hourNine of them were civilian delivery drivers We crossed theone out, coeant was one of them We crossed her off, because she was a woman And short Elsewhere we deleted the second and any subsequent entries in each case

We ended up with forty-one individuals, listed by na which werewhich of the ht-handed

"I&039;ll work on the genders," Suth lists They have full names on them"

I nodded Left her to it Got on the phone and scared up the pathologist and asked hiht away

I drove our Chevy between my office and his because I didn&039;t want to be seen walking around with a crowbar I parked outside the uy showed up inside five , from the direction of the O Club I probably interrupted his dessert Or maybe even his main course I slid out to meet him and leaned back in and took the crowbar out of the backseat He glanced at it Led me inside He seemed to understand what I wanted to do He unlocked his office and hit the lights and unlocked his drawer Opened it and lifted out the crowbar that had killed Carbone Laid it on his desk I laid the borrowed specimen next to it Pulled the tissue paper off it Lined it up at the sale It was exactly identical

"Are there wide variations?" the pathologist asked "With crowbars?"

"More than you would think," I said "I just had a big crowbar lesson"

"These two look the same"

"They are the same They&039;re peas in a pod Count on it They&039;re custom-made They&039;re unique in all the world"

"Did you ever meet Carbone?"

"Very briefly," I said

"What was his posture like?"

"In ay?"

"Did he stoop?"

I thought back to the di lot Shook h to stoop," I said "He was a wiry guy, solid, stood up pretty straight Kind of on the balls of his feet He looked athletic"

"OK"

"Why?"

"It was a doard blow Not a doard chop, but a horizontal swing that dipped as it hit Maybe it was just below horizontal Carbone was seventy inches tall The wound was sixty-five inches off the ground, assu But it was delivered from above So his attacker was tall"

"You told us that already," I said

"No, Iit out The guy had to be six-four or six-five"

"Like me," I said

"And as heavy as you too Not easy to break a skull as badly as that"

I thought back to the crirass and there rist-thick branches here and there on the ground, but it was basically a flat area No way one guy could have been standing higher than the other No way of assuht difference when there really wasn&039;t one

"Six-four or six-five," I said "Are you prepared to go to bat on that?"

"In court?"

"It was a training accident," I said "We&039;re not going to court This is just between you andat people less than six feet four inches tall?"

The doctor breathed in, breathed out

"Six-three," he said "To be on the safe side To allow a o to bat on six-three Count on it"

"OK," I said

He shooed ain

Su She was through with the gender analysis It hadn&039;t taken her long The strength lists were comprehensive and accurate and alphabetical, like most army paperwork

"Thirty-three men," she told me "Twenty-three enlisted, ten officers"

"Who are they?"

"A little bit of everything Delta and Ranger leave was co passes Carbone himself was in and out on the first, obviously"

"We can cross him off"

"OK, thirty-two ist is one of them"