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Halifax, June 8
11:41 a.m.
Strange, Audra wondered. What the hell did “corpse” mean? Because Dory was now one?
She lifted her camera, zoomed in on the word, and captured some close-up photos. Backed the zoom off and took additional photos from different angles. Then she tried to visualize what had happened here.
It looked as if Dory had been bound to a chair and his mouth taped shut prior to being hacked repeatedly. He then fell back in a bloody heap on the floor once the pick end of the axe head drove into the top of his head. His legs were splayed on each side of the chair seat, with his arms twisted underneath him. A flap of skin hung off the left side of his face, with a blood-soaked shaving of bone in it. There were several incised wounds in the neck and shoulders.
Just from the sheer brutality of the attack, Audra sensed the murder displayed a fiery relationship between Dory and the suspect. At the very least, the crime required close contact, which meant the chance of trace evidence.
“What would a shrink make of this?” asked Jim, walking over.
Audra shrugged. “Not sure. I see a lot of rage.”
“Makes you wonder whose wife he was screwing.”
“Hmmm.” Audra kept her eyes on the body. “That’s possible. Apparently he has an extensive criminal background, so I’m sure he’s made a few enemies.”
“Malone said he ran with Lee Higgins’s group of thugs,” Jim called over to Harvey, who gently lifted the fingerprint from the doorknob with cellophane tape. “What’s that gang called, Harvey?”
“Black Scorpions. They only had four or five members. Two of them were sent to Renous last November for shooting Ruben Gamble.” Harvey placed the tape on a latent-print card and smoothed it out. “Didn’t you and Stanton work that case, Detective?”
Audra nodded. “Yeah, we did. Gamble was just an innocent bystander. They just grazed their intended victim.”
“The Black Scorpions were involved in the usual gang shit: drug trafficking, assault, robbery, auto theft. As far as I know, the remaining members have been quiet for a while. Two weeks ago, Todd Dory here just got off an armed robbery charge from last year.”
Audra narrowed her eyes on Harvey. “I remember now. That convenience store over on Herring Cove. Jury acquitted Dory because they felt the clerk was an unreliable witness.”
“Recanted her story,” Harvey said. “Swore on the stand that it wasn’t Dory and that she had smoked some weed outside the store just before the robbery happened.” He began filling out the print card with a pen. “Scared, I bet. Funny, officers didn’t report her being under the influence at the time.”
Audra nodded again. “Someone got to her.”
Harvey held up the print card for Jim to photograph. Audra chewed the inside of her mouth, staring at the axe again. Something bothered her about it. She had no doubts a guy with an axe was a scary thing—she would surely run—and the axe itself was capable of inflicting great damage, but it seemed such an awkward and cumbersome weapon to wield. It required a swing to be effective. It was top-heavy and ran the risk of getting stuck in something.
Audra wondered if it would scare Todd Dory enough to comply with whatever the suspect wanted him to do. Here was a guy, what, six-foot, two hundred pounds. A gangbanger. Probably a tough guy. Probably had an illegal gun or two hidden somewhere in the apartment. Wouldn’t he wrestle the suspect over the axe? Yet there were no signs of a struggle.
This drummed up two possible scenarios right away—more than one suspect, or another weapon was used to get Dory to comply first. Maybe a combination of both.
Audra glanced at the kitchen door again. No peephole. No intercom on the wall. Wouldn’t Dory have vetted the person knocking before opening up? Was he expecting someone? Had he known the suspect?
Audra made her way into the living room, carefully stepping around furniture, until she reached the front window. She snapped up the shade and squinted at the sudden rush of daylight into the room. The window looked onto Queen Street, and she saw a bored-looking officer kicking at stones on the sidewalk in front of the building. Barricades, positioned at the corners of Morris and South, stopped traffic from entering the area.
Audra noted the deadbolt in place on the front door, the window latched at the top. She looked around the floor, the ceiling, the walls, the furniture, searching for a break in the pattern, something out of the ordinary. The room was an epitome of bachelor living. Two pairs of socks kicked off on the floor. A faded sweatshirt, turned inside out, tossed over an arm of the sofa. An open bag of potato chips with its crumbs spilled on an end table.
The sofa and chair, rumpled and well worn, looked as if they had been picked up at a yard sale or maybe even rescued from someone’s curb during cleanup week. Stacks of glossy magazines were piled on the coffee table. Audra scanned the titles—Freshly Inked, Tattoo, and Guns & Ammo. Two envelopes lay beside them, both slit along the top. One was a bill from Eastlink for cable and telephone service. The other was a bank statement showing a balance of $3,294.47. Purchases in the past month were made at liquor stores, grocery stores, different fast food joints, and several from Skull ’N’ Bones Tattoo Studio.
Nothing seemed to be displaced.
Audra walked around the room some more. She didn’t see any photos. No family, no friends, not even one of Todd Dory.
She left the living room for the bedroom. She sprang the roller shade and checked the window. Locked. She turned to face the room. A bare light bulb hung from a cord in the middle of the ceiling. The bed had no frame, just a double mattress and box spring placed directly on the floor. No sheet covered the top or cases on the pillows. A blue comforter was pushed to one side.
The small dresser pressed against the right wall was beat up, with peeling veneer and a handle missing from one drawer. Loose change, a wallet, and a cell phone lay on top. A single bi-fold door closed off the closet. The bedside table held a plain clock radio with jumbo numbers reading 11:53. Next to it, another doorway led into the bathroom.
Suddenly the room got brighter as the sun broke free of the clouds. Audra photographed the items on the dresser. She didn’t touch the cell phone. Instead, she rifled through the wallet and found credit and bank cards, Air Miles, $25. She slipped out Todd Dory’s driver’s license, staring at the face in the photo. He sported a burr haircut, five o’clock shadow, stern expression, and a scorpion tattoo on his neck.
Audra photographed the license and tucked it into the wallet. She stopped for a moment and put a palm over the respirator. She wanted to take it off her face. It almost felt like breathing steam, and she could feel moisture gathering in her nostrils.
She went back to work, searching through the dresser drawers, pushing aside socks, underwear, and T-shirts. In the second one down, she found a contact lens case tucked in the back. She brought it out and opened it. Inside were two theatrical lenses, the kind used on Halloween to make the eyes look scary. They were solid white with holes punched in the middle for the user to see through.
Todd Dory didn’t seem the type to go out trick-or-treating, so what other reason would he have them? To hide the real color of his eyes in the commission of a crime? Audra decided to relay the info to the GIS unit. It might provide them a clue to help narrow their focus in any of their ongoing investigations.
Audra photographed the lenses, closed the case, and set it on top of the dresser. When she reached the bottom drawer, she found a wad of cash held together by a rubber band, three blister packs of Erimin-5, dozens of cocaine dime bags, and two pieces of hash rolled into ropes that reminded Audra of the licorice cigars she used to buy as a child.
She focused her camera on the items and took several pictures. Then she picked up the cash, removed the rubber band, and began counting. She totaled $4,000 in twenties and fifties.
Folding the money in half, she stretched the rubber band over it and called out to Jim and Harvey, “Hey, guys.”
Seconds later, Jim poked his head into the room. “What’s up, Detective?”
Audra held up the wad of cash for him to see. “Found a stash.”
Jim came in and walked over to the dresser, looking into the open drawer. “Drugs, money, and death.”
“Same thing every time.” Audra put the wad back where she had found it.
“You think rival gang members had something to do with this?”
“Maybe,” Audra said. “Dory might’ve encroached on a competitor’s turf. He’s obviously been dealing.”
“The axe though? That’s pretty personal. Up until now, we’ve only been seeing drug-involved shootings.”
Audra spread her hands. “I know. It might be a tactic to scare off rivals. Look at Mexico. But we might not even be in the ballpark either. People are unpredictable, but no one acts without motivation. The reason could be more complex than it appears. Never assume anything.”
She opened the closet door. Shirts, sweats, and pants hung from metal hangers. Two pairs of sneakers rested on the floor. Beside her, lights flashed from Jim’s camera as he captured the contents of the dresser drawer.
Audra pulled the comforter back then moved to the head of the bed to check under the pillows. Nothing under the first one. Under the second she found a SIG P226 with a magazine fully engaged. It was the same model as her own service pistol, and no way Dory had purchased it legally. Probably a black-market weapon or stolen from a legal gun owner. Nearly half of the guns confiscated in the province were stolen. Only a small percentage was smuggled in.
“I’m not surprised to find this,” she said, snapping off a few photos.
“Whoa.” Jim stepped over, his eyebrows arched high on his forehead. “He never got to use it.”
“Didn’t get a chance to, I bet.” Audra set her notebook on the mattress, carefully picked up the pistol by the grips, and drew the slide back just enough to see the shiny side of a nickel-plated casing in the chamber. “It’s charged.”
“I’ll get a box,” Jim said, heading for the doorway.
He came back moments later with a firearms evidence box and a handful of clear bags. Opening the box, he set it on the mattress along with two nylon tie-downs to hold the pistol inside. Audra picked up her notebook again and stepped into a narrow bathroom. It needed a desperate cleaning with Comet and warm water, maybe even a power steamer. Dirty laundry was piled on the floor. Dried-up toothpaste spit covered the end of the sink faucet.
Audra noted the lifted toilet seat, another latched window. She walked to the shower stall and looked at the towel hanging over the door. Dry, with no bloodstains. She opened the door. The shower floor was dry too.
She carefully picked through the dirty clothes on the floor. Finding nothing of value, she took out a small LED flashlight from a pouch fastened to her belt and directed the beam down the sink drain. Jim and Harvey would check the drain and trap, but Audra doubted the killer had come into the bathroom. The other rooms seemed undisturbed and apart from the murder scene in the kitchen.
A toilet flushed upstairs, and she could hear the water gurgling through a pipe somewhere in the wall. Neighbors. Would any of them have information? Would they even be cooperative? Soon, they’d all be getting a knock at their doors.
Audra returned to the bedroom. Jim had the SIG strapped into the box and its magazine secured in a separate evidence bag.
“Magazine was a fifteen-rounder,” he said. “Had fourteen rounds in it, plus the one in the chamber.”
Audra shook her head. “Illegal gun and an illegal mag.”
“Want to check under the mattress now?”
“Yes.”
Audra moved the comforter and pillows out of the way, then she and Jim hefted the mattress. Under it lay a single box of ammo. Audra shot a photograph.
“Golden Sabers,” she said. “Twenty-five rounds.” She picked up the box and opened it, counting the bullets in the tray. “Ten left.”
Jim nodded. “Math is right.”
Audra closed up the box and handed it to him to process. She moved to a corner of the room, opened her notebook to a blank page, and began to sketch out the floor plan of the apartment.
As she drew the stick figure of the victim, she felt her cell phone vibrate against her hip. She plucked it from the case attached to her belt and held it up to read the display. She didn’t recognize the number, so she let the call go to voice mail. Moments later, a chime notified her a message had been left.
Audra continued her sketch until she finished. Then she took out the cell phone again and listened to the voice mail.
The woman on the message introduced herself as Barbara Lowe, vice-principal of Gorsebrook Junior High, and as she explained the reason for her call, Audra felt a lump of worry take shape in her chest.
