Chapter 29 Section 28

After listening to Freeman Nathon's serious exhortation, Hardy took action non-stop.At this time, he had returned to the forensic office in the judicial building.To his astonishment, Strout was watching the closing minutes of a morning talk show on a small TV with his feet up on his desk.Hardy has seen this kind of show before, but he thinks this kind of stuff is meaningless, it is undoubtedly a waste of life.Strout motioned for him to pull up a chair and sit down to enjoy the episode.The two jockeys—a man and a woman—were talking to someone Hardy didn't know about a movie he'd never heard of.The actor is clearly branching out into a new field of entertainment, and has just released a record.Once he stepped into the field, he began to sing lifeless, overproduced hits.After the segment ended, Strout picked up the remote and turned off the TV. "I like that guy," he said.

"Who? The singer?" "No, it's Regis." "Who is Regis?" "Diz, come on, you don't even know Regis." Strout couldn't believe that Hardy didn't recognize this ubiquitous face in America, "Have you seen the show "Millionaire"? Him. Did you notice those ties I wore last year? The whole collection was designed by that guy. My wife told me I looked ten years younger with them." "I know a little bit about that," Hardy said. "You know what other reasons I like him? Have you ever noticed how happy he is?"

"Not really, no. I don't know much about Regis." Strout giggled. "You are being forgotten by the world." He sighed, then picked up a small dagger from his desk, pressed a button on it, and with a click, the narrow steel blade popped out, " What brought you back here so quickly? I hope it wasn't a request like the last two." "The last two requests got you headlines and a thousand dollars in no time." Strout cleaned his nails with the knife. "The truth is, I've been thinking about giving you my money back myself, because it turns out you were right. It's worth the work. After Rowling's case, no one was going to ask me to. Take the next first case—I mean the case of Mr. Lackert."

"Well, do what you like, John. If you want to give me my money back, I'll take it. But you won on the bright side. While you make up your mind, maybe we can spend a little time talking Talk about Karamakam." Strout didn't answer right away, instead he kept closing and opening the dagger. "You want to talk about her, which makes me feel a little confused." "You mean I should have a reason?" "That's not true. I don't need to say anything more. My conclusion on the matter has been made quite clear. Murder and suicide are not certain. Both are possible."

"But there's something about it that makes you uneasy, doesn't it?" Straw nodded. "There are a lot of places where I feel uneasy. You have a copy of my report, don't you?" Hardy nodded.He had first seen the report on Sunday night and read it again yesterday in the office.For him, rereading and rereading witness statements and situation reports was a habit, and the truth was usually buried under a mountain of details. "I noticed that the shot was fired from the back and underside of the right ear forward." "That's right." Strout closed the dagger again, got up and walked to the bookshelf on his left, which stretched from the ceiling to the floor and occupied an entire wall.Sitting up on the thin countertop, he lifted an old six-shot revolver from the first shelf and turned its magazine. "I've seen this happen before."

"How many times?" Strout turned the magazine again. "Perhaps twice." "During your thirty-year career?" Straw nodded. "Probably. Three times, perhaps." Hardy accepted his argument. "Then may I consider Mrs. Markham to be right-handed?" "No, that's not right either." The forensic doctor shook his leg unconsciously, and then continued calmly, "Also, you know, there are signs that she bit the inside of her lower lip." "I saw it. Did someone put a hand over her mouth?" "From behind her, do you mean that? It may be so, but it must not be concluded. It's like she bit her lip herself."

Hardy sat for a while in silence.He lowered his head and looked blankly at the venetian blinds behind Strout's desk.The dust was suspended in the light coming through the window, very clearly.The magazine of the revolver turned back and forth several times, and finally, he raised his head. "Then why mention the possibility of suicide?" "She has the remains of the pistol on her right hand. And I know what you want to say." Strout reached out to stop Hardy from saying, "This does not prove that she fired the gun. The one who killed her One shot might make her look like she was in a state of suicide shooting. You are absolutely right in thinking that. But the gun in her hand..." Strout softened his tone and met Hardy's gaze Said, "I can't find any forensic evidence to rule that out, Deeds."

"Is it possible that someone did a pretty good job of disguising it, making it look like a suicide accident?" "It's possible, Deeds, it's possible. But allow me to ask you a question: Why do you want her to be murdered?" "Because I think that's the only answer." "You mean, except for your list." Hardy shook his head. "As Mr. Freeman pointed out, there is no necessary connection between anyone on the list and who killed Tim Markham. But if Kara was killed, I bet the killer must have killed her husband as well. murderer." "But, wasn't your client the last one to leave her house—" Strout stopped before finishing his sentence.

Hardy sighed. "This statement is not unassailable, John, and I am continuing to investigate this matter." Armed with a search warrant, Braco and Fisk track down Donna, the archivist at Portola Hospital.She was about thirty years old and a little fat.Knowing they were the police, she started to look a little nervous.She wears a tiny metal ring on her purple lips and one on her right eyebrow.Fisk could see it, obviously Bracco didn't want to talk to this avant-garde woman, it made him feel uncomfortable.Therefore, he leaned over to negotiate with her.For whatever reason, within minutes they had become friends.She was very dedicated to her work, and within half an hour found and printed out the files of Portola's medical staff and patients related to the case during that period.

They spent another half hour or so poring over the files in a conference room, picking up as much information as they thought Griski wanted.It turned out that the nurses in the ICU were indeed working a fairly regular roster, and that there were more ICU nurses in the entire hospital than the two agents initially thought.Nine of the ten nurses on shift who were on Kenson's list at the time of the accident had been in the intensive care unit.However, only two of those nurses — Patricia Dali and Rayan Badan — were on duty when each of the deaths occurred. "It's just that we don't know exactly who was killed among the ten dead patients, do we?" Braco asked, "We only know Rowling and Markham."

"But we know Dally wasn't with Markham when he died, don't we?" Fisk replied, "But Bataan was. His partner in the squad was—what's her name?" She is one of another group of seven nurses who are on regular shifts in the intensive care unit.Braco could call her by name anytime. "Connie Lowe." "I don't know how you remember such little things. I know it's the name when I hear it, but if I had to think about it, I'd never remember it for the life of me." "It's okay, Harlan. That's why they put the two of us together. There are some things that I would never think about, and it happens to be something you are good at. For example, like the matter with Donna now, or the search Luo I hardly did anything about Lin's nurse on duty, you did it all by yourself." This praise warmed Fisk's heart, he stood up excitedly and stretched his body. "How about another half hour and we have more fun?" The two of them went out to find the file.Now, they and Donna seemed to be old friends.They told her bluntly that she still had to check on the last shift on duty.Bracco, a careful man, remembered that the date was November twelfth.Marjorie Rowling breathed her last during the night shift, the 4:00 p.m. to midnight shift. Donna tapped her fingers quickly on the keyboard, then looked up at them. "That's weird," she said, "the name Rayan Badan is on every shift you've looked at, and it's here. Are you guys looking for someone?" "No, it's just that his name keeps coming up, doesn't it?" The young woman clacked the workbench with her black-painted nails. "Anyway, what does it have to do with these dates? Can you tell me?" Fisk lowered his head and pretended to look up, down, left, and right of the house. "Yes yes," he said, adding the corny joke, "but we'll have to kill you when we're done." For a moment, Donna's eyes widened as big as soccer balls in surprise, then she laughed and pressed the print button to output the file.Fisk picked up the printed paper and glanced at it hastily.He noticed that it was Connie Lowe again, not Patricia Daly.He glanced meaningfully at his partner and asked him to look at it too, then handed it back to the archivist. "If you agree, I'd like to ask you something, Donna. Are there any records on file of doctors coming and going to and from the ICU during the shifts we're looking at?" She thought for a while. "Oh, different patients have different schedules for their own doctors. Is that what you mean?" "Not all. I mean all those doctors who had a reason to be in that ICU during those days, for whatever reason." "All of them?" Fisk shrugged and smiled at her. "I don't know, so I have to ask you." She stuck out her tongue and fiddled with the little ring on her lip. "They probably keep records at the nurse's station. You can go there and ask, though I don't know if they do that. You know, those doctors come and go all the time, I guess it depends. It's decided." For Jack Langtry, the chief crime scene investigator, the situation struck him as a bit odd. Just before lunch, Marlene Yash invited him into her office to discuss Kara Markham.When he got there, he saw another man standing right next to her, leaning over her desk, looking at the pictures of the scene.Langtry could smell lawyers from a mile away, and this guy was one of them.At this moment, Ash also made an introduction by the way. "This is Dr. Kenson's attorney, Mr. Hardy. Captain Griski and Mr. Jackman have agreed to cooperate with him in exchange for his client's testimony. He has a few questions for you." Langtry didn't know what was going on, but if Marlene and Ash said so, then he was fine. "No problem. Man," he said, "don't worry." Hardy's eyes were fixed on the color photograph showing Mrs. Markham's body, lying on the kitchen floor, the same way Langtry had first seen her on the scene.The location of that gun is at the top of the photo.Hardy put his finger on it. "Where did this gun come from?" "From the office next to the kitchen, in the drawer on the lower left of the desk in Markham, at least we found the gun registration certificate, bullets and things to clean the gun after the fact. We took pictures of these things and have pictures material." "I think I've seen it. It's a .22, isn't it?" Langtry looked up from the photo, looked at Hardy's face, and said nothing. "You collected that as evidence, didn't you? How many rounds did it have?" "Six rounds, but only five shells." Hardy frowned. "So five shots were fired?" Langtry shrugged and thought, How the hell does he know? "Four people died, one dog, one at a time." "Did you find out what happened, Deeds?" Hardy said to Marlene, "I was thinking, someone fired the first five shots, then put the gun in her hand and fired another shot, and took the casing of the last shot..." "Where did the bullet go?" Langtry asked. "I don't know. Did it fly out of the window?" "The windows were closed and there were no signs of a bullet." "Maybe it's on before bed at night. How are the kids doing?" Hardy asked.He flicked through some photos and found the ones of the children.After looking at it for a while, he had to turn his head to one side, involuntarily sucking in air in his mouth, and let out a weeping sigh.Langtry also felt this terrible feeling in his heart. Seeing their appearance, he felt sick again. "What do you want to know?" "That's what you see next." Langtry spent the next few minutes briefly describing the circumstances of the crime while Hardy flipped through the pile of photographs.After Langtry finished speaking, Hardy had another series of questions in his mind. "How loud does a .22 revolver fire?" "It's not too big, it's nothing like 357. It's like popping a soda bottle." "If a gun is fired in a house at night, will it wake up everyone in the house?" "I don't know. Maybe." "Okay. Another question: why does Markham have a .22 revolver?" "I don't know about that, man. There's no real point in using this thing for self-defense. It won't stop any desperadoes at all. Look, will it work? Unless it's when the other party is completely still, or with a gun Right on top of each other, like these guys here." "Well," he flipped through some photos by the way, "If you don't mind, Sergeant, and Marlene, I want to go to that house and have a look." They each drove straight to the Markham house.Langtry met Hardy in front of the Markham house, and just as he was turning the key in his hand to unlock the lock, a man suddenly came across the lawn from the next door and shook his hand in a friendly way. "Excuse me," he said, "I saw you standing on the doorstep of this family waiting for someone to open the door. You should know that there is no one else . . . someone living here." "Yes, sir, thank you." Langtry had already pulled out his ID and police badge, and showed it to the man, "Police. We know about this situation. Are you?" "The neighbor over there. Frank Husik." He pointed to his home, "Just keep vigilant about the surrounding situation." "We appreciate you doing this. Thank you," Langtry said. "We're going to take another look." "Then go ahead, sorry to bother you." "It's not an interruption." They went into the house, into the kitchen.Hardy stands on a Mexican-style tiled floor, warm sunlight flooding the room.Through a skylight in the roof, the midday sun casts a large, bright rectangular pattern in front of the stove.Over the sink, there is a large double window, behind which the laundry room is flooded with natural light.Next to the refrigerator was a short passage leading to the half-glass back door, and the dog had died next to the refrigerator. Behind Hardy, Langtry sat in a chair he had dragged and placed in the dining room.Hardy knelt on one knee and squatted on the floor.After a while, he got up and stood up, stepped over the sink, unlatched the window, pushed up the window on the right, stepped on the edge of the sink to push the window on the left, and walked back to the window. Go to where Carla is lying down. "If I were down here, close to the ground, and fired diagonally upwards and let the bullet go through either of these two windows," he seemed to be saying to himself, "I wouldn't have shot. Go to the neighbor's house. My bullet will go into the air. Would you like to do me another favor? Stand here in the kitchen for a minute." Langtry complied, and Hardy turned and walked out of the restaurant.His footsteps were clearly heard on the main staircase, followed by his voice shouting from upstairs, "Count to ten, then call me as loud as you can." A minute later, Hardy returned to the kitchen. "I heard your cry, but very faintly. I was in Ivan's room." "What does that mean?" "It means that no one woke up when Carla and the dog were shot, and it means that the dog was shot to avoid being seen, which is the only explanation that seems reasonable." "Then why were those kids shot then?" "He was worried that he was waking people up. If not, it would be when the kids went to bed and knew he was home. Unless the kids were all asleep and didn't wake up, there was no need to shoot them. Still, it's not safe to do that. So Ivan started first, and he muffled the gun with a pillow to keep the gun from sounding, and then it was the girls' turn. How does that reasoning sound?" Hardy did not plan to speak to witnesses in the presence of police officers.He followed Langtree for a few blocks, honked his horn to say goodbye, turned back up the street from the Markham house, parked his car, and went straight to Husick's house and knocked on the door.The gentleman probably thought he was a cop, too, because he was with Langtry, who had been to the neighbor's house with the police badge.Hardy let him think so. Husik invited him in and poured him an iced tea—he had asked for it himself.Then they went out the back door onto a nicely built redwood deck.Hardy wondered when was the last time he sat in such a neat and lush place.Husik planted them around the wooden platform, which also had some pots on it.At this time of late April, they are blooming like a sea of ​​flowers.But he left an open space in the center of the table, and put a wrought-iron table on which a large canvas parasol was propped.He just sat in the comfortable, padded chair. From transcripts, Hardy knew Husik was a retired dentist, sixty-two years old.He had a ruddy complexion and short gray hair.Today he is wearing faded navy slacks, loafers on bare feet, and a shirt with a loose collar that is two buttons open at the neck.He comes across as warm, friendly and intelligent.Hardy also commented on him in his mind. If things are as imagined, Husik will be a very good witness. "Yes, I heard a gunshot," he said, "like it came from as far as a stone throw. You know, I've already told the police about it." Of course Hardy knew about the situation, but what frustrates him in this matter is that he finds that Fisk and Bracco's lack of cross-examination skills seems a bit clumsy and incompetent.He didn't know if they had heard of the relatively simple concept of cross-examination, asking witnesses where they were when the crime happened, what they saw or thought, what they were doing.In his view, this is not some esoteric policing job.And their cross-examination of Husik, which consisted of casual chitchat about plants and investments, had almost nothing to do with the day the Markhams died, which he thought was the most important part of it. As a result, in this matter, he needs to fill too many vacancies. "I understand," he replied, "I've actually seen the transcript of that visit, but I have a slightly different approach. You said 'gunshots.' Did you just hear one? I thought I noticed where you said it was 'three tones'." Husik took a thoughtful sip of his drink before placing it carefully on the table. "They've asked that too, and I'm afraid there hasn't been a satisfactory answer. I think I've talked to the other officers, and I was lying in bed, quite tired after a day of helping Carla's house. Let me tell you. She was crying like a tearful child, and she was quite emotional. But if she needs me, I hope I can help." At this point, he suddenly remembered something , patted his forehead lightly, and made a mischievous face, "That doesn't answer the question you asked me, does it? Sorry, I'm a dentist, and I've spent my whole life talking to people Gossip about people who can't answer my questions from time to time. That affects the way I talk, and here I am again. Well, did I hear a few gunshots? The only thing I heard clearly was one." Hardy looked across at the lawn that stretched down to the Markham kitchen.He realized they had forgotten to close the kitchen window when they left. "I thought it was an engine backfiring or something. I mean, around here, you don't usually hear that sound first and think of it as a gunshot." "But is it possible that you heard that sound three times?" "Oh, that's kind of weird, you know, none of them were loud. In my memory I remember it was three, but when I went back and tried to listen again, it was more like I heard one sound and I remember two others. It doesn't make sense for me to say that, does it? I mean, that last sound was something and I sat up out of bed when I heard it , but the first two sounds are almost like I dreamed in a dream, it feels vague. Do you understand what is going on?" "Of course." Hardy nodded.The alarm sound turns out to be your alarm clock.But considering the matter, he thought it might be the two shots that killed the girls from over there seventy feet away, and then, the final shot through the open kitchen window. The bullet may have made a louder noise. "Were you lying in bed when you heard them? Do you remember what time it was?" "Yes, that's right. I looked at the alarm clock next to my bed and it said ten forty-two. I remember being very depressed. I've been sleeping very hard since Meg died four years ago. Difficult, and if I wake up in the middle, it is difficult to fall asleep that night, I will simply get up and stay awake. Last Tuesday, with a tiring day, I drank a glass of wine after returning from Kara’s house, and I fell asleep Yes. But just after taking a nap, I heard gunshots..." "Did you stay up all the time after that?" "Didn't fall asleep until three o'clock. It was a hard few hours, from eleven o'clock to three o'clock." Hardy expressed sympathy for what happened to him. "I feel very deeply about the pain. When did you finally determine that those sounds were gunshots?" "Oh, before the next morning." The memory suddenly threw him into a kind of brooding, and he said after a moment, "My God, it's so sad to think about it." "Are you close to them, the Markham family?" He hesitated. "Oh, it's Kara, I'd rather say that. Tim is cold to people, at least to me." When he talked about the past that made him happier, his face became animated, "Kara sometimes Come and help me with the garden. We'll drink coffee and talk happily ever after. I can't believe it..." He shook his head sadly.When he lowered his head, although there was still a smile on his face, his eyes had already become moist. Hardy was in no hurry to break the silence either.After a while, he finally asked softly: "Then when you heard the gunshot, didn't you check where the sound came from?" "Of course I did. I was up a minute later and looked out the window to see what the hell was going on, but it was all quiet, very quiet." "Would you mind telling me what you actually saw?" "Well, nothing out of the ordinary really. Kara's house is there." Husik seemed confused by the question, "I just saw her house standing there." Hardy noticed that he wasn't using "their" house, just "hers." "But I know that there are many people there. If they all go home, I won't bother her. Even if I want to disturb her, it won't be that night. I thought to myself, let her sleep Well, she's tired enough." "It's pitch black outside, can't you see anything?" The question confuses Husik again. "Oh... no. There's a light in the kitchen, and I remember a light on the porch. The light is on in the hall upstairs." He turned and pointed, "It's the one on the top, the one in the middle." a lamp." "What did you do after that?" Husik let out a heavy breath, looking a little impatient. "I'm sorry, Mr. Hardy, but didn't I tell you all this when I first told you?" "Perhaps you didn't finish, sir. Could we take another five or six minutes to talk? I'd be very grateful to you for that." Husik sighed helplessly, indicating that he had given in. "I turned on the TV and watched Honor Sportsman. I thought if I could laugh out loud, I might be able to fall asleep. But nothing seemed to make me laugh that night, not even Dave. I Still worrying about Kara, honestly can't get her out of my head. 'How is she doing now?' is the question that keeps haunting me." He casually reached for his drink, stirring the ice cubes in the glass with his fingers. "But that's all I could do that night, you know, I just waited and let time... anyway, I couldn't sleep, so I came out of the house, got here, and looked at the one over there Greenhouse, and I got my bonsai to work for an hour or two. Then, around two o'clock, I saw all the lights in Kara's house go out, Kara should have gone to bed, at least I was Thinking that way, then, I suddenly felt that I could go to sleep too."