Presumption of Guilt Read Online Free PDF Page A

this?”
    â€œClassic,” she said. “The one part of a pair of jeans that never seems to completely disappear—that and the zipper. Belt buckles, boot grommets, jewelry, watches, eyeglasses, credit cards. All good stuff. I take it the killer wasn’t accommodating enough to leave this man’s wallet in his pocket.”
    â€œNo such luck,” Joe confirmed. “We did collect some of the other items you mentioned, though, including the ring here.” He indicated another picture. “Sadly, the inscription inside only has initials. Nice confirmation—if and when we make an ID—but not too useful now.”
    The back door swung open to admit a bespectacled man in a white lab coat carrying a laptop. Beverly’s face creased into a wide smile. “Dr. MacColin Stare. Gracing us with your presence, no less.” She turned toward Joe. “Special Agent Gunther, of the VBI, Dr. Stare, from Radiology. Dr. Stare was kind enough to drop what he was doing to process our friend’s scans, but I didn’t expect such rapid and personal service.”
    MacColin Stare was melting under her praise, and bashfully gave Joe a limp, moist handshake, making Joe wonder how often the man ever stepped into the sunshine. The thought stopped him from commenting about how appropriately Stare’s name was matched to his specialty—that and the fact that it was a foregone conclusion the poor guy had heard it before.
    â€œWell, I thought you might appreciate it,” Stare said, smiling, “especially given the circumstances. This is sounding like a modern Agatha Christie novel, although I doubt she would’ve used a nuclear reactor as a setting.”
    As he spoke, he cleared some room, with Todd’s help, on a nearby counter and fired up his laptop. “I have a couple of things you might find interesting,” he said, scanning through a series of detailed X-rays. “I know, for instance, that he was muscular, hardworking, and right-handed—from his skeletal development—but I realize you’d like me to cut to the chase. I was going to take you up the body, section by section, but this’ll be worth it anyway.”
    To Joe’s untrained eye, the set of images Stare selected appeared to show a shoulder.
    â€œTa-dah,” the radiologist announced, moving aside.
    Beverly leaned forward. “Is that a Hill–Sachs?”
    Of course it is, Joe told himself silently.
    â€œVery good, Doctor,” Stare congratulated her. “The classic cortical depression in the posterolateral head of the humerus, along with—” He interrupted himself to scroll down the image slightly until he reached a visible aberration in the long bone hanging from the same shoulder. “—this,” he added.
    Beverly had returned to the table and fetched the body’s upper right arm bone. “A healing fracture to the humeral shaft,” she said, at last showing Joe something he could recognize. “Incurred close to the time of death,” she added, studying it closely.
    Stare’s face brightened. “Exactly. And just to show off a little, look at the comparison between both upper limbs. The right is grossly hypertrophied, which would fit a man conditioned by swinging a hammer for most of his life—like a carpenter. I’ve seen it before.”
    â€œSo what happened here?” Joe asked, returning to the humerus.
    â€œThat’s why I consulted with orthopedics before I came down,” Stare admitted. “It had me going—the combination of it. I mean, it had to have hurt. And no kidding around. It’s a double whammy, after all—a fracture/dislocation.”
    â€œWhat did you learn?” Beverly coaxed.
    â€œOne of the orthopods recognized it right off—typical ladder-fall injury, he said, and I can totally see it. Look here. You’re heading down, maybe carrying something, and all of a sudden, you slip,