Dead Of Winter

Chapter One The dead man sat slumped against the rear wall of the small, wood-paneled elevator. His head was resting against his left shoulder, his hands were folded against his chest. Just above his right hand was a blotch of blood. His left leg lay out of the elevator door.The slippered foot was the first thing Detective Mac Taylor saw as he walked quickly across the marble-tiled lobby of the apartment building on York Avenue near 72nd Street.Mac moved past two uniformed officers and stood in front of the open door next to Aiden Burn, who was clicking away with her camera at the corpse and the elevator. The dead man was wearing a gray sweat suit with two holes chest high leading into bloody darkness."Still snowing?" asked Burn as Mac checked his watch. It was a few minutes after ten. He pulled on a pair of white latex gloves."Three more inches expected," said Taylor, kneeling next to the body. There was just enough room for the two Crime Scene Unit investigators and the corpse inside the small elevator."Who is he?" Mac asked."Name's Charles Lutnikov," Burn said. "Apartment six, third floor."Lutnikov was about fifty, had thinning dark hair, and a paunch."No pockets in the sweat suit," said Mac, gently rolling the body first right and then left. "Who IDed him?""Doorman," said Burn, glancing back at the uniformed patrolman who was clearly admiring her rear end."You married?" Burn asked the cop, camera in one latex gloved hand."Me?" the cop said with a smile, pointing to himself."You," she said."Yes.""A man is dead here," she said. "Probable homicide. Look at him, think about him, and not my ass. Can you do that?""Yes," said the cop, no longer smiling."Good. The kit out there next to the door. Move it just where I can reach it.""Bad night?" Mac asked."I've had better," said Aiden, continuing to snap away as the cop moved Aiden's equipment box.Mac's eyes were focused on the dead man's chest. "Looks like two bullet holes. No powder burns."Mac looked at the walls, the floor, the ceiling of the small wood-paneled elevator and then leaned over and carefully pulled the corpse forward."No sign of exit wounds," he said, letting the body slump back."Then the bullets are still in him," said Burn."No," Mac answered, removing from a leather packet in his pocket a thin steel probe that looked like a dental tool.He carefully lifted the dead man's shirt to get a better look at the wounds."One shot," he said, touching each hole with the probe and talking as much to himself as to Aiden. "This one is an entry wound. Small caliber. It's almost closed. This one is an exit wound, broader, rougher, skin erupted outward.""Then there should be some blood spatter in front of the body," she said."And there they are," said Mac, looking down at dark tear-shaped spots on the floor.He stood up, put the probe away, took off his latex gloves, dropped them in a bag in his pocket and put on a fresh pair of gloves.When blood was present, you changed your gloves every time you touched something. No contamination. Criminalists across the world knew that. It took foul-ups in the O.J. Simpson case to make it gospel."No gun?" he asked."No gun," answered Aiden. "No bullet.""Body temperature?""He's been dead for less than two hours, probably less than an hour. Doorman found the body and called 911."Mac gave a final look at the dead man and said, "Photograph his ankles. There's a bruise on this one." Mac pointed to the leg that dangled outside the open door. "Then . . .""We go over the walls, floor, sweat suit...'" Aiden asked.Mac nodded and added, "Full drill."Full drill included an ALS (Alternate Light Source) examination that would illuminate body fluids including semen, saliva, urine, fingerprints, and even trace narcotics. Aiden had her own compact ALS that fit into a case the size of an eyeglass holder. It plugged into aKaminsky, Stuart M. is the author of 'Dead Of Winter ', published 2005 under ISBN 9781416503293 and ISBN 1416503293.