8b60e7e227040d693c459ece4a713d5d by Michael McGarrity

Author:Michael McGarrity
Format: epub

He returned his file case to his unit just as his call sign came over the radio. The sheriff's office had found the negatives and still had the pieces of the bicycle in evidence.

"Good deal," Tim said to the dispatcher. "I'm on my way."

In the sheriff's department evidence room, Tim sifted through the box containing the mangled parts of Arthur Langsford's mountain bike. The struts, front wheel, and handlebars were crumpled, and the control levers connected to the brake and gear shift cables dangled from the handlebars. Deep scratches in the metal showed that the bike had skidded across the pavement for a considerable distance before coming to a stop.

Tim opened the manila envelope attached to the lid and read through Waxman's forensic analysis request and the lab's results. Waxman had asked only for the identification of any foreign paint, and none had been found.

The back wheel, tire, and the support piece that anchored the rear brakes to the frame were intact. Tim took a closer look. The brake pads were frozen in a closed position against the sidewall of the tire, which was pretty good proof that Langsford saw the car coming and reacted.

That, coupled with the fact that most of the road damage to the handlebars was concentrated on one side, made it very likely that Langsford had both braked and turned to avoid the collision.

Coming down that hill at thirty-five or forty miles a hour, Langsford must have put skid marks on the pavement. Waxman had flat-out missed them.

Tim's interest in the negatives jumped several notches. He dumped the bike parts in the box, resealed the lid, signed the evidence slip, and got back to district headquarters in a hurry. At the computer terminal, he scanned in the negatives and punched them up on the screen one at a time. He played with background colors until he had the right mix that highlighted the vehicle skid marks.

He looked, and looked again. The tread marks were thick and conspicuous on the outer side of the left front tire, and on the inner side of the right front tire, but otherwise barely discernible. What Waxman had taken to be skid marks was clearly a hard turn of the front wheels. But at what speed?

He punched up another image and the slender lines of the bicycle skid marks jumped out at him. He put the two photographs side-by-side on the screen, leaned back in his chair, and studied them intently before thumbing through the autopsy report. Then he factored in the new information and reworked Waxman's original calculations.

The new figures didn't work. He checked his wristwatch, printed hard copies of the negatives, and headed for the door. He needed to take new measurements at the site and visit with Marcos Narvaiz, the first volunteer firefighter on the scene, to see if he could fill in any of the remaining blanks.

***

Working the list of locals for preferred seating at the funeral services didn't yield anything of value. Death had cleansed Vernon

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