Mourning Dove Read Free

letting Carolyn concentrate, and took in the scene. Justine was taking samples from the blood trail, and both larger pools of blood, labeling each according to location. There was a large amount of broken safety glass scattered in cubed little clumpsalong the edge of the road, presumably where the driver had been shot, but that was where the similarities between this and the other carjackings they’d had lately ended.
    “This makes no sense. Why have the carjackers added murder to their M.O. all of a sudden?” Justine asked. “Until now, they’ve managed to pull off the heists by threatening their victims and manhandling them.”
    “The carjackersprobably didn’t know that their latest victim was a soldier who’d just come back from a combat zone—one from a unit that had been trained to be particularly wary of roadside attacks. Fighting would have come more naturally to him than surrendering, and it’s easy to understand why he might have been wound a little too tight. But this wasn’t a simple execution. Those heel marks on the shoulder ofthe road in the gravel suggest that the victim was dragged out of the vehicle to where he is now, and someone else was dragged several feet into the road, then disappeared.”
    “So there were at least two carjackers involved in the shooting, and the victim may have wounded one of them severely enough to prevent him from making it back to their vehicle without help,” Justine said.
    “If that perpcouldn’t walk, chances are he couldn’t have driven the second car away either, which means we’re talking three perps, at least,” Ella said, “which is consistent with other reports of another vehicle nearby. We need to check with area hospitals and see if they’ve treated a gunshot victim. Also we need to look for that second car. Their M.O. so far has been to lure a person in by having a good-lookingwoman pretend to have car trouble, then having a big guy jump the good samaritan andstrong-arm him or her. But this time they didn’t leave the stolen junker behind, at least not in the immediate area.”
    Justine nodded. “I’ll handle that right now. Should I also get a list of other returning soldiers from the victim’s National Guard unit, particularly those who live around here?”
    “Yeah. Theywere probably the last to see him before he drove north.” Ella continued searching for ejected shell casings. Considering the victim’s bullet-riddled body, it made no sense not to be able to find at least one. Most handguns produced and sold nowadays were semiautos and they ejected each spent casing.
    The perps had taken the victim’s vehicle—that had apparently been the point of the crime. Buthaving the foresight to pick up a dozen or more shell casings as well as the victim’s own weapon either meant that the shooters had been super cool and careful, or the murder itself had been premeditated and the victim’s vehicle a bonus. Of course that presupposed the soldier had been the real target and the rest of the operation just window dressing. If that were true, he would have had to havebeen followed or maybe the perps had been waiting, knowing he’d be coming down this road at the right time. But all she had was speculation at this point and a dead soldier.
    Neskahi was working a few feet away from her, scouring the ground adjacent to the road. “Based on the blood distribution and separate drag marks I get the idea that the victim shot at least one of the perps. There’s alsoa small amount of shattered glass that could have come from a window on the perp’s vehicle. But if the vic’s gun isn’t around, that means the perps must have taken it with them. Bad idea, if it’s legal and registered,” he said.
    “I was just wondering about his weapon, too,” Ella said.
    “Maybe this started as one of the usual carjackings, but then the vic recognized one of the perps,” Neskahi suggested,continuing his search pattern, his eyes still directed to the