For Book: Man in Shark With Bullet in Head

[TromboneAl]

I think the police would ask her permission to search her car. If they receive her permission, I believe it's a legal search even if there were a clerical error involved.

I want to have an interesting way to have the evidence thrown out. I got the above idea from this:

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1994/93-1660

But I am sure there are lots of ways. Ideas?

In step 6, I think the police would interview Aksana to try to get a confession (after Mirandizing her, of course). They'd also look at motive and her alibi. If she had motive and opportunity, even if they didn't have physical evidence they could still try her for murder on a circumstantial basis.

Good points. I'll have a fun interrogation scene. There is a turf war going on, and the pot farmer was involved. The police might suspect that she was hired by a rival to eliminate him—but she's just a petite young lady!

Alibi will be fun, too. It will be hard to pinpoint time of death from a head found in a shark!

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Shark story related to me: Sometimes sharks will just take one bite, decide it's not a seal, and swim away. Apparently, this happened to an abalone diver, but the one bite the shark took was the guy's head.

 

[Nemo2]

It will be hard to pinpoint time of death from a head found in a shark!

Unless he had inadvertently half swallowed his Timex watch the moment the nobby came along.

 

[bada bing]

If you want a few nerdy technical pieces of data to make everything as plausible as possible if you describe the actual shooting:
1. If a handgun bullet is stopped in a person's head, it either passed through some barrier first (wall, door, windshield) or it was loaded down. Given that the shooter was "frail", and the gun was suppressed, the best candidate is a .32 walther, .380 or 9mm makarov. 9mm makarovs (Maks) were available as cheap imports until about 10 years ago and there are lots of them around. Cheap, aftermarket threaded barrels for attaching suppressors are available as well. There actually was a high profile murder case years ago where the murder weapon was narrowed down to a certain brand of aftermarket makarov barrel and the FBI went through lists of mail order purchasers looking for leads to the shooter. All 3 calibers are usually subsonic and easier for small people to shoot and control than larger, louder calibers.
2. If a person is trained in the use of a suppressor, they would know that the first shot is louder than normal unless the suppressor is "wet". If an assassin wanted their first(only?) shot as quiet as possible, they might dunk and drain the suppressor in water immediately before the shot. Subsequent shots are quieter until the smoke in the suppressor baffles is aired out and replaced with air again.
3.If an assassin has done premeditated calculating and they didn't drop the gun at the scene, they would be sure to grab the empty shell casing. You can match a gun not only to a fired bullet, but also to the spent casing. if the gun was untraceable, the assassin might wear gloves and intentionally drop the gun at the shooting scene. Retaining a gun used in a shooting isn't a well thought out move. If someone is calculating, they either drop the gun at the scene or throw it off the first bridge they pass and they make sure it isn't traceable (bought from a stranger at a bar, etc.). A used murder weapon would be poison to a criminal mastermind as opposed to a crime of passion where people do really dumb things.

I'd make the shark a tiger or mako. Great white sounds furrocious, but is less plausible.

 

[TromboneAl]

Thanks, Bada Bing.

Keeping the gun is an important issue. It can't come up in the trial, but will be important to the police. Aksana could say, "If I'm a trained assassin, I'd have to be pretty stupid to keep the gun, wouldn't I?"

Wait, she's from Belarus, so she'd say, "If am trained assassin, would have to be stupid to keep gun, yes?"

Good points about the shell casings. I'll perhaps have those collected.

We don't have tiger sharks here (it takes place in Eureka, CA), but it could be a climate change thing. Google tells me we have makos.

This article, https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a4548/4325797/, says that ballistics testing isn't perfect.

I would like there to be some doubt. If the bullet ricocheted around in the skull, could that make the results less reliable?

Also, I need the bullet to stay in the skull, and have the shot made at close range. What about a dum dum (expanding bullet) or something like that?

What if the medical examiner says this: "Well, we're very fortunate that it stayed in the skull. What we figure is that instead of exiting the skull, it hit the bone at an extremely low angle and skittered around here, blah blah."

 

[TromboneAl]

I have to share this:

 

[REWahoo]

^ That's real garden variety humor.

 

[TromboneAl]

Here we go. Lettuce not get distracted.

 

[mystang52]

I'll leaf commentary to others.

 

[MichaelB]

After all the effort you must be feeling beet.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

Hey, if we keep up the bad puns and we might get a dressing down by the moderators!

 

[MarieIG]

My first thought when reading the title was: Talk about a bad day!

 

[TromboneAl]

I've written the first 20% the book around the hit woman being this petite, young Belarusian:

But I suddenly realized it would be more interesting if she were a lovable babushka:

Yes?

 

[TromboneAl]

If I change her, I'll have to eliminate this exchange, which was one of my favorite parts:

 

[TromboneAl]

(Although I still like the idea of the murderer being the least likely suspect because it's a frail grandmother ... who nobody thought capable of violence.)

I should have listened to you back then!

Plus a few readers have commented on there being too many pretty women in my books.

 

[kcowan]

I think you should stick with someone you can lust after like Ian Fleming did.