Swamp Bones (8 page)

Pierce’s eyes bore into mine. They were dark. Unreadable. I realized I’d never seen them before. They’d always been hidden by dark lenses.

“This is my beat.” Pierce gave what I’m sure he considered a lady-killer smile. Probably practiced in the mirror every time he shaved. “We do things my way.”

“Yellen asked me to inventory the contents of the locker.” Not exactly, but the arrogant prick was pissing me off.

Another long stare. Then, “Fine. But you look when I’m done. And touch nothing.”

“I work with law enforcement in two countries.” I issued an abbreviated form of a smile. “I know evidence collection protocol.”

Before Pierce could reply, the door opened and a ranger walked in.

“Hey, Scott.” The kid looked twelve, with shaggy blond hair and acned skin.

Pierce gave a curt nod.

“What’s up?” the kid asked, oblivious to the tension. “You doing an inspection or something?”

For the first time, I noted that a number of locker doors stood ajar.

Pierce shrugged. “No clue. They were open when I got here. Probably maintenance.”

The kid went to a locker, twisted the dial on a combo lock, and flipped the door wide.

Pierce and I both waited him out. Couldn’t say why. Maybe respect for the woman whose belongings we were about to rummage.

The kid took something from his locker, slammed and relocked it, then left, calling over one shoulder, “Catch ya later!”

When the door closed, Pierce refocused on me.

“Locker number?” Glacial.

Again, I hesitated, wishing Yellen were there. Even Lundberg. Why the apprehension?
Just because he was an asshole didn’t mean he wasn’t good at his job.

“Fifty-three,” I said.

Pierce picked up a bolt cutter I hadn’t noticed and crossed to the specified locker.

“Stay back.” With an effortless move he severed one of the double prongs, maneuvered the lock free, and opened the door. His body blocked my view of the locker’s interior. Intentional?

“Shouldn’t you wear gloves?” I asked his back.

Without replying, he held up the pen he was using to sift through things I couldn’t see.

A full minute passed, then he paused and looked over his shoulder. “Actually, I could use gloves. Do you mind? They’re in the supply cabinet out in the hall.”

Again the ping. Why couldn’t Pierce get his own damn gloves? I wasn’t his gofer. But I
was
on his turf. And clearly unwelcome.

“Sure,” I agreed. Reluctantly.

“Grab a pair for yourself.” Suddenly Mr. Congenial.

I went to the corridor, found the cabinet, and returned two minutes later. Pierce hadn’t moved.

“Here.” I held out a pair of green surgical gloves.

“Thanks.”

As Pierce pivoted, took the gloves, and snapped them on, I looked past him to the locker’s interior. A fleece jacket hung from a hook. A pair of flip-flops lay on the bottom. The shelf held sunscreen, a box of tissues, a hairbrush, and a small stack of magazines. I couldn’t see what was stored behind the front row of items.

“There’s not much.” Pierce followed my gaze.

“The journal?”

Pierce shook his head. “Damn shame. I was hoping it might help catch this bastard.”

I felt a twinge of guilt for my unkind thoughts. The guy was probably just doing his job.

“You want help with the inventory?” Pierce asked.

“Thanks.” I dug a pen and small spiral from my purse.

Pierce called out articles as he removed them from the locker. I recorded each. In addition to what had been obvious at first glance, there were granola bars, a box of tampons, lip balm, dirty socks. Mundane stuff.

“Scott?” Ranger Flores’s head was poking through the partially open door. “Can I borrow you a minute?”

“Be right back.” Thrown to me as he followed her out.

I stepped to the locker and lifted the magazines. Nothing hidden below. Balancing the pile on one palm, I ran the fingers of my other hand along the locker’s metal seams. Zilch.

What had I expected? Geo-coordinates for the journal’s hiding place etched on the shelf? Notes secreted in a crack?

As I was replacing the magazines, the top three slid to the floor. I bent to retrieve them, and spotted a corner of paper sticking from the pages of one. I tugged the paper, and two sheets slid out. One looked like a page torn from a magazine. The other was lined in blue, filled with girlish handwriting. Jotted letters and numbers, not sentences. Identical crease patterns suggested the two sheets had been folded together.

The doorknob clicked. I quickly slipped the papers into my notepad. A violation of scene protocol, but I wanted to examine them in private.

Pierce joined me and eyed the escapee magazines.

“Sorry.” Chilly grin. “They slid.”

A curt nod was his only reply. So much for conviviality.

Wordlessly, Pierce gathered and shook each fallen magazine. I watched, anxious. Nothing fluttered out.

Pierce set the magazines on a bench and straightened to face me. “That’s it.”

I nodded. “I’ll get this list to Yellen.”

Pierce studied me for a very long moment. Appeared to dislike what he saw.

I stripped off my gloves and tossed them into a trash bin.

“It’s been real.” I turned to leave.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Pierce’s tone stopped me at the door.

I turned, mind scrambling for an excuse to justify confiscating the papers.

Pierce dangled his keys. “I’m your ride.”

I exhaled breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “So you are.”

The call came shortly after we exited the park. Decomp room two was at my disposal until eight the next morning.

I left Pierce with a quick “Thanks for the ride.” I didn’t like him. All ego.

Once I was safely alone in the autopsy room, I used forceps to transfer James’s tear sheet and paper from my notepad into a Ziploc. I studied what I could see through the plastic.

The first sheet was a page torn from a magazine or catalogue. It depicted a model, not James, wearing a pair of albino-python-skin pants. Nothing sinister there. I must have ripped out hundreds of magazine pages depicting coveted items. I noted the pants were manufactured by the Eugene sisters.

The second was the lined notebook page filled with handwritten letters and numbers that looked like some sort of code. Occasionally a word popped out. Old Ingraham. Pearl Bay. Buttonwood.

Did the words have meaning? Or did James have her own special shorthand? What did the number and letter sequences signify? Frustrated, I set the sheets aside. I wanted to study them more, but analysis of the second victim took priority.

I composed a text to Lisa, telling her to contact me should she need her car and suggesting dinner around 7:00
P.M
. I’d been the worst houseguest in planetary history. On the other hand, it was Lisa who’d gotten me into this mess.

It was only after hitting send that I looked at my watch: 1:30. An on-time dinner was iffy, but doable.

I gloved, tied an apron at my neck and waist, then retrieved the second victim’s bones from the cooler. Standing at the counter, I reviewed what I had.

Arranged on four trays were two complete sets of hand bones: ten each of the distal, middle, and proximal phalanges, ten metacarpals, and fourteen carpals. I also had a complete left foot, and a partial right forearm.

Moving two trays to the autopsy table, I started with the hands. As I touched them, I noticed a roughening of the subperiosteal surface at points. I ran a gloved fingertip over a metacarpal, then carried it to the dissecting scope. Fine pitting covered most of the cortical
exterior. Magnified, the surface looked like a moonscape.

I straightened. Puzzled. The porosity wasn’t consistent with aging, or with any disease process I could recall. Too uniform. Too minute.

The python? Call Lundberg?

That would result in a nine-yard lecture. I opted to begin with the font of all knowledge. Google. Shifting to the computer terminal on the anteroom desk, I began working the keys.

It took a lot of cyber-looping, but I finally hit pay dirt. An article in the
Journal of Herpetology
. God bless the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles.

I cut and pasted relevant sections into a document for future reference. Basically, I’d learned that pythons have cells in their small intestines that optimize the absorption of calcium from the skeletons of their prey.

That tracked. Absorption of calcium would cause degradation of bone.

I returned to the cooler and pulled a formalin-filled jar labeled with the case number assigned to the second of the two Hardwood Hammock pythons. After unscrewing the lid, I tweezed out the sample of small intestine that Lundberg had snipped. Dropping it onto a glass slide, I observed the specimen under high magnification.

Small white particles dotted the tissue walls.

I repeated the process with the sliver of colon. Saw the same inclusions.

Microscopic bone particles. The results of specialized cells absorbing calcium. The pitting on the human bone was a by-product of digestion in the python, not an indicator of disease in her meal. The added barrier of the vulture explained the absence of these indicators in James’s foot bones.

Satisfied with my diagnosis, I resumed my analysis, running through the same steps that I had with James, and recording my observations. Bone quality was good. No arthritis. No recent epiphyseal fusion. Young adult. Early to mid-twenties.

Next, I examined the ulna and radius. Immediately, I spotted antemortem trauma. Both bones had been broken in two places. Spiral fracturing indicated a twisting force of high magnitude. Nevertheless, each fracture had healed with good alignment. Though there was no pin or plate, I guessed orthopedic surgery had taken place shortly after the injury. Remodeling suggested a time frame of approximately two to three years before death.

I thought of possible scenarios involving such violent wrenching. An industrial accident?
An athletic mishap? An aggressive attack? Though I came up blank, I was certain serious pain had been involved.

I examined the truncated proximal end of the ulna. Saw scoring and gouging. Felt that tiny electrical charge. Chain saw.

I studied the damage left by the blade. Though it looked identical to that on Kiley James’s foot bones, chain saws are not subtle. I’d need the actual tool to determine if it had dismembered both victims.

What were the chances of two perps and two saws?

I knew in my heart the victims had been killed by the same doer.

But who was the second victim? How was he linked to Kiley James? Friend? Former lover? Competitor? I was determined to find out.

I accessed Fordisc on the morgue computer and entered the measurements I’d taken. The program gave me lots of charts and statistics. All of which agreed with a high level of probability. My unknown was male and Native American.

Oh yeah?

I went back over the bones. Found nothing I hadn’t already noted. Frustration was starting to make me edgy.

I took a bone plug for DNA testing, but wasn’t hopeful. What were the chances this guy was in the system?

Out of ideas, I returned the bones to their tray and placed it with the others on the counter. My gaze fell on the jar of organ samples. Noted what looked like scallops of plastic floating in the formalin. Using a fine mesh strainer, I collected a few and viewed them under the scope.

The scallops were fingernails and toenails. God bless keratin. The stuff survives just about every enzyme digestion throws its way.

I was adjusting the light when a discoloration on one nail caught my eye. I teased it free and cranked the magnification.

My breath froze.

A layer of flesh adhered to the back of the nail. Visible on it was a circle sliced top to bottom by three lines, three more concentric curves to each side within the larger circle.

Twenty-something Native American male. With a unique nail bed tattoo. And a history
with Kiley James.

Hot damn. I had a name for my unknown.

I grabbed my phone and punched in a number. My call was answered on the first ring.

“I’d bet my ass the second vic is Buck Cypress.”

I explained the inked nail. The Fordisc. Yellen already knew the connection to James.

“It’s a positive?” The sheriff sounded almost upbeat.

“Not yet. But the vic also sustained a bad break of the lower right arm two or three years back. Looks like the fracture was treated by a professional. If so, there would be X-rays. If no one kept them, one of the brothers could confirm the break.”

“Well shite in a bucket.” Yellen exhaled. “Those knuckle draggers don’t have a damn phone and I’m tied up with this firebug mess. Got no time to haul back out to the swamp right now.”

“I can go.”

I could hear chaos in the background. Agitated voices. Someone calling Yellen’s name.

“Hold on.” The air went thick, as though Yellen had pressed the phone to his chest.

“Sorry ’bout that.” He was back. “It’s a circus here. My doer may not have acted alone. What’d you say?”

“I’ll go see Deuce. Confirm ID.”

“By yourself? That’s nuts.”

“Why not?”

“You gotta ask?”

“This ain’t my first rodeo,” I said dryly, mimicking Yellen’s comment.

“You’ve got balls, Doc, I’ll give you that.” A pause. Then, “I’ll send a deputy out with you first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Fine.” It wasn’t.

“Almost forgot. You’ll love this one.” Yellen made a throaty noise I took to be a chuckle. “Scott Pierce’s name was on the list of applicants for the Eugene ad campaign. Pretty boy made it all the way to the final cut.” A door slammed. The background noise level rose. “Hell, I gotta go. My deputy will call when he sets out.”

Three beeps told me Yellen had disconnected.

Sonofabitch.

I didn’t want to go the swamp tomorrow. I wanted to sleep in. Lie on the beach. Eat stone crabs with Lisa.

I looked at my watch. 5:30
P.M
. Quick calculation. Forty-five miles, fast chat with Deuce Cypress, half an hour back to Homestead. If I left now, I could confirm ID and meet Lisa by 7:00. And tomorrow I’d be free. Finished. Done. On vacation.