Donald Harstad: The Big Thaw

Three shots with each head in the center of the focus, for a total of six. I changed from the 50 mm lens to the 70-210 mm zoom. I fumbled a bit, as my fingers were getting cold. They were dressed in what at first seemed a light fashion. Jackets, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. Not dressed for today, that was certain.

"What was the temperature when they were supposedly dropped off?" asked Dr. Peters.

"Would have been in the middle to upper twenties," said Lamar.

"Hmm. Snow cover at that time?" Dr. Peters was pulling out the shirt from the waistband of the first victim, and sliding his gloved hand up onto the abdomen. Checking for indications of core temperature.

"Not a lot. Maybe, oh, two or three inches?" Lamar glanced at me. "Carl?"

"Yeah, about that." As soon as I spoke, the moisture from my breath froze on my glasses.

"Like ice," said Dr. Peters, mostly to himself, as he pulled his hand away and pulled the sweatshirt of the second victim up, reaching again toward the abdomen. This shirt, too, was stiff, but movable. "Quite a bit of moisture in the clothes, to freeze like this. Not wet…" He struggled for another few seconds with the sweatshirt. "Maybe damp, though." He tried to turn the body over to get his hand underneath in the abdominal area, but failed. "Somebody got a hand?"

I reached down, with my own latex-gloved hand, and grabbed the jacket near the right shoulder of the victim. I pulled, hard, and the body rolled about a half turn. They were as stiff as steel. No movement of any joints, whatsoever. Much worse than rigor mortis, where there was at least some possibility of some movement. "Corpse sickles."

Dr. Peters felt the abdomen of the second victim. "Just like a frozen supermarket turkey," he said. He stood. "Was there any reason they might have, oh, maybe sweat a bit before they were killed? That we'd know of at this point…"

"They were supposed to have walked in from over the hill," I said, letting go of the body, and watching it roll stiffly back to its original position. Just like a log, I thought. With the arms just like stiff, broken branches. "There are what look like may have been tracks in that direction."

"Good. I think that might do it, especially if they'd stopped in a warm place for a while… like the house, for example."

"They sure aren't dressed for snowmobiling, even in the twenties, are they," said Lamar, making a firm point.

"I shouldn't think so," said Dr. Peters. "Not an expert in that, though," he said with a grin. "But if they were to do it, they'd be needing the services of another kind of doctor by now."

"We don't have any injuries yet, do we?" said Lamar.

"Not yet," said Dr. Peters, kneeling at the heads of the victims. "I suspect we'll find something inside the bags, though."

"Asphyxiation," said Art.

Dr. Peters looked up. "Pardon?"

"Asphyxiation," said Art, again. "You think?"

"I shouldn't be betting a large amount," said Dr. Peters. He began tugging at the bag on the closest victim. "These aren't at all tight."

The white bag was stiff, the way that polyethylene gets when it's really cold. It gave Dr. Peters a rough time for a few seconds, since it also appeared to be stuck to the victim's head by frozen blood. He finally tugged really hard, and as it came off, it suddenly revealed a black-haired male subject, approximately twenty-five or so, unshaven, teeth exposed in a grimace. It was sort of startling, and took us all a second or two to adjust.

There was a lot of clotted blood on the right side of the head, stiffly clumped in with the longish hair, and with a patch of frozen polyethylene adhering to the clumped strands. The right eyeball protruded a bit, with the left appearing sunken, at least in comparison. The complexion was sallow.

"Hmm," said Dr. Peters.

"Blunt object?" asked Art.

"Not going to be your day," said Dr. Peters, gently prodding the matted blood and hair. He tapped the protruding eyeball, producing a clicking sound. "Frozen solid," he said. He felt around to the other side of the head. "I suspect a gunshot wound, I think I feel an exit here." He leaned way over, supporting himself with one arm. "Could someone shine a flashlight over here?"

In the yellowish circle of Lamar's light, he was able to clear the left side of the victim's head. "Yes. Appears to be our exit, and… temporal."

Cool. I took four shots of the first victim's face, concentrating in the first two on the clot, the second pair on the protruding eye. Establish, then zoom in. Lamar held a tape measure next to the nose for me. You should have a scale in the shots, whenever possible.

Dr. Peters gingerly removed the white bag from the head of the second victim. This one slipped right off. This fellow had a recently shaved head, and the small goatee I could see from my angle was blondish. There was blood on the second victim, too, but not nearly as much. And what appeared to be a bluish-purple spot on the back of the head, to the right of the middle, and about halfway to the top. Above it, about two inches, was a whitish squiggle of what looked like those worms kids squirt from cans. About an inch or so long, it protruded from another purplish spot.

Dr. Peters pointed to the squiggle. "Extruded brain tissue," he said. "Shot twice."

I was working the camera, so Lamar said, "Gunshot wound on both of them, then?"

"Two of them on this one," said Dr. Peters. He pointed to the upper spot, with the extruded matter. "This is the first shot, this is an entrance wound." He pointed to the lower spot. "Entrance wound, second shot. Pressure from it caused the material to squeeze out the first hole."

Aha. Lamar held the tape again, and I got in as tight as I could, showing both wounds. "Think it was a.22?" I asked. It looked about that size.

"I should think so," he said. "Note the facial features."

The young man's face was all compressed and flattened on one side, like he had his face pressed against a pane of glass. Except there was none. The simile apparently occurred to Art, too.

"World's best mime," he said, dryly. He surprised me so much I laughed. The DCI might have done him some good, after all.

The corpse's tongue was protruding through his lips, and his teeth weren't visible. There was a yellowish tinge to him, as well as a purple discoloration to the rounded portion of his face that looked like a huge bruise. Postmortem lividity. The flattened part of the face, on the other hand, was almost white.

"He was placed here a while after he died," said Dr. Peters. "The face is flattened by this floor, but there is no lividity in the flattened area."

Post-mortem lividity was the purplish color produced by pooling blood in a corpse. Gravity forces the blood to the lower points of the body. The process stops after a time, and if the body is moved to a different position after this time, there will be no liquid blood to pool in the new low spots.

"Affected by temperature, though," said Art.

"Oh, yes," said Dr. Peters. "Very much. But when we defrost him, if freezing interrupted the clotting process, we may well have continued liquid seepage into low spots…"

"Do you think there are two holes in the first one?" asked Art.

Dr. Peters stood again. "Can't say, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised. I want to bag the hands."

He reached into his kit, and pulled out a roll of transparent bags and a roll of tape. I helped him bag the hands. The first victim's hands were easy. The second one's required Art and me to heave the body up and onto its right shoulder, so the M.E. could get at the hands. The body was so stiff it was like tilting a statue.

Lamar asked for Art's cell phone. He reached in his inner pocket and handed it to him. He dialed, and said, "Yeah, it's me. Look, get Christiansen in early and have him take Fred up to the clinic and have Doc or a nurse use the gunshot residue kit on his hands. Yeah. No, he doesn't. No. It ain't testimonial evidence. His lawyer isn't necessary. Yeah? Good." He handed the phone back to Art. "Fuckin' attorneys, I tell ya…"