Kathy Reichs - Break No Bones

Twenty yards in, the trees yielded to a small clearing. On the right lay a bog, its black glass surface disturbed only occasionally by a dragonfly or some water-striding insect.

Pond pine and loblolly bay rimmed the water. The trees looked stunted, primordial, their trunks disappearing into inky darkness, their roots gnarled and mossy green.

Five yards from the water's edge stood a single white oak. A body dangled from the oak's lowest branch, toes barely clearing the ground.

Closing in on the gruesome tableau, I wondered what black vision had led to such an end. What tortured state of mind drove this anguished soul to fashion a noose, tie a rope, and jump?

Men in uniform and civvies stood talking, shooing flies, slapping mosquitoes. Every shirt was limp, every armpit rimmed with a dark sweat crescent.

A woman shot video. Two still cameras hung from her neck. The Charleston County coroner logo decorated her shirt.

I crossed the clearing and introduced myself. The woman's name was Lee Ann Miller. She was built like a lumberjack, with copper-red curls that came straight from a bottle.

"Mind if I check the body?"

"Jump right in, darlin'." Lifting her hair, Miller beamed a smile as wide as Charleston Harbor.

"I don't mind waiting until you've finished shooting."

"I can't work around your skinny little butt, I'm in the wrong line of work." Miller fanned her neck and again flashed the harbor smile.

Despite the circumstances, I grinned back. Lee Ann Miller looked like a woman folks went to when seeking comfort. Or advice. Or just a good laugh.

As I moved to the tree, Gullet spoke to one of the other players. I paid little attention. I was taking in detail.

The body was hung with a yellow three-strand polypropylene rope. The noose was embedded deep in the neck, around the level of the third and fourth cervical vertebrae. Above it, the head and top two cervical vertebrae were missing.

The bones were overlain by fried and putrefied connective tissue. The clothing looked flat, as though hung on a scarecrow. Black pants. A denim jacket, suggesting the hanging had occurred during cooler weather. Brown socks. Scuffed boots.

Boot.

I looked around. The right leg bones lay ten feet east of the body, marked with a small yellow flag.

I walked over. The foot bones and the distal ends of the tibia and fibula remained firmly in the boot. The proximal ends were missing, and the shafts were cracked and splintered. A piece of the femur showed similar damage.

"Explain that." Gullet was at my elbow.

"Animals are opportunists. Most will scavenge if given the opportunity."

A mosquito drilled my arm. Slapping it, I moved on.

The skull lay six feet downslope from the tree, nestled against one of the roots snaking from its trunk. It, too, had been flagged.

It, too, had been scavenged.

"No animal climbed up and chucked that down." Gullet was staying with me.

"In hangings, exposure often causes the head to fall off." I heard flapping overhead, looked up to see a crow settle onto a branch. "Birds might have helped. And scavengers yanking on the legs."

As I spoke, I scanned for the mandible.

"Jaw's missing," I said.

"I'm on it." Matter-of-fact.

While Gullet questioned Miller, I squatted for a closer look at the head. For reasons of his own, Gullet's dog joined me. No way I'd have tolerated a canine compromising "my" crime scene, but this was Gullet's baby. I knew better than to challenge Sheriff Shockproof.

Gloving my right hand, I made mental notes. Little hair remained. The bone was sun-bleached, but subtly variegated where rootlets had clung to the surface. Tiny beetles still roamed the geography of the empty features.

Using one finger, I gently rolled the skull.

Patches of tissue clung to the left cheek and temple, mottled by the ground cover on which it had lain. One eye remained, a black raisin in a socket packed with dirt and moss.

As I allowed the skull to settle back into its original position, a lone cloud slipped over the sun. The day dimmed, and the temperature dropped. I felt a chill. I was staring into the remains of overpowering despair.

Returning to the body, I inspected the soil directly below the feet. No maggots, but puparial casings attested to their passing. Pulling a plastic vial from my pack, I collected a sample.

Gullet's dog watched, tongue drooping from the side of its mouth.

"No jaw." Gullet was back.

I got to my feet.

"How about having some searchers fan out and check the woods."

While Gullet gave the order, I stored more detail.

No animal scat. Yellow jackets, flies, beetles, ants. Nicks on the tree trunk, abrasions on the limb. Rope frayed on the ends. Noose knot at the back of the neck.

"Miller wants to know how much more time you'll need."

"I'm finished," I said.

Gullet's voice boomed, and he circled a hand in the air. "Good to go."

Giving a thumbs-up, Miller crossed to the point at which we'd entered the clearing and spoke to one of those watching. The man disappeared.

With the aid of another watcher, Miller carried a gurney to the tree. Then she unbuckled and dropped the security straps over the sides, unzipped a body bag, and laid back the flap.

The first watcher joined us with a collapsible ladder. Gullet gestured him up the tree.

Spreading the ladder as wide as possible, the man climbed the treads, steadied himself with his arms, and straddled the branch. Gullet moved in to act as spotter.

The others watched from afar, their eyes silently fixed on the corpse.

Miller handed up a pair of long-handled pruning shears. Then, with her helper, she repositioned the gurney, gingerly eased the victim's leg into one end of the bag, and raised the other end so it paralleled the hanging body as closely as possible.

The climber looked a question at Gullet.

"Cut him down." Gullet's face remained neutral. "Gently."

"As far from the knot as you can," I said.

Bending forward, the climber snared the rope between the short, curved blades and compressed the handles.

I stepped in, prepared to direct the body into the bag.

On the second try, the shears severed the rope.

Miller raised her end of the bag as her helper lowered his. I held my arms up, preventing the body from sliding in my direction.

The corpse slithered into place. Sweating and grunting, the two lowered the bag from above their heads to the gurney.

"You've done this before," I said.

Miller nodded, wiped sweat from her face with a forearm.

As Miller moved off to collect the head and leg bones, Gullet began searching the clothing for ID.

Nothing in the pants. Nothing in the shirt.

Then, "Hell-o."

Gullet pulled a wallet from one of the jacket pockets. The leather was degraded due to runoff from decomposition that had penetrated the cloth.

Using a thumbnail, Gullet pried the front cover open. The wallet's insides were sodden and congealed.

Using the same nail, the sheriff scraped dirt from the face of the first plastic compartment.

His cheeks may have crimped a fraction of a hair.

"Well. Well."

"DRIVING PERMIT ISSUED BY THE GREAT STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA." Gullet thumb-scraped the plastic some more, raised his shades to his head, and tilted the wallet this way and that.

"No way this poor fella's Matthew Summerfield." Gullet thrust the wallet at Miller.

The coroner's investigator angled the plastic as the sheriff had done. "You got that right." Miller offered the wallet to me. "Print's too small for these old eyes."

Though the photo was badly deteriorated, it was clear the man pictured was no kid. He had flabby features, black-rimmed glasses, and wispy hair slicked into a comb-over. I strained to make out the lettering to the right of the photo.