Nelson Demille - Wild fire

Kate started to turn for Ray Brook, but I said, “Turn right. Let’s go see Harry.”

She reminded me, “Tom said to go-”

“You can’t go too far wrong doing the opposite of what Tom Walsh says.”

She hesitated, then turned toward Potsdam.

Within ten minutes, we passed the brown sign that said we were leaving Adirondack State Park.

A few miles later, we were in South Colton, where I saw Rudy talking to someone who was pumping his own gas. I said to Kate, “Pull in here.”

She turned the car into the gas station. I leaned out the window and called, “Hey, Rudy!”

He came over to the car and asked me, “Hey, how’d you make out there?”

“The ice maker is fixed. I told Mr. Madox what you said about getting the money up front, and he paid me cash.”

“Uh… you wasn’t supposed to-”

“He’s very pissed at you, Rudy.”

“Ah, jeez, you wasn’t supposed to-”

“He wants to see you-tonight.”

“Oh, jeez…”

“I need to get to the county hospital in Potsdam.”

“Uh… yeah… well, you just follow 56 north.” He gave me directions to the hospital, and I said to him, “When you see Madox, tell him John Corey is also very good with a gun.”

“Okay…”

Kate pulled back onto the road, and we continued toward Potsdam. She said, “That sounded like a threat.”

“To a guilty man, it’s a threat. To an innocent man, it’s an odd statement.”

She didn’t reply.

The terrain had opened up, and I could see houses and small farms now. The late-afternoon sun cast long shadows over the rolling hills.

Neither Kate nor I said much; there’s something about the expectation of seeing a dead body that keeps the conversation subdued.

I kept thinking about Harry Muller, and it was hard for me to believe he was dead. I replayed my last conversation with him, and I wondered if I’d had a bad feeling about his assignment or if what happened since then made me think that. You never know. But I did know that whether or not I’d had this feeling of foreboding on Friday, I definitely had it now.

Within twenty minutes, we drove into the pleasant college town of Potsdam, where we found the Canton-Potsdam Hospital at the north end of town.

We parked in the lot and entered the small red-brick building through the front doors.

There was an information desk in the lobby, and I identified myself and asked the info lady where the morgue was located. She directed us to the surgical unit that she said doubled as the morgue. This did not speak well for the staff surgeons, and if I had been in a better mood, I’d have made a joke about that.

We turned down a few corridors and found the nurses’ station at the surgical unit.

There were two uniformed state troopers chatting up the nurses, and Kate and I showed our credentials. I said, “We’re here to ID Harry Muller. Are you with the body?”

One of the troopers replied, “Yes, sir. We accompanied the ambulance.”

“Anyone else here?”

“No, sir. You’re the first.”

“Who else are you expecting?”

“Well, some FBI guys from Albany, and some guys from the State Bureau of Investigation.”

We weren’t going to have much time alone with the body before we had company. I asked, “Is the medical examiner here?”

“Yes, sir. She did a preliminary examination of the body and cataloged the personal effects. She’s waiting for the state police and FBI.”

“Okay. We’d like to see the body.”

“I’ll need you both to sign in.”

I didn’t want to sign in, so I said, “We’re not here officially. The deceased was our colleague and friend. We’re paying our respects.”

“Oh… sorry… sure.”

He led us to a big steel door that was marked OR.

The body of a homicide victim is considered a crime scene that needs to be secured, and the chain of evidence needs to be maintained; thus, the presence of the two state troopers and the sign-in sheet, which led me to conclude that someone other than Kate and I thought this was not a hunting accident.

The trooper opened the door and said, “You first.”

I replied, “We’d like to be alone to pay our respects.”

The trooper hesitated. “I’m sorry. I can’t do that. I need to be-”

“I understand. Can you do me a favor and ask the medical examiner to meet us here? We’ll wait.”

“Sure.”

He disappeared around a corner, and I opened the door. We entered the makeshift morgue.

The big operating room was brightly lit, and in the middle of the room was a steel table on which a body lay covered with a blue shroud.

On either side of the table was a gurney. One held Harry’s clothes, laid out as they would be worn: boots, socks, thermal underwear, trousers, shirt, jacket, and knit cap.

On the other gurney were Harry’s personal effects, and I could see the cameras, binoculars, maps, cell phone, wallet, watch, a pair of wire cutters, and so forth. On his key chain were ignition keys for his government vehicle, a Pontiac Grand Am, and his private vehicle, a Toyota. But no key for whatever kind of camper he had been driving. I assumed that the camper key was with the state police or the CSI team so they could move his camper. His gun and credentials would be with the troopers outside.

The room smelled of disinfectant, formaldehyde, and other unpleasant things, so I went over to a cabinet and found a tube of Vicks, which is a standard item in a place where cadavers are cut up. I squeezed some of the mentholated jelly on Kate’s finger and said, “Smear this under your nose.”

She smeared it on her upper lip and took a deep breath. I don’t normally use the stuff, but it’d been a while since I’d been around a stiffening body, so I, too, put some under my nose.

I found a box of latex gloves, we each slipped on a pair, and I said to Kate, “Let’s take a look. Okay?”

She nodded.

I went to the table and pulled the blue sheet down from the face.

Harry Muller.

I said to myself, Sorry, pal.

His face was dirty because he’d fallen face-first on the trail, and his lips were slightly parted, but I saw no grimace, or any indication that he’d been in agony, so death had come quickly. We should all be so lucky when we’re that unlucky.

His eyes were wide open, so I pushed the lids closed.

I pulled the sheet down to his waist and saw a big gauze pad taped over his heart. There was very little blood on his body, so the bullet had stopped the heart almost immediately.

I noticed the lividity of his skin-the pooling of the blood on the front of his body, confirming he’d fallen face-first and died in that position.

I lifted his left arm. Rigor usually sets in within eight to twelve hours, and there was almost no flex in his muscles, but neither was his arm totally rigid. Also, from the appearance of the skin, and the general state of the body, I’d say death had occurred twelve to twenty-four hours ago. To take it a step further, if this was a premeditated murder, it had probably been done at night to minimize the chance of discovery during the commission of the crime. Therefore, it probably happened last night.

Assuming Madox did this, he probably waited for someone to find the body and report it to the police. When that didn’t happen by this afternoon, he or an accomplice phoned it in from a park phone, thereby taking the heat off himself before the search of his property began.

In fact, while Kate and I were sitting with him, he was probably wondering why his phone tip hadn’t turned up the body yet, and he was getting nervous.

I examined Harry’s wrist and thumb, and saw no evidence of restraints, though often there are no marks.

I took Harry’s left hand in mine and examined the palm, fingernails, and knuckles. The hands can sometimes tell you something that the coroner, who is usually more interested in organs and trauma, misses, but I saw nothing unusual, only dirt.