Nelson Demille - Wild fire

I glanced at Kate, who seemed to be holding up okay, then I came around the table and took Harry’s right hand and looked at it.

A female voice said, “Can I loan you my scalpel?”

Kate and I turned to see a woman at the door dressed in surgical scrubs. She was about thirty, petite, with short red hair. As she moved closer, I saw she had freckles and blue eyes. Actually, baggy blue scrubs aside, she was cute. She said, “I’m Patty Gleason, the county coroner. I assume you’re the FBI people.”

I pulled off my latex glove and extended my hand. “Detective John Corey, Anti-Terrorist Task Force.”

We shook, and I introduced FBI Special Agent Kate Mayfield, remembering to add, “Kate is also Mrs. Corey.”

Kate further added, “I’m also Detective Corey’s supervisor.”

Dr. Gleason suggested, “Maybe you can tell him not to handle the body without a medical examiner present. Or maybe not handle it at all.”

I apologized but informed her, “I did this for twenty years in New York City.”

“You’re not in New York City.”

We were off on the wrong foot, but then Kate said, “The deceased was a friend of ours.”

Dr. Gleason softened. “I’m sorry.” She turned to Kate. “What does this have to do with terrorism?”

“Nothing. Harry was also a colleague on the Task Force, and he was up here hiking, and we’ve come to identify the body.”

“I see. And have you made a positive identification?”

“We have,” Kate answered. “What’s your preliminary finding?”

“Well, from what I can see from the external wounds, a bullet passed through his spinal column, then through his heart, and he died almost instantly. He probably felt nothing, and if he did, it was for only a second or two. He was basically dead before he hit the ground.”

I nodded and observed, “In all my years as a cop, I’ve never seen a perfect shot through the spine and heart that was an accident.”

Dr. Gleason didn’t comment for a few seconds, then said, “As a surgeon and coroner, I’ve seen about a hundred hunting-accident wounds, and I’ve never seen one quite like this either. But it can happen.” She asked, “You’re thinking it was homicide?”

I replied, “We’re not ruling it out.”

She nodded. “That’s what I hear.”

Some medical examiners like to play detective, like on TV, but most stick strictly to the facts. Not knowing Patty Gleason, I asked, “Did you find anything that would indicate a homicide?”

“I’ll show you what I found, and you can take it from there.”

She went over to the supply cabinet, snapped on a pair of gloves, then gave me a fresh glove and said, “I see you’ve already found the Vicks.”

She motioned toward the two gurneys. “I’ve removed and cataloged everything for placement into evidence bags by the FBI. Do you want to go over the inventory and sign for this stuff?”

Kate replied, “There are other agents on the way who need to list everything on what we call the green sheet.”

I said to Dr. Gleason, “Let’s look at the body.”

She moved beside the gurney and pulled the taped gauze off Harry’s chest, removing some hair and revealing a big, gaping hole. “As you can see, this is the exit wound. I used a lighted 7X magnifier and observed bits of bone, soft tissue, and blood, all in minute quantities and consistent with the passage of a high-velocity, large- or medium-caliber bullet through the vertebrae, heart, and sternum.”

She went on for a while, clinically describing the end of a human life. She concluded, “As you know, I’m not doing the autopsy, but I doubt there’s much more an autopsy is going to show in regard to the cause of death.”

I said to her, “We’re more interested in the events that led up to the moment of death.” I asked, “Did you notice anything unusual?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.” She put her finger on Harry’s chest, an inch from the edge of the ragged exit wound, and said, “I noticed here… can you see that?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s a small puncture wound. Obviously made before death. I probed it, and it’s deep into the muscle tissue. I also examined his shirt and thermal top, and there seem to be corresponding holes, and what appears to be a small bloodstain, so this object-possibly a hypodermic needle-was pushed hard through his clothing and into his pectoral muscle. I can’t say if anything was injected, but toxicology should be able to tell us.”

Dr. Gleason continued, “And here are two more puncture wounds on his right forearm. No blood or corresponding holes on his clothing. Nor did I find a hypodermic needle in his possession, and I assume he wasn’t medicating himself through his shirt.”

I asked her, “What do you make of those puncture wounds?”

“You’re the detective.”

“Right.” I thought that the first puncture wound was the one in the chest, through his clothing, which meant it was probably a sedative, administered while he was struggling, or maybe administered from an animal tranquilizer gun. If it’s off-season, we just tranquilize them and relocate them. The other two, through the bare skin, were hypodermics, given to keep him sedated. I also wondered if it was sodium pentathol, truth serum, but I kept my thoughts to myself, and said, “I’ll think about it.”

She continued, “I want to show you two more things that lead me to believe there may have been some other unusual events or incidents leading up to the time of death.”

We watched her move around the table toward Harry’s head. Little Patty Gleason put her hands under Harry’s shoulders and pushed his big torso forward into a sitting position, which caused some gas to escape. Kate drew a startled breath. Coroners, I’ve noticed, are not gentle with the deceased, and there’s no reason why they should be, though I’m always surprised at how they handle a body.

I could see the entry wound now, dead center through his spinal column and in line with his heart. I tried to picture how it happened: Harry was probably still drugged and positioned on the trail, standing or kneeling, by a person or persons while the shooter stood close enough to get a perfect shot, but not close enough for the muzzle blast to leave burns or powder fragments. Or, Harry had been lying down someplace else when he was shot and then moved to the trail. But that was too amateurish, and any CSI team would see that.

In any case, he’d been shot in the back, and all I could hope for was that he didn’t know it was coming.

Dr. Gleason was drawing our attention to something else. “Here. Look at this.” She put her finger on Harry’s right shoulder blade. “This is a discoloration on his skin, which is hard to identify. It’s not a contusion, or a chemical burn, and not quite a heat burn. It could be electrical.”

Kate and I got closer to the faintly discolored spot, about the size and shape of a half-dollar. It wasn’t made by a stun gun, but I’d seen something like this made by an electric cattle prod.

Dr. Gleason was looking at me as I stared at the mark on Harry’s shoulder. I said, “I don’t know what it is.”

She moved to the side of the table and unceremoniously pulled the blue sheet down to the end, exposing Harry’s naked body.

She started to say something, but I interrupted. “Would you mind lowering the body?”

“Oh. Sorry.” She pushed Harry’s stiffening torso down on the table while I held his legs. I mean, I’m used to dead bodies, but they should be lying down, not sitting up. Kate, I could see, was borderline holding it together.

Dr. Gleason made her way down the length of the gurney. “Well-nourished, well-muscled, middle-aged Caucasian male, normal skin, except as noted, and also noted is that he hadn’t bathed or shaved in a few days, which is consistent with some time in the outdoors and with his soiled clothing. Nothing I see here is remarkable until we get to his feet and ankles.”