Gil and the medical examiner gaped at her. She flushed as she realized she was being stared at. She ground her teeth. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I get these . . . impressions. I just blurt them out. I didn’t mean to . . . !”
“But you’re most likely right,” the medical examiner said with a smile. “It fits the evidence very well.”
“Yes, it does,” Gil agreed, smiling.
She cleared her throat. “But that still doesn’t give us a murderer.”
“Somebody armed with a fire poker, and it went right through into the bone,” Gil said thoughtfully. “An argument. A hot argument, pardon the pun, and one of the two was enraged enough to attack the victim.”
“Usually,” the medical examiner interrupted, “a close attack like this indicates someone familiar with the victim who was angry enough to inflict wounds at close quarters. The perpetrator knew the victim.”
“Yes,” Gil said. “We have cases like that occasionally. It’s intensely personal when someone uses a knife or a club instead of a gun to inflict wounds. We had a victim last year whose killer took a knife to him. The crime scene was horrible. And it was in the summer,” he said, shaking his head. “We used a lot of Vicks salve while we worked the crime scene.”
“I hear you,” the medical examiner said.
“At least I’m spared that,” Nemara replied. “I only work with skeletal remains. It’s a great deal less . . . messy.” She chose the word carefully.
“It would be nice if my job was like that,” Gil said. “But it’s not.”
“Neither is mine,” the medical examiner added. “This was a change of pace for me, although I’m sorry for poor old Marley here. At least he wasn’t barely dead and cut up,” he added. “Poor old man.” He shook his head. “Takes a monster to do something like this.”
“He wanted to hurt the victim,” Gil said.
“Yes. There must have been an argument,” Nemara agreed. “A very bad one. Tempers were lost, and this was the result.”
“The water line had been dug recently, twelve years ago,” Gil was remembering. “The murderer likely panicked when he realized what he’d done. He carried the victim out into the rain and put his body in the deep ditch. I’d bet money that he shoveled a lot of dirt over him so that he wouldn’t be noticed. In the pouring rain, when the workers came in the next morning, they probably just went to work filling the ditch with a backhoe and didn’t even notice the body in the hole, especially if it was covered in dirt, or mud.”
“That sounds logical,” the medical examiner said.
“What can you tell me about Marley Douglas?” Gil asked him.
“Not a great deal,” the surgeon replied. “He was well liked in the community. He taught a Sunday school class. He was active in local politics. In fact, he was running for mayor at the time against Dirk Handley. It was a friendly competition.” He chuckled. “Neither man was vehement about winning. They even joked about it.”
“That helps,” Gil said, taking notes on his phone as the other man spoke.
“Did he have any relatives?” Nemara asked.
“Just his sister. There was a rumor that she . . . well, I shouldn’t say that.”
Gil moved a step closer. “Please,” he said. “It’s all confidential unless we have to use the information to solve the murder.”
He looked from one to the other and shrugged. “A lot of people spoke of it in whispers. There was a rumor that Marley’s sister had something going with Dirk Handley. He was married, of course, and that was grounds for gossip in this little community. Things like that are frowned upon, even though no one could prove whether their romance was before or after he married. She died of a heart attack soon after the rumors started, though.” He shook his head. “I had to perform the autopsy on her because it was a sudden death. Hardest thing I ever did. She was sweet, like Marley. Funny thing, too, nobody even knew she had heart trouble.”
Gil was typing like mad. It was a gold mine of information. “Did you find evidence of a heart attack?” he asked.
The surgeon frowned. “You’re thinking like an investigator.” He smiled. “Yes, I found blockages in all the arteries leading to her heart. They were severe enough to warrant open heart surgery, but she never went to a heart specialist as far as I know. People have these blockages and are unaware until symptoms present. They’re usually found in an echocardiogram, or CT scan with contrast, or failing that, a heart catheterization.”
“It was a natural death?”
He nodded. “Yes.” He sighed. “I was sweet on her, but she didn’t feel anything like that for me. I’m not sure she even had feelings for Handley, either,” he added. “Despite the gossip, she wasn’t the sort of woman to involve herself with a married man. She went to the same church as her brother, and she taught a Sunday school class as well.” He smiled sadly. “She was a good woman.”
“Nice to know,” Gil said. “Thanks very much for your time, and this information.”
“You’re welcome. I hope you can find whoever did this,” he added with one last long look at the skeletal remains. “It’s not right.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Gil replied.
* * *
Samples of the tattered shirt the victim was wearing were taken, especially the part with the charring above the penetrated shoulder bone. There were some odd pieces of what looked like crochet thread on the back of the ripped trousers, and samples of those were taken as well.
There were leaves clinging to the fabric; one of those was removed and bagged because it would identify possibly the place where the victim died. Likewise, they took samples of bark that had worked its way between his leg bones.
The evidence was bagged and tagged and sent to the FBI lab from the sheriff’s office. Meanwhile, Gil and Nemara made a list of people they needed to talk to about the late victim.
“He had so many friends,” Jeff told them. “But most of all, Mayor Handley. They were good friends. Handley took it hard when they couldn’t find the man. He even helped with the searches. His wife sat at home and drank martinis and watched television,” he added with faint contempt. “She couldn’t be bothered with such boring activities.”
“She sounds like a bad woman,” Nemara replied.
“She’s worse than that.” Jeff sighed. “Poor Mayor Handley. Rumors were that he was in love with some other woman, but we never found out who. He doesn’t talk about the past. Not ever.”
“I got a lot of information from the medical examiner,” Gil told Jeff. “He knew both Douglas and his sister.”
“Yes, he was sweet on Marley’s sister, but she never dated anybody.” He shook his head. “They said she fell in love with some man who didn’t want her, so she just gave up on men.” He shook his head. “She was a pretty woman. Much prettier than the mayor’s wife,” he added with a chuckle, “but don’t quote me.”
“I wouldn’t,” Gil agreed. “I hope the lab can find something that will help us solve the case. I don’t want to end up like one of those poor detectives who had to hunt serial killers and died before the perp was ever found.”