Deadfall (7 page)

“You feeling okay, Kevin?” he asked.

“Yeah, nothing to worry about. I just need a little air.” He glanced over at Dana. “How have you been?”

“Great. I just completed a crisis negotiation course last week.

Should come in handy someday.”

“Good for you.” Kevin studied Dana a moment, then he said, “Listen, I don't mind you coming into the scene. Just don't get into hot water with your patrol sergeant if you should be taking other calls.”

“Not to worry, Detective. This is all on my own time. He knows what my career goals are.”

“All right, then. Come on in. This one is not for the faint of heart, so prepare yourselves.” Kevin led the way into the lumber mill's main saw room. Once inside the enormous dark room, he gestured toward a large table where Kristen Thorpe was taking photographs. “Looks like we have a transient living in an office in one of the outbuildings. We found a cot, a few toiletries, and some clothing—nothing that helps us ID the guy. The guys from the identification bureau are hoping to lift some prints from the room where the guy was staying, but it's going to be tough with all this dust floating around.”

“So we think the victim was the transient?” Dana asked.

We,
Mac thought.
Didn't take her long to feel at home.

“I think so. The victim is dressed in a camouflage shirt and jacket, with wool hunting pants. It's the same type of clothing we found in the room. He isn't wearing any shoes or socks, and we found a pair of boots under his bunk that look like his size. This old mill is up for auction, along with all the heavy equipment. An assessor from the auction house was the one who found the body.

He came by this morning to itemize the mill's equipment when he made the discovery. I think the victim was living out here for whatever reason, killing wild game to stay alive. There are several deer hides and meat hooks in the back of this main room. I can't imagine one man eating that much meat, unless he's lived here for years, so I haven't quite figured that out yet. With his sleeping bag turned out and his lack of shoes, I think someone paid a visit to our victim last night—probably surprised him.”

“Any clues from the body on cause of death?” Mac asked.

“There's no doubt about this one, Mac. Come take a look.”The three stepped carefully over to Kristen, who was still taking photographs of the gruesome scene. The victim had been cut into two pieces, from the tip of his head through his pelvis, with a giant band saw that was designed for cutting heavy timber beams. The saw had dried blood on it, along with what were probably chunks of hair and bone dust. Blood spatter reached all the way to where they were standing.

“Hey, Mac. Welcome to the slaughterhouse.” Kristen's broad smile showed under the large camera. “Looks like a case of split personality, if you ask me.”

Dana grimaced. “Split personality?” she mouthed to Mac.

“You'll get used to her,” Mac said.“Our Dr. Thorpe thinks she's a stand-up comedian.”

“Oh, well in that case . . . breaking up is hard to do.” Dana grinned. “I'm Dana Bennett. I was at the Tyson body dump scene working the crime scene tape.”

Kristen chuckled. “I remember you, Dana. ‘Breaking up'— that's a good one.”

Feeling the need to add his own pun, Mac said, “I'm thinking maybe he was killed because he was two-faced.”

Kristen and Dana both groaned.

“Enough with the gallows humor, guys. Maybe we all should just do our job.” Kevin cast each of them a withering look. “Dying is rough enough without having you yahoos mocking his corpse.”

Mac raised his eyebrows at Kristen, who shrugged her shoulders and continued to take photosothing bothered her, but Mac was a little put off. Kevin and other senior detectives had made jokes like that dozens of times, and Kevin never seemed to mind.

In fact, most of the detectives indulged in some sort of gallows humor. It made the horrendous tasks they had to face go down a little easier. Maybe Kevin wasn't feeling well. Or maybe something was going on at home. Mac decided to ignore Kevin's surly attitude. Instead, he focused on the crime scene, which was indeed horrific.

The band saw blade looped through a giant steel feeding table, around a floor guide, and then back into the saw engine that was mounted twenty feet above the table. The victim had been forced through the blade, nearly through the center of his head and torso, slicing through one wrist before completing the cut. The victim's wrists had been bound in the front by a heavy wrapping of silver duct tape. Mac made a mental note to secure the tape at autopsy in case the killer had left prints.

“I'm thinking the guy was alive when he went through the saw.”

Kristen lowered the camera. “It looks like he took a blow to the head prior to death; you can see the bleeding by the left temple.

The tape on his hands leads me to believe he was knocked out and then bound, probably prior to the saw blade finishing the job.”

“Whew.” Dana shuddered. “What a way to go. I hope he wasn't conscious.”

Kevin nodded and turned to Mac. “The latent guys lifted a partial boot print mold from the area around the saw prior to printing the room where the guy lived. They didn't have much luck around the saw blade or controls. The killer was probably wearing gloves.”

“I've got plenty of pictures,” Kristen said. “Let's load him into a body bag and schedule an autopsy. You guys go ahead and bag those hands now, so we can protect that tape and his fingernails.”

“Why do you need to bag the hands?” Dana asked.

Since Kevin had elected to do the job, Mac answered. “We bag the hands with paper sacks so nothing is lost in transit. We'll examine his fingernails at the postmortem examination, in case there is forensic evidence under his nails or on the tape.”

Dana stepped back as Mac donned gloves and helped Kevin and Kristen prepare the body for transport. They transferred the bagged body to the waiting stretcher and then wheeled it out to Dr. Thorpe's Dodge pickup.

“When can you get to the post on this guy, Doc?” Kevin asked.

“How does tomorrow look for you?” She glanced in Mac's direction. “Say, eight-thirty?”

“Fine with me.” Mac ripped off his gloves and tossed them in the disposal box in Kristen's truck.

“Are you coming to the post, Dana?” Kristen removed her gloves as well.

“Um—you mean post as in autopsy?”

“Right.”

“I'd like to, but I can't. Have to work. I'll take a rain check, though.” She grinned up at Mac then let her gaze slide to Kristen. “I'm hoping to make detective, and Mac tells me I should get all the experience I can.”

“Good,” Kristen said in a clipped tone, her jocular manner gone. “Call me anytime. I'll arrange it.”

Kristen climbed into her truck, put on her headphones, and started the engine. Strains of rock music lingered as she drove away.

“Interesting woman,” Dana said. “I like her. She's eccentric and funny and very smart.”

Mac watched the truck exit the gate and turn onto the road.

“Yeah. She's eccentric, all right.”

“What do we do now?” Dana folded her arms, her gaze moving from Mac to Kevin.

“Go home,” Kevin answered. “The crime lab guys will finish up and take care of the scene.” He headed for his car. “See you tomorrow, Mac.”

“Right. Did you want me to pick you up at the office?” Mac asked.

“Would you mind swinging by my house?” Kevin tossed Dana a smile. “Mac's been acting as my chauffeur, so I might as well take advantage of his generosity while I can.”

Mac and Kevin worked as a team. Mac usually drove, but he'd never picked his partner up at his home. Though his gut told him something wasn't right, Mac didn't comment. “Sure,” he teased.

“I'll just put in for overtime and list chauffeuring Kevin on my time card.”

“Smart-mouth.” Kevin rolled his eyes at Dana. “See what I have to put up with?”

“Such a hardship. Hey, thanks for letting me observe.”

“You're welcome. Anytime.”

As Mac and Dana headed in a northwesterly direction across the Glen Jackson Bridge toward Vancouver, Dana chatted about Bradley Gaynes, saying she hoped the search party had found him by now.

“We could ask,” Mac suggested.

“We could.” Dana pulled up her radio and contacted Deputy Wyatt. The news wasn't good. They'd called in the searchers at dusk and would resume the search in the morning.

“That poor family.” Dana sighed. “I wish I could go back out.”

“I know.”

“I also wish I could go to the autopsy. It would be nice to follow through with this case. See how you and Kevin operate.”

“I'll try to keep you posted. Want to meet for coffee Wednesday morning before work?”

“I'd love that.”

Dana's obvious enthusiasm made him laugh. She looked and sounded delighted. He wished Linda could be that excited about his job. Mac could relate to Dana. He'd been and still was eager to learn. Even now with some experience under his belt, Mac could hardly wait for tomorrow and for the autopsy. The evidence and the criminal process would eventually tell them who the unfortunate victim was, and hopefully the trail would lead them to the killer.

7

T
HE NEXT MORNING, Mac and Kevin let themselves in the old red brick medical examiner's building through the employee's entrance at the back. Kristen was already dictating the description of the body when the detectives walked into the small examination room. She clicked off her machine. “Welcome to the little shop of horrors, boys.”

Mac let his gaze travel over the cap covering Kristen's spiked hair, the lace peeking above her rubber apron, and then stopped at her clear blue eyes. There was no laughter in them this morning.

“Can you tell if this guy's our missing hiker?” Mac had been thinking about Brad Gaynes all night. Brad hadn't been wearing combat fatigues when he'd disappeared, but he'd been gone long enough to go home and change. Kevin thought the victim might have been a transient who'd been staying at the mill. But what if the guy at the mill had been the killer? Kristen was quick to shoot down his theory.

“He's not, Mac. This guy has a scar running along his left cheek. He's older too.”

Mac nodded, relieved that he wouldn't be having to face the Gaynes family to tell them their son had been murdered. His relief was short-lived, though. The guy was someone's husband or son or father.

The two body halves were lying on the giant steel table. The victim's left eye was open, staring blankly, while the other eye was closed. Mac looked away for a moment, seeking objectivity. When he did look back, it was to view the torso. The victim's clothing had been removed to reveal heavily tattooed arms and torso. “Jailhouse tattoos,” Mac noted. “Once we grab prints, this guy should be easy to identify. Looks like he's done some time in the joint, by the look of those cheap green tats.”

“Just what I was thinking, partner.” Kevin scrutinized the victim. “With any luck at all we'll get his prints into the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. We could use a break. The ID bureau only found a few prints at the scene—no telling who they belong to. Could be our guy here, or the killer, or could be employees who used to work at the mill. They found no real evidence in the guy's makeshift bedroom either. Looks like what we see is what we get until we put a name to this fella.”

Mac and Kevin bagged the clothing for examination at the crime lab, in case it contained trace evidence that would help nab the killer. They found nothing evidentiary under the victim's nails or on the rest of his body.

Kristen peeled back the scalp, confirming her suspicion of blunt force trauma to the head prior to death.

“Looks like this guy took a pretty good whack to the head, guys. There's a large cranial bruise. I'd say it was enough to knock him goofy, but probably not enough force to kill him. I'm going to rule the saw as the mechanism of death. The cause can be your pick: laceration of the brain and virtually every internal organ.”

“Okay to print him now, Kristen?” Kevin asked. He seemed in a hurry to get through the procedure.

Mac could certainly understand that, but they'd seen worse.

“Sure, I'll change the John Doe jacket once you call with a real identification. He's not matching any current missing-person reports in the region. I'll go out of state on the computer search if you don't come up with anything.”

Kevin produced a small ink pad from his briefcase, inking the victim's fingers while Mac carefully cut the duct tape from the wrists and secured it in an evidence bag. After Kevin inked the fingers, Mac rolled each individual finger onto a print card. Rigor had set in, and the fingers were like concrete.

“Let's get this stuff down to the lab,” Kevin said when Mac had finished. “See if they can get some prints off the tape and identify our dead guy.”

“You got it. I'm ready.” Mac glanced once more at the nightmarish scene on the heavy steel table before taking off his gloves.

“You guys taking off so soon? You don't want to stick around for some sewing lessons?” Henry, the medical assistant, walked in with a hook needle and heavy thread to sew the body back together for the morgue.

“Nope—sorry, we have to split.” Kevin winked at Mac.

Mac groaned and shook his head.

“Not bad, Detective.” Kristen saluted him. “Not great, but not bad.”

“Humph. Better than the hash you guys were slinging last night.” Kevin turned to Mac. “Let's get out of here. You two are rubbing off on me.”

“I don't get it,” Mac said once they were on their way. “Why would the killer use a saw?”

“Actually, the method of murder speaks volumes, Mac. I'm thinking the killer had a vendetta against him. From the looks of it, he was sending a message. Remember the horse's head in
The
Godfather
?”