A Grant County Collection (107 page)

'This is a collect phone call from an inmate at Coastal State Prison. Press one if you wish to talk to inmate—' Lena held her breath, hoping it would be different this time, that this was all some kind of sick joke.

It was not.

The speaker captured his voice perfectly, playing his slow, sure cadence as he enunciated each word. 'Ethan Green.'

Lena ripped out the machine and threw it against the wall.

Back in Grant County, Sara had a helper, or diener, who performed the less glamorous tasks relating to autopsy. Carlos catalogued all the surgical tools, kept up with the samples, took the X-rays, cleaned up the substantial mess, and basically made Sara's job far easier just by being in the room. He took notes, weighed organs, and – most important – performed a duty known as 'running the gut,' which meant standing over a sink and cleaning out the bowels so the contents could be examined and weighed. The task was as odious as it sounded, and handing it off to someone else was a gift from heaven.

The word 'diener' was German for 'servant,' but Sara had always thought of Carlos as her assistant, a vital part of her job. If she'd ever doubted his value, not having him around to help was a harsh reminder. Even Jeffrey doing his best yesterday was better than going it alone. From the minute she'd opened the freezer and seen Boyd Gibson lying facedown on a gurney, Sara had known her day was going to be as long as it was difficult.

At five-foot-eleven, Sara was hardly dainty, but she nearly threw out her back maneuvering Gibson onto the metal gurney. The dead man's body was solid as a brick, comprised of as much muscle as fat. He was thickly built, what her father would have called a fireplug, but through a process of pushing and pulling she managed to get him out of the body bag and onto the table without dislodging the knife from his back.

After taking X-rays to document the position of the knife, Sara took the body back to the main room of the morgue, where she measured for weight and height. Next, she started on the man's shoes and clothes. The sneakers were loosely tied, probably a year old. His jeans and underwear were newer, but not by much. She found his wallet with most of the usual contents chained to one of his belt loops. A leather sheath was attached to his belt, the hand tooling matching the design on the bone handle of the knife it held. The artwork wouldn't have been Sara's first choice: a hunting scene with two hounds chasing pheasant out of the woods.

After checking to make sure the hole in the shirt lined up with the hole in Gibson's back, she carefully cut off the shirt, photographing her actions as much as she could. Considering the antiquated autopsy suite, Sara was surprised by the sophistication of the digital camera. Jeffrey had taken the photographs yesterday, but she was quickly becoming adept at using the many features. The macro zoom was better than the one she had at home, and the large LCD on the back let her scroll through the pictures to make sure she'd gotten exactly what she wanted.

She took a few shots of the clothes lying on the paper she'd spread out on the counter, then examined the material for trace evidence. Other than dirt and a few hairs that looked to belong to the victim, Sara found nothing remarkable on Boyd Gibson's clothes. Likewise, his New Balance sneakers were muddy but seemingly innocuous.

Still, she carefully bagged and catalogued every item, taking particular care to record the contents of the man's wallet: a driver's license for Boyd Carroll Gibson, aged thirty-seven, one Delta SkyMiles American Express card, one Bank of Elawah Visa card, two snapshots of what looked to be bluetick hounds sitting by a stream and five dollars in cash. Either Boyd Gibson was an exceptionally neat man or someone had screened the contents of his wallet. Sara made a note to mention this to Jeffrey.

She picked up the camera again and photographed the nude body, zooming in around the knife – Lena's knife. When Sara had first seen the weapon last night, she'd known instantly who it belonged to. The look on Jeffrey's face had confirmed the belief. She could tell then that he didn't want to share the information, didn't want to admit that Lena was more than a passive spectator in this mess they had gotten themselves into.

And what about Hank? It would have taken two people to swing Boyd Gibson through the motel window. Sara had only met Lena's uncle a few times, but from her recollection, Hank Norton was a slight man, and not very tall. If he wasn't Lena's accomplice, then who was? There was no way Lena had managed to do this alone.

Or maybe she hadn't done this at all. Just because the knife belonged to Lena did not mean that she had been the one to stab the man. Sara had to keep an open mind. She couldn't go into the autopsy with preconceived notions or she'd blind herself to other possibilities.

Sara leaned over Gibson's body, going in for a tighter shot of the stab wound. She frowned, noticing a discrepancy between the size of the blade and the size of the wound. The handle of Lena's knife was almost exactly perpendicular to the body – traveling slightly upward and perhaps a few inches to the left, suggesting a right-handed killer, who'd come from behind and stabbed into the heart. Yet, the elongated shape of the wound indicated that the knife had gone in at an angle from an extremely superior position. Lena was right-handed, but she was roughly five feet four inches tall. Either the knife had been bumped in transport or Lena had stood on a ladder to stab him.

Knowing the Elawah sheriff's office, Sara would have bet half her paycheck that the knife had been bumped during transport. She made a note to ask Jake Valentine about this. The inconsistency was just the type of detail a defense lawyer longed for. Sara would have to be very specific how she described the wound in her notes in case this ever ended up in court. Otherwise, she would be torn apart on cross-examination.

Then again, the deposition Sara had given in the malpractice suit had pretty much proved that no matter how thorough you were, no matter how carefully you prepared yourself, there was always some greedy jackal of a lawyer out there who could twist your words to suit their cause.

Sara muttered a few expletives in the name of lawyers before she continued the external examination.

She found a few cuts and scrapes on the palms that most likely came from sliding down the bank of the creek outside Hank's bar. The burn marks on the man's arms were unremarkable and certainly survivable barring a radical infection. The singed hair would have grown back in a few months, the eyelashes in a few weeks. Surprisingly, Gibson had only one tattoo, the ugly red swastika Jeffrey had pointed out the night before. Usually these guys were as marked up as a bathroom wall. Sara used one hand to press a small metal ruler against the tattoo and with the other held the camera as she documented the size and detail.

She stopped, putting down the camera to make more notes, wishing not for the first time that Jeffrey were there to help speed along the process. They had developed a rhythm yesterday, and she found herself wanting him there if only to share her observations on the body. Gibson had a series of old scars crisscrossing his back that made Sara think that at some point he'd been whipped with a belt or something similar. There was a long, white scar down the side of his right thigh that appeared to be from an open fracture.

The timer on the X-ray developer buzzed, indicating the films were ready, and Sara studied them on the ancient light box hanging by the door. Dark lines told the story: signs of an old spiral fracture in the left forearm, as well as long ago posterior, lateral breaks in the ribs. The skull showed long-healed fractures across the suture line. Indications of a long bone shaft fracture dated back at least ten years. If Sara had to guess, she'd say that Boyd Gibson had been severely abused as a child.

She turned back to the body, unable to keep herself from feeling sorry for the man. How many postmortem X-rays had she seen in Grant County exactly like this? It was very seldom she came across a dead criminal whose body did not reveal some sign of childhood abuse. As a pediatrician, she had to wonder about the people in Boyd Gibson's early years. How had he hidden such abuse from his teachers, his doctor, his pastor? How many times had Gibson's mother or father made an excuse about clumsiness or boyhood exuberance to cover for broken bones and concussions? How many adults had ignored the evidence before their eyes and believed them?

While childhood abuse certainly didn't excuse the man's adult actions, Sara could not help but wonder whether Boyd Gibson would have ended up on her table if he'd had a happy childhood.

Of course, there were plenty of people out there in the world who had suffered worse than this and they didn't turn into Nazi drug dealers. Or end up killing them.

Had Lena done this horrible thing? Had she stabbed this man in the back? Sara couldn't see it for the same reason she couldn't see Lena burning someone alive. The woman had a temper, true, but if Lena Adams killed someone, she would be looking them in the eyes when she did it.

Hardly a defense, but the truth was often awkward.

Sara turned her focus to the murder weapon. She could tell from the powder marks on the pearl handle that Jake Valentine had already dusted it for prints. From the looks of it, nothing had been lifted. Lena would have known to use gloves, to wipe down the weapon. Was that when the knife had dislodged, as she cleaned the handle of her prints?

Sara zoomed the camera in close to see if there were any minute ridge marks the Elawah sheriff's department had missed. Her eyes blurred as the handle came into sharp detail, and she glanced away for a second to clear her vision.

'Wait a minute,' she said to no one in particular. In looking away, she had seen something else. Three small, round bruises were on the back of the dead man's arm. Someone very strong had grabbed Gibson hard enough to leave a mark. Sara could tell from the color that the bruise had happened immediately prior to Gibson's death.

She pressed the ruler underneath the bruises and took photos from several angles. Then, just to make sure, she went back over the body inch by inch, searching for other marks she might have missed.

Satisfied that she'd done all she could, Sara removed her gloves and reviewed her notes, making sure that she could read her writing and that nothing could be misinterpreted. From the moment Sara entered an autopsy suite, she always kept it in the back of her mind that everything she did would eventually be reviewed at trial. On the heels of the malpractice deposition, she felt doubly paranoid.

She kept coming back to the knife, not because it was Lena's – a fact that she blatantly left out of her notes – but because the wound still troubled her.

Sara took off her reading glasses and rubbed her eyes. Unlike the day before, the adjacent garage was in full swing, air compressors buzzing on and off, exhaust fumes seeping into the morgue. She wasn't happy that the garage odors were so overwhelming, not just because it was giving her a headache but because an autopsy was more than about what you saw. Certain smells from the body could point to anything from diabetes to poisoning.

Sara slipped on her safety goggles and a fresh pair of latex gloves as she walked to the table in the middle of the room. Using a large bore needle, she took central blood and urine samples and labeled them accordingly. With her foot, she pushed over a small step stool so that she would have enough height to stand over the body. Once she was in place, Sara braced her right hand against Gibson's back and wrapped her left around the handle of the knife. She was about to pull out the knife when someone knocked on the door.

'Hello?' a man asked, walking into the room without being invited. He saw Sara, hand still on the knife, and gave a low whistle. 'Hope you're taking that out and not putting it in.'

Sara dropped her hands. 'Can I help you?'

The man gave a quick, ferret-like smile that showed a straight line of small, square teeth. He held out his hand, then thought better of it. 'Fred Bart,' he said. 'You've been doing my job.'

Sara got down off the step stool. She was at least a foot taller than the man, and there was something about him that instantly rubbed her the wrong way. Still, she apologized, 'I'm sorry. I was asked by the sheriff to—'

He barked a loud laugh. 'Just pulling your leg, sweetheart. Don't worry about it.'

Growing up in the South, Sara had often been called sweetheart or darlin' or even baby. Her grandfather called her princess and the mailman called her peanut, but somehow they managed to do it in an endearing rather than derogatory way; she even signed Christmas and birthday cards to them using the familiar names. That being said, there was a fine line between the kind of men who could get away with this sort of thing and the kind who could not. Fred Bart, with his cheap, too-tight suit and mirror-finish loafers, fell squarely into the latter category.

'Nice to meet you,' Sara told him, making an effort to be polite. 'I was in the process of ...' She let her voice trail off as Bart picked up her notes. 'I'm not finished with those.'

'That's okay, darlin'. I think I can figure them out.' He started reading, and Sara fought the urge to rip the pages from his hands. Instead, she put her hands on her hips and waited, focusing a laser beam of hate at the top of his balding head. The remaining tufts of hair over his ears had an unnatural appearance, and after a long period of study, she decided he was an advocate of Grecian formula.

Bart was at least a decade older than Sara if not more, the kind of guy who never forgave the world for the fact that he'd started losing his hair in his twenties. She got the feeling he was the type who blamed other people for a lot of things he found wrong with himself. She glanced down at his hands, checking for a wedding ring, glad to find at least there wasn't a woman out there who was having to put up with the busybody know-it-all.

When he was finally finished checking her notes, he gave her a quick smile and dropped the pages back where he'd found them. She expected at least a snarky comment about her penmanship, but all he said was, 'Need help with any of this?'

'I think I can handle it.'

Bart took a pair of gloves out of the box. He slipped them on as he said, 'I can at least help you with getting that knife out. Don't know if you've ever run into anything like this, but they tend to stick the longer you wait.'

'I can manage, thank you,' Sara told him, unable to find a way to tell the dentist she knew what she was doing without tearing his head from his neck and tossing it out the window like a soccer ball.