“Very.”
They drove down the main street that was bustling with people despite the coming storm, and reached a dead end when the first drops of chilly rain began to fall.
“Directions, please.”
“Next left,” said Decker.
They pulled to a stop in front of what turned out to be a funeral home.
Now Decker shot Jamison a curious glance.
“North Dakota is a coroner state, not a medical examiner state. The local guy here also runs this funeral home, crematorium, and mortuary. Full service.”
“You read up on it?” he asked.
She smiled impishly. “I’m a curious gal.”
“Is he at least trained in forensics?”
Jamison shrugged. “We can only hope.”
They barely beat the sheets of driving rain as they sprinted for the front door to see a dead person.
THEY INTRODUCED THEMSELVES to Walt Southern, the coroner and owner of the funeral home. He was medium height and in his midforties with thinning sandy-colored hair and a runner’s lean physique. He wore tortoise-shell glasses, his dark slacks were cuffed and pleated, and his sparkling white shirt seemed to glow under the recessed ceiling lights.
He looked at them in surprise. “But why is the FBI interested in this case?”
“Wait, didn’t you know we were coming?” asked Jamison.
“No, nobody told me.”
She said, “Well we’re here and we’ve been assigned to investigate this murder. We’ve read your post report. Now we need to see the body.”
“Now hold on. I can’t let you folks do that without checking with the detective on the case.”
Decker said, “Then call him. Now.”
“He might not be in.”
“You won’t know till you try.”
Southern moved off to a corner of the room, took out his cell phone, and made a call. He spoke with someone and then rejoined Decker and Jamison, not looking thrilled.
“Okay, I guess you Feds always get your way.”
“You’d be surprised,” said Decker.
“Well, let’s get to it. I’ve still got a body to prepare for a viewing tomorrow, and the family was real particular on her clothing and makeup.”
“Do you bury people here during the winter?” asked Decker.
“We prefer not to. Have to dig through the snow, and then the ground is iron hard. Hassle even with a backhoe. And who wants to stand outside saying good-bye to a dearly departed when it’s sixty below? Funny how quickly tears dry and people beat a retreat when their fingers, toes, and ears are getting frostbite. But most people these days opt for the quick-fried route anyway over a plot of dirt.”
“ ‘Quick-fried’?” asked Jamison.
“Cremation.” He chuckled. “I mean, doesn’t that mean they’re opting for Hell in a way?”
“Can we see the body?” said Decker with a frown.
Southern led them down a short hall, and they passed through into a small utilitarian room smelling strongly of antiseptic, form-aldehyde, and decomposing flesh.
In the middle of the room was a metal gurney. The bulge under the sheet was what they had come for. Hopefully, the body would tell them a story about who had killed its owner.
Jamison glanced at Decker, who was already seeing the room in electric blue. It was a testament to how many dead bodies he saw that this no longer bothered him. Well, almost.
“This is the first time I’ve done a postmortem on a victim who’d already been autopsied,” noted Southern.
“You’ve been trained to do this, I assume?” asked Decker bluntly.
“I’m properly credentialed,” replied Southern, who seemed to take no offense at the question. “Just because it’s not my main business doesn’t mean I don’t take pride in it.”
“That’s good to know,” said Decker curtly.
Southern lifted the sheet off the corpse, and they all three stared down at what was left of Irene Cramer.
“Cause, manner, and time of death?” asked Jamison.
“The cause and manner are pretty straightforward.” He pointed to a wound in the middle of the chest, appearing a few inches above the bottom intersection of the Y-incision. “Long, sharp, serrated knife penetrated here and bisected the heart. The manner was homicide, of course.”
“Killer was pretty accurate with the knife strike,” noted Jamison as she leaned in for a closer look. “Clean and efficient. Only one stab did the deal.”
“My thinking, too.”
“So, unemotional. No savagery or lack of control,” opined Decker. “Killer might not have known the victim. Or at least had no personal relationship with her.”
“Maybe not,” said Southern.
“And the time of death?” asked Decker.
“Okay, there we get into the speculation zone,” conceded Southern. “Based on what I found out, she’s been dead maybe about a week to ten days.”
Decker did not look pleased by this. “That’s a pretty big range. You can’t narrow it down more than that?”
“Afraid not,” said Southern, looking unhappy. “If this comes down to whether an alibi gets someone off or not, well, my report’s not going to be a bit of help on that. I’m sorry.”
“Insect infestation?” asked Jamison.
“A lot. That allowed me to gauge the week or so. After that, it gets dicey. At least for me. Again, I know what I’m doing, but this isn’t exactly the FBI lab here.”
“Had she been lying out there long, then?” asked Jamison.
“That’s both a hard and simple question.”
“Come again?” said Jamison.
“If she’d been out there too long, the animals clearly would have gotten to her. They hadn’t.”
“That’s the simple part, so what’s the hard?” asked Decker. “The insect infestation doesn’t reconcile with that?”
“Bingo. Lots of bugs, but no animal bite marks. And another thing, the lividity was fixed. Shows that after death she was in a prone position.”
“The report I read says she was found supine,” noted Decker.
“Right, but you can see that the lividity discoloration does not jibe with that. Blood won’t collect around parts of the body that are in contact with the ground. But once lividity is fixed, meaning when the heart stops beating and the large red blood cells sink via gravity into the interstitial tissues, the cells don’t move again. The discoloration stays where it was.”
“So she was obviously killed and laid on her face. But then the body was at some point turned on its back because that’s how she was found,” said Jamison.
“Right. After lividity was fixed.”
“Bleed-out would have been minimal, since the heart would have stopped shortly after the knife strike,” said Decker. “But there would have been some, and none was found at the crime scene. That means she was killed elsewhere and placed there, which would also explain the lividity discrepancy.”
Southern nodded. “But with such major insect infestation you would expect animal intrusion as well. I mean, if she’d been lying outside all this time, the critters we have around here would have gnawed her to bone in far less than a week, which is the bare minimum I put her TOD at.” He paused and added matter-of-factly, “Other than that she was in excellent condition. Very healthy. Heart, lungs, other organs, shipshape.”