She nodded once and said, “Great. Now open up that thing.”
He opened it, and they all stood there, stunned.
Chapter 4
“Six more bodies?” Berkley said softly. “Plus the first two we found?”
“Exactly, so what the hell?” Troy asked. “How come we have eight dead bodies, yet we were told only four were missing?”
She walked over to the original two body bags on the floor, took a deep breath, and slowly zipped open the top of one of the body bags.
“This is Daniel’s brother,” she said. “This is Lionel.” She took a picture of his face, then closed it up, and walked over to the next one.
She took a photo of his face. “Why are they hiding the fact that they have eight dead bodies? Or does no one know because the communication here is such a mess? Or do we have eight fatalities and four missing?”
“Because they most likely didn’t die in the same accident,” Troy said quietly. “It’s starting to sound like a whole lot more is going on here, and none of it makes any sense.”
“I hear you,” she said. “I hate to ask, but can we pull these bodies out of the cooler so that I can take photos and try to confirm ID?”
One by one they pulled out the trays, until she had photos of all six men’s faces. She looked at the bodies inside the cooler, then at the two body bags on the floor, and turned to Troy and Axel. “Any way we can combine two to a shelf, so we can get these two guys off the floor and in there too?”
Axel nodded. “Yeah, these two are pretty small.” They quickly shuffled bodies. It was a tight squeeze, but they managed to close that drawer with two inside, and then he reached for the next drawer.
As he did so, Troy stopped, dropped to the floor, opened one of the body bags then the other. “Who are these two guys?”
“That’s Charlie, I think,” she said. “The other is Lionel. Why?”
Troy looked over at Axel and said, “Check for a pulse.”
Axel frowned but knelt over Charlie, placed two fingers at his neck, then shook his head. He repeated the actions on Lionel and immediately looked back at Troy. “There’s no pulse, but his body is warm.”
“What does that mean?” she asked. “Of course it’s warm. It isn’t in the cooler with the others.”
“No. Warm, as in, he hasn’t been dead very long.” He slowly straightened, looked at her, and said, “This guy died today. He didn’t die two days ago in the accident. He died today.” On that note, he turned and looked down at the body bag that belonged to Daniel’s brother and slowly reopened it.
“What about him?” she asked, her voice breaking.
Axel looked at her and asked, “Is he special to you?”
“No,” she whispered. “Not necessarily. But he was the gentlest of the group.”
Axel reached over, checked him, and said, “Without any equipment, I can’t be real specific,” he said. “But I can tell you that he didn’t die two days ago because he is still warm now too.”
“And what we need to know is,” Troy said quietly, “how did they die.”
She stepped back, her hand going to her mouth as she stared down at Lionel. “There was a confrontation a week or so ago,” she said. “I wasn’t here, but it happened just before I arrived. They found out that Lionel was gay.”
“Oh, shit,” Troy said, shaking his head. He stared down at Lionel and saw a young man, clean-shaven, with an almost feminine look about him. “That may not have gone over so well here.”
“There was no may not about it,” she said. “A lot of people really hassled him.”
“Not very progressive here, is it?” Troy said.
“No, and it goes right along with the rape climate,” she said. “The men are the men—or are supposed to be—and nobody else counts.”
“So we have what? Another motive?” Axel asked in disbelief.
“But that outing happened several days ago,” she said, wide-eyed, as she looked at them. “If these two men died today, that means they died before you guys arrived. So I was here.”
“Yes,” Troy said, “and what happened this morning?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I slept like a log. I wasn’t expecting to sleep, but I did.”
“Did you have anything with the guys last night?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Hot chocolate, coffee, whiskey?”
“Yeah. We had rum. I just had the one though. Still, it seemed to have done the trick.”
“Yeah. So where is the glass? Do you happen to have it?” Troy asked, his tone neutral.
She stared at him suspiciously. “I don’t have it anymore. It’s likely gone through the dishwasher as well, since I brought it to Denny this morning.”
“Too bad.”
She glared at him, but he could see fear taking root within her. “Why?”
“Because,” he said, as if that was an answer.
She looked at Axel, and he just stared back at her with that same patient look he always had, but now something indomitable had been added. She would do whatever they asked in order to stay safe. She groaned. “Are you done down here?”
“We can’t fit this other body in,” they said, “but he needs to go somewhere.”
She nodded. “Especially since it’s Lionel,” she said. And then she stopped, looked at them, and said, “Daniel was here, right?”
They both nodded. “So does he know his brother is here?”
“He told me earlier that his brother was missing,” Troy said, “so I’m not sure.”
“Interesting,” she muttered. “What are the chances the killer or killers were planning on deep-sixing the bodies?”
At that, Troy stopped, nodded at Axel, and said, “You know what? That’s not a bad idea. They could easily get them out of here that way, and nobody would know.”
“But there are eight bodies. That’s a lot to dispose of.”
“You think?” he said. “Looks like all we’re getting so far is lies. But I can tell you that Lionel and Charlie didn’t die in that explosion.”
“We need to keep their bodies for the sake of that alone,” Axel said, looking around, as if wondering what the options were. He turned toward her. “What does the cook have, four freezers upstairs?”
“Some freezer space is down here too, I heard,” she said. “Let’s take a look.”
They headed over to the side and, on the back side of where the cooler was, sure enough, was a meat freezer. They came back, picked up Lionel, still in his body bag, and moved him into the freezer.
“He’ll freeze solid, won’t he?”
“Yeah,” he said. “He will. But he’s dead, and nothing we can do for him now. But it would be nice if we can keep him for the lab and get him home with the helicopter today.”
“If you say so,” she said. “At the moment, I really want to go back on that helicopter with you myself.”
“Of course you’re coming,” Troy said quietly. “It’s not safe here anymore.”