“Blunt force trauma?” asked DI Katakana.
Alexa jiggled the camera. She hadn’t known DI Katakana was watching from beyond the caution tape, a stout tree planted next to Ana.
Gina’s glasses had slipped down to the tip of her nose. She nudged them up with her forearm. “The right parietal bone feels fractured.”
“By what?”
Gina leaned back on her haunches, forcing Constable Blume to hop out of her way. “That’s for Doc to figure out.”
“And the shower curtain, eh? Probably obtained at the scene of death,” DI Katakana said. “Is she fully dressed?”
“We haven’t looked yet,” Gina said.
Alexa couldn’t bear the thought of sexual assault/homicide. She forced herself to watch Gina remove dirt and part the curtain. Dirt slithered off its sides. Eileen wore jeans.
Alexa let out air.
“How much rigor?” the DI asked.
Gina felt along the free forearm and hand. “Rigor has passed.”
Rigor mortis was the postmortem stiffening of muscles, and its stages provided time-since-death clues. The process started two hours after death and ran its course in thirty-six hours. Alexa was relieved Eileen hadn’t been held hostage, frantic and afraid. But where had she been? Grant had checked the graveyard Friday afternoon, and she hadn’t been here.
She and Gina photographed the body, and then Gina wrapped it back up in the shower curtain, the smiling seahorses incongruous with death.
The DI scanned the cemetery. “We’ve got to find the bastard.”
A chill skittered up Alexa’s spine. Was Hammer out there? Hiding? Or had he gotten out of Dodge like he had after he killed Cindy Mulligan? Got your fingerprints on file now, buddy.
Gina faced Constable Blume and the recorder. “I’m finished. There may be additional injuries, but that will be determined at the postmortem Thank you, Constable. You can stop recording.”
He lowered the camera. His freckles stood out against his pale skin.
“I’ll let the forensic pathologist know he’s got one coming,” the coroner said. “An ambulance is on the way to transport the remains.” She packed her cameras. Alexa was surprised she was leaving. She felt abandoned, which was silly.
“I’ll leave it to you ladies to get her out quickly,” DI Katakana said. “I’m calling Mr. Bowen to identify her. He can escort the stretcher. It helps in the long run, escorting the body.”
Constable Blume cleared his throat.
“You’ll assist the archaeologist, Constable. The press catches whiff, it will be all over the media. Ms. Walker is on her way, to lead the lads with the scene search.”
She walked away with the coroner. Ana ducked under the caution tape and grabbed Alexa’s wrist “You are not sleeping alone in the cottage tonight. Come to Queenstown.”
“Sold,” Alexa said.
“Okay then,” Ana said. “Check the edges of the hole first. There might be tool marks. My shovel has a nick in one corner from hitting a pipe.”
A spark ignited in Alexa’s brain. Tool marks can be linked to the tools that created them. If Ana’s shovel had been used to bury Eileen, it was already in the lab being dusted for fingerprints. She photographed and measured what she thought were shovel marks on the sidewalls of the grave.
“Any sign of a nick?” Ana asked.
“I’ll be able to tell when I enhance them.”
She took three temperature readings: the air, the body surface, and soil surface. The data would help the forensic pathologist estimate time of death. When she finished, she told Ana she was ready.
Constable Blume cleared his throat again.
Ana handed them each a trowel. “Start by the feet and work upwards. It will be easy to damage skin with those,” she said. “Switch to spoons, brushes, or your hands as soon as you reach flesh or clothing. We’re lucky she’s mostly wrapped in the curtain. We’ll leave it in place and move her in it.”
It was a plan, and Alexa liked plans.
The soil was easy to scoop. Why wouldn’t it be? Dug up by Ana and Olivia. Piled back in by Excavator Guy. Dug up by the murderer. Shoveled back in. Partly dug up by Grant and the senior sergeant. This was just the recent excavations. It didn’t count whoever buried the Chinese miner a hundred twenty-five years ago.
He had a name now: Wing Lun. He’d been the first resident of the grave. Her pendant pulsed as she thought of the way his skeletal hand had pointed at something.
They removed all the dirt piled around the shower curtain. Ana excavated the head, neck, and shoulders while Alexa and the constable worked their way upwards from the feet. Eileen wore Skecher tennis shoes. Well, shoe. One was missing. At the arms, they switched to spoons. A whiff of ripeness, mixed with the soil, made Alexa scrunch her nose. She tried not to think about what was happening inside Eileen’s body. Autolysis was the scientific term. It meant self-digestion.
She lifted Eileen’s right hand. As Gina had said, the digits were flaccid and pliant. Docile came to mind. Two nails were jagged. She hoped this meant Eileen had fought like hell. She hoped the nails would contain traces of skin or blood of the attacker. The forensic pathologist would swab the hands and clip the nails. She bagged the hand in one of her new Hand Preservation Bags and tightened the drawstring.
Constable Blume watched. “You’re not using paper bag and tape,” he said. “Don’t have to worry ’bout rips or holes.”
She preened. “Product of the Month in my forensic supply catalog. Made of Tyvek. They can preserve gunpowder residue too.”
“Sweet as,” he said.
She threw him the left mitt to bag the other hand.
Leigh Walker showed up. Her orange Jungle Juice T-shirt peeked through her white coverall. “Hiya. DI Katakana ordered me to help with the primary search and to tell you that the EMTs just pulled up.”
“Keep an eye out for a diamond earring,” Alexa said. “And a shoe.”
Leigh’s eyes widened as she looked into the grave. “Is that her?”
“Who else would it be?” Constable Blume answered.
Leigh stammered. “I just meant, well—”
“Did you have time to dust that shovel for fingerprints?” Alexa asked.
Leigh’s eyes brightened. “I used black powder.”
“Good choice.”
“I lifted several prints that look good.”
Alexa’s heart drummed. “Did you run them?”
“Didn’t have time.”
Dammit. If she’d been in the lab, she would have done it right away.
“But, well, the prints came from two separate people. I can say that.”
Alexa and Ana stared at each other. “Someone used my shovel,” Ana said.
The tech jogged off to where four officers canvassed the ground near the scraggly bushes. Beyond them, the mountains stood guard in every direction. They looked closer, as if a game of Simon Says had taken place while her head was down.
Simon says take one giant leap forward.
The deceased was ready to be moved. There were no keys, purse, or phone on or around the body. Below? They didn’t know yet.
As they waited for the EMTs, Alexa used her new portable scanner to take Ana’s prints. “You know, for comparison with the shovel prints.” She had to admit, the scanner was quick and clean.
The vandalized tent caught her attention. Did the murderer take the time to spray-paint “God is Watching You?” Wouldn’t that increase his risk of being caught? It didn’t make sense.
The EMTs helped Constable Blume lift the deceased, with the curtain, out of the hole and onto a stretcher. Her feet hung out. The pink ankle sock on the shoeless foot made Alexa sad. They covered the body with the sheet.
A man hurtled toward them. As he neared, Alexa saw it was Paul Bowen, the ex. DI Katakana chased after him. He knocked over a cone and crossed through the gap in the stone wall. He spotted the stretcher. “My God,” he cried.
The stretcher crew froze. DI Katakana caught up to him, panting. “Mr. Bowen. This is a crime scene. You can’t go bushwhacking.”
“Is it my wife?”
“Ex-wife,” Alexa whispered.
DI Katakana set her hands on her hips and caught her breath. “We believe so.” She put a hand on Mr. Bowen’s shoulder. “Are you able to make the formal ID?”
One of the EMTs lowered the sheet to expose the face. Mr. Bowen stepped to the stretcher. His face caved in. He blinked and blinked. “I told you he had her. How did you let this happen?”
“Are you formally identifying her?” the DI asked calmly.
“It’s her. It’s—I can’t believe it. Eileen. No.”
“I am sorry for your loss,” DI Katakana said.
Mr. Bowen pawed at his eyes and then stared slack-jawed at the lifeless face. “Is that blood on her hair?”
The DI nodded.
“How—?”
“We don’t know,” she cut in.
“She’s wearing her mother’s diamond earrings. She, she loved them.” His eyes flitted to the grave. He blinked rapidly again and stumbled toward it. “Oh, God, tell me she wasn’t buried.”
Alexa blocked his path. If it weren’t for Earl Hammer, the ex-husband would be number one on the suspect list, and this could be a ploy to contaminate the scene.
DI Katakana took his arm. “Mr. Bowen? We’re taking Ms. Bowen to hospital now. Help carry her out and then one of my officers will give you a ride.”
The stretcher crew, straining from their load, made room for him to assist. DI Katakana followed behind. When her radio blared, her hand went to the dial, but she didn’t answer it. An officer ran up to her and spoke. A few other officers ran across the grass, toward the parking area.
Alexa turned away from the sad scene. “Something is up.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Ana said. “This graveyard has evil vibes.”
The final task was to search the soil below where the body had been. Nothing was obvious except a darkened oval where blood had seeped from the skull wounds. Ana showed Alexa how to rake the prong end of the trowel across the smoothed surfaces. “Take the bottom. I’ll start up here.”
Alexa knelt near where the feet had been and raked back and forth, robotically, her mind on Paul Bowen. He’d acted as if he still loved his ex-wife. Did Bruce still love his ex? Sharla. But why would Bruce cheat if he loved her? Alexa understood science, not emotions of the heart. Hers, though, kept beating for Bruce.