After the Storm (12 page)

He steps back, grinning an ugly smile, and walks backward to the door. There, he turns on his heel and leaves without closing it.

I stand there for a moment, my pulse thrumming hard, staring at the door. I’m aware of T.J. striding to it, closing it. The switchboard ringing incessantly. Mona’s voice as she answers.

“Come on, folks,” T.J. says. “It’s over.” He looks over at me and frowns. “You okay?” he says in a low voice.

I pull myself out of my fugue, glance over at the young journalist, who’s staring at me as if I’ve just become the story. She shoves the mike at me. “Chief Burkholder, do you want to comment on Lucy Kester or any of those allegations against you?”

“Leave your e-mail address,” I tell her, “and I’ll make sure you get a copy of that press release.”

As I start toward my office, I hear her whisper to her photographer. “Did you get all that?”

CHAPTER 8

Two hours later I’m in my office poring over the files of the six missing persons from Holmes County. Throughout the morning, I’ve received calls from friends and family members of several missing individuals from as far away as Indianapolis. So far, none of them have matched the profile of my John Doe. Nineteen-year-old Jennifer Milkowski went missing in Cleveland four years ago.
No,
I told her mother;
this individual was male, but thank you for calling.
Forty-eight-year-old Raymond Stein disappeared from Montgomery County last year.
It’s not him,
I told his father;
this individual was no older than thirty-five.
Twelve-year-old Caroline Sutton has been gone thirty years.
No, she’s too young and female,
I tell her elderly mother. Seventy-seven-year-old Rosa Garcia wandered away from her daughter’s home two years ago, and no one has seen her since.
No,
I told the weeping woman,
these remains are male. I’m sorry.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

How many times have these people heard those words from law enforcement?

Disappointment, delivered in massive doses over a period of years, has a unique sound over the phone. It’s a silent echo with the power to crush the final, desperate remnants of hope. It’s like a living, contagious cancer, and I feel it spreading and growing inside me with every call.

I read the six files multiple times. I look at every aspect of each case. Race. Gender. Age. The circumstances of the disappearance. Relationships at the time of their disappearance. Clothing. Jewelry. Dental work that may have been done. I look at old injuries with particular interest, because the one thing I know for certain is that this individual had a broken arm at some point in his life. It’s the one element that could ID the remains and break the case wide open.

In the course of my career, I’ve worked several missing person cases—runaways and kidnappings mostly. The sheer number of missing never ceases to unsettle me. I honestly don’t know which would be worse: knowing a loved one had been killed, or not knowing if they were dead or alive. With the missing, there’s always hope. But the thing about hope is that with every day that passes without resolution, the heart is devastated a little more. It’s a vicious cycle of hope and devastation. Family members left with a lack of closure. Too many never move on with their lives.

The families of these six missing persons have been interviewed dozens of times by multiple law enforcement agencies, including the local PD, the sheriff’s department, and BCI. Still, I’m anxious to speak with them again. You never know when someone will mention some seemingly unimportant detail that ends up solving the case.

Using the contact information my dispatchers collected, I spend two hours contacting friends and family members of the six males missing from Holmes County. The instant I identify myself, I hear the hope leap into their voices.
Did you find him? Is he still alive?
Each time, I ask first about the broken arm.
No, he never broke his arm.
And I crush their hopes one more time.

I’ve just left a message for the final family, when my cell phone chirps. I glance down to see
CORONER
on the display, and I hit
SPEAKER.
“Hey, Doc.”

“Don’t get too excited,” he tells me. “We’re not finished with the autopsy. But we’ve found an irregularity I thought you might want to see.”

“I’m on my way.”

*   *   *

Ten minutes later, I arrive at Pomerene Hospital in Millersburg. I park outside the ER and take the elevator to the basement. The overhead lights buzz as I walk a narrow hall past the yellow-and-black biohazard sign and a plaque that reads
MORGUE, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL.
At the end of the hallway, I push open dual swinging doors and traverse a second hall to the clerk’s desk. Dr. Coblentz’s assistant, Carmen, rises and offers a smile when I enter the reception area. “Hi, Chief. How’s the storm cleanup coming along?”

“Slowly,” I tell her, but I soften the word with a smile. “The good news is everyone’s accounted for.”

“Thank God they found that mission boy.” She motions toward the door that will take me more deeply into the morgue. “Doc’s expecting you.”

I push through the double doors. Ahead, through the blinds of his glassed-in office, I see Doc Coblentz at his desk, leaning back in his big leather chair, his smartphone pressed against his ear. The sight of his feet atop his desk gives me pause. He’s wearing his trademark scrubs with black socks and an unsightly pair of orange Crocs. Across from him is a studious-looking African American man with a salt-and-pepper goatee, horn-rimmed glasses, and close-cropped silver hair. I guess him to be in his mid-fifties. Judging from the scrubs, he’s a colleague, perhaps to consult on the bones.

Coblentz spots me and motions me in. His visitor rises and, offering a friendly smile, extends his hand. “You must be Chief Burkholder.”

I smile back. “Guilty as charged.”

He gives my hand a firm and lingering shake. “I’m Doctor John Harris, coroner up in Lucas County.” He nods toward Coblentz. “Ludwig asked me to drive down to consult on your John Doe.”

“I appreciate your coming down, Doctor Harris,” I tell him.

“You just missed Doctor Stevitch.” He sets his thumb and forefinger against his goatee, and in that moment he reminds me of a mathematician whose curiosity has been sparked by an abstract concept. “You have a very interesting case on your hands.”

Doc Coblentz finishes his call. “Hi, Kate.” His eyes flick to his colleague. “All I have to do is tell him we’ve found bones, and he drops everything and shows up.”

“We went to med school together,” Harris tells me.

“Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth,” Doc adds.

“And we were more interested in poisoning ourselves with good Mexican tequila than dissecting cadavers.”

“We killed a lot of brain cells in our early years,” Coblentz says with a laugh. “In any case, Kate, John has been coroner up in Lucas County for…” He looks at Harris. “… Twenty-two years now?”

Harris nods. “Twenty-three next month.”

“Good God, we’re getting old.” Coblentz shakes his head. “His subspecialty, however, is forensic osteology.”

“The study of bones,” I say. “I’ve been reading up on it.”

Harris grins. “In other words, I didn’t drive all the way down to Painters Mill to have a drink with an old friend.”

“Although we may somehow work that in to our schedules,” Coblentz adds.

I’ve known Doc Coblentz for about four years now, and this is a side of him I’ve not seen. More often than not he’s cranky and grim and not always pleasant to be around. In light of his profession, I’m heartened to see this lighter aspect of his personality.

Doc Coblentz motions to his office door. “Shall we?”

We start down the hall, stopping at the alcove where packaged biohazard protection supplies are stored. As we enter, I notice Carmen has set out three sets of protective gear for us. The plastic wrappers crackle as we extract paper gowns, shoe covers, and hair caps. Once we’re suited up, Doc Coblentz hands me a pair of latex gloves and motions toward the autopsy room. “I think you know the way.”

The autopsy room is about twenty feet square with gray ceramic tile walls and the acoustics of a cave. Despite the cleanliness of the place and a state-of-the-art HVAC system, the first thing I notice upon entering is the lingering smell of death and the equally unpleasant odor of formalin. Fluorescent light illuminates gleaming stainless steel counters. The backsplash is lined with a multitude of small buckets, plastic containers, and assorted apothecary-type jars. Butted against the far wall are two double sinks with arcing faucets. Higher, glass cabinets with stainless steel shelves are organized with bottles and instruments and other tools of the trade. A scale hangs down to about eye level, and I can’t help but notice it’s disturbingly similar to the kind used at the local grocery store.

There are two stainless steel gurneys in the room. Both are in use, the bodies draped with sheets. I’ve been here enough times, seen enough victims, to know neither body is that of an adult. I assume one is the bones, the other a child. Only then does it strike me that the second body is more than likely that of little Lucy Kester. Something goes cold inside me at the sight of the small, still form. I don’t even realize I’ve stopped until I hear my name.

“Kate?”

I look up to see Doc Coblentz looking at me oddly, wondering why I’ve stopped in the middle of the room. “Is that Lucy Kester?” I ask.

He nods, his expression grim. “Always hate it when children come in.”

I wonder if he knows I was one of the first responders. That I was one of the last people to hold her while she was still alive. That I may have inadvertently played a role in her death. “Have you done the autopsy?” I ask.

“Not yet.”

“Let me know what you find, will you?”

“Of course.”

My shoe covers and gown crinkle as I cross to the gurney containing the bones. Oblivious to my trepidation, Harris has already peeled back the paper covering. He’s picked up an iPad and makes a note with a stylus, deep in thought, his brows knitting.

“We have the remains of a Caucasian male between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five,” he begins. “From all indications he was healthy. Teeth are intact and present.” He looks at me over his glasses. “So we should be able to get DNA.” Then he goes back to his iPad. “This individual has had no dental work done. Not even a filling. There’s no indication of disease or malnutrition. There is evidence of a completely healed fracture of both the ulna and the radius of the right arm. There’s evidence that both bones underwent open reduction and internal fixation with plates and screws.”

“Is there a serial number?” I ask.

He looks at Doc Coblentz. “Ludwig?”

Doc Coblentz hands me an index card. “We had to magnify it, but we got it.” I put a call in to the manufacturer.

I take the card, drop it into my pocket. “Thank you.”

Harris continues. “Interestingly, only one of the plates was recovered at the scene.”

“There were
two
plates surgically implanted?” I say. “One of them is missing?”

“That’s correct.”

“The missing plate may still be at the scene,” I tell him, feeling slightly alarmed because the scene was left unprotected.

Doc Coblentz shakes his head. “Kate, we discussed this at length with Stevitch. In addition to being a forensic anthropologist, he’s also an expert in forensic geophysics. He went over that scene with a fine-tooth comb. The plate is not there.”

“So if it’s not at the scene, where is it?” I ask.

We fall silent. I’m trying to work through the logistics of the missing plate, when Dr. Harris speaks up. “I have a theory on that.” He looks at me, his brows raised. “If I may continue?”

“Of course,” I tell him.

“Everything’s been photographed and processed,” Doc Coblentz tells me. “Soil samples and those small bits of what appeared to be plastic were sent to the BCI lab in London, Ohio.”

Harris picks it up from there. “Aside from the ring and a few scraps of clothing, there were no other personal effects found on scene.”

“No one crawls around in the crawl space of a barn without clothes or shoes.” I look down at the bones. Most are ivory in color with specks of dirt still clinging in areas. Some are stained brown and pitted. They’ve been arranged loosely in the form of a human skeleton, but even with my unschooled eye, I can see there are many missing. The orthopedic plate lies next to a long, thin bone. It’s about four inches long and half an inch wide with a series of five oval holes evenly spaced along the length. The dirt has been removed, leaving it silver and shiny and looking out of place.

“Kate, we’re missing approximately twenty-five percent of the bones,” Doc Coblentz begins.

“We’ve got the occipital bone. The lower jaw.” Harris indicates each bone as he names it, a scientist inventorying some project that has nothing to do with the death of a human being, but a puzzle that must be solved. “Both ulnas, only one of which is intact, and radius bones. The pelvis. Both femurs. Tibia and fibula are present. Most of the spinal vertebrae. Scapula.” He raises his gaze to mine. “Interestingly, the carpals, metacarpals, phalanges, tarsals, metatarsals, and lower phalanges are missing. Not just a few, but all of them.”

“The hands?” I ask.

“And feet,” Coblentz puts in.

“Is it possible they’re still at the scene?” I ask. “They’re small bones, and it seems likely they could be scattered. Maybe they’re buried?”

Harris shakes his head adamantly. “I don’t believe that’s the case. However, depending on our findings regarding cause and manner of death, at some point the issue of missing bones may become a legal one, so Stevitch is going to go back out to the scene with GBR, or ground-based radar.”

“To definitively rule out the possibility that something was overlooked,” Doc Coblentz finishes.

“He won’t find anything,” Harris says. “Stevitch knows the soil properties. He knows what he’s looking for. If there were bones in the ground on that site, they’re here in front of us.”