Last Ditch (6 page)

"Handy
dandy," he said over his shoulder.

We
watched them
disappear into the house.

"Where's
Ralph?" she asked.

"He
seemed
to think yard work was beneath his dignity. He got all pissed off and
left" "Ralph? Really?"

Before
I could
reply, a resounding crack split the air and .the entire front wall of
the
foundation hit the ground with a thump. Norman
grinned our way. Five feet of composted sawdust, deep brown, like
devil's food
cake, stood without support, perfect and molded. Actually more like
marble
cake, as a thin line of white ran about a third of the way down the
center of
the pile.

Norman
scooped a tie up under
each arm and
headed back toward his beloved fire. "Howdy, Miss Duvall," he said on
the way by.

I
trotted along
after him. "Put them on one at a time, Norman. We don't want the fire
getting too
big."

"We
don't?" He sounded surprised.

Technically
speaking, burning is illegal within the city limits. All afternoon, I'd
been
expecting a fire truck to show up. I didn't want to blow it now.

"No,
we
don't," I insisted. "One at a time."

When
I turned
back, Rebecca was over by the pile, down on one knee, picking at the
sawdust
with her finger. I moseyed over and stood next to her. She was using
her
manicured index finger to clear powdery debris out from around the
white
streak.

"Cedar
sawdust," I said. She ignored me.

"Leo,
go
in the garage and get me one of those new paintbrushes we had left over
from
when we painted the trim in the study."

"What—"
I started.

"Hurry,"
she said without looking up.

"What's
the problem?"

"Will
you
just get the damn brush," she snapped.

When
I returned,
she quickly tore the plastic protector from the brown bristles and
started to
brush away the loose material along the length of the streak, carefully
exposing what appeared to be a long mottled stone of a grayish hue,
thinner at
the center than at its somewhat bulbous ends.

Suddenly
she
got to her feet. Her face was flushed. She took a deep breath. "It's a
femur," she said. "A what?"

"The
largest of the leg bones." "From what?"

She
put a hand
on my shoulder. I could feel her trembling.

"No,
Leo," she said. "You don't understand. The question is not from what.
The question is from who." "Who?"

She
nodded.
"It's human."

I
Squinted my
eyes, squeezing the distant dots of light into a continuous river of
yellow
brilliance which flowed along the Interstate like luminous lava. Below
the
crowded highway, the same bright beams lived secondhand lives on the
shimmering
surface of Lake Union. Any illusion of tranquillity was
short-lived, however, lasting only until a single-engined float plane
taxied into
view from the north, its red wing lights whirling, its long hollow feet
gouging
a cold reminder of darkness into the bright skin of the water.

Rebecca
leaned
over and kissed me on the ear.

"You
okay?" she asked, rubbing the back of my neck.

I
sighed.
"This is embarrassing."

She
patted me
on the shoulder. "Believe me, Leo, I know what you mean," she said.
"I had to call my own office to send a forensic team."

I
threw an arm
across her shoulders and pulled her close to me. We'd been sitting
together on
the back steps for a couple of hours, twiddling our thumbs, trying to
keep out
of harm's way.

It
was three
hours since I'd stuffed the Boys into a cab and sent them on their way,
and the
backyard looked like an archeological dig. Tommy Matsukawa led a team
of three
forensic technicians who, one trowel at a time, had removed the sawdust
covering the skeleton, sifted the removed material through four
successively
finer screens and then checked what they had left with a metal detector.

They'd
set up a
small bank of halogen lights at either end of the dig and now, when it
seemed
like they must be just about down to the bones, they brought in a shop
vac to
suck up the last of the dust. I was feeling about as whiny as the sound
of the
electric motor.

It
had been hard
on Rebecca too, sitting there, not interfering, letting the people who
worked
for her do then-jobs. To make matters worse, Jeff Byrne, the medical
examiner
himself, had showed up about a half an hour ago, given us a curt nod
and now
hovered about the line between the light and the darkness like a
vampire.
Around here, the ME is an elected official, just another politician.
Jeff Byrne
hadn't cut into a cadaver in twenty years, but he knew a potential
photo op
when he saw one. Tommy turned off the vacuum cleaner, and suddenly all
was
quiet. The machine rattled as he pushed it over toward Mary Kenny, who
stood
with her hands thrust deep in the pockets of her bright yellow medical
examiner's jacket, transfixed, staring off into space.

"Go
through this, will you, please, Mary," he said.

Mary
rolled it
over to the side and began to remove the bag from the machine, as the
other two
technicians set up a thirty-five millimeter camera on a tripod and
began taking
pictures. I counted the flashes as they moved around the bones.
Thirty-two
flashes.

When
they'd
finished, Jeff Byrne wandered over into the light and stood next to
Tommy,
looking down. He was a taciturn man of about sixty with a full head of
curly
hair, once blond, now turned a sour yellow. He wore a spotless gray
suit with a
burgundy silk tie pulled down and a pair of cordovan loafers. I
suspected he'd
been on his way to dinner when he got the call. Together, they made a
complete
circle of the foundation, pausing for a long while at the north end of
the skeleton,
kneeling, pointing and whispering between themselves and then
continuing on
around, checking the bones from all angles. When they were back where
they
began, Tommy shaded his eyes from the harsh light and cried out like a
carnival
barker.

"Don't
be
shy, folks," he called. "Step right up and see the wonder of the
ages, Queen Anne Man."

I
stayed put.
Rebecca nudged me with her elbow. She knew I didn't trust Tommy. "It's
just bones," she said. Yeah, sure.

Nothing
gave
Tommy Matsukawa greater pleasure than grossing me out. He'd trained the
clerical staff to buzz him whenever I'd stop by the ME's office to see
Rebecca.
Then he'd come trotting out .of the pathology lab with some rancid
piece of
festering flesh to wave under my nose.

Rebecca
grabbed
my elbow and hauled me to my feet. "Come on," she whispered.
Together, we walked down into the yard.

I
don't know
what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I saw. I guess I'd been hoping
that
the body had been that of some unfortunate tramp, drunk, fallen into a
sawdust
bin and unknowingly dumped with that long-ago load of cedar bark,
something
like that. But even an amateur like me could see that there was no way
that had
happened. These bones were laid out too perfectly for that. These bones
hadn't
been dumped; they'd been carefully buried.

I
stood down by
the feet as Rebecca slowly made her way around the skeleton. She
started by
pulling a small tape measure from her pocket and measuring the leg bone
we'd
first uncovered. She walked slowly, pausing again at the north end,
pulling her
glasses from her shirt pocket arid peering myopically at the top of the
skull
for a long moment and then moving on, working her way around the edge
until she
was back by my side. She took ahold of my arm and whispered in my ear.

"A
man," she said. "Six-two or -three. From the crowns on the lower
teeth, probably quite affluent. Been in the ground at least twenty
years,
probably more. It's hard to tell because of what he's been buried in."

I
sensed a
hitch in her delivery. "Yeah," I prodded.

"The
left
hand is missing."

I
could tell
from her eyes that she had more to say. "What else?"

She
took a deep
breath and put on her Miss Professional face.

"Gunshot
wound to the back of the head."

"You
can
tell all that from walking around a pile of bones?"

She
nodded.
" 'Fraid so."

"She's
the
best," Tommy piped in.

She
took me by
the arm and led me over to the skeleton. She pointed down at the
nearest leg.
"You can tell from the length of the leg bone how tall a person was
..." She waffled her free hand. "Within an inch or so," she
said. We took two steps before she stopped again.

"The
pelvis. It's a man. No question. Any first-year med student ..." she
began.

I
was feeling
numb by the time she pulled me up toward the head. She dropped her eyes
to the
skull and then looked over at Tommy.

"May
I?" she said.

Tommy
reached
into the pocket of his jacket and produced a pair of rubber gloves.
"Sure," he said. "Here." He passed her the gloves.
"We're gonna tag and box it next anyway."

Rebecca
took
the gloves and worked them on with expert ease. I don't know why, but
when she
reached down for the skull, I turned my head away, as if I didn't want
this
gaunt stranger to see my face. When I looked back, Rebecca held the
skull in
both hands. She looked up and spoke to Tommy.

"You
won't
believe the condition of the bone," she said.

"Solid?"
he asked.

She
nodded.
"Not a mark on it." She looked back at the rest of the bones.
"Must have been the sawdust medium. No worms, no bugs, no boring
insects.
Nothing but microorganisms. It's perfect"

Tommy
Matsukawa
agreed. "If it was complete you could use it as is, for a college lab
skeleton. Amazing."

Byrne
spoke for
the first time since he'd arrived.

"I'm
going
to have to call SPD now," he said, pulling up his tie and smoothing the
.sides of his hair with his palms. I watched as he walked to the far
end of the
yard and pulled a cellular phone from the inside pocket of his suit coat

Rebecca
turned
the bottom of the skull my way. There was no denying the jagged hole,
three-quarters of an inch across, at the base of the skull.

"Entrance
wound," she said.

She
gently
turned the skull over and, using her gloved index finger, brushed away
the thin
layer of dust which clung stubbornly to the top of the cranium. She
brought the
skull toward her face as if to sniff it but instead pursed her lips and
blew
away the remaining dust revealing an unbroken expanse of smooth bone.
"No
exit wound," she announced. Tommy stepped over and leaned in. "I told
you she was the best," he said. He reached down onto the grass at his
feet
and produced a fine wire screen in a wooden frame. "Shake it out in
here," he said."

I
winced when
Rebecca poked a gloved finger into the empty eye socket She worked the
packed
sawdust loose around the front of the skull until the material suddenly
dropped
down into the screen in a damp clump. Tommy leaned in close as she used
her
palm to spread the sawdust over the face of the screen.

Tommy's
eyes
widened as he reached down into the screen and plucked something from
the
morass. He held it between the thumb and index finger of his right hand
and
blew away the remaining dust.

"Voila,"
he enthused. "Thirty-caliber."

"Thirty-two,"
Rebecca said.

Tommy
shook his
head and curled an eyebrow. "Lunch?"

"You're
on," she said.

He
produced a small
glass vial and dropped the slug in with a click. "So much for cause of
death," he said.

I
demonstrated
my unusually keen perception of the obvious.

"One
shot
to the back of the head," I said.

Tommy
nodded.
"You see 'em like this when they lay down on the floor and the perp
puts
the gun right up to the back of the head. It's the pro approach because
it
virtually eliminates blood spatter."

"An
assassination," I said.

He
tried to
lighten things up. "Either that or the guy was murdered by a midget"

My
smile must
have been less than convincing. His eyes got big and he quickly stepped
back
out of arm's reach. Rebecca scowled and wagged a finger at me. After I
nodded
grudgingly, she bent at the waist and put the skull back where she'd
found it
and then straightened up. She looked deep into my eyes, sort of like
when she
wants something she knows I'm not going to want to give.

"Might
not
be the worst idea in the world to call Jed now," she said. "Just to
be safe."