Page 51 of Dead Mountain

“Cheers.” Nora sipped her Chablis. “Hey, don’t eat that glass!”

Corrie opened her menu with a smile. “What’s good?”

“The steak Dunigan is the classic here—a New York strip smothered in green chile and mushrooms.”

“Perfect,” said Corrie, closing her menu. “I like it rare. And my treat, remember.”

“Are you sure? This place is expensive.”

“After everything you’ve done? This is the least I can do.”

“So tell me about the autopsy,” Nora said.

Corrie took another gulp. “It was kind of strange. Both bodies were thoroughly desiccated. It’s a lot harder to dissect a dry one than a wet one. We had to wear respirators and suits.”

“How do they actually do the dissection?” Nora asked.

“Small hand and mechanical saws, scissors, scalpels. Cutting into those bodies raised a shitload of dust.”

The waitress caught the last few words as she returned. “Are we ready to order?”

“The steak Dunigan for both of us,” said Nora. “Rare.”

The waitress collected the menus and departed, and Corrie went on. “The autopsy started with an analysis of the cuts in the clothes, matching them to equivalent cuts in the body. We first did Wright, starting with a catalog of his skin injuries and then a CT scan of the entire body. Then we went on to the usual Y-section.”

“You say ‘we.’ Did you help?”

“I assisted. I’m certified to do that—took a course at John Jay.”

“A handy skill. Probably makes for good small talk at cocktail parties, too.”

Corrie laughed. “We quickly determined the cause of death: exsanguination from a severed femoral artery, entry wound in the right anterior thigh. The body was covered with knife wounds—neck, face, hands, arms, chest, legs. Wright was clearly involved in a prolonged effort to ward off a knife-wielding attacker, who stabbed him all over in a crazy, almost random pattern, before finally hitting the femoral. The body showed over seventy knife wounds, not to mention many more slashes to the clothing that didn’t penetrate. There was no method or skill displayed, just a mad frenzy of slashes and cuts.”

“Any idea who the attacker was?”

Corrie made a face. “This is where things get crazy. Wright’s blood was all over Tolland, but Tolland had no defensive wounds, no stab wounds—his body was clean. The only injury he had was a single knife wound, the knife plunged into the heart, and done with great force. It was the same knife used in the attack on Wright.”

The steaks arrived and Corrie paused in her description. “God, I’m starved,” she said, eyeing the thick strip and then picking up her steak knife and slicing it in half, red juices flowing out. “Just as I like it.”

Nora cut into hers, and there was a silence as they took their first bites. The green chile was hot, but Corrie didn’t seem to mind. It often took new arrivals to New Mexico a few years to get used to the temperature of the local chile, but Corrie seemed to have adjusted quickly.

Corrie finally laid down her knife and dabbed her mouth. “When we finished the autopsy, only one conclusion was possible.”

Nora had an idea of what that was. She waited.

“Tolland killed Wright in a frenzied attack and then committed suicide. He plunged the knife into his chest using both hands, the blow penetrating the sternum in the weak area between the manubrium and body and then going right into the heart, causing massive hemorrhaging and death within seconds—so fast that he died with his hands still wrapped around the knife handle in a kind of death grip.”

“Jesus,” said Nora. She paused a moment, thinking. “Extreme hypothermia can make people do bizarre things. Many of those hikers left the tent scantily clad to begin with—too scared even to dress, or something. That would have caused their core temperatures to drop really quickly, given their exposure to the cold.”

“Some shed more clothing as they ran,” Corrie said. “Others tried to add to their own coverings, cutting clothes off bodies at the site of the fire.”

“What’s known as paradoxical undressing takes place in up to half of those suffering such severe hypothermia. Late-stage behaviors include ‘terminal burrowing,’ which might be what these two victims, Wright and Tolland, were doing. They were better dressed, and terminal burrowing is more common when heat loss is gradual.” She paused again, more significantly. “Other common behaviors are hallucinations—and extreme aggression.”

“Including self-aggression?” Corrie finished off her martini. “It’s probably obvious, but stabbing yourself in the heart would take some serious mental impairment, not to mention a crazy amount of determination.”

As Nora was about to deal her steak its own mortal blow, she glanced to her right at the nice older couple at the next table—clearly tourists. They did not look happy. Their faces were gray and they hadn’t touched their own steaks. The man cast a swift glace at her with a horrified eye.

Oh no, Nora thought, they’ve been overhearing our conversation. She gave them an apologetic smile and resumed work on her steak.

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