Page 8 of Inside Silence
I watch as Buck goes through the man’s pockets for anything that might reveal his identity, but he comes up empty.
I note the victim is wearing a running shoe on his left foot but he appears to have lost the other one. He has on what looks to be black track pants and what is left of a white, short-sleeved T-shirt. Part of a small logo is visible right where the material was ripped away. I can’t quite make it out.
“Hugo, could you grab the camera from my trunk?” I ask my second-in-command.
The body has obviously already been moved, and the scene disturbed, but I still want to record what I can before we load the body into Buck’s van. Sometimes pictures can reveal small details that might otherwise get lost.
It may well have been an animal attack, but something feels off. The man’s injuries seem almost too purposely violent.
Unfortunately, since we are a relatively small county, we don’t have the luxury of a crime scene tech. Some of us have had some basic forensic training so we can at least preserve as much of the evidence as possible in cases where a crime is not immediately obvious. On those occasions it’s clear we’re dealing with a crime scene, I would call in help from the Washington State Patrol, who have far more resources than we do here, including a designated forensic lab and several crime units they can send out to assist.
But first I need to know if a crime was committed.
“I can hear you thinking,” Hugo observes when Buck goes to his van to grab a body bag and I start snapping photos. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. It looks too clean for an animal attack.” I point at the entrails spilling from the man’s abdomen. “Other than the obvious injury to his stomach, the bowels look almost untouched.”
“Something could’ve spooked it. Interrupted its lunch,” he returns morbidly.
He’s testing my point, which is exactly why we work so well together. We don’t let the other run on a mere hunch or get stuck on an unfounded theory. We push each other to find the evidence to support any speculations.
“Have you ever heard of an animal tossing its unfinished lunch in the lake?”
He shrugs at my question.
I guess there’s only one way to find out, and when Buck returns with the bag, we quickly help him wrap up the body and load it into the van.
Before I slip behind the wheel of my cruiser to follow the van to the clinic, I turn to Hugo with an afterthought.
“Where is the guy who found him?”
“I told KC to drive the guy back to his trailer and question him there. The man was pretty shaken.”
“Okay, when KC returns, tell him to join me in the morgue. It’s a good opportunity for him to learn a thing or two.”
Nate
* * *
“I’ll be fine, Dad.”
Tate sticks her chin out and challenges me with her eyes.
My daughter’s sweet appearance is deceptive, she has a stubborn streak a mile wide.
“I just don’t—” I start before she cuts me off.
“It’s not like I can go anywhere without you knowing anyway. I’m living in a prison,” she pouts.
She’s referring to the tracker I installed on her phone last night. She’d been pissed off, and no amount of me explaining how worried I’d been when I couldn’t find her and, it was for her own safety, made it any better.
Clearly, she’s still mad this morning.
“I wouldn’t go if it wasn’t an emergency,” I offer, referring to the call I received half an hour ago.
Normally, I don’t take on work during the weekends, but I’m trying to rebuild my business here, I’d be a fool not to take what is offered. The call was for a partially collapsed ceiling as the result of what is suspected to be a busted pipe. Lucky for me, the local plumber is on a hunting trip this weekend and not available so they called to see if I could help. I’m not a licensed plumber, but with over twenty years’ experience in construction, I’ve picked up a thing or two along the way, so I told the woman I would see what I could do.
Despite the scowl on her face, I bend down and kiss my daughter’s cheek.
