Page 15 of So Alone

“Thank you,” Michael replied. “And thank you for the ride.”

“Anytime.”

The coroner’s office was located in Goldwood SD’s headquarters, a typical red-brick box in the style Michael thought of as Desert Plain. It was three stories tall, but the coroner’s facilities shared the basement with records and the evidence locker. Tom waved a goodbye and headed to his personal vehicle, which was, not surprisingly, an old Chevy pickup.

The coroner was a neatly groomed man in his early forties with a medium build, bright blue eyes and hair that was rapidly turning more gray than blonde. He shook the two agents’ hands and introduced himself as Dr. Hiram Jensen.

“We’re all very grateful to have you here,” he said in a gently cultured voice.

Michael wondered why it was that so many coroners and funeral home directors were softspoken. Maybe they were trained to be so they could effectively handle interactions with family members.

He led the three agents to the morgue. “We typically don’t allow dogs in the morgue,” he mentioned to Faith, “but as this dog is a trained K9 unit, I’ll make an exception. Maybe he can glean something that I haven’t.”

“So you don’t have any leads?” Faith asked.

Dr. Jensen shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ll have very little to tell you that the sheriff hasn’t already explained.”

He opened two drawers and lifted the sheets covering the bodies. One body, Gerald’s, was a mess. Holes and divots where the vultures and other scavengers had picked at the corpse covered the body like open sores. The eyes were both gone and the lips were left in tatters, as were the ears and other, more sensitive places.

“Good-looking guy,” Michael quipped, earning a glare from Faith.

The other body was in bad shape, too. Multiple rows of sutures indicated where Dr. Jensen had reattached limbs and skin. It looked like something out of an old zombie movie.

She.Shelooked like something out of an old zombie movie.

It didn’t feel better to think of things that way, but one of Michael’s old mentors had told him that the moment you started thinking of victims as “the victim” and not by their own name, you start losing your humanity.

“Mrs. Demetrious is the more recent of the victims,” Dr. Jensen explained, “and it’s clear that she tried to defend herself.” He lifted Gigi’s left arm, revealing a mangled mass of flesh that no amount of talent could fix. “Her right arm is the same. These wounds occurred before death, obviously, as did several of the wounds to her thighs and abdomen. The fatal wound was delivered to the throat.” He pointed out a roughly ovoid section of sutures that straddled Gigi’s neck. “That dog, at least, was big, probably a Rottweiler.”

“How many dogs are we looking at ?” Michael asked.

“Eight so far,” Dr. Jensen replied. “Ranging in size from a medium-sized terrier to a large mastiff breed. Interestingly, only four of the dogs share commonality with both victims. The other four show up only on one of the victims but not both.”

“The same number of dogs for each victim, though?” Michael asked.

“That’s hard to tell for sure. The bodies, as you can see, are in pretty bad shape. I can tell you what I see, but there’s a lot I can’t see.”

“And no sign of human interaction with the corpses?” Faith asked.

“None,” the coroner replied.

“Have loved ones been notified?” Faith asked.

Dr. Jensen nodded. “Mrs. Conway three days ago, and Miss Demetrious’s daughter this morning when the body was recovered.”

“How did the daughter seem to you?” Michael asked.

Dr. Jensen shrugged. “To me, she seemed in shock. I’m not a detective, though. That question might be better left for Deputy Watkins.”

“What about the bites?” Faith asked. “You’re sure that they couldn’t have come from coyotes?”

Dr. Jensen pursed his lips. “It’s possible. My instinct tells me no, but coyotes do differ in morphology between individuals. I’ve never seen it to this extreme degree before, but it’s possible.”

“We’ll follow up,” Michael replied. “Thank you for your time, Doctor.”

Dr. Jensen accepted the offered hand. Faith said her own goodbyes, and the two of them left. They stopped by the desk sergeant and got the keys to one of the cruisers along with Deputy Watkins’ disturbingly slim file on the case.

The hotel was one of the nicer versions of motels that had been in existence seemingly since the dawn of the automobile. Michael approached a stoic-looking woman of indeterminate middle age and asked for two singles.

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