Page 46 of Unnatural Death

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On top of the vestibule’s metal desk is a tray filled with stiff paper toe tags that I label with a Sharpie. I tie them to the zippers of the body bags, a throwback to habits from the old days. Now we print bracelets and stickers embedded with radio frequency identification (RFID) chips.

I can walk inside the coolers, the freezers, with a handheld scanner and find what I’m looking for quickly. But inside the REMOTE I’ve had no choice but to keep things as simple as possible. Nothing electronic is permitted unless it’s stand-alone like our x-ray machine. I can do autopsies just fine in a low-tech environment, and that isn’t what bothers me about working inside the trailer.

It’s the restrictions, the severe oversight. Everything we do must be approved by the federal government. I can’t so much as bring in a set of battery-powered forensic crime lights without checking first. Worse than that, I have no control over what’s done to the facility without my knowing. The REMOTE doesn’t belong to the medical examiner’s office, and we’re not the only ones with keys and combinations.

“It would be a good idea for you to inform Faye that Maggie Cutbush isn’t to come anywhere near her lab, and we know she will, given the chance,” I tell Marino. “Should Maggie see the plaster cast, that will be the end. Especially if she realizes you’re the one who made it. I can’t think of a worse person having access to our building right about now.”

“If she tries to poke her nose where it doesn’t belong, I’m going to cause her real trouble,” Lucy says.

“I made it clear to Faye that everything is hush-hush,” Marino reiterates.

She’s examining the cast even as we speak, he tells us. Alone inside the firearms and tool marks lab, she has the door locked, and the blinds are closed in the observation windows.

“She’ll keep to herself, making sure no one comes inside while the cast is out and in view,” he’s saying. “And she knows what to do with the swabs I receipted to her when we met in the parking lot.”

“Swabs?” Lucy inquires.

“Clark and Rex are expecting them and will get on it right away.” More of his feigned innocence. “They know not to say anything to anyone.”

Clark Givens and Rex Bonetta are the heads of the DNA and trace evidence labs. I trust them completely, and what Marino did is manipulative. But I’m not sorry that certain experts in my building will be involved in examining the evidence. I can tell Lucy isn’t surprised by this latest ploy. She knows Marino. She might know him better than anyone except perhaps me.

But what strikes me as unusual is I sense she doesn’t care. Or maybe he’s doing exactly as she’s scripted even as he’s unaware. Lucy can predict his behavior. She’s skilled at maneuvering him.

“What swabs?” she asks him again.

“The ones in evidence baggies,” Marino replies. “I had them protected under layers of folded sheets inside the box Faye picked up.”

“On the bottom and covered so I wouldn’t see them, in other words.” A bemused smile is playing on Lucy’s face as we continue this discussion inside the trailer’s vestibule.

I’m realizing that she doesn’t want the Bigfoot evidence. She wants nothing to do with it and is happy to let us help ourselves.

“It’s smart to keep everything together since the swabs in question are from the cast and also the actual footprint.” Marino continues rationalizing.

“Is there any other evidence you’ve squirreled away that you might want to tell me about?” Lucy asks him.

“Bloodstains I collected, but those are for us to handle.”

“Depends on the source.”

“The bullets and frag are with your guys at the scene.”

“As they should be,” she says. “What else?”

Marino took pictures of the lands and grooves and other identifying features from spent rounds collected inside Buckingham Run. He says he emailed them to Faye, coming clean about that too.

“And just so you know? She thinks the footprint cast I made is amazing,” he brags as I decide that we need someone who’s dealt with this sort of thing.

I think about the University of Virginia professor he met at the Shenandoah Sasquatch Festival. It would be helpful if we could work with an expert locally and quietly.

“I’m wondering if Cate Kingston can be trusted with sensitive information,” I say to Marino and Lucy. “Is there any reason you think we should stay away from her?”

“All I can say is she impressed the hell out of me,” he replies. “She wasn’t full of herself and didn’t talk out of school. She could look at a plaster cast and tell you all kinds of stuff about it that was mind-blowing. Such as whether the Sasquatch was walking, running, slipping in mud, looking over his shoulder or had an injury. She could show you how he was moving at the time he left the footprint. You know, things you can’t fake.”

“There’s not much you can’t fake,” Lucy reminds him. “It’s getting harder to know what’s real and what isn’t.”

“What I found doesn’t look fake, and I’ve seen my share of bullshit Sasquatch footprints, videos, photographs, hair, scat, you name it. I’ve got a gut feeling about what I found.” Marino isn’t backing down. “I’m betting it’s the real thing and we just happened to come across it because it was in a place we wouldn’t normally go. I mean, who in their right mind would go spelunking inside that old gold mine?”

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