Heart of Evil

by Heather Graham

Page 16

 

  “Thanks,” Jake said.

  He hung up; the pathologist from the coroner’s office had arrived. Jake continued to watch as the forensics team took pictures and combed the area. He remained a bit surprised that Mack Colby hadn’t forced him out when he had finished listening to the pathologist regarding the corpse.

  Of course, there wouldn’t be a final determination until the body had been taken to the coroner’s office for a full autopsy. But according to Augie in his preliminary findings, Charles Osgood had probably been rendered unconscious by a blow to the head—there was a pre-mortem bruise appearing on his forehead—sometime yesterday; death had not occurred until two or three hours ago, when he had, quite simply, bled to death. He had received five stab wounds to the abdomen area, apparently after his inert body had been hung from the angel, the wounds obviously caused by a sharp instrument. His blood had slowly oozed from his body, creating the puddle on the ground.

  With any luck, the blow to his head had been severe enough to have kept him unconscious until death had come, though, since it had been more than twenty-four hours since he had gone missing, Augie suspected they would find drugs of some kind in his system. It seemed that the killer had been intent on keeping his victim quiet until the act of murder had been completed, but, at the least, he had saved Charles Osgood from the agony and fear that surely would have accompanied his death had he been conscious.

  Jake waited while Augie’s assistants brought the body down, carefully preserving the backpack and the straps that had kept him dangling from the tomb’s majestic angel. Meanwhile the team searched the ground for possible footprints and used specialized lights to seek fingerprints on the tomb wall itself. There were hundreds of fingerprints, so it seemed, and the hundreds were atop more hundreds. In a small way, the Donegal cemetery was a tourist attraction in itself. The gates were usually locked, but the wall was really no obstacle, and someone might have forgotten to lock up again.

  Jake wished them well. It was going to be a difficult and long haul, trying to sort evidence. Unless something could be found on the body or the backpack itself, any fingerprints or evidence could have belonged to any of the visitors or tenants who had traversed the cemetery.

  He’d been to the reenactment at the plantation several times throughout the years. He closed his eyes for a moment, imagining it. The real battle had ended in the cemetery, oddly and sadly for Marshall Donegal, in front of his family crypt—he had bled out there, just like the murder victim, Charles Osgood. Jake found it curious that the body had been left so…displayed. And that the murderer had waited until now, more than twenty-four hours after the disappearance of the victim. If someone’s intent had been just to ease Charles Osgood from his mortal life, that someone could have far more easily managed to stab him in the midst of the crowd that flocked around the reenactment. If the murderer had left him just lying there, the slim chance that it had been accidental—boys being boys and playing with real sharp weapons—would have existed. Someone, obviously, would have still been guilty of manslaughter, but the display meant murder for certain—and that the murderer wanted it known.

  The body was wrapped, ready to be transported to the coroner’s office.

  “Dr. Merton,” Jake said, addressing the pathologist. “Anything else you can tell me?”

  “Augie, just Augie,” the medical examiner replied. “Not yet—I have to cut him open. But I do believe that toxicology reports will prove that my assumptions are correct. ” He was quiet for a moment, shaking his head. “Seems like Miss Donegal was concerned from the start. If someone had paid more attention to her, he might have been found and saved. ”

  “It’s my understanding that they did search for the fellow. My bosses were called in because the Donegals were so concerned,” Jake said.

  “They didn’t search hard enough, did they?” Augie asked. He looked around. “Must have been some feat—this man was no Tinkerbell. A hefty fellow. He was brought here before he was killed. That’s evident by the blood patterns, I’d say, even though I’m not a blood-spatter specialist. Then again, I am an M. D. , with a specialization in medical pathology, and I don’t think anyone needed my expertise to see that the man was dead. Well, young man, if you need anything from me, you call me. Don’t worry about blunderbuss Detective Colby. He’s not a bad chap. We don’t have this kind of thing happen often out here. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen anything like this—anywhere. But he’s a decent fellow, just trying to play alpha dog right off. ”

  “I’m sure we’ll all be fine,” Jake told him. He was done here himself; the crime-scene unit was still searching, dusting, taping and hoping for the smallest clue. There was nothing else he could do at the scene for the moment.

  He followed Augie and the body out of the cemetery.

  Returning to the lawn area between the house and the outbuilding, Jake saw that while the police were holding a line with their vehicles and a number of officers, the guests who had been staying at Donegal Plantation were now gathered up by the cottage, all speaking at once. Mack Colby was lifting his hands and trying to maintain some sense of order.

  Ashley was still there, still the historical damsel in distress in her white gown. She knelt next to a woman who was sitting on the ground, head between her knees, and he could see the way that Ashley’s jaw was hardening. Mack Colby was really beginning to anger her. It was a good thing the detective hadn’t chosen to be a doctor, because his bedside manner would have killed many a patient before curing them.

  Jake walked quickly through the crowd to reach her side, hunkering down by her.

  “I need to get Martha into the house!” Ashley said irritably.

  “That’s fine,” Colby said. “That’s fine, but I repeat—no one, do you understand me? No one leaves. So settle in, folks, and if you’re in a hurry to get out of here, try to be first in line for the questioning. ”

  The elderly woman paled, and Jake stepped in hastily to curb what Ashley might say.

  “May I pick you up?” Jake asked Martha. “With your permission, I can carry you in and set you on one of the sofas. ”

  Ashley flashed him a glance of gratitude.

  Martha placed a hand on his cheek. “Oh, yes, young man, please. My legs are feeling very wobbly. ”

  “Thank you,” said an older man next to them, obviously Martha’s husband. “I don’t think I’m quite up to lifting these days. ”

  “Herbert, I am not that heavy!” Martha protested.

  “It’s not that you’re heavy, my dear,” Herbert said, “it’s that I’m old. ”

  Martha waved a hand in the air. Jake put his arms around her and lifted her, and Ashley led the way into the house.

  “I’ll need a room where I can be alone with each individual,” Colby said, elbowing his way past everyone as he entered the parlor.

  Tense and rigid, her lips pursed, Ashley directed him to a study on the bayou side of the house. Jake laid Martha down on the Duncan Phyfe sofa near the double stairway where her husband joined her, and followed Ashley and Colby.

  The study was a pleasant room with a mahogany desk, computer, printer, and shelves lined with books and family pictures. It was a spacious room; two chairs sat in front of the desk, and a wingback chair faced the bayou-side windows. Mack Colby had sat himself behind the desk.

  “I don’t want to create any problems here,” Jake said, his voice firm. “And if you question these people and have the courtesy to keep proper records, I believe everything will be in order. As I said before, the federal government was called in when this was a missing persons case. Since the victim was apparently kidnapped, the federal government has jurisdiction. But I suggest that we handle it as a joint investigation. It’s a truly sad, horrible and bizarre situation, and I would think that all possible means of law enforcement would be indicated. ”

  Colby stared at him as if he would implode. His face was mottled and almo
st as red as the pool of blood in the cemetery.

  “Your behavior is outrageous!” Colby told him.

  “No, sir. I suggest you call your superiors, at your leisure, of course. There’s no reason that this can’t be a combined effort, which is always best. There’s nothing in the world like cooperation between law-enforcement agencies. You’ll be so much more knowledgeable than we could possibly be on so many fronts. ”

  Mack Colby kept looking at him as if he would finally pop, but he seemed to know that Jake was telling the truth. He leveled a finger at him.

  “There’s something fishy here. These folks called in the feds when a man had only been missing a few hours. A grown man. Someone knew something had happened to him, and if you’re not going to get at the truth, I’ll be making a stink they hear up in Washington and beyond!”

  “Oh, good God!” Ashley, who had been standing quietly near Jake, exploded. “I’m the one who raised the alarm, and I raised it because I know—knew—Charles Osgood! He would have been here celebrating. He wasn’t. I knew him, don’t you understand?”

  Jake set an arm on Ashley’s shoulders. “Really, I think Detective Colby realizes that now—he is just doing his job. But we’re all good now. ” He turned back to Colby. “Look, Detective, my team’s expertise is in understanding why people behave the way that they do. And Ashley’s intuitions assist us. Yes, we need to question everyone, but, because of the display of the body, it’s evident that this wasn’t simply an act of passion, a mistake or accident in the reenactment, or the casual act of a thief or drifter. This was personal, or, possibly, ritualistic. If you want to start with the guests who are down here for the first time, that’s great. They can be cleared quickly, and we can begin to look at the people involved with Donegal, the reenactors and the locals. ”

  Colby seemed somewhat mollified, but his facial muscles were still taut. He nodded jerkily to Jake. “Fine. You’re sitting in? Or are you going to do the questioning?”