Wild Fire

by Nelson DeMille

  “I’ll show you what I found, and you can take it from there.”

  She went over to the supply cabinet, snapped on a pair of gloves, then gave me a fresh glove and said, “I see you’ve already found the Vicks.”

  She motioned toward the two gurneys. “I’ve removed and cataloged everything for placement into evidence bags by the FBI. Do you want to go over the inventory and sign for this stuff?”

  Kate replied, “There are other agents on the way who need to list everything on what we call the green sheet.”

  I said to Dr. Gleason, “Let’s look at the body.”

  She moved beside the gurney and pulled the taped gauze off Harry’s chest, removing some hair and revealing a big, gaping hole. “As you can see, this is the exit wound. I used a lighted 7X magnifier and observed bits of bone, soft tissue, and blood, all in minute quantities and consistent with the passage of a high-velocity, large- or medium-caliber bullet through the vertebrae, heart, and sternum.”

  She went on for a while, clinically describing the end of a human life. She concluded, “As you know, I’m not doing the autopsy, but I doubt there’s much more an autopsy is going to show in regard to the cause of death.”

  I said to her, “We’re more interested in the events that led up to the moment of death.” I asked, “Did you notice anything unusual?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did.” She put her finger on Harry’s chest, an inch from the edge of the ragged exit wound, and said, “I noticed here . . . can you see that?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it’s a small puncture wound. Obviously made before death. I probed it, and it’s deep into the muscle tissue. I also examined his shirt and thermal top, and there seem to be corresponding holes, and what appears to be a small bloodstain, so this object—possibly a hypodermic needle—was pushed hard through his clothing and into his pectoral muscle. I can’t say if anything was injected, but toxicology should be able to tell us.”

  Dr. Gleason continued, “And here are two more puncture wounds on his right forearm. No blood or corresponding holes on his clothing. Nor did I find a hypodermic needle in his possession, and I assume he wasn’t medicating himself through his shirt.”

  I asked her, “What do you make of those puncture wounds?”

  “You’re the detective.”

  “Right.” I thought that the first puncture wound was the one in the chest, through his clothing, which meant it was probably a sedative, administered while he was struggling, or maybe administered from an animal tranquilizer gun. If it’s off-season, we just tranquilize them and relocate them. The other two, through the bare skin, were hypodermics, given to keep him sedated. I also wondered if it was sodium pentathol, truth serum, but I kept my thoughts to myself, and said, “I’ll think about it.”

  She continued, “I want to show you two more things that lead me to believe there may have been some other unusual events or incidents leading up to the time of death.”

  We watched her move around the table toward Harry’s head. Little Patty Gleason put her hands under Harry’s shoulders and pushed his big torso forward into a sitting position, which caused some gas to escape. Kate drew a startled breath. Coroners, I’ve noticed, are not gentle with the deceased, and there’s no reason why they should be, though I’m always surprised at how they handle a body.

  I could see the entry wound now, dead center through his spinal column and in line with his heart. I tried to picture how it happened: Harry was probably still drugged and positioned on the trail, standing or kneeling, by a person or persons while the shooter stood close enough to get a perfect shot, but not close enough for the muzzle blast to leave burns or powder fragments. Or, Harry had been lying down someplace else when he was shot and then moved to the trail. But that was too amateurish, and any CSI team would see that.

  In any case, he’d been shot in the back, and all I could hope for was that he didn’t know it was coming.

  Dr. Gleason was drawing our attention to something else. “Here. Look at this.” She put her finger on Harry’s right shoulder blade. “This is a discoloration on his skin, which is hard to identify. It’s not a contusion, or a chemical burn, and not quite a heat burn. It could be electrical.”

  Kate and I got closer to the faintly discolored spot, about the size and shape of a half-dollar. It wasn’t made by a stun gun, but I’d seen something like this made by an electric cattle prod.

  Dr. Gleason was looking at me as I stared at the mark on Harry’s shoulder. I said, “I don’t know what it is.”

  She moved to the side of the table and unceremoniously pulled the blue sheet down to the end, exposing Harry’s naked body.

  She started to say something, but I interrupted. “Would you mind lowering the body?”

  “Oh. Sorry.” She pushed Harry’s stiffening torso down on the table while I held his legs. I mean, I’m used to dead bodies, but they should be lying down, not sitting up. Kate, I could see, was borderline holding it together.

  Dr. Gleason made her way down the length of the gurney. “Well-nourished, well-muscled, middle-aged Caucasian male, normal skin, except as noted, and also noted is that he hadn’t bathed or shaved in a few days, which is consistent with some time in the outdoors and with his soiled clothing. Nothing I see here is remarkable until we get to his feet and ankles.”

  The three of us stood at Harry’s bare feet, and Dr. Gleason said, “The soles of his feet are soiled, as though he’d been walking barefoot, but this is not outdoor soil or vegetation I see.”

  I nodded.

  She continued, “I found a few fibers that look like rug or carpet fibers, plus you can see what looks like fine dust or dirt that you’d find on a floor. I understand he had a camper, and you should see if he had a rug in there, and take fiber and dirt samples.”

  I knew another place where I should take fiber and dirt samples, but the chance of getting a search warrant for the Custer Hill lodge was not good at this point.

  I moved closer to Harry and said, “There are contusions on both ankles.”

  “Yes, there are. Plus abrasions. These are very visible, as you can see, and the only thing I can think of was that he was wearing ankle restraints—metal, not tape, or rope, or anything pliable—and that he struggled against them, or tried to run in them. That’s why these contusions are so pronounced and so profuse.” She added, “The skin is broken in two places.” She noted, “I believe his boots and socks were put on after the ankle shackles were removed . . . I believe he was barefoot when he had the shackles on. Look at the location of the skin abrasions and contusions.”

  Whatever happened to Harry in the hours before his death, it wasn’t pleasant. Knowing him as I did, I was sure he wasn’t a model prisoner, and thus the cattle prod, the apparent injections, and the ankle restraints. You did good, buddy.

  Dr. Gleason said, “After I noticed these fibers on his feet, I looked over the rest of his body and found some fibers on his hair, and on his face. They could be from his knit cap, but that’s dark blue, and these fibers are multi-colored.”

  I didn’t comment, but apparently Harry had been lying down on a rug or a blanket.

  Dr. Gleason added, “Also, there are fibers on his trousers and shirt, and his thermal underwear, and they, too, appear to be foreign to anything he was wearing when he was brought here. And I found four black hairs, all about two inches long. One on his shirt, one on his trousers, and two on his thermal underwear. I taped them to the fabric where I found them.”

  I nodded noncommittally. The less I said, the more Dr. Gleason thought she needed to explain to us, and she continued, “These were not the deceased’s hair. In fact, these hairs, under magnification, did not look human.”

  Kate asked, “Dog hairs?”

  “Maybe.”

  Kaiser Wilhelm?

  Dr. Gleason concluded, “That’s all that I found on the body that might be unusual.”

  Kate asked her, “Can you estimate the time of death?”

 
“Based on what I see, feel, and smell, I believe death occurred about twenty-four hours ago. Maybe less.” She added, “The CSI team might find something that could narrow it down, and so might the medical examiner who does the autopsy.”

  I asked, “Did you remove the clothing and personal effects?”

  “I did, with an assistant.”

  “Other than the animal hair and foreign fibers, did you notice anything else unusual?”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, unusual.”

  “No . . . but if you sniff his clothes—especially his shirt—you might still detect a faint odor of smoke.”

  “What kind of smoke?”

  “Smells like tobacco smoke.” She noted, “I didn’t find any smoking materials among his personal effects.”

  That’s a lost art.

  It is an article of faith among homicide detectives, forensic specialists, and medical examiners that the body will give up its secrets. Fibers, hairs, semen, saliva, bite marks, rope burns, cigarette butts, cigarette smoke, ashes, DNA, fingerprints, and on and on. There is almost always a transference between murderer and victim, and victim and murderer. All you have to do is find it, analyze it, and match it to a suspect. The trick was finding the suspect.

  I asked, “Anything else?”

  “No. But I did only a cursory examination of the clothing and personal effects. I had an assistant present at all times, and I audiotaped my examination of the body and the personal effects. You’re welcome to the tape when it’s copied.”

  “Thanks.” Apparently she knew this was a hot case.

  “What’s this all about?”

  “You really want to know?”

  She thought a moment, then replied, “No.”

  “Good answer,” I said. “Well, you’ve been very helpful, and we thank you for your time, Dr. Gleason.”

  “Are you staying with the body?”

  “We are.”

  “Please don’t touch the body.” She glanced at Harry Muller and said, “If he was murdered, I hope you find who did it.”

  “We will.”

  Dr. Gleason bid us farewell and left.

  Kate said to me, “Why would a young woman like that want to work in a morgue?”

  “Maybe she’s looking for Mr. Right.” I said, “Let’s get to work.”

  Kate and I moved over to the gurney where Harry’s personal effects were laid out, and, still wearing our latex gloves, we began to examine everything—his wallet, watch, pager, binoculars, video camera, digital camera, compass, wire cutters, bird-watcher’s guide, and a terrain map that showed the Custer Hill property outlined in red marker, plus the location of the lodge and a few other buildings that were added to the map. Even with latex gloves, we were careful how we handled the items so we wouldn’t compromise a fingerprint.

  I examined the contents of Harry’s wallet and noticed that there was a spare house key in the change pouch, plus his Toyota key, and the Grand Am key for his government car—but no spare key for his camper. If there had been a spare camper key, someone had taken it, and not the state police, who already had his camper key from the key chain. Therefore, another party may have removed the key from his wallet in order to move the camper away from the Custer Hill property. And who could that be?

  Kate said, “Nothing here that looks unusual, out of place, or tampered with, but I’ll bet there was something on the cameras that was erased.”

  I replied, “More likely the disk, tape, and Memory Stick were removed and replaced with spares that Harry would be carrying.”

  Kate nodded. “So the lab won’t be able to pull up any erased images.”

  “I think not.”

  I picked up Harry’s cell phone and turned it on, then scrolled through his recent incoming calls.

  There was his girlfriend Lori Bahnik’s call at 9:16 A.M. Saturday in response to Harry’s call to her at 7:48 A.M., followed by ten more calls from Lori beginning on Saturday afternoon after she’d gotten his text message at 4:02 P.M., then all day Sunday, and even today, Monday.

  Then there was the duty officer Ken Reilly’s call to Harry at 10:17 P.M. Sunday night in response to Lori’s call to the ATTF office.

  The next incoming call to Harry’s phone was at 10:28 P.M. Sunday from a New Jersey number. I said to Kate, “Isn’t this Walsh’s home number?”

  “It is.”

  “But he said he didn’t call Harry until he got to the office this morning.”

  “Apparently, he lied.”

  “Right . . . and here’s Walsh’s call to Harry this morning . . . and before that, Ken Reilly was calling through the night from 26 Fed.”

  She didn’t reply for a while, then said, “It would seem that there is a higher level of concern than Tom Walsh has led us to believe.”

  “That’s an understatement.” I added, “The fact that Walsh has been bullshitting us leads me to conclude that this was not a routine surveillance.”

  “I think we already know that.”

  I looked again at Harry’s cell phone and saw my call to him on Sunday afternoon when I suggested we make hunter’s stew, then my final call at 9:45 this morning. After that, there were a few more calls from Lori.

  Kate was staring at the cell phone. “This is so sad . . .”

  I nodded. I didn’t have Harry’s password, so I couldn’t play any of his messages, but I knew the Tech people would be able to do that.

  I scrolled through Harry’s recently dialed numbers and saw the call he made to Lori Bahnik at 7:48 A.M. on Saturday morning, then the text message on Saturday afternoon at 4:02 P.M., then nothing.

  I was about to shut off the phone when it rang, startling both of us.

  I looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Lori Bahnik. I glanced at Kate, and I could tell she was upset.

  I considered answering the call, but I wasn’t prepared to deliver the news with Harry’s body five feet away. I shut off the phone and put it back on the gurney.

  I glanced at my watch. It wouldn’t be much longer before the state police and FBI agents arrived from Albany. Plus, the two guys from the Task Force must have landed at Saranac Lake airport by now. I wondered who Walsh had sent to replace us. Probably people who followed orders.

  I said to Kate, “Let’s look at his clothing before the fuzz arrive.”

  She went to the sink and washed the mentholated jelly off her lip while I took the opportunity to pocket the terrain map. Taking evidence from a crime scene is a felony, but I thought I might need the map and justified it by recalling Walsh’s lying to me, and by the fact that I, and not Harry, could have been on that slab.

  Kate was at the second gurney now, sniffing at Harry’s shirt. She said, “I’m not sure . . . this could be tobacco smoke . . .”

  I couldn’t smell anything except the menthol under my nose, but I said, “Who do we know who smokes?”

  She nodded.

  We went through the clothing, piece by piece, noticing the cellophane tape that Dr. Gleason had used to fix the four animal hairs. We weren’t exactly doing anything we weren’t allowed to do, but on the other hand, we weren’t supposed to be here; we were supposed to be at the state police headquarters in Ray Brook. Also, there’s the chain-of-evidence thing, and anyone who handles evidence needs to log in, which we hadn’t done. And then you had the FBI and state police investigators who might not take kindly to seeing us when they arrived. In other words, we were in a sort of gray area, which is where I spend a lot of my time. More important, we had a good jump on this, but now it was time to leave.

  I said to Kate, “Let’s go.”

  But she said, “Look at this.”

  I moved closer to her. She was holding Harry’s camouflage pants, and she had pulled his right-side pocket inside out. “See this?”

  I examined the white pocket lining and saw blue marks that appeared to have been made with a pen.

  Kate said, “These could be letters.”

  Indeed, they could be. As though Harr
y had written on the white fabric with his hand in his pocket. Or, if Harry was as careless as I was, maybe he’d just shoved an uncapped pen in there.

  Kate put the pants on the gurney and we both bent closer, trying to decipher the blue marks, which were definitely ink and did not look random.

  I said to her, “You go first.”

  “Okay . . . there are three groupings of marks . . . the one that is most legible says, M—A—P . . . the next group looks like . . . an N . . . then maybe a U or a V . . . then an asterisk . . . no, a K . . . then the last group looks like . . . E—L—F . . .” She looked at me and said, “Elf?”

  I stared at the ink marks. “M—A—P could be M—A—D. I mean, he’s writing this blind with his hand in his pocket. Right?”

  “Probably . . .”

  “Then, NUK . . . and here’s another mark almost hidden in the seam . . . so . . . maybe NUKE.”

  We looked at each other, then Kate said, “Nuke? Like, nuclear?”

  “I hope not.” I added, “This last one looks clear. ELF.”

  “Yes . . . what was he trying to tell us? Madox? Nuclear? Elf? What is elf? Maybe he was trying to write HELP.”

  “No. This is pretty clear. E—L—F.”

  I glanced at my watch again, then at the door. “We need to get going.” I pushed the pocket liner back into the pants and said, “Let them work for this.”

  We took off the latex gloves and put them in a covered trash can. Then I went to Harry’s body and looked at him. Kate came up beside me and took my arm. I’d be seeing Harry again soon at the funeral home, wearing his old uniform. I said to him, “Thanks for the clue, buddy. We’re on top of this.” I pulled the blue sheet over him and turned toward the door.

  We left the OR and walked quickly down the hallway to the nurses’ station. I said to the state troopers, “Do you have the deceased’s gun and credentials?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I need to take his NYPD shield to give to his family.”

  The guy in charge hesitated, then said, “I’m afraid I can’t do that. You know . . . it’s—”

  “It hasn’t been inventoried yet. Who’s going to know?”