by Nene Adams
“They want the credit, that means they can also take the blame for Barabbas Rickett’s death,” she told Noah and two other deputies, Cynthia Starbuck and Jeeter Murphy, who had descended en masse to tell her the news as soon as she arrived at the sheriff’s office. “I’m not going to fight them. You’ve got to pick your battles, and I’d rather save myself for the budgeting wrangle next month. Starbuck, you send ’em the witness statements, copies of the evidence logs and all the reports before they call and ask. That’ll take some wind out of their sails and make us look competent. Hey, no sulking, boys and girls. We have Reverend Lassiter’s murder to occupy our time, not to mention one or two other things. Deputy Murphy, I do believe it’s your turn to man the speed trap out on the Taliaferro Freeway loop.”
Casting her thundercloud looks, Cynthia and Jeeter went to their tasks.
Noah handed her a mug of coffee, strong and black—the way she liked it. “Doc Vernon called to ask if you want to attend Lassiter’s postmortem today,” he said. “By-the-by, her office has been getting calls from Abner Cutshall and the rest of the church’s congregation, wanting Lassiter’s body released to them for immediate burial. Cutshall is threatening to get an injunction to stop the autopsy.”
“Not gonna happen, no matter what kind of fit he pitches,” Annalee said wryly, taking the mug into her office. Noah followed her inside, shutting the door. She went on, “Abner Cutshall has no grounds for an injunction. Lassiter’s death is clearly murder, unless he shot himself in the throat and managed to conceal his weapon before expiring and unless you think the state-police diver missed a thirty-six-inch-long shotgun on the bottom of Yellow Jacket Pond. And Lassiter’s death sure as hell wasn’t an accident, either. There’s nothing Abner can do. The law’s on our side. The sheriff’s office has an obligation to investigate homicides in Daredevil County, and the medical examiner is legally required to perform autopsies on suspicious deaths. Period. End of statement. Stick it in a box marked ‘Done’.”
“Somebody ought to tell Mr. Cutshall.”
“I aim to, if he tries that moonshine on me. He may be the Great Man of Daredevil County, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the tail wag the dog. This is a homicide investigation, not subject to Cutshall’s influence. Not while I’m still the sheriff, anyhow. Anybody don’t like that, they can stick it where the sun don’t shine.” Annalee tried a sip of coffee, careful not to scald her tongue, and wrinkled her nose at the taste. Somebody had added chicory to the pot. “Anything else I ought to know about?” she asked.
Noah rubbed the back of his neck, his expression suddenly doubtful. “Um, look, Sheriff, about yesterday at the raid—”
“That ship’s sailed, son,” Annalee said, moving around her desk and sitting down.
Her inbox was full, as usual. She noticed that Minnie Hawkins had changed the screensaver on her computer. Instead of a sheriff’s badge bouncing from corner to corner, she now had an illustrated Tarzan swinging on a vine. Each arc blew up his leopard-spotted loincloth, revealing a different cartoon phallic symbol between his thighs—a stick of celery, a power drill, a rocket. It was unsubtle, crude and hilarious, like Minnie herself.
She made a mental note to shut off her computer before any meetings with the county’s bigwigs—in her experience, career politicians had no sense of humor—and continued, “If you’d shot Barabbas Rickett, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, right? Dead’s dead. We’ll let the state boys take the fallout for that one. They want the credit, they can take the blame, like I said. However, if there’s a next time when you have to choose between saving a human life and shooting a wolf, even an endangered wolf, I expect you’re goin’ to make a better choice. Is that clear, Deputy? Am I getting through to you?”
“Clear as crystal, Sheriff.”
“Good.”
She leaned back in her chair, drinking her coffee. The biting bitterness suited the darkness of her mood. She felt restless and unsettled. Part of her wanted to strip naked and run through the trees, run headlong into the heart of Malingering Deep while wolves surged around her like a furry tide, just like in her dream. She took a breath and put the coffee mug on her desk. It wasn’t the first time she’d been forced to strangle the impulse to chuck civilization out of the window. The urge was something she had known all her life—the beckoning, near-irresistible call of the wild, wild wood.
“Come with me to the postmortem,” she said at last. “After, we’ll go have a talk with the reverend’s widow and your Uncle Ezra.”
“You think Ezra’s involved in Lassiter’s death?” Noah asked, frowning.
“If this is going to be a conflict of interest—”
“No, ma’am, no, don’t think so. That’s not worrying me one bit,” Noah said, throwing up a hand as if to ward off her query. “If a Skinner was responsible, if they broke the law, they have to pay. That’s a no-brainer.”
“I’m so glad you approve.” Annalee winced at how dry she sounded. “You have any idea why Lassiter preached against the Skinners? I heard he could be pretty scathing.”
Noah shook his head. “Who told you that?”
“Common knowledge.” Actually, she’d gotten the story of Lassiter’s vituperative denunciations of the “generation of vipers” from her hairdresser, who had heard about it from her cousin’s wife, Jane Darnell, the church’s hired cleaning lady, who was apparently an incurable eavesdropper.
“Lassiter had something against my uncle,” Noah admitted, “but I don’t know the details.” He scrubbed a palm over his hair. “Really, Sheriff, I’m just a Whitlock to them. There’s family things they don’t share with anybody who ain’t a Skinner, and that’s a fact.”
“I reckon Ezra will have more information.” Annalee swallowed another mouthful of coffee, grabbed the fried egg sandwich Minnie had left wrapped in a paper napkin next to her outbox and stood up. She would deal with the never-ending paperwork later. “Let’s head over to the morgue. Doc prefers to do her cutting early.”
The county morgue wasn’t her favorite place. The puke- green walls, black-and-white linoleum floors, missing or stained ceiling tiles, maze of corroded pipes, fluorescent lights, the pervading scents of disinfectant and death—these things never failed to make a cold, sick feeling blossom in the pit of her stomach. Glad she’d finished the sandwich in the car, she went in through the front door and showed her ID at the security desk.
She was waved through by a uniformed guard. The man paid scant attention to her or Noah. He was knitting a red, white and blue scarf and watching a football game on a laptop.
The walk down the corridor always gave her the heebie-jeebies. The atmosphere was too cold and too clammy for comfort—and far too quiet for her nerves. The clicking of her shoe heels echoed hollowly with each step.
Going through the swinging doors and entering the autopsy room, she automatically reached for the industrial-sized jar of Vicks mentholated salve standing on a shelf. The sharp, eye-watering eucalyptus fragrance scoured the back of her throat, but it helped cut the sickening smell of decomposition. Floaters were notoriously nauseating.
Noah smeared a fingerful of glistening Vaporub beneath his nose as well.
Dr. Betty Vernon stood beside a gleaming steel autopsy table. The fluorescent lights overhead and the green scrubs she wore deepened the dark color of her skin to a hue approaching ebony, relieved by the hot pink slash of her lipsticked mouth. “We discovered something interesting when we washed the victim’s body,” she said without preamble.
Annalee moved closer to the table and looked at the body of Reverend John Lassiter, bloated and monstrous in the harsh light. Betty had already made a Y incision from shoulder to shoulder meeting at the breastbone. The cut angled into a straight slash arrowing to the pubic bone. The soft tissue had been peeled back and the ribcage cut away to expose the internal organs. An overpowering stench drifted from the open cavity, strong enough to linger on the back of her tongue. Not her first postmortem examination, but she a
lready regretted eating that greasy fried egg sandwich for breakfast.
Betty indicated the victim’s flaccid arm, the bicep marred by an age-blurred United States Marine Corps tattoo. “Note the unusual coloration of the skin,” she said.
“To be honest, I don’t see anything special, what with all the decomp.” Annalee accepted the magnifying glass Betty offered and examined Lassiter’s arm, wrist and hand. After a moment, she was forced to shrug. “Sorry. You want to clue me in here?”
“It turns out Reverend Lassiter was using some kind of cosmetic base, probably theatrical.” At Annalee’s blank look, Betty went on, “Greasepaint, Sheriff. Insoluble in water. When we cleaned the body, we found greasepaint on his face, neck and hands. He was covering up his skin. I’ll send a sample of the cosmetic to the state lab for analysis, but I have a feeling it’s going to be a common variety, impossible to trace.”
Annalee looked at the corpse again, somewhat bewildered by Betty’s statement. “Was he…oh, hell, you know what I mean, was he trying to pass?”
“You mean was he a black man trying to pass for white?” Betty smiled, seemingly amused by her attempt at delicacy. “No, he’s definitely Caucasian. The victim wasn’t a transvestite, either, in case that’s your next question. At first I thought the discoloration was due to cyanosis, but then I remembered a case study I’d read recently and did a punch biopsy on his skin. Lassiter was attempting to conceal a medical condition.”
“What condition?”
“Argyria, a non-reversible, rare cutaneous discoloration. The skin turns a bluish-gray color due to the ingestion of silver salts over a period of time,” Betty explained. “Silver particles have collected in high concentrations in the victim’s perifollicular sheaths, capillary walls, elastic fibers, macrophages and fibroblasts and in the basal lamina of the epidermis and blood vessels. There was also about a gram of unabsorbed silver in the small intestine. X-ray microanalysis confirmed it.”
“Silver does all that?” Annalee frowned. She felt Noah leaning closer to her, his body heat a blast of warmth against her side.
“The culprit’s probably colloidal silver,” Betty said. “I’ll send the stomach contents and blood to the lab for toxicology. Judging from the argyria’s severity, our victim’s been taking a silver-laced solution for quite some time, possibly years. I even found granular silver in his eyes, a condition called ocular argyrosis. Unless he worked in a silver mine, which I doubt, I’m opting for the most likely source, which is colloidal silver. It used to be employed as a water purifier, but these days is mainly sold as a homeopathic medicine meant to improve health, cure diseases and allergies. That’s pure snake oil. The only thing you can get from ingesting silver is permanently blue-gray skin.”
“Okay, I’ll bear that in mind. Did you find water in the lungs?” Annalee asked.
“No. The victim wasn’t breathing when he went into the water. The cause of death was hemorrhagic shock, as I stated at the scene. Traumatic injury of the external carotid artery resulted in exsanguination. Death occurred approximately six to seven days ago.” Betty pushed back the flap of skin and tissue that had obscured Lassiter’s face, revealing the man’s slack features. “The throat wound has abundant gunpowder residue, so the shooting occurred at very close range and at an angle suggesting the killer stood over the victim, who was lying flat on his back on the ground with his head turned slightly to one side.”
“That much I already figured,” Annalee said.
Betty gave her a faint smile of approval before continuing. “I recovered pellets from the wound as well as fragments of wadding. The killer used a twenty-gauge shotgun. During the autopsy, I also discovered basilar skull fractures, but those injuries occurred perimortem.”
“Fracturing the base of the skull takes considerable force.”
“Yes, it does. In this case, when the killer shot the victim at close range, the projectiles permitted the entry of gasses sufficient to shatter the skull.”
Annalee nodded. “Anything else?” she asked.
“Another oddity. See here?” Betty pointed at the ragged upper edge of the throat wound. “The perimeter here is too irregular, like it’s been…well, chewed up is the best description I can use. Not something I’d expect to see in a GSW.”
Annalee used the magnifying glass to look at the area. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear this was an exit wound,” she said at last.
“It’s not, believe me. The victim was definitely facing his killer.”
“What about those little wounds on his shins and calves?”
Betty had begun stripping off her purple gloves. She paused. “Dog bites would be my best guess. Well, nips, actually. The bruising is fresh. There’s no sign of healing, so they must have occurred perimortem or just prior to death.” She tossed the gloves into a disposal bin.
“You’re kidding.”
“I’ve seen it before. Some dogs are aggressive. They nip to keep the owner in line.”
“Didn’t know you were an animal behaviorist.” Noah’s brows tightened in a frown.
Annalee registered the slight hostility in his tone and wondered why.
“My ex-husband owned a chihuahua with a serious attitude problem. Little ankle biter thought he was a pit bull.” Betty turned her attention to Annalee. “I sent a sample of the hair caught on the silver chain to the lab. From a simple microscopic examination, I can tell you it’s not human. The rest will have to wait until the results come back, but my bet’s on canine.”
“Okay, that’s good enough for a start. CSU has a picture of the chain. I’ll get a copy and see if the victim’s family can identify it. Thanks, Doc.”
Betty waved at them in clear dismissal, her attention already switching to Igor, who had entered the morgue carrying a folded paper bag with an ominous stain on the side.
Annalee hurried away, grateful to escape from the morgue. She felt as if she had been in there for hours. From his hasty steps, Noah felt the need for fresh air too.
She stood in the parking lot, wiping the Vicks off her upper lip with a paper napkin. Noah stood beside her, as rigid as a statue. He seemed offended, but by what, she couldn’t tell. She decided to ignore him for the time being. There was no point stirring up trouble. If Noah had a problem with Doc Vernon, she would hear about it eventually.
“Get that picture from CSU,” she told him after settling her hat on her head. “I’ll wait for you out here. After that, we’ll go have a talk with Lassiter’s wife.”
Noah reluctantly returned to the squat building, a seventies’ monstrosity composed of thrusting angles, embellished concrete block and smoked glass. Annalee looked away from the offensive sight—the polyester-and-love-beads-wearing architect had probably been smoking “wacky tobaccy” when he designed the morgue way back when—and instead gazed at a straggling fringe of pines separating the parking lot from the busy street on the other side.
It was early in the day, but it was already hot enough for her to imagine the gasping heat that would beat down before lunchtime. She turned when she caught motion in her peripheral vision. Her fingers drifted to her belt, just above the butt of her gun.
A woman in her mid-twenties walked across the white-lined asphalt toward her. The newcomer was average height and sturdily built, with short, stocky legs, a long torso and the barest indentation of a waist. She wore faded jeans and a flannel shirt open at the throat. Her hair was thick and wheat-blonde, cut to just below shoulder length.
As the stranger drew closer, Annalee saw her eyes were brown. She noticed a family resemblance to Noah Whitlock and guessed the woman was probably a Skinner.
She thought the stranger appeared very familiar, although she remained blank as to when and where she might have seen her before. Movement on her other side diverted her attention. She relaxed slightly when she recognized Noah exiting the building, holding a manila envelope. He spotted the young woman and stopped, smiling hesitantly.
“Cousin Lunella, what are you doing
here?” he asked.
Lunella! That was the name of the Skinner girl from high school, Annalee recalled. She studied Lunella, comparing her to memory. The gawky, awkward girl had grown into a pretty good-looking woman. Actually, a damn fine woman. The heavy bones that had been too blunt for a teenager’s face now lent an agreeably sculpted aspect to the adult countenance. While Lunella was husky and broad shouldered with very few feminine curves, she was nevertheless powerfully attractive.
Annalee tried hard not to stare and told herself not to drool.
“Hey, cuz. I was looking for the sheriff,” Lunella replied, her generous mouth curving into a cool answering smile.
“You found her,” Annalee said, fascinated by the faint blush that crept up Lunella’s neck to stain her cheeks pink. “What can I do for you, Miz Skinner?”
“Oh!” Lunella blushed brighter. “Yeah, well, I heard y’all found Reverend Lassiter over to Yellow Jacket Pond yesterday.”
Annalee tilted her head, waiting for Lunella to continue. She had learned early in her career that if she kept her mouth shut and pulled an air of expectation around herself, most people felt almost compelled to fill up the silence with words. Noah stirred beside her. She stilled him with what she hoped was a subtle gesture.
When Lunella spoke, the words came out in a staccato rush, as if they had been memorized from a script. “Anyhow, Uncle Ezra sent me to say that he’ll be home today after two o’clock, on account of he’s gone up to Mercy Ridge to check his traps. And you ain’t s’posed to question Matthew, Mark or Luke unless he’s there or Aunt Rebecca is there ’cause the boys are underage, and he says if you go over to the house and do anythin’ without his permission, he’ll hire the slickest lawyer in Huntswell to sue your ass.”
“Uh-huh.” Annalee bit back a smile. “You can tell your uncle that if it makes him feel better, he can have a lawyer present when I question him and his boys. That’s his right.”
