A Breck Death (Jill Quint, MD, Forensic Pathologist Series Book 3)

by Peche, Alec

  A Breck Death

  By Alec Peche

  Text Copyright © September 2014 Alec Peche

  Reprint May 2015

  Published by GBSW Publishing

  DiscoverVIALSandCHOCOLATE Diamonds also by Alec Peche

  Thank you for downloading this eBook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

  Table of contents

  A Breck Death

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  A Breck Death

  Prologue

  Joseph Morton was skiing down the final eighty yards to the bottom of the chairlift for peak six. As usual the sky was a very pretty blue with fluffy clouds that were blowing by fast as the wind was howling. It would be even worse at the top of the mountain. Joe would just have to grin and bear it until he could drop below the peak and gain some cover from the wind. Not many skiers were on this lift today as it was midweek, and this particular mountain wisely scared off intermediate skiers. Lots of chairs traveled up the mountain empty. It was steep just below the top of the lift and that steepness could be seen below at the lift line. Then there was the sign at the chairlift advising advanced skiers only. Colorado had more than usual snowfall for November, so the resort had opened early for the season.

  Joseph liked this chair because the lines were short to non-existent and the mountain offered a challenge. He hadn’t fallen on it the previous ten times he skied it, but he could increase the difficulty by increasing his speed and being more aggressive at attacking the mountain. His partner was giving his legs a break today and he was shopping in town. Usually they skied together, but today he had the mountain to himself.

  Seated next to Joseph was a complete stranger. If you knew the mountain, then you liked to have someone on the lift with you as it reduced the chair swinging in the wind. At 12,000 feet of altitude, it didn’t take much for nausea to hit and a swinging chair could put him over the edge. Silence reigned on the chair with each man in his own thoughts. Perhaps thinking about the ski run or maybe about a problem at work or home, or just happily enjoying good music coming through the ear buds. With all of the clothing, helmets, goggles, and gloves that people wore on the mountain it was hard to tell age and sometimes even the gender of the people on the chairlifts.

  The chair hit the fiercest part of the wind and swung back and forth as they hit the last pole of the lift before the top. He had always liked the juxtaposition of the strongest wind hitting the chair while the ski resort provided the helpful signage that you could raise the restraining bar on the chair. As if you would want to do without your restraining bar, exactly when you feel like the wind is going to dump you off the chair.

  Joseph exited to the right. He usually skied to the left as he loved the steep bowl, but on the right side, it was a little less steep and a skier reached the trees sooner. After this run, he was planning to head back to the intermediate runs as his legs were tired from the aggressive day. After adjusting his gear at the top in the wind, he just wanted to get below the summit. He started off heading straight down, doing just enough turns to slow his speed to his comfort zone. He would stop and catch his breath midway down since by then he would be out of the wind, but he would also be low on oxygen with his leg muscles pumping hard on the way down.

  Joseph reached an area of less wind and took some gulping breaths of the thin cold air. He could see the fall line below him with the clear visibility of a sunny day. He looked over his shoulder before starting up again to avoid any collisions with other uphill skiers close by. His chair mate from the lift had stopped just above him and also seemed to be taking a break. He didn’t see any other skiers around which was surprising, but then he looked over at the chairlift in the distance and it was stopped - that would certainly prevent people from reaching this path. He pushed off and descended into a lower altitude where trees actually had enough water and warmth to live and grow. Based on the pattern of tree growth, it would seem that the snow on this particular trail rarely melted enough for trees to flourish.

  Joseph continued farther down to where the trees grew heavier, looking for a place to ski inside the forest. Sometimes you could feel a little like James Bond skiing through the trees flying over some bumps, ducking under branches, almost losing control, while some mad psychotic assassin was on your heels. Joseph had to smile at his fanciful imagination. Whatever motivated you to have a good time flying through the trees. He located the end of his tree ski run up ahead and thought too bad it’s over, this was fun.

  Those happy thoughts were pretty much his last thoughts as he felt a strong pinch in the center of his back. Given the trees and his speed he couldn’t afford to look back and see what had caused that discomfort, and then it didn’t matter as he felt his legs collapse underneath him. He keeled over on his skis, lying next to a tree, with his hand on his chest. He couldn’t move, he tried to reach his cell phone to call for help but his arm didn’t follow his brain’s commands. He felt like he was suffocating, unable to draw a breath. Then the panic was over as he lost consciousness from the lack of oxygen feeding his body.

  The stranger who had shot him in the back with the veterinary dart gun just waited, watching the minute hand on his watch. He unscrewed the scope of the gun in well-practiced moves, and fit it back inside his backpack. He moved closer noting the man’s eyes were open and unblinking and removed the dart from Joseph’s back. He wanted it to look like just another heart attack on the mountain and leaving a dart filled with curare would dispel that theory. When ten minutes had passed he sent a text to someone else, and a minute later the ski lift resumed its motion, and he continued down the mountain. He wondered when the body would be discovered, when would the next skier with a desire for tree skiing take this particular path and come upon his target?

  It turned out to be about three hours. Joseph didn’t appear at the cabin he and his partner, David, shared. When he didn’t answer his cell phone, David contacted the ski patrol. They organized a search and rescue group up on the mountain. Since Joseph was wearing a multi-day pass ticket, the ski resort tracked every run he took and was able to identify that his last chairlift was to peak six. The group was soon searching both sides of the lift, checking close to all the tree bases as that was typically how skiers were injured. His cold body was found shortly thereafter. Apparently, no one else had had a desire to tree ski in that particular location that day, or he would have been found sooner.

  Chapter One

  Jill had been home from Belgium for about two months. She had taken a small, simple, case verifying the cause of death for a widow. Her husband of fifty-one years really had died of heart failure. All the signs were there in the medical record. He was increasingly tired and in pain. The week before he died, he was very short of breath despite having oxygen in the home. He had even signed a do not resuscitate order. His widow was suspicious of her stepchildren and wanted to make sure
that none of them had hastened his death.

  Jill had felt more like a grief counselor than a pathologist on this case. She had refused to charge the woman since it was such an open and shut case. Even the stepchildren had felt bad for their stepmother’s feeling over the loss of her husband. The County had determined there was no statutory requirement to do an autopsy and his body had been resting at a mortuary in a town close to the Palisades Valley, her hometown. She agreed with the coroner and had not wanted to do an autopsy on the man. Instead she sat down with the medical record and went through his case with the widow. This helped her see that his death had been entirely natural, and in fact perhaps he might have wanted to go a few days earlier. The hospice nurse had tried to perform the same service for the widow, but it took the assurance of a complete stranger to convince her all was according to God’s plan and no-one else’s.

  She had been working on her vineyard in the interim, trimming the vines as they headed into their dormant season. Jill had planted another half-acre of vines that would take five years to mature and become production ready. She had nearly sold out of her first vintage of wine after five months and so she knew she needed to increase production. She would have to purchase grape juice of the varietals she planted as a stop-gap measure until she could increase her own production when the vines matured.

  Jill was a part time vintner and part time private consultant in the field of forensic pathology. Grieving families and friends made calls to her to assist with autopsies and death investigations. She was averaging about one case per month. When she was on a case, she might work twelve or more hour days for a week ignoring the vineyard.

  She took off her gloves, sunglasses shielding her green eyes, the hairband holding the blond hair back from her forty-something face and walked inside the house with Trixie, her energetic Dalmatian, for lunch and a tall drink of lemonade. She saw the message light was blinking on her house phone which also served as her business phone for both her consulting business and the vineyard.

  She pressed the button and heard a man’s voice.

  “Hello Dr. Quint, my name is David Gomez and I would like to speak with you. My partner of almost twenty years, Joseph Morton died unexpectedly on a ski slope in Colorado yesterday. I understand you provide a second opinion on the cause of death and I need your help.”

  Mr. Gomez had provided his number and ended the call.

  On the surface, the case intrigued her. She had been skiing at several resorts in Colorado. In fact she had been skiing for over twenty years. Late November was an early time to be skiing, but she had watched the ski reports and knew that the snow had come early this year. She would call Mr. Gomez now.

  “Hello,” said a male voice.

  “I would like to speak to David Gomez.”

  “Speaking,” the male voice again said, strain coming over the lines in just that one syllable.

  “Hello Mr. Gomez, I am Dr. Quint. I am sorry for your loss.”

  “Please call me David and I am having a hard time believing that Joseph is dead. When I couldn’t sleep last night, I did a little searching on the internet and found your name. I need professional help navigating the cause of death with Joseph.”

  Jill knew this was going to be a long conversation and so she settled her five-feet-three-inch frame on to one of her breakfast bar chairs with pad and pencil in hand. Jill gave an overview of her consulting service, her fees, and what her standard contract entailed. Business out of the way, they moved on to the case at hand.

  “David, tell me about Joseph and yourself. How long have you been together, what are your ages, do you have extended family, what are your occupations, what is your level of physical fitness, and ski ability?”

  “Joseph and I live in Boulder, Colorado, but we have a second home in the Breck area as we love to ski in the winter, and hike in the summer. Joseph has a PhD in chemistry and he is the CEO of Broomfield Pharmaceuticals which creates and sells cellular solutions like DNA modifications for Cancer treatment. I teach high school math as a substitute teacher in the Denver public schools. I work full time, but I can take a week off when Joseph and I want to travel during the school year.

  “We met in college at the University of Colorado and have been together ever since which is about twenty years. We were married last year when the laws in Colorado were changed. We are both in our early forties and we are fitness freaks - we love to play any sport from tennis to softball to Ultimate Frisbee. We ski, hike, and run triathlons. I am of Hispanic heritage whereas Joseph is half Asian half black. We never adopted any children, but we both have extended families with siblings, parents, cousins, etc.

  “It is because we are fitness freaks that I can’t believe that Joseph had a heart attack up on the mountain, which was what was relayed to me by the search and rescue team that found Joseph. We were both in excellent health, taking no medications. It won’t bring Joseph back, but I need to know what happened and I want it verified by an outside source.

  “Yesterday, I took a break from skiing, choosing instead to get some maintenance done at our cabin and spend time in town so Joseph was skiing by himself. When he didn’t return to the cabin within forty-five minutes of the lifts closing, I called his cell phone and the call went unanswered. I raised the alarm with the ski patrol and they found him on one of the ski runs of peak six. He appeared to have been dead for several hours and a heart attack is suspected as it was clear that he hadn’t hit a tree. That was all speculation on their part of course and a coroner down in Golden is actually determining the cause of death.”

  “Joseph sounds like a wonderful friend and partner and I will do what I can for him and for you to give you what little consolation you might find through my evaluation. I agree with you that it is hard to believe he would have a heart attack up on the mountain, but that may be what I confirm for you.”

  “Thank you and I understand that this is very likely a wild goose chase, but I need to do something besides planning for his funeral.”

  “I understand. I will send you a contract for my services, and paperwork that gives me permission to speak to the coroner, conduct an autopsy, obtain his medical records. Once you return it to me, I will coordinate with the coroner and your funeral home to be as least a disruption as possible. If there are airline seats available, I’ll be there tonight, but no later than tomorrow morning”.

  “I’ll look for your paperwork and sign what I need to and have it back to you quickly. Let me know when you arrive in Breck.”

  “David, I like to communicate frequently with my clients. For types of information like my arrival, I’ll text you, as well as when I complete the exam. We’ll spend time together in person as necessary and I’ll keep you informed of bigger topics by phone until the case concludes. Talk to you soon”

  Jill ended the phone call. She had a lot to do in the next few hours. She would start by getting to David, the paperwork she needed to start moving on the case. She was pleased to hear that they were married as it made all of the authorizations so much easier. She would give Nathan a call canceling their date and drop Trixie off to stay with him. Then she would email a note to Angela, Jo, and Marie giving them advance notice about the case, just in case she needed their help.

  She also thought she would notify Nick Brouwer. During their last big case in Belgium, the women had met Nick when they needed his help with security in Amsterdam. He had fit in nicely with the group and he and Angela were exploring a relationship even though they lived four thousand miles apart. He had wanted to become a member of her team on the right case to give him an opportunity to try working in the U.S. He had a potential partnership to open a branch in America, but neither had a feel for operating a business in the U.S. As she recalled, they had spoken of skiing one night, so he might enjoy this part of the country. Airfare, however, would be dreadfully expensive for a last minute flight and it wouldn’t be fair to stick a client with that bill, so she doubted she would see him.

  She added David
and Joseph’s names where appropriate to her forms and the contract and emailed them to David. Once she had a signed contract she would start making reservations for air, hotel, and car. Sometimes an autopsy provided conclusive evidence, and in other cases, she found it helpful to visit the crime scene. For now, she would hold on packing her ski equipment which she would need if she had to inspect the location where they had found Joseph. Besides as a result of the footprints and ski tracks from the rescue operation yesterday, the crime scene would be very contaminated. It might have snowed overnight which would further hide any evidence.

  She picked up her phone and called Nathan. Nathan had been her boyfriend of over a year. They kept separate residences mostly due to the nature of their businesses and likely a need for personal space. He was a world class wine label artist and needed space for his studio and for the printing services for his labels and marketing materials that he designed for clients. Jill had property that her vineyards were planted on, and in one of her outbuildings she had an extensive lab for running testing for her consulting business. At the moment, the separate residences were working just fine for the two of them. He was her version of tall, dark, and handsome and his artistic personality was a nice off-set to her science based personality.

  “Hey sweetie it’s me. Did I get you at a good time?”

  “Yeah, I was just about to break for lunch. I just finished a new label for one of the clients I visited while I stayed in Germany. What’s up?”

  “Is that the label for the new beer that your German winemaker is trying to enter the market with?”

  “Yes, it has been interesting to think about a glass design that will fit the beer in addition to the beer bottle’s label. Wine labels are less complicated than beer labels. Are we on for dinner at seven tonight?”

  “Sorry, probably not. That is what I am calling about. I just picked up a new case. As soon as I receive a signed contract back, I’ll try to make plane reservations for Denver tonight or early tomorrow.”