Body Brace (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 10)

by Patricia McLinn

  “Like around the body,” Jennifer said morosely.

  “Yup, which was situated where most of the riders curved around the edge of the rock formation — a blind curve. They were on the body before they saw it.”

  “Listen to you — figuring all that out from tracks. Elizabeth Margaret Danniher, a regular mountain man — mountain woman.”

  Modesty and accuracy demanded I demur with, “Common sense.”

  “You couldn’t have started with this information and skipped the stuff about the body decomposing?” Jennifer asked.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Both are important. Another question is how would somebody get a body up there? Horseback from the west side, like the reenactors did, but carrying a body? Especially if it was already in that position. And if it wasn’t, the killer posed him that way. Though how or why… Besides it’s even steeper on the east approach. I don’t see how a horse, much less a vehicle—”

  “Horses could get up there easy, whether with a body tied on or the victim riding in alive, killing him, then leading out the dead guy’s horse. So can a truck or other vehicle get up there. All you do is start farther away than where the camp was held. That way—”

  I remembered the utility vehicle swinging east before it started the climb to the butte, but had been too occupied to follow its entire track.

  “—you’re not trying to go straight up. You go on a wide diagonal. It’s easier on the west side, but either direction, if you come in from the side and angle your way in, you can do it. Heck, I’ve seen a passenger car do it by starting far enough away.”

  “You drove up there?”

  “Yeah. But not the passenger car.”

  “Why? Not why didn’t you drive a passenger car, but why you drove there at all.”

  “We were kids. Horsing around. Looking for a place we wouldn’t be bothered.”

  “Where deputies or parents wouldn’t see the vehicles, wouldn’t realize a bunch of us were together,” Jennifer added.

  “You, too?”

  “Sure. It was a hangout spot.”

  “Did anyone ever go into that cave?”

  “Yeah,” Mike said.

  “Some did,” Jennifer said.

  “Nobody saw anything?”

  “Not that I ever heard and we would have heard about a body for sure. We never stayed long. That cave’s known for rock slides. Would’ve been dangerous.”

  “Saw evidence of slides,” I said. “Looks like some covered up the body, but more recent ones might be what exposed it enough to be spotted.”

  “Took eagle-eyed Elizabeth Margaret Danniher.” Mike chuckled.

  “Lucky me.”

  “How are you going to figure out who it is?”

  “The sheriff’s department has a huge advantage on us. They’ll likely have an ID from the wallet long before we’d get something. Best idea I’ve had so far is to try to narrow the time period the body might be from to have a better idea if it might be connected to the recent disappearance.”

  “Could be from really long ago and the new dead guy could have been killed in a feud over an archaeological find,” Jennifer proposed.

  “Archaeological find wearing blue jeans from Sears?” Mike asked.

  “Still could be really, really old,” she protested. “Didn’t they have that catalog forever? I remember Mrs. P talking about it.”

  “Checking dates for Sears jeans is on my list. I’ll try to get more insight from Aunt Gee and Mrs. Parens at lunch tomorrow. I’m taking them to Ernie’s.”

  “Aunt Gee is letting you take her out for Sunday lunch?”

  “Practically insisted on it. Especially Mrs. P’s participation. Gee’s covering the afternoon shift, so she wouldn’t have been doing one of her Sunday extravaganzas no matter what.”

  Mike sighed. “I sure do miss those.”

  “Putting aside your stomach, let’s get back to the dead guy we’re thinking is Palmer Rennant. Jennifer, that’s great that you can run a background check from there. If you run into any issues—”

  “No problem. My guys can help and Dale will research for me if I need local information.”

  “Be careful how much and what you ask of him.” Her fellow news aide would do anything for her and wasn’t as adept at avoiding detection as she was. “Don’t want him to lose his job.”

  She perked up. “Hey, you didn’t say don’t hack.”

  “That, either. Another big factor to tackle is when Rennant was last seen. Along with rigor mortis, knowing his movements might narrow the possible time of death a lot. Diana and I will work on that, but law enforcement is far better equipped for it.”

  “Then we weasel it out of them,” Jennifer said with full confidence.

  “When you come back tomorrow, you can be in charge of weaseling.”

  “You’ve a far better weaseler than I am—” She meant it as a compliment. “—but about tomorrow … I’m staying a couple extra days.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I talked to Mom and Dad and… I’m going to Northwestern Monday. It’s right here in Evanston, so it’s not a big deal.”

  “Oh.” That came out in an entirely different tone.

  Jennifer had shown no interest that I knew of in a four-year degree. Although she had shown interest in the journalism tenets I’d shared with her. And Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism was one of the top, if not the top journalism program.

  “They have this program I heard about from a guy at the robotic place,” she added.

  Oh. Gone was the heady momentary thought that she wanted to follow in the Danniher footsteps.

  “It’s a great school,” Mike chimed in. “A degree from there—”

  “I don’t know about the whole degree thing. I’m not a kid like the freshmen.”

  A whole year, maybe two older.

  “You have a lot of interests. Northwestern has a great journalism program, too.” Yes, I slid it in there like a pushy parent trying not to be overtly pushy.

  “Maybe a combo program.” That came from Mike.

  “It’s just talking. I pushed back my return flight before I knew you’d find two dead bodies. And we’re going to a play and the Art Institute tomorrow, so I can’t do as much as usual until I get back.”

  I fought off a defensive urge to say I hadn’t found Palmer Rennant — the riders had. “Doing the background check would be great, but don’t let that stop you from enjoying the rest of your time.”

  After we ended the call, I covered Shadow’s nighttime routine, which included a special treat. I gave it to him once and forevermore it was part of his routine. Which made it part of mine, unless I wanted to be stared at reproachfully into the wee hours.

  Upstairs, I got ready and settled into bed, breaking that rule about not looking at screens before sleeping by checking my phone.

  I had a message I hadn’t noticed while talking with Mike and Jennifer.

  You okay? asked Tom Burrell.

  A stampede of replies about being a hard-bitten journalist on the trail of a story, about looking for murderers before, about taking care of myself streamed through my head, competing with striving for at least neutral to preserve my connection with his daughter.

  I wrote back, Just fine. Tamantha?

  Unruffled.

  Of course. Tell her chili was sold in stands in San Antonio, Texas in the mid-1800s, but recipes could be a century older.

  I’d taken a moment for a little non-murder-related research.

  Will tell her. Explanation?

  Ask Tamantha.

  Good night.

  I didn’t respond.

  It was too … something … messaging him good night from between the sheets.

  DAY FOUR

  SUNDAY

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I woke to a nightmare — Thurston from the night before.

  Thurston Fine had ambitions to move up and out, but he also had the ineffable look of an anchor aging in place.
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br />   It’s as if they become molded to the anchor chair, caught in a time period just in the rearview mirror. Not notably dated, but ever so lightly shellacked.

  It happens in any size market, this aging in place. Sometimes with those who are in or have adopted a hometown. Or who have found their level, know it, accept it, are satisfied with it.

  Thurston Fine did not know he was aging in place. Oblivious, as to many things.

  For the first time, it struck me that I, too, might have acquired that lightly shellacked appearance. Or soon would.

  After all, I’d told my stand-in agent — the friend of the family who’d stepped in when my divorce claimed an agent as well as a husband, career, and a few other items — to stop looking for new positions, in addition to telling Mike no thanks when he said his Chicago station expressed interest in my work.

  I looked at the clock and got out of bed.

  No time for meandering thoughts. Even before my lunch with the ladies of O’Hara Hill, I had questions to ask.

  The first was answered by checking the sheriff’s department website. They’d made the identification official.

  Next, to read Needham Bender’s special edition of the Independence.

  No ID there. At least the sheriff’s department hadn’t played favorites with the media.

  * * * *

  “Dex, I need information on rigor mortis.”

  Not the conversational opener you might use with most people, especially on a Sunday morning, but it was perfect for Dex, who doesn’t believe in chit-chat or much else having to do with social interaction, and does believe in science. Especially science having to do with the murdered and tracking down who murdered them.

  That helps makes him a wiz in the FBI’s lab. It’s also taught prosecutors not to use him as a witness if they can help it. He’s too interested in the science. Not only does he not favor the prosecution — or the defense — but he can make jurors’ eyes roll back in their heads.

  He’s done that a time or two to me in the years he’s been a source — “unnamed” or background — starting when I was working my way up through the ranks of national reporters. I had him call me Danny then to throw off eavesdroppers or supervisors who might connect him with my reports. He still calls me that, as do others in my circle, who picked it up then.

  Since my fall from the Number One market dropped me here, he’s continued to offer me insight.

  “There is a great deal to be said regarding rigor mortis.” Note that Dex didn’t exclaim over my interest in the subject. To him it was weird when people weren’t interested. “It is a fascinating chemical change. With death, the human body ceases to produce Adenosine Triphosphate, which is necessary for muscles to relax. It is a misnomer to term it as a process that positively stiffens the muscles of the deceased. It is, rather, one that no longer allows them to relax, so that in that absence, they stiffen by default. An entirely different matter, and one which should be fully explained to laymen, especially those in a position where their knowledge of such matters is vital, as I attempted to recently.”

  “Prosecutor wouldn’t let you explain it to a jury?”

  “No. Although the defense attorney did and I thoroughly explained the elegancies of the processes taking place in the body of the deceased.”

  Oh, Dex. I hoped the jury righted their rolled-back eyes and took in the gist of what Dex said, along with his abiding truthfulness, and did not reward the defense attorney’s cleverness in egging Dex on.

  I wasted no sympathy on the prosecutor. He or she was almost certainly a new, hotshot, overconfident jackass, who’d been tempted by the impressive degrees and accolades in Dex’s bio and thought they could handle his testimony when so many before failed.

  I hoped justice had been done, despite cleverness, egos, and earnest scientists.

  “Can you give me a basic timeline — the most basic you’ve ever given — for rigor mortis?”

  “I cannot give you a timeline that would be useful, Danny, without knowing the details of the body and the environment, preferably from being there myself and doing my own examination. Age, weight, percentage of fat, state of fitness, whether the individual had recently completed exercise, disease — each of those greatly affects the timeline of rigor mortis.”

  A lot more variables than I’d thought.

  “And then environmental factors come into play. Heat, cold, whether the body is moved during the process of rigor in such a way as to break the rigor, all alter what is laughingly called the normal timeline.”

  He wasn’t laughing.

  “Let’s start with that normal timeline, Dex. Then we can layer on factors.”

  “Its accuracy is not reliable or—”

  “It gives me a place to start. Please?”

  “Very well. The effects generally show first in the eyelids and are observed to advance to the muscles of the neck and jaw, since smaller muscles demonstrate the cessation of ATP—”

  “ATP?”

  “Adenosine triphosphate, as I said.” He didn’t miss a beat in picking up. “—more quickly than larger muscles.”

  I’ve never understood why medicine insists on speaking Latin when you’re sick. You feel bad enough as it is.

  Or, in this case, dead.

  “Couldn’t see any of that, Dex. The body was face down. In that rough timeline people talk about under normal circumstances—”

  “Normal circumstances,” he scoffed.

  “Isn’t rigor mortis mostly set after twelve hours and remains that way for—?”

  “At least start before twelve hours. From the first ten or so minutes after death, the body begins to cool and rigor is barely noticeable as it gradually affects smaller muscles first, as I said. From approximately—” He said it like a dirty word. “—eight hours to twelve hours after death, the rigor of muscles, including the large ones, becomes advanced. That state remains for an additional period of — again — approximately twelve hours. After that, is a period when the stiffness of the muscles gradually passes off, most often completing that process by thirty-six hours, with that figure shortened or extended by circumstances.”

  “That helps. Thank you for—”

  “However, the grossest assessment that I find helpful—” He did not mean gross as in Jennifer’s eww, but in the sense of undetailed. “—is death came less than three hours earlier if the body feels warm and there is no rigor, death came three to eight hours earlier if the body feels warm and there is stiffness, death came eight to thirty-six hours earlier if the body feels cold and is stiff, death came more than thirty-six hours earlier if the body is cold and not stiff.”

  Rennant’s body had retained enough stiffness to hold that face-down fetal position. That put death most likely eight to thirty-six hours before I saw it. The lower end not as likely, because of the big muscles involved in the position.

  I closed my eyes and saw the paramedic-in-training touching under the chin. Had he started to shake his head then, even before he could have hoped to find a pulse? I was pretty sure he had. Because the skin was cool?

  That would also push the death toward the longer period.

  I needed to talk to him.

  Something Dex said earlier triggered another thought — could Palmer Rennant have climbed up to where he died? I knew first hand that it qualified as vigorous exercise. How would that tie into a timeline?

  “Dex, go back to what you said about exercise and disease. How do they affect the timeline?”

  “Exercise depletes the body of oxygen, which ATP requires, thus advancing the effect of rigor mortis. Drugs that increase body temperature can do that. A disease such as pneumonia, however, generally retards rigor mortis, while Huntingdon’s disease generally accelerates it.”

  I needed to find out about Rennant’s health and fitness.

  “…and if the rigor is broken during that period, say a limb is moved, the rigor does not return.”

  “Wait. Say that again.”

  He did.
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br />   I described the body as I’d seen it, then backed up and described the horses running over it. Finishing with, “Do I understand you correctly, the horses couldn’t have trampled him and still have the body in that position?”

  “Trampled, with their full weight coming down on him, no. Striking glancing blows here and there could affect rigor where the blow fell, while the general position held. The factors I mentioned, as well as the solidity of the surface under the body—”

  Before he took this off in another listing of factors, I said, “That’s very helpful, Dex. Thank you.”

  “Rigor mortis is complex, Danny. The interactions of the factors—”

  “I’m beginning to recognize that, but until I know more so I can ask specific questions, I don’t want to waste your time.”

  “Very well.”

  “Wait,” I called out before he hung up.

  Not in a snit. He just wasn’t wasting his time or mine. That was Dex.

  “Dex, do you have a forensic anthropologist who could look at video of a … a body and give me some information.”

  “Where?”

  “In a cave in Wyoming.”

  “I doubt they’d go to Wyoming.”

  “No, I meant—” Rather than get involved in those details, I shifted. “I’d send the video and talk to them on the phone, wherever they are.”

  “I’ll call you when I have a name.”

  And then he did hang up.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Mrs. Parens and Aunt Gee were both amenable to having lunch out, which we finalized when I called, to coincide with their return home from church.

  Under the theory of being prepared to strike while the iron was hot, I called on my way to O’Hara Hill, which was north of Sherman and far enough west to cozy up to the mountains.