After the Storm

by Linda Castillo

  “Good God, we’re getting old.” Coblentz shakes his head. “His subspecialty, however, is forensic osteology.”

  “The study of bones,” I say. “I’ve been reading up on it.”

  Harris grins. “In other words, I didn’t drive all the way down to Painters Mill to have a drink with an old friend.”

  “Although we may somehow work that in to our schedules,” Coblentz adds.

  I’ve known Doc Coblentz for about four years now, and this is a side of him I’ve not seen. More often than not he’s cranky and grim and not always pleasant to be around. In light of his profession, I’m heartened to see this lighter aspect of his personality.

  Doc Coblentz motions to his office door. “Shall we?”

  We start down the hall, stopping at the alcove where packaged biohazard protection supplies are stored. As we enter, I notice Carmen has set out three sets of protective gear for us. The plastic wrappers crackle as we extract paper gowns, shoe covers, and hair caps. Once we’re suited up, Doc Coblentz hands me a pair of latex gloves and motions toward the autopsy room. “I think you know the way.”

  The autopsy room is about twenty feet square with gray ceramic tile walls and the acoustics of a cave. Despite the cleanliness of the place and a state-of-the-art HVAC system, the first thing I notice upon entering is the lingering smell of death and the equally unpleasant odor of formalin. Fluorescent light illuminates gleaming stainless steel counters. The backsplash is lined with a multitude of small buckets, plastic containers, and assorted apothecary-type jars. Butted against the far wall are two double sinks with arcing faucets. Higher, glass cabinets with stainless steel shelves are organized with bottles and instruments and other tools of the trade. A scale hangs down to about eye level, and I can’t help but notice it’s disturbingly similar to the kind used at the local grocery store.

  There are two stainless steel gurneys in the room. Both are in use, the bodies draped with sheets. I’ve been here enough times, seen enough victims, to know neither body is that of an adult. I assume one is the bones, the other a child. Only then does it strike me that the second body is more than likely that of little Lucy Kester. Something goes cold inside me at the sight of the small, still form. I don’t even realize I’ve stopped until I hear my name.

  “Kate?”

  I look up to see Doc Coblentz looking at me oddly, wondering why I’ve stopped in the middle of the room. “Is that Lucy Kester?” I ask.

  He nods, his expression grim. “Always hate it when children come in.”

  I wonder if he knows I was one of the first responders. That I was one of the last people to hold her while she was still alive. That I may have inadvertently played a role in her death. “Have you done the autopsy?” I ask.

  “Not yet.”

  “Let me know what you find, will you?”

  “Of course.”

  My shoe covers and gown crinkle as I cross to the gurney containing the bones. Oblivious to my trepidation, Harris has already peeled back the paper covering. He’s picked up an iPad and makes a note with a stylus, deep in thought, his brows knitting.

  “We have the remains of a Caucasian male between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five,” he begins. “From all indications he was healthy. Teeth are intact and present.” He looks at me over his glasses. “So we should be able to get DNA.” Then he goes back to his iPad. “This individual has had no dental work done. Not even a filling. There’s no indication of disease or malnutrition. There is evidence of a completely healed fracture of both the ulna and the radius of the right arm. There’s evidence that both bones underwent open reduction and internal fixation with plates and screws.”

  “Is there a serial number?” I ask.

  He looks at Doc Coblentz. “Ludwig?”

  Doc Coblentz hands me an index card. “We had to magnify it, but we got it.” I put a call in to the manufacturer.

  I take the card, drop it into my pocket. “Thank you.”

  Harris continues. “Interestingly, only one of the plates was recovered at the scene.”

  “There were two plates surgically implanted?” I say. “One of them is missing?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “The missing plate may still be at the scene,” I tell him, feeling slightly alarmed because the scene was left unprotected.

  Doc Coblentz shakes his head. “Kate, we discussed this at length with Stevitch. In addition to being a forensic anthropologist, he’s also an expert in forensic geophysics. He went over that scene with a fine-tooth comb. The plate is not there.”

  “So if it’s not at the scene, where is it?” I ask.

  We fall silent. I’m trying to work through the logistics of the missing plate, when Dr. Harris speaks up. “I have a theory on that.” He looks at me, his brows raised. “If I may continue?”

  “Of course,” I tell him.

  “Everything’s been photographed and processed,” Doc Coblentz tells me. “Soil samples and those small bits of what appeared to be plastic were sent to the BCI lab in London, Ohio.”

  Harris picks it up from there. “Aside from the ring and a few scraps of clothing, there were no other personal effects found on scene.”

  “No one crawls around in the crawl space of a barn without clothes or shoes.” I look down at the bones. Most are ivory in color with specks of dirt still clinging in areas. Some are stained brown and pitted. They’ve been arranged loosely in the form of a human skeleton, but even with my unschooled eye, I can see there are many missing. The orthopedic plate lies next to a long, thin bone. It’s about four inches long and half an inch wide with a series of five oval holes evenly spaced along the length. The dirt has been removed, leaving it silver and shiny and looking out of place.

  “Kate, we’re missing approximately twenty-five percent of the bones,” Doc Coblentz begins.

  “We’ve got the occipital bone. The lower jaw.” Harris indicates each bone as he names it, a scientist inventorying some project that has nothing to do with the death of a human being, but a puzzle that must be solved. “Both ulnas, only one of which is intact, and radius bones. The pelvis. Both femurs. Tibia and fibula are present. Most of the spinal vertebrae. Scapula.” He raises his gaze to mine. “Interestingly, the carpals, metacarpals, phalanges, tarsals, metatarsals, and lower phalanges are missing. Not just a few, but all of them.”

  “The hands?” I ask.

  “And feet,” Coblentz puts in.

  “Is it possible they’re still at the scene?” I ask. “They’re small bones, and it seems likely they could be scattered. Maybe they’re buried?”

  Harris shakes his head adamantly. “I don’t believe that’s the case. However, depending on our findings regarding cause and manner of death, at some point the issue of missing bones may become a legal one, so Stevitch is going to go back out to the scene with GBR, or ground-based radar.”

  “To definitively rule out the possibility that something was overlooked,” Doc Coblentz finishes.

  “He won’t find anything,” Harris says. “Stevitch knows the soil properties. He knows what he’s looking for. If there were bones in the ground on that site, they’re here in front of us.”

  “Maybe animals carried the bones away over the years,” I surmise. “Dogs or coyotes.”

  “Of course that’s a possibility,” Doc Coblentz says. “Anytime remains are unprotected, they are vulnerable to scavenger activity.”

  “But that doesn’t explain the markings I found on some of the bones,” Harris tells me. “Nor does it explain why so many of the smaller bones are missing.”

  “Markings?” Puzzled, sensing they’re withholding the punch line to a private joke and I’m being left in the dark, I look from man to man. “Signs of trauma? What?”

  “Well, basically, both hands and feet are missing,” Doc Coblentz says.

  I’ve heard of cases—homicides—in which killers removed the hands of their victims so the police were unable to identify the victims using fingerprints, but I didn�
�t expect it on this case. “So we’re dealing with a homicide,” I say slowly.

  “Probably, but we can’t say for certain,” Harris says.

  “But if the hands were cut off—” I begin.

  Coblentz interrupts. “Not cut off, Kate. Chewed off.”

  “Chewed?” It’s the last thing I expected him to say, and for the first time I understand why they’re so titillated. Not because they’re macabre, but because their scientific minds have been confronted by a particularly challenging puzzle.

  “By what?” I ask.

  “We don’t know,” Doc Coblentz admits. “We’re trying to identify the tooth marks now.”

  “Tooth marks? Seriously?” Incredulity rings hard in my voice. If the circumstances were different—if we weren’t dealing with the death of a human being—I’d expect one of them to burst into laughter and shout, “Surprise!”

  “Let me explain.” With gloved hands, Harris picks up a bone that’s slender and curved and about a foot in length. “This is the left proximal ulna, which is at the distal end of the forearm.”

  “Small bone in the lower forearm,” Doc Coblentz explains.

  “It’s not unusual in cases like this for skeletal remains to exhibit postmortem carnivore and scavenger marks. In Ohio, for example, we would probably be dealing with coyotes or dogs or even a feral cat. The bones would show evidence of chewing, crushing, and gnawing. Sometimes the ends of long bones are missing altogether, which happens when the animals are trying to get to the marrow. This typically occurs if a body is dumped in a remote location and it remains undiscovered for an extended period of time.”

  Looking troubled, Harris indicates a long, narrow, carved indentation on the bone. “I can’t be certain, but I don’t believe these gouges were made by dogs or coyotes.”

  “By what, then?” I ask.

  “We don’t know,” Doc Coblentz replies.

  I think about that a moment, chilled by the possibilities. “Were you or will you be able to give me cause or manner of death?”

  “Undetermined at this point,” Harris says with a shrug.

  “I’m not sure we’ll ever know for certain, Kate,” Doc Coblentz adds.

  “No clothes or shoes. Hands missing. Chances are the body was disposed in a garbage bag and hidden in that crawl space.” I look from man to man. “It’s got to be homicide. But we need to be able to prove it, and we can’t do that without an official ruling from you.”

  “We can only go by the facts,” Harris tells me. “These bones are not going to reveal their secrets easily.”

  “So what’s your theory?” I ask.

  Coblentz nods at Harris. “John?”

  “Let me preface by giving you some preliminary info on how we’ve arrived at this non-conclusion, if you will,” Harris begins. “Typically, we have three types of bone injury: antemortem, which is an injury that takes place when the decedent is still alive. We can tell the injury occurred before death because there’s some level of bone remodeling or healing. The second type of injury is postmortem, which takes place after death. In the instance of a postmortem bone injury, the edges of the bone will be rough or worn, if you will. And, of course, there’s no remodeling.

  “The third type of bone injury is perimortem. As with the postmortem bone injury, there is no bone remodeling. But with a perimortem injury, the edges of the damaged area are relatively sharp and crisp.” Dr. Harris removes his glasses and looks at me. “We believe the injuries on the distal area of the ulna, as well as the lower extremities of both fibulas, occurred perimortem.”

  “You’re going to have to explain that in English.” But even as I say the words, in some small corner of my mind I already know, and a shiver hovers between my shoulder blades.

  “The injury occurred at or near the time of death,” Doc Coblentz tells me.

  I stare at the two men, trying to get my mind around the repercussions of that. “Let me get this straight,” I say. “The bone injuries you’re referring to are tooth marks?”

  “Correct,” Harris says.

  Coblentz meets my gaze. “These tooth marks, carved into those three large bones, occurred shortly before or shortly after death.”

  “Are you telling me this individual may have died because of those tooth marks?” I ask.

  “I’m telling you it’s a possibility,” Harris says.

  I look down at the bones, and the chill that had been hovering moves through me. “So this decedent could have been attacked by an animal and killed?”

  “An animal or animals as yet unidentified,” Harris tells me.

  “Could that have occurred in the crawl space beneath the barn?” I ask. “Maybe he was working on the foundation and a coyote or dog attacked him? Or was he killed elsewhere and his remains moved and hidden in that crawl space?”

  “We have no way of knowing for certain,” Doc Coblentz says.

  “And, of course, we don’t yet know which species of animal,” Harris points out.

  I stare at him, searching my memory for someone I’ve come in contact with over the years who might be able to identify the tooth marks, but I come up blank. “Do either of you know of someone who might be able to identify the tooth marks?” I ask. “If that was the cause of death, I need to know.”

  Harris nods. “I worked with a guy over at the Columbus Zoo six or seven years ago. I’d performed an autopsy on a Franklin County man who’d been keeping a cougar illegally on his property and was mauled to death when he went into the animal’s pen to feed it. Nelson Woodburn’s specialty is wildlife biology. If anyone can figure out the source of those teeth marks, Woodburn can.”

  I address Doc Coblentz: “Can you forward images of those tooth marks to Woodburn?”

  “Right away.”

  Harris looks excited by the prospect of involving his colleague. “I’ll let him know to expect your call.” He grins. “Nelson can’t resist a good mystery.”

  I think about everything I’ve learned and realize that while it’s crucial to determine the source of the tooth marks, there’s still a possibility that foul play was involved. “So if those pieces of fabric or plastic found on scene turn out to be a garbage bag, then it’s possible that while our victim may have been attacked by an as-yet-unknown animal, his body may have still been put into some type of bag and dumped in that crawl space.”

  “Bag aside, perhaps he was attacked and injured and crawled beneath the barn, trying to reach safety,” Doc offers.

  I nod, realizing that while I know a lot more about this victim than when I started, the list of things I don’t know is much longer. “I guess I’d been hoping this guy had been working on the foundation or repairing a squeaky floor plank in the barn and had a heart attack or something.”

  “Unfortunately,” Harris says with a sigh. “I suspect this individual suffered a much more horrific demise.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Herb and Marie Strackbein live in a small Victorian that’s painted a cheery yellow and set among mature maple and black walnut trees. According to the Holmes County auditor, they’ve owned the property on Gellerman Road since inheriting it when his mother passed away in 1978. The Strackbeins are in their sixties and live in Painters Mill.

  I park in a shady spot at the curb and shut down the engine. Concrete steps draw my eye to a railed front porch, where blooming geraniums and petunias spill from a dozen or so terra-cotta pots. A red Volkswagen sits in the driveway in front of a one-car detached garage, also painted yellow. It’s a pleasant-looking home with a cozy, welcoming countenance. I take the sidewalk to the door and ring the bell. When no one answers, I leave the porch and look in the garage, but there’s no one there. I’m on my way back to the Explorer, when I hear the sound of a chainsaw coming from the backyard. I take the narrow sidewalk that cuts between the house and the garage.

  “Hello? Mr. and Mrs. Strackbein?” I call out. “It’s Chief of Police Kate Burkholder!”

  I’ve just reached the chain-link gate, when a woman
wearing a floppy straw hat peers around the corner of the house. “Oh. Hi. We’re back here.”

  I open the gate and go through. “Sounds like someone’s doing some storm cleanup,” I say.

  She takes off her hat and wipes her forehead with the back of her hand. “I worry when he gets that chainsaw out, so I came out to supervise and make sure he doesn’t cut off his fingers. Almost as bad as when he gets up on that ladder. I swear the man is going to kill himself one of these days.” But she says the words with a generous helping of good humor.

  As if realizing I’m not there to shoot the breeze, she cocks her head. “We’re not making too much noise with the chainsaw, are we?”

  “No, ma’am. I wanted to ask you and your husband some questions about some property you own out on Gellerman Road.”

  “We saw that the barn was down.” Nodding, she clucks her tongue. “It’s just crazy how a tornado picks and chooses what it does and doesn’t destroy.”

  She’s a chatty, friendly woman with an amiable demeanor. But I know from experience that just because someone looks like your favorite aunt doesn’t mean she doesn’t have secrets.

  “Can we help you?”

  I look up at the sound of the male voice to see a sixty-something man approach. He’s wearing dark work trousers and a white T-shirt that’s damp with sweat at the chest and armpits.

  “Mr. Strackbein?”

  “That’s me.” He comes up behind his wife and sets his hand protectively on her shoulder. “What can we do for you?”

  “I was just asking your wife about your property on Gellerman Road,” I tell him.

  “Knew that barn was going to go down one day,” he says. “We inherited it from my mom when she passed in ’eighty-eight. Randy Smith leases it from us, puts in corn or soybeans every year.”

  “There was a Boy Scout troop cleaning up out there, and a couple of boys discovered human remains in the crawl space of your barn.”

  The man’s eyes widen. “What?”

  Mrs. Strackbein gasps. “A body?”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it on the news,” I say.

  “We were without power for two days,” he tells me. “I heard something about bones on the radio, but didn’t realize it was on our property.”