Chapter Fifteen
After that, we don’t bother going to Haven’s Rock to get the bigger shovel. We call for it, along with a bigger guy to help dig out our dead man. We ask Anders to help my sister find someone to take Rory and then come on foot with April, and to be alert for anyone in the forest.
Dalton and I keep working for twenty minutes. Then I return to the main trail, where I meet our deputy and doctor.
“Did I hear right?” Anders says. “You found a body, and it’s not our other hiker?”
“It’s a man.” I look at April. “Yes, I dug up another random corpse in the wilderness.”
“I was not going to say it.”
“Sure you were.”
“Not yet. You are obviously distressed and so I was withholding my joke for a better moment.”
I shake my head and lead them in. Dalton has the man uncovered to his shoulders.
“That’s a fresh corpse,” Anders says.
“No, it is several days old,” April says. “Despite having been buried, there are clear signs of early decomposition—”
“I meant it’s recent. Which is significant because we just found a dead man and we’re looking for a missing woman, the wife who might have killed him.”
“I believe this is further evidence that Gretchen is not his wife,” April says.
Anders arches a brow.
April continues, “In addition to the new wedding band, which belies their story of being a long-married couple, we postulated that they might have been spying on either Haven’s Rock or the mining company.
The existence of a second corpse—likely a third party to their group—would seem to confirm that they were not who they claimed to be. ”
I lift a hand. “I would prefer not to speculate on that yet. We have the corpse of a man who likely died in the past week, which suggests he may be connected to our hikers. That’s all. He could just as likely be connected to the mining camp.”
“One of the miners or guards,” Anders says. “If so, then I’m going to guess this isn’t some guy who died of a heart attack on the job. Not with the weird way they’ve buried him. Unless it’s some kind of religious or cultural thing?”
We all look at each other, in case someone has heard of this. No one has, which doesn’t discount it.
“Wait,” Anders says. “Are we sure he’s standing up?”
“Excellent point,” April says. “This might only be half of him. The other half might be elsewhere.”
“Er, not what I meant. Only that there’s a reason we dig shallow graves here, and it’s not because we’re lazy.”
Dalton curses. “Permafrost.”
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s find out what we have.”
What we have is not a six-foot hole with the corpse standing upright.
That wouldn’t be possible with the permafrost. Instead, he’s been put into a hole with his knees bent, as if compacting the body into the smallest possible shape.
We’d speculated that whoever buried him was minimizing the size of the hole to better disguise it.
While that could be the answer, it’s just as likely they were being lazy.
They dug the smallest possible hole and shoved him in.
Finally, we have the man stretched out on the ground.
As April said, the burial would have slowed decomposition.
He wasn’t exposed to air or insects. The signs of decomposition are still there, equivalent to what I might see on a day-old exposed corpse.
That suggests he was buried, as my sister also speculated, in the past week.
There are no obvious signs of trauma, though. No bullet or stab wounds. No hemorrhaging in the eyes. We check his scalp for signs of a head injury and find only an old tattoo under his hair.
“He’s a fit guy,” Anders says, looking down at the body. “His hair’s too long for a guard, but maybe a miner? Hiker is just as likely, given that tan.”
I examine the hands for calluses. There are faint ones, but that could work for either mining or hiking.
I check the man’s feet. Some signs of chafing, including a covered hot spot.
Boots would have helped decide whether he was a miner or hiker—hiking boots and steel-toed work ones—but his feet are bare.
He’s been stripped down to his underwear.
“The lack of clothing would suggest someone is concealing his identity,” April says.
“True,” I say. “But if he’s a miner, his clothes would have been standard issue, and I can see Rogers saying he wants them back.”
Dalton snorts. “Company property.”
“There’s one way to check whether he’s a miner,” Anders says. “See if he’s chipped.”
He’s right. The miners—and the guards—have implants that track their whereabouts.
From what I’ve gathered, the guards are aware of it.
The miners are not. As horrified as I am at the thought of “chipping” employees, Dalton and I have actually discussed this with émilie.
Missing residents are one of our biggest problems. Would voluntary tracking help?
In the case of the mining camp, while Rogers would probably say it was for safety, I suspect it’s also like removing clothing from a dead man—protecting company property. However, those tracking chips might mean their guards and miners can’t sneak over to Haven’s Rock.
I would love to discuss that with Rogers. Find out how he’s using them, and see whether—after an incident last year—he’s making sure no one comes our way. But to do that, I’d need to admit we know about the chips. We’ve decided that is not in our best interests. For now.
We’ve had access to the body of one miner, where we found the scar from the chip insertion on his shoulder.
It’d been marred by an injury, so it’d taken us a while to see it.
The guard who’d tried to barter with us had cut his out—also on his shoulder.
So that’s where we look, but the skin there on this body is smooth and unmarred.
I continue my search and find nothing.
I sit back on my heels. “There’s no proof this is a miner—and no proof that he’s not. Also no evidence he was or wasn’t a hiker.” I pause. “If he were a hiker, he’d have been with Gretchen and Blake. The alternative is too much of a coincidence.”
Anders points at the man’s feet. “That hot spot suggests he was doing more walking than he’s used to.”
“So,” April says. “It appears this man was with Gretchen and Blake, who were not actually hikers or a married couple, but were likely spying on either Haven’s Rock or the miners. That sounds familiar. In fact, I believe it is exactly what I first theorized.”
I ignore her and look up at Dalton. “Do you think there’s any significance to the fact we nearly bumped into two of their guards?”
“What?” Anders says.
“Two guards from the camp were out here, allegedly just strolling around. They were heading in this direction when they were stopped by someone who seems to be management. A British guy we’ve never met. He said they’d gone past the boundary.”
“Which he’d know if he’s tracking them.”
“Good point. Yes.”
“So he turned them around right before they stumbled over a shallow grave?”
I consider. “I can’t imagine they’d have noticed it. We only stopped in here because this is where Gretchen’s trail led, and Storm indicated Gretchen had stayed here awhile. I was searching for signs of what she’d been doing when I noticed the disturbed sod.”
“Gretchen was here?” Anders says. “You forgot a critical bit of evidence, Case.”
“I kinda did. When we found the grave and saw the light hair, we thought it was Gretchen. Once we realized otherwise, I got caught up in that. But yes, it’s significant that Gretchen was here.”
I rise and work out a kink in my neck as I think. “Storm was definitely following her trail. Well, no, I shouldn’t say that. She was following the scent from a T-shirt we found in the discarded backpack. A women’s medium, which would seem to be Gretchen’s.”
“Unless there’s a fourth party,” April says. “Gretchen, Blake, the dead man, and another woman.”
“I can’t rule that out, but the shirt is most likely Gretchen’s.
The trail went to all the places we know she’s been—the campsite, the creek, and over to where she met up with us.
So if that trail also says she was here, I’m going to guess there’s not much chance she just happened to hang out in the same spot where a body was buried. ”
“What are we saying?” Anders asks. “Three people came into the forest to spy on one of the settlements. Two are dead … and the third is the killer?”
“We have no actual evidence they were spying on either Haven’s Rock or the mining camp. The new wedding band suggests some kind of fraud, and the two bodies suggest a falling-out and double murder. Unless…”
I look around the clearing. “I hate to say it, guys, but I think we need to do some more digging. In case Gretchen is here.”
We don’t find Gretchen’s body. I’m glad we searched, though, or I’d have leapt up in the middle of the night thinking I’d overlooked the obvious alternate solution.
Why was Gretchen’s scent in the clearing with a buried man?
Possibility number one is that she buried him.
Possibility two is that she’s also buried here.
She’s not. Which takes us back to Gretchen as the killer.
Except, at this point, we have no evidence that the dead man was murdered.
We don’t know how he died, and there are zero defensive wounds.
Getting more is going to require, yep, performing yet another autopsy on yet another person who isn’t part of our settlement.
But we can hardly leave him in the forest when we could be dealing with double homicide and a killer on the loose.
If Gretchen killed Blake, then our hope was that it was personal, and she’s long gone. If she killed both men, then that’s not the situation.
We return to Haven’s Rock for the stretcher.
Then Dalton goes back with Anders and Storm.
While I wait, I get to happily do all the baby-mama stuff.
Change Rory. Feed her. Play with her when she’s not ready for a nap, and then rock her to sleep when she is.
We’re in the clinic when the body arrives, and I set to work helping April while Rory sleeps in her bassinet.
Dalton offers to take her, but he needs a break himself, so I send him home.
Best to not disturb a sleeping baby. He can get some rest with Storm, and if Rory wakes, I’ll take her home.
Anders leaves, too. He has other duties, and he’s not needed here.
We did the preliminary external exam on the scene. Now we repeat it with proper lighting and equipment, but we find nothing else. No sign of trauma. No sign of a tracking-device implant.
We are thorough. Damnably thorough, because we cannot believe this man died of natural causes.
Is it possible though? Yes, but I’d struggle to fit that into the narrative we’re developing. We know Blake was murdered. We suspect Gretchen killed—or at least buried—this man. So this third confederate dies of natural causes, they bury him, argue over it, and Gretchen later kills Blake?
Yeah, that doesn’t work for me.
Once we’ve finished the external exam, it’s time for the autopsy, and that is where we get our answer. April opens him up and finds inflammation in his esophagus and stomach, along with hemorrhaging in his stomach lining.
“Poison,” I say. “He was poisoned.”
Rory wakes up shortly after that, and while I can’t imagine she’d realize she’s in the room with an autopsied body, I still don’t want her there. With apologies to April, I leave the cleanup in her hands and take Rory. I’m halfway home when Dalton meets me.
“I rested,” he says in greeting. “I figured I’d come see if this little one was up.”
“She is, and your timing is perfect. We finished the autopsy, and I had an excuse to leave the cleanup to April.”
“You want me to grab lunch and meet you at home? Presuming you can eat after that.”
“I can always eat. Sure, I’ll see you there and give you the results.”
“Any hints?”
“Well, it wasn’t natural causes.”
He shakes his head. “Fuck.”