Chapter 33
Chapter
Thirty-Three
Aknock on the back door causes me to jump. There’s someone tall on the stoop. Pushing down my computer screen, I head to the door and push aside the curtain. A smile curls my lips at the sight of Keith. Without thinking of everyone’s warnings, I open the door. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he says. “I struck out at the sheriff’s office.”
My smile fades. “The camera doesn’t belong to them?” I open the door wider and gesture for Keith to enter.
“No. Manes said he’s never seen it.” Keith steps into the kitchen. “Manes has no interest in pursuing any possibility that Craig’s death was anything other than an accident.”
“But if we find the owner of that camera, the footage could show who dumped Marty’s body.” I turn the deadbolt and lock the door. A quick look confirms the front door is still open, and a nice evening breeze circulates the warmer air. Theo’s warnings float through my mind like ghosts.
Despite his assessment of Keith, I don’t feel endangered.
Pressing his lips into a straight line, Keith shakes his head. “He acted as if it was local police business, and I should mind my own.”
“I’m sorry.” I scrunch my nose. “I received the pictures from the county examiner.”
“Of Craig?”
I nod.
Keith’s gaze goes to the wine bottle on the counter. “Did I catch you before you had a chance to pour that out?”
Bashfully, I shake my head. “It’s one thing to view postmortem photos of a stranger. It’s another thing to view them of someone you know—knew. Do you want to see them?”
He stands motionless, staring at my computer. Taking a deep breath, Keith’s stance changes. His broad shoulders pull back, and he straightens his spine. “Yeah, I do.” He moves his focus back to the wine bottle. “I’m not much of a drinker, but maybe I should have a glass too.”
“Just a little to take the edge off. No blacking out.”
“Yeah, I’ve never done that.”
“I don’t recommend.”
With our respective wine glasses, we sit side by side at the kitchen counter, our shoulders touching as I move my laptop between us and lift the screen.
It’s gone dark, but I quickly enter my passcode and the screen illuminates.
I click the arrow and take us back one frame. “This is the first picture.”
It was the one with Craig’s face obscured. His corpse is laid out on a long metal table.
Keith takes a gulp of air. “Shit.”
“Did you see him? Before the funeral?
He nods. “He was embalmed, but there’s only so much they can do. Serena didn’t want him to be remembered that way. Still, this” —he points to the screen— “this is before. It’s worse.”
I turn toward Keith and lay my hand on his forearm. “If you don’t want to see—”
“I do, Jill. We’re a team. You look at these pictures through your lens, and I’ll use mine as a detective, not as a brother.” His nostrils flared. “Because even if I didn’t like Craig and thought he was a piece of shit, I would never wish this on him.”
The next picture zeros in on Craig’s torso.
Austin mentioned discoloration. A body will begin to bloat in as early as three days.
After a week, the shade of the flesh changes from green to red.
That red can be extremely dark, appearing almost black.
Blood begins to decompose, and the organs accumulate gas.
“A lot of color change,” Keith observes.
“He wasn’t only exposed to the air, but he was also submerged in the water-filled ditch.”
“Yeah, even with an unsure timeline, the water affected his decomposition.”
“You know, it reminds me of the work Liam, my research partner, and I did recently with particulars on drowning victims. For one of our shows, the victim was purposely submerged, her airway filling with water, not allowing her to breathe. That wouldn’t have been the case with Craig. His submersion came after his death.”
I click on the photo, enlarging it, analyzing the colors of his flesh. The dark, stretched skin is consistent with the presumed timetable of his disappearance. However, I can’t help but also notice the damage his body endured.
“Look at his injuries.”
Questions float through my mind, yet we both remain silent.
Did the injuries cause his death, or did they occur after his death?
The lack of bruising indicates it could be either one of those possibilities.
His flesh is severed with a flap of missing dermis upon his left side.
That injury reveals the floating ribs and a bit of the false ribs.
It’s the lowest portion of the rib cage.
While the clarity of the photograph is compromised with excessive enlargement, ribs eleven and twelve appear to have suffered spiral fractures.
A spiral fracture is most common in a twisting injury and rare with ribs. They’re more common in arms or legs.
“Why hasn’t this report been shared with the family?” Keith asks. “He had obvious trauma.”
“The injuries could have occurred postmortem and likely perpetrated by wildlife.”
“Or they could have caused his death.”
“I spoke to Austin Kolldike today.” Keith turns toward me. “Austin used the word crumpled to describe the way Craig looked when they found him.”
I wrinkled my nose noticing a portion of Craig’s intestines were loose, the decaying tissue appearing like rope.
“I hope so.” With a sour taste, I click that picture away.
The next photo is of one of Craig’s legs. His foot is bloated, toenails dark, and ankle is at an unnatural angle. It’s impossible for me to know if it is his talus that was fractured or the fibula or tibia. Again, his dermis has multiple lesions and lacerations.
“What do you think?” I ask.
“Despite having seen numerous corpses in my line of work, I’m not an expert.
” He leaned forward, squinting at the photograph.
“To me, with the way these pictures appear, I assume that during the time Craig was considered a missing person—after his disappearance and before he was found—multiple species of wildlife, from insects to birds to mammals, feasted on him.”
Gritting my teeth, I took a sip of the merlot.
The next picture is of Craig’s other leg. Tilting my head from side to side, I determine it is his left.
“Crumpled,” Keith says.
This time I don’t need to guess as to what bone is fractured. The left femur suffered a compound fracture, protruding through the dermis.
Could it have happened postmortem from the rushing water and debris in the ditch? My question isn’t stated out loud. It would be one of a thousand.
The next photo has his corpse lying facedown. The spine, which is normally straight, is bent near both the cervical and lumbar vertebrae regions.
I quickly click through the fifth and sixth photographs. The final one contains a close-up of one of the eye sockets.
“Ugh,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“I mean, my knowledge is limited, yet what’s left seems as though a sloppy evisceration was performed.” The procedure removes the intraocular contents while preserving the scleral shell, muscles, and orbital tissues. “This isn’t clean; it’s botched as if the eyeball was haphazardly removed.”
“My guess is postmortem.”
“I wonder if Marty’s eyes were removed in a similar way.” I scribble in my notebook, reminding myself to find out. “I planned to call the funeral home, but my day got away from me. I’ll call tomorrow.”
My gaze goes to my forgotten dinner as I push the fruit cup away. Suddenly, the grapes are no longer appetizing. “I think I lost my appetite.
Keith turns my direction. His dark gaze causes my breathing to hitch. My brain tells me to step away. My body doesn’t listen. I lean forward, our lips millimeters apart.
“Fuck, Jill.”
It makes no sense. Yet with a slight grin, I nod and move until our lips come together.
My counselor would tell me that getting involved with the brother of the man who changed my life forever wasn’t a well-thought-out reaction. She would be right.
In the dark hole that has consumed me since I crossed the village-limits sign welcoming me back to Blue Gil, in some strange twist of fate, Keith Gilbert has been my only true confidant.
A team.
That is what he said.
He cups my neck, holding my lips to his as his tongue slips inside.
The air fills with the sounds made by two lonely people seeking refuge.
What did he say?
Two consenting adults.
Gasping for air, I pull away.
His deep voice reverberates through my heightened senses brought on by the endorphin drop in my rushing circulation. “Fuck, I’m sorry—"
My finger lands on his strong, demanding lips, silencing his apology. “I’m not, Keith. I’m also not blackout drunk.” I look to the computer and back to him. “I’m too many emotions to list.” I hated the vulnerability of being honest, but nevertheless, I continued. “I want to feel something good.”
Keith stands and offers me his hand. “It’s been a long time since I felt anything like I feel with you.”
As I stand, his long fingers encase mine.
“You’re beautiful, Jill. You deserve better than your family or me.” He lightly brushes his lips over mine. “And you’re fucking brilliant. I feel like we see things the insiders around here refuse to see.”
Swallowing, I nod. “A kinship.”
“A kinship.” He looks toward the open front door. “I can either leave through that door, or you can lock it.”
I locked it.