And Crawling Things Lurk

Don had observed a few autopsies over the years, but there had never been such a total mystery as to the cause of death before they began. They were either to establish which bullet had done the fatal deed, or which blunt force had caused the fatal trauma of an accident or beating victim. Knife wounds could be difficult, depending on depth and angle. Even poison cases, as rare and subtle as they may be, were normally just a matter of identifying the poison. With Josie, he couldn’t imagine what they should even look for. Fortunately, all he had to do was observe. The man with the scalpel would be doing the driving.

The location was the prep room at the local mortuary. It was either that or take the time to transfer Josie up to the coroner’s facility in Santa Rosa and get on the waiting list. Maybe she’d get looked at by the end of the week. This way, all Don had to do was talk the sheriff’s department into sending their man down to Cedar City, which was a normal procedure for his small department on anything with any urgency. Not that there was much call for rush autopsies in Cedar City. Homicide was not one of their more common problems.

He tied his smock belt, applied the Vicks to his nostrils and lowered his Plexiglas facemask into place. He looked down at the mound on the narrow, stainless steel table. Josie was still in the near-fetal position, still covered by the gauzy filaments, and still stunk of things Don could not quite identify.

“Odd odor, Don,” the deputy coroner said as he lowered his own mask. “Sort of acridity on top of putrescence-plus, isn’t it? Let’s take a look.”

While documenting his observations in a running monologue into a voice recorder, he cut away the strands covering her, depositing them in a large pan for later testing. After removing her clothing, noting that it had no blood stains, nor been cut or torn other than a single small rip in her shirt on the right side of her back. The most notable thing was the way her body sagged in on itself, like the internal organs had already been removed. A full examination of her skin, front and back, aided a few times by magnification when something caught his attention, revealed two punctures on the back of her neck near the spine but not on it. They turned out to be just over an inch deep – hardly fatal. There were no suspicious bruises, scrapes or cuts to indicate a violent assault, sexual or otherwise. Even her hands showed nothing to indicate she had fought back. On the right side of her back, corresponding with the tear in her shirt, they found a single hole half an inch wide. At first they both thought it was a bullet hole, but it didn’t really look like one. The edges appeared to have been pushed inward, not burst through with high energy like a bullet would have done. This was more like a knife wound except for being circular. And there wasn’t a sign of blood on the clothing, on the skin, or in the hole. Even a probe came out dry.

“Well, so far, the circular stab wound on her back is the only external sign of a potential lethal injury,” the deputy said when he turned her over. “Let’s open her up.”

Don stepped closer.

The Y cut across the top of her rib cage sounded like slicing through old cardboard laid over a wooden frame. The long incision down the front of her torso from sternum to pubic bone was, again, like opening a cardboard box, and with that same hollowness beneath the blade. He pulled the separated hide apart.

“Well, I can’t say I’m surprised, the way she’s sagging. But I’m still stunned. They’re gone. Her internal organs – they’re gone. Everything, tissue and all. There’s nothing here but...shreds and gobs of tissue, I suppose it is. Small bits and pieces, but I can’t identify any of it on gross examination. This piece here could be part of her heart, or maybe even liver, I suppose. It’s so degraded I simply can’t say. It’s like it’s all been dissolved, like it’s been digested – but, however, it’s gone. Even most of the muscle and fatty tissue beneath the skin is eaten into. But, how? And where did it all go? I suppose a large number of insects or small animals could have done it over time, but the only point of possible entry is the small hole in her back, other than the natural pelvic orifices, and they don’t appear to have been penetrated. Even if it was dissolved, with only that one break in the skin, it should still be here. The abdominal cavity is just that, a cavity. Let’s take a look at the limbs.”

He ran the blade of the scalpel from groin to knee. Although, even before he pulled the incision wide and looked in, it was apparent that a good part of the tissue was missing. The dissolved tissue extended past her pelvis into the tops of her legs. Her thighs were hollow sacks almost to the tops of her knees, nothing but skin containing intact femurs still attached to the pelvic bone. On her backside, the muscles that provided shape to her butt had melted away, leaving skin that draped over her pelvis like an afterthought.

“Until we can run some tests on this tissue residue, Don, I have no idea what to tell you – and maybe not even then. It’s like she was liposuctioned to death. But even that wouldn’t explain it. Maybe fat can be removed by suction, but not muscles or organs. Unless they were eaten piecemeal, one nibble at a time, it appears they were reduced to liquid or semi-liquid state – how I can’t even imagine. It wasn’t like she was immersed in acid; that would have attacked the skin first, not last. As far as cause of death, I can only hope all this was done post mortem and not as a means of killing her. Grizzly—positively grizzly.”

Don got out of his car behind Dairy Queen, his favorite place to unwind on duty. It had been a rough morning that started with Josie’s autopsy and ended with a traffic accident in which a child was badly injured. God, he hated it when kids were hurt. It was lunchtime, but eating was the last thing on his mind. He’d have a cup of coffee then get started on the narrative of the accident report. He had no idea what to do about Josie’s autopsy findings. Maybe by tomorrow he’d have something back from the tests, but a week or two was probably more likely. Somehow, he didn’t think De Leon would be pushing him to get it done.

“Just coffee, large,” he said at the order window.

He was just pressing the plastic lid down on it when he felt a presence at his side. He glanced over and down where Muri’s face was wearing a glare that almost scared him. She was standing with her body squared to him, fists clenched at her sides and lips tight, like she was prepared to take him on at whatever level he might choose.

“He didn’t do it,” she said before Don had a chance to say a word. And, of course, there was no question as to who or what she was referring.

“Naw, I don’t think so, either. Want a lemonade?”

Whatever arguments she was prepared to tear into him with seemed to just evaporate against his disarming response. Her jaw hung open for a moment while she pored over her rehearsed challenges, then, for want of anything better, she muttered, “Okay.”

When he handed the drink to her with a straw stuck in the top, she said the only think she could think of without completely changing the subject. “Then how come he got arrested?”

“How’d you find out about it, anyway?”

She slumped against the wall and muttered, “Erica told me. I went looking for Jackie to see if he felt any better. She told me you arrested him without even asking what happened.”

“Me? I didn’t arrest him.”

“No, not you – the police. She said the one without a uniform had his gun out and everything, and he acted like he wanted to shoot Jackie. He said it was for murdering Josie. The other one just stood there and didn’t say anything. But, he didn’t do it. He loved her. Why’d they think he did it if you don’t?”

He gave her a come-along gesture with his head and walked over to the table they had come to think of as theirs. “I’m not the only cop on the department. The one that didn’t talk was just there because the one without the uniform ordered him to be. The one without the uniform was the one that arrested him, and he thought he had a good reason.”

She sat beside him on the bench, her legs stretched out away from the table. “Didn’t you tell them he didn’t do it?”

“I told them I saw no evidence that he did. I can’t say he didn’t do it, because I don’t know that as a fact. Just like you don’t. You don’t believe he did it because you believe you know him well enough to know it, but you don’t. No more than I do. Not really. That’s why cops, especially, are supposed to rely on evidence.”

“Did the officer that arrested Jackie have evidence?”

Don looked over at her and smiled. “You cut right to the heart of it, don’t you?”

“Well, did he?”

“No, he didn’t. Not what I think is sufficient, anyway. It’s all circumstantial, and pretty flimsy, at that.”

“What’s that? What’s circumstantial?”

“Well, it just means that the evidence is indirect or inferred.” He saw the look on her face and knew he hadn’t explained a thing. He tried again. “Look, one of the things is that Jackie was possibly the last person to have seen Josie alive, except for the real killer. That’s a circumstance. That hasn’t been proven, but it’s likely, and by itself doesn’t necessarily mean much. But if you put that together with other circumstances, like that he was the one to have found her buried deep inside an old abandoned building that no one has been in for years, and that we only have his word for it that he had been searching for her all this time. Other circumstances may be even more innocent until they are all put together, like that he and Josie frequently drank together, and drinking often leads to arguments and fights.”

“It sounds to me like you think he did it.”

“No. I don’t think that. I know what it may sound like, but I’m just trying to keep an open mind about it. I am a cop, you know. It’s my job to look at all sides fairly.”

“Well, it’s sure not fair to Jackie. Besides, he wasn’t the one that found her. I did.”

“You did? I thought Jackie said he was leading the way with his lighter.”

“He was. But he was going to follow the tracks down that hallway. I called him back when I saw her on the floor over on the other side.”

“Well, I don’t know. It could be that he was just leading you to where you’d think you saw her first.”

“But it was so dark I wouldn’t have seen her when I did if the lighter hadn’t flickered. I still wasn’t sure what it was until I called him back and pointed over to her. That’s when he held the lighter higher so the light was better.”

“Hmmm. Those tracks going into the hall are a puzzle, aren’t they?”

“Why? Don’t they just go out the other end or through a door?”

“Huh uh. There’s two doors in there, one into an office and one at the end that goes outside, but it’s nailed shut. The tracks just go to the end of the hall, but to the wall beside the door, not to it. I couldn’t fine the cart anywhere.”

“Maybe there’s a secret door.”

“Oh. Like in a movie. Sure.”

“Why couldn’t there be a secret door? What else could it be?”

“Well, it...they...yeah, okay, I wondered about maybe there’s a secret door, myself.”

“I bet if we could find it, they’d let Jackie out of jail.”

“Well, no, even if there is one, it wouldn’t alter the evidence they’re holding him on. All it would – oh, wait a minute, here. What do you mean if we could find it? I’m going to take another look – I’ve been meaning to, anyway – but you certainly won’t be going in there with me.”

“But, why? I want to help. Maybe you’ll find a hole too small for you to get into. Maybe I could fit.”

“Oh, yeah, like I’d let you crawl into some dark hole. Nuh uh. No way. Ain’t gonna happen. You stay out of that place, hear me?”

“But, I want to help.”

“You can help by telling me everything you know about it. Anything you can remember, anything you saw Jackie do or heard him say. Or anyone else…anything at all. Just a single detail can be important, even if you don’t think it’s important.”

He took another sip of his coffee and she swirled her straw through the icy liquid before sipping it. She looked over at him and asked, “Was Josie old?”

The odd question threw Don. But it was three simple words, and they were plain enough. “No, I wouldn’t say she was. I don’t think she was even as old as me. Am I old?”

She got her old, familiar impish grin back and said, “Well, you do have white hair.”

He was glad to see that side of her again. She was too young to lose it. “Listen, kid, I could still catch you before you got to the sidewalk, so watch it.”

She sipped, grinned and shrugged. “Umm...maybe.”

“Maybe,” he repeated under his breath with a rumbling chuckle. “Whenever, you think you’re ready. …So, why did you ask if Josie was old?”

Reluctant to return to such a solemn subject, she shrugged again and said, “She smelled like it when we found her, like she was really old.”

Again, she had thrown a question at him that he had to fumble with like a badly thrown ball. Finally, after he had replayed her words in his mind and looked at the simple thing they implied, a thing that had that old familiar feeling of a lead, he turned and faced her before asking, “Why do you say she smelled old? Do you associate that smell with being old, the smell she had when you found her?”

“Sorta, I guess. My grandma’s basement smells a little like that, and she’s pretty old. And there’s this old woman that smells just like it.”

He could have told her about a cave that was maybe a little bit like her grandma’s basement, but instead asked, “Who is she? Where can I find her?”

“I don’t know. She was just walking down the sidewalk the first time I met her. I almost ran into her. The smell wasn’t real bad, and I thought she just hadn’t taken a bath or something. The next time I saw her was just a couple of weeks ago, and she had her cart wheel stuck and couldn’t get it over the curb. That’s when I figured she might be homeless is why she couldn’t take a bath, you know, like Erica and the others at the Hole? But then she asked if I’d like to go home with her for some tea and cakes, so I guess she isn’t homeless.”

“Just a couple of weeks ago, and she was pushing a cart? A shopping cart?”

“It could have been couple of weeks or a month. I’m not sure – oh, wait a minute. It was that day I met you here and you told me that Jackie was in the army when he got hurt. After I left here I went to the library, and I met her on the way.”

“That was about the time Josie disappeared. Did you happen to notice if the cart had a squeaky wheel?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think she just stayed there until I was gone, so I don’t know if it had a squeaky wheel or not. Do you think it was Erica’s?”

“I don’t know...could be. Tell me what this old woman looked like? Was she anything like the one Jackie said he saw attacking Josie?”

“But, what Jackie saw was the DT’s. Erica says that’s what it is when drinking makes you see things that aren’t really there.”

“He still could have seen a real person and hallucinated the rest about the big teeth and her eating Josie. The problem with DT’s is they don’t make sense, anyway. Describe the woman you saw.”

“Well, she’s old. I mean, really old. She has so many wrinkles she must be a hundred years old. She isn’t very big, either, just a little taller than me. She has white hair that was in a bun. Her dress had long sleeves even on a warm day and was long and really old fashioned, like in movies about the olden days with pioneers. She was wearing dark glasses that went all the way to the sides, so I couldn’t see her eyes at all. The first time I saw her I thought she was blind, but she acted like she could see okay. Both times I saw her, she kept asking me to go home with her for some tea. I thought she was just old and lonely. And she smelled bad – both times.”

“Hmm, doesn’t sound like she’d be able to beat Josie in a fight. Josie was pretty strong, even when she was drunk. Still, if she had some kind of weapon...”

“Do you think it’s important?”

Don picked up her hand and patted it. “You know, the way I work is that everything is important until I know for sure that it isn’t. And, even then, I don’t just forget about it, ’cause you never know.”

“So, I helped?”

“I think you just might have,” he said with a final pat to her hand before releasing it. “I’m going to check out that hallway with tracks that go nowhere – by myself – and I’m going to keep digging around. If you see that old woman again, do not, and I stress, do not go home or anywhere else with her. It would probably be best if you didn’t even talk to her. But if you bump into her and can’t avoid talking to her, don’t let her know you’re suspicious. Watch which way she goes, and tell me as soon as you can. Okay?”

“Okay. But, if I do see her, I could just follow her and see where –”

“No, you couldn’t. I don’t want you doing any such thing. Just get hold of me. Okay?”

“But –”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay, I’ll see you around. And don’t fret about Jackie. He’s been in jail so many times it’s like his second home. He’s fine. Do him good to go a few days without a bottle. And, when I can convince some people that their evidence is lacking, he’ll be back among us.”