Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [501]
“A Stryker saw?” Now Stolz seemed interested.
O’Dell got up and came around the rocks to peer inside the top of the skull. The flap that came loose hung over, like a lid or a dismantled toupee. O’Dell practically had her nose to the scalp when she said, “Whatever he used it’s left very fine marks. There’s no blade chattering.”
“Blade chattering?” Henry asked, and glanced around at the others, noticing Bonzado giving O’Dell a look of admiration.
“It’s sort of a technical term.” It was Bonzado who jumped in with an explanation. “It’s when a thin blade jumps slightly from side to side while you’re using it. You know, like a hacksaw, especially when you’re just starting to cut.” Ever the professor, Henry thought, though the kid had a genuine desire to provide information. There was no intention to upstage anyone or condescend to anyone, not like Stolz might do.
“From what I can see,” O’Dell continued, “I think the skull is empty.”
“A Stryker saw? Empty? What the hell are you talking about? Are you saying the brain is missing?” Stolz shot up, stepping over the corpse to get to O’Dell’s side.
Ordinarily, Henry would have laughed at the little man who rarely became animated or allowed an outburst of emotion. He usually confined his emotions to those famous facial expressions. He shouldn’t be focused on Stolz. But focusing on Stolz’s incompetence and his rising panic was a hell of a lot better than dealing with his own. This crap only got stranger by the minute.
“If you’ve got enough pictures, let’s try to flip him and get all of him on the body bag,” Stolz instructed.
Henry stood back. He hated to admit it, but he was starting to enjoy watching the little man get all worked up. Plus, Stolz had more than enough help with Bonzado and two of the students joining in. Even O’Dell had her jacket sleeves pushed up and was grabbing hold of a shoulder. This time the group wasn’t taking any chances on having the corpse slip out of their control. They barely had the body turned and Henry’s stomach took a plunge.
“Jesus Christ,” he said under his breath, and everyone stopped, looking up at him, and then back at the corpse. “It’s Steve Earlman.”
“You know this man?” O’Dell asked.
Henry found the nearest boulder to lean on before his knees buckled. “Not only do I know him, I was a goddamned pallbearer at his funeral last May.”
CHAPTER 20 20
Maggie could now see the tacks and pins holding Mr. Earlman’s tie and jacket lapels in place. She lifted an eyelid and found a small, convex plastic disk in the eye socket, something morticians used to give definition to the eye area and to keep the eyelids closed.
“It looks like an autopsy incision,” Dr. Stolz said, taking his glasses completely off and pocketing them.
“Can’t be,” Sheriff Watermeier said. “There was no autopsy.”
“You’re sure?” Maggie was back on her feet, inspecting the rest of the body while the M.E. poked at the flap of skull. The suit looked awfully clean, almost as if it had gone directly from the casket to the sealed barrel. “It certainly looks like a Stryker saw.”
“It definitely was a bone saw of some kind,” Stolz insisted.
“I know for a fact there was no autopsy,” Watermeier said.
“How about surgery?” Adam Bonzado was beside Stolz now, on hands and knees, peering into the top of the dead man’s head.
“No surgery,” Watermeier answered quietly. “Steve died of an inoperable brain tumor.”
Maggie glanced at Watermeier to make sure he was okay. She knew what it was like to discover a friend had been a victim of some heinous crime. Almost a year had gone by since she unzipped a body bag to find a friend of her own with a bullet hole in his forehead. She was sure she would never forget Special Agent Richard Delaney’s empty eyes staring up at her. None of the law enforcement workshops and no amount of experience could prepare someone for that shock, that helplessness, that sick feeling in the bottom of the stomach.
Watermeier removed his hat. He wiped the sweat from his