The steel toe connected with her stomach.
She couldn’t breathe, her diaphragm refusing to function.
The door swung open behind her.
“Lock her up,” ordered Pete. “She won’t need rations.”
TWENTY-ONE
Truman entered the medical examiner’s office the morning after the discovery, ready to observe the newest John Doe’s autopsy. He had a body to identify.
After interviewing Gerry Norris’s girlfriend, Kim Fuller, Truman and Bolton had driven to the friend’s home where Norris had been dropped off the night before. A bleary-eyed Norris answered the door. He wasn’t dead; he was just pissed at his girlfriend.
For once, Truman had been relieved that Royce was wrong about something.
Truman chose to be present for the autopsy. It was his case, and he felt an affinity to the victim, who appeared to be about his own age. He hated that the man had been left alongside the road, and he kept comparing the death with that of the man found in Britta’s field. Both had been shot and dumped recently. Why?
He stuck his head inside the lone autopsy suite. Dr. Lockhart worked in a small facility, just herself and three other employees. Truman had been afraid she’d send his victim to the bigger office in Portland, but she’d worked on the other two John Does that Truman suspected could be related to his case, and she wanted to see the third.
“Hi, Truman,” Dr. Lockhart said cheerfully as she lifted something out of the torso of the body on her table. She set the organ on a scale hanging from the ceiling, and her assistant made a notation. An eighties rock anthem played in the background, and the aseptic room smelled of strong disinfectant with an undertone of something very, very foul. “Protective gear is to the right of the door.”
Truman had just grabbed a gown when his phone buzzed. He checked the screen, intending to let it go to voice mail, but Detective Bolton’s name appeared.
“Daly here,” he answered.
“Truman, I’ve had an unusual turn in the second John Doe’s case.”
Truman looked over at Dr. Lockhart. She was concentrating on her work. “What do you have?”
“Something a bit hard to believe. You at your office?”
“No, I just arrived at the medical examiner’s. She’s working on the third John Doe.”
“That’s right. I wanted to be there.”
Dr. Lockhart set a different organ on the scale, and Truman’s throat tightened. “I haven’t talked to her yet.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” Bolton ended the call.
Truman put on the gown, slipped on gloves, and then added a mask and face shield. He felt ready for battle. He didn’t mind autopsies. He’d always had an interest in anatomy and physiology, and he respected that mysteries were solved through the invasive examination.
His victim lay on a wheeled stainless-steel table with a raised edge on all four sides. The far end of the table butted up against a sink where a long hose could stretch to rinse the victim—hence the need for the raised edge. Dr. Lockhart stood on a small stool beside her patient. Her male assistant was still taller than she. Truman was too.
She’d already completed the large Y cut from shoulders to groin. The sternum and a portion of the ribs had been cut and lifted away so she could access the lungs and heart. Truman glanced at a side table, spotting the large pruning shears with curved blades. The cutters were nearly as long as his arms. Shock had rattled him the first time he saw a medical examiner pick up the gardening tool and coolly start snapping ribs. They were effective.
Dr. Lockhart hadn’t peeled back the scalp, opened the skull, and removed the brain yet. The sound of the Stryker saw examiners used to remove the cap of the skull was one that Truman would never forget. He gazed at the victim’s face and prepared his stomach for what he knew would come soon.
“Have anything for me?” he asked the pathologist as she hummed along to Bon Jovi.
“I do.” She looked up, and her eyes danced, glittering behind her mask. “We identified him with his fingerprints.”
Truman nearly pumped his arm in celebration. “Sweet. Who is he? Wait—how come you didn’t call me?”
“Because you will have to share jurisdiction on this murder—and I knew you were on your way here.”
“Share? With Deschutes County? I know—”
“No,” Dr. Lockhart stated as she lifted out a jumbled mass of intestines and mesentery she had cut from the muscle walls. “This victim’s prints showed up in a federal database. He’s a government employee. More specifically, he works for the ATF, and I notified them already.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “I expect someone from their office any minute.” She met Truman’s gaze. “As you can imagine, they move fast when one of theirs is murdered.”
“No doubt.” Truman wondered if the identification meant his victim wasn’t related to the first two murders. Or would they take another look at the other victims? It had been impossible to get prints on the severely decomposed body found a month ago, and prints of the man found in Britta’s field had led nowhere. Perhaps the involvement of the ATF would breathe new life into the first two cases.
“What else have you found?” Truman asked, wanting to collect as much information as possible in case the ATF agents booted him out the door when they arrived.
“I’ve examined the bullet entrance and exit in the skull. They are larger than the other two victims’ wounds, which is logical since the recovered bullet is larger than victim two’s bullet.”
Truman deflated a bit. His victim was looking less and less related to the other cases.
“He was a healthy male who I now know is thirty-three. Good muscle tone. No tattoos or major scars. I believe he had macaroni and cheese for his last meal.” She winked at Truman, who grimaced.
“What’s his name?”
“Timothy O’Shea.”
“Know anything else about him?” Truman asked, studying the damaged face. With his name rattling in Truman’s head, the autopsy now felt like an invasion of the man’s privacy.
“He weighs one hundred and eighty-two pounds.”
Not exactly the insight Truman had in mind.
A whoosh sounded, and Truman glanced back at the door. A tall, dark woman and a man had entered, both wearing suits. The ATF agents. “Dr. Lockhart?” asked the woman.
“Yes. Please put on the protective gear by the door.”
The two agents quickly dressed and approached. Truman had moved to the other side of the autopsy table, hoping he looked like another assistant in his gown and gloves. He was determined to milk his anonymity as long as possible. Dr. Lockhart shot him a side-eye, aware of his objective.
“I’m Carleen Aguirre, the resident in charge for the Portland ATF office,” said the woman. “This is Agent Neal Gorman.” Both agents glanced at Truman, who turned his attention to Dr. Lockhart’s hands in Timothy O’Shea’s torso.
The woman walked to the head of the table and stared down at the man’s face, her eyes going soft. “I’d hoped there’d been some sort of mistake,” she said quietly. “I see his fingerprints didn’t lie.” Her sigh was audible and heartfelt. At the foot of the table, Agent Gorman was silent as torment flashed in his eyes.
“He is your agent?” Dr. Lockhart asked.
Agent Aguirre nodded. Her chest rose in a deep breath under the pale-blue gown. “I’ll notify his family.”
“Now, Carleen—” Gorman started.
She cut him off. “I know his wife personally. I’ll do it.”