Gradually, it became apparent that the body had been placed directly in the dirt at the bottom of a pit. Whoever had tried to burn this victim had neglected to line the pit first with wood. Could the attempt to burn the victim have been an afterthought, or the work of somebody not used to the outdoors? Out here in the open, one could never burn a body completely without building a pyre of sorts and establishing a wicking effect from below. Even then, the temperature would likely never reach the intensity needed to burn away bone.
Stella must have been thinking along the same lines. “It looks like there’s no wood under the body. Is that right?” she asked Lawson.
“That’s right. The backside of the remains should be relatively intact. I can already see evidence of clothing that’s spared. Denim pants, a light blue shirt. Dentition should be somewhat preserved. The tongue actually protects the teeth.”
Mattie glanced at the blackened tongue that bulged from the victim’s mouth and then looked away. It was hard to imagine how anyone could damage another person in this way.
Once they uncovered the body, Lawson turned to one of his teammates. “Let’s go ahead and get the board in place.”
They positioned a stretcher directly beside the burned corpse and spread open a body bag on it.
“We’ll need to roll the remains,” Lawson said.
With deft movements that demonstrated a great deal of experience, they positioned the body on its side at the edge of the stretcher.
Lawson was squatting behind the corpse. “There’s a tattoo here at the base of the neck. It says ‘Tamara and Elliott Forever’ inside a heart. Looks like we might have a first name now. Elliott. At least the tattoo is clear enough for identification purposes on a missing persons database.”
An oily wave of darkness washed through Mattie. Tamara and Elliott. She felt herself sway as the implications of those words hit her.
Cole stepped up beside her and took hold of her forearm. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head slightly as her eyes zeroed in on the body’s damaged face. She’d been unable to let her gaze linger there before, but now she tried to distinguish its features.
Willie?
Stella approached. “What is it, Mattie?”
While Mattie locked eyes with Stella, Robo edged in closer, his warmth a comfort against her leg. “My brother has been missing since Wednesday. His girlfriend is Tamara and her son is Elliott.”
Stella’s eyes widened and then went to the corpse. Bile rose in Mattie’s throat, and she turned away, lurching back toward the stream. Robo stayed beside her while Cole followed. She made it across the stream and into some bushes before heaving.
“Here, Robo,” she heard Cole say as he held back her dog. Then she felt his warm hand on her shoulder, offering some sense of stability in a world turned upside down.
THIRTEEN
Battling a quiver deep in her gut, Mattie sat on a log beside the campfire and sipped from her water supply. Stella hunkered down in front of her, staring at her with eyes that probed her depths, while Cole stood a few feet away, worry lines etched on his face.
Stella spoke, her voice quiet but intense. “Tell me what you know about your brother.”
“Very little. He lives in Hollywood and works as a car mechanic.” Poor Willie. She wished she knew him better.
“Fits with the boots.”
Steel-toed work boots. “I suppose so.”
“What’s his full name?”
Mattie focused to retrieve Willie’s middle name from memories stored when she was only six years old. “William James Cobb, if I remember right.”
“What’s his history?”
“Well … I only know recent.”
“Recent might be what counts.”
Mattie hated to divulge some of what she knew, but it was important and possibly relevant information. “He spent some time in a drug rehab center within the last year. Met a woman who worked there named Tamara and when he got out, he moved in with her and her son Elliott. He was trying to stay clean and hold down a job that he told me he liked.”
“It would be a huge coincidence if this was someone else with that tattoo, Mattie. You know that, don’t you?”
Mattie nodded agreement, glancing at Cole. He tilted his head to the side with an expression that signaled his dismay, his eyes filled with sympathy. It made her own tears well, so she quickly looked away.
“Why do you think he’s turned up here outside of Timber Creek?” Stella asked.
“Wouldn’t have happened of his own free will. He said he never wanted to come back to Timber Creek. Too many bad memories.”
This time, it was Stella who glanced at Cole. “Do you mind if Mattie and I speak privately for a few minutes, Dr. Walker?”
“Of course not.” Cole looked at Mattie before turning to leave. “Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be over with the horses.”
Stella knew almost as much about Mattie’s past as she did—the childhood abuse at the hands of her father, Willie’s regret that he couldn’t protect his little sister from their father’s advances, and their mother’s abandonment. Now Mattie could see the detective’s mind churning to find connections. “Could your past relate to his homicide?”
Mattie shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t see how.”
“But he’s here, Mattie. He’s not back in Hollywood where he belongs.”
She shifted her mind away from Willie’s damaged face and struggled to focus on finding connections. “Tamara told me this morning that lately he’d been acting different. Secretive. I assumed he’d started using again.”
“Toxicology tests should be possible with his body being partially preserved. We’ll be able to find that out.”
“Did the forensic anthropologist estimate when he was killed?”
“Said it was hard to tell. Three or four days—as early as last Friday.”
Mattie tried to recall more of her discussion with Tamara. “She said Willie was going out a lot in the evenings, like he was meeting someone.”
“We need to find out more about that.”
“I don’t think she knows anything.”
“I’ll talk to someone at his job site.” Stella stared into the middle distance for a few moments, thinking. “There has to be a link to Timber Creek that surfaced in William’s life recently. When did you talk to him last?”
“It was the weekend before last. Saturday evening, ten days past. We talked about meeting each other in Vegas.” A lump rose in Mattie’s throat, and she struggled to suppress her tears.
“Did he mention meeting up with friends or anything that could explain his secretive behavior?”
“Not a thing. And from what Tamara said, I gathered that the change in his behavior was more recent than that.”
“Your father is deceased. Could your mother be the reason that William returned to Timber Creek?”
My mother? The thought of her mother coming to Timber Creek squeezed her heart. “I don’t know. I suppose anything’s possible, but if she’s in the area, I know nothing about it.”
“Okay. We need to get down where we can make some phone calls. First, we need to talk to Tamara and gather more information, make a positive ID with the tattoo and go from there. Sheriff McCoy and Brody have this site covered. Do you want to go back to the office with me?”
Part of Mattie wanted to stay with Willie, show him respect by standing guard over his remains. But the larger part of her knew that she needed to be the one to speak with his girlfriend, show him respect by taking care of the one he obviously loved. “I’ll go with you. We’ll call Tamara together.”