Harv volunteered.
He and Grangeland waited in the exam room.
Grangeland spoke softly. “I can’t begin to imagine what you’re feeling.”
Nathan steadied himself for what was about to roll out of that icy cell and what it represented. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all. Escape was a few steps away. No. Not now. Especially not now. How would that look? Running away at the moment of truth?
The door reopened with a clank.
Chapter 16
Nathan squinted as Salk rolled the body into the room. An opaque plastic sheet covered Kramer’s form.
It’s just a body.
Harv’s expression told all. One part revulsion, one part anger.
The gurney stopped.
Dr. Salk removed the plastic.
What lay before him looked sickeningly familiar.
An inch apart, diagonal knife cuts savaged the ash-gray skin in a crisscrossing pattern from collarbone to belt line. The cuts on the outer portions of the torso extended down to the steel surface of the table. The flesh within the wounds looked raw and dark. Montez had turned this man into a human wicker basket.
When Nathan spoke, he felt like two people imprisoned in a single body. “We’ve been thinking about something. In the middle of a desert, why would the killer bother to dump the body in the lake?”
Salk answered matter-of-factly. “Because it wasn’t a body when it went into the water.”
“What did you say?”
“I said this man was alive.”
“Alive?”
“We found silt in his lungs, consistent with the location where he was recovered. Our conclusion is that he held his breath for as long as possible before inhaling the muddy water after he hit bottom. His body was recovered ninety feet down. The diver reported the silt was disturbed immediately around the body. We’re positive he thrashed around.”
Nathan couldn’t respond. He was with Kramer in that pitch-black water during his last moments. Descending. Veins bulging. Eardrums bursting. Eyes wide open in terror. Plummeting into a freezing abyss. Inhaling water when he couldn’t hold his breath any longer. No hope of surviving.…
He sensed Grangeland take his hand.…
And something else. Hatred, deep and vicious, expanded inside him like an acidic fracture.
Grangeland called out, her tone frantic. “Nathan!”
“Huh?”
“My hand!”
He released it.
Harv grabbed his arm. “We’re outta here.”
“What’s going on?” Salk asked.
Harv pulled him toward the door.
The next thing he knew he was sitting on the floor in the hallway with his back against the wall.
“What the hell just happened?” Salk asked.
“He’s been under a lot of stress lately,” Grangeland said, rubbing her hand. “And he’s been really nervous about seeing the body. He’ll be okay. He just needs a minute to clear his head.”
“I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve never seen a reaction like that. I saw him crush your hand. He nearly broke it. You want to tell me what’s going on? That man just spooked me, and that’s not easy to do, not at this point in my career.” Salk started toward the door.
She touched his shoulder. “Please, Doctor, just give them a minute.”
“Breathe, Nathan. Close your eyes and use your safety catch.”
“I can’t.” Images from a tortured past flooded his mind, all of them terrifying. A bullwhip’s crack. Clenched teeth. Scattering birds. Moths. Sneering faces. A bloody knife.
“Do it now.” Harv grasped both his shoulders and yanked him forward. “Send him away, he doesn’t control you anymore. He can’t do anything without your permission. Send him away.”
Nathan closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and visualized autumn-cloaked trees. He stood under the branches and spread his arms. A gentle breeze fluttered the leaves past his body, brushed them against his skin. A few swirled at his feet. He took another breath and let it out slowly.
“That’s it,” Harv said. “Deeper.”
It took a moment, but a calmness washed through him. All traces of hatred evaporated.
Replaced by resolve.
Harv smiled and offered a hand up from the floor. “Welcome back.”
“Damn, that was close.”
“Tell me about it. I was about to deliver a haymaker.”
“You’d really do that?”
“Damn straight.”
“He drowned him, Harv.”
“Don’t worry, we’re going skin him alive for that.”
“Let’s get back in there.”
Salk stared as they reentered the room. Respectfully, Grangeland didn’t.
“Doctor, Special Agent Grangeland, please accept my apology. I’m not used to seeing this sort of thing.”
“It’s an understandable reaction,” Salk said. “This is an exceptionally bad case. Would you like some water?”
“Thank you, no.” When Salk turned toward the body, he mouthed I’m okay to Grangeland.
Her expression held genuine concern, but she didn’t react.
He appreciated her discretion and took a closer look at the body, pointing at several pairs of dark spots between the knife cuts. “Doctor, what are those marks?” He already knew the answer, all too well.
“They’re from a stun gun. Based on the pole spacing and the degree of discoloration, we think it’s from a King Cobra police model. Packs quite a punch, nine hundred thousand volts. The body has twenty-two sets of marks. I put a rush on all the lab work. We should have the results tomorrow afternoon.”
Grangeland handed Dr. Salk a business card. “When the results come back, will you call me right away?”
“Yes, I can have the reports faxed to your field office.”
No one spoke for several seconds.
Dr. Salk broke the silence. “Mr. McBride, have you seen this before?”
“What, a dead body?”
“This exact kind of trauma.”
He locked eyes. “Why do you ask?”
“Your reaction. I just had a feeling you recognized it.”
Harv stepped forward. “We do recognize it. We saw photographs a couple days ago.”
“I didn’t mean to suggest anything. I’m sorry.”
Yeah, Doc, you did. “No harm done,” Nathan said. “I might’ve asked the same thing in your shoes.” He forced a smile. “I probably looked like I saw a ghost.”
“That’s a pretty fair description.”
Distraction time. “Do you ever get used to it? I mean, you know…”
“Working with the dead? I enjoy my work, although truth be told, I’m not as involved with postmortem examinations as I used to be. As the ME, my job involves more administrative work now. I made an exception here. Now that I’ve had a chance to study this case in depth, I’d have to say this man wasn’t a victim of a ritual killing. I believe he was interrogated.”
“Interrogated? You mean for information? Like that?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Although it looks like a serial killer’s signature, the pathology of most serials involves ritual to some degree or another. In this case, for example, the crisscrossing diagonal cuts seem to suggest the pattern has meaning to the killer. Why else would he or she do it? We may never know the significance of the diamond pattern, but I guarantee it would have a significant meaning to a serial killer. With me so far?”
Nathan nodded.
“Then we seem to have a contradiction. The killer marred the untouched diamonds of skin by using a stun gun on them. It would be like a killer applying makeup to a dead woman’s face and then purposefully smearing it. Granted, there are no absolutes, and there are always exceptions, and this could be one of them, but I feel the stun gun was used on the diamonds of skin to inflict maximum pain, not as part of a ritual. Because the nerve endings surrounding the incisions were frayed, burned, and exposed, the electricity would’ve been excruciatingly painful. Hypothetically speaking, if this man knew what his killer wanted, he gave it up. Something else. Serial killers rarely leave their victims alive before disposing of them.”