‘No bullet.’
‘No bullet, and anyone with forensic experience would have seen that immediately. But there’s a more obvious indication that this skull, so cleanly severed, would never require removal to get at a bullet.’ She held the skull upright and lifted off the top.
‘Do you see?’ she asked. ‘This is exactly like taking the lid off a jar. This skull has a calvarium cut. Its lid – the domelike, superior portion of the cranium, known as the calvarium – was cut completely around so that it could be removed to expose the inside of the skull. With this sort of cut, a head would never need to be severed from its cervical vertebrae to extract a bullet. One would merely lift off the top to probe around inside.’
‘Then there was no need to remove flesh and soft tissue from this skull to get at a bullet?’
‘You’ve been lied to, Mr Bassett. Your skull does not belong to your vertebrae. And this skull was opened from the top.’
Reed crossed the room to sit in a chair. Mac remained by the table to ask the question that had been forming for the last few minutes. ‘It’s unlikely that a doctor or a mortician was responsible for the cuts on the C2?’
‘Only if the doctor or mortician had gone berserk. More likely, it was someone without surgical knowledge.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Given that the skull we have was removed so professionally, and recognizing the presence of the calvarium cut, I suggest this skull was used for teaching. They use them in medical schools. Most have the calvarium cut so students can see inside.’
‘Anywhere else?’
‘You used to see them in doctors’ offices, too, stuck in a corner. They were cheap and entertaining. But that was years ago. You don’t see them so much now.’
Dr Wilhausen walked over to Reed and asked if she could keep the skull and vertebrae to do a more formal analysis.
Reed nodded. They would need a thorough, undeniable report.
‘Can you email a preliminary report to me tomorrow morning, stating that the skull does not match the vertebrae?’ Mac asked.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But I’ll put cautions all over it, saying I want to double-check my findings.’
Outside, Reed stopped at the base of the worn cement stairs. ‘Who cut her?’
‘Doc Farmont would have done it cleaner.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘It could have been either of the Wileys, or Wiggins.’
‘Or anyone else with a saw,’ Reed said.
SIXTY-FOUR
‘You want to what?’ April’s voice was incredulous above the whine of his truck’s engine. He could hear the clattering of pots and dishes in her background. She was in the hot steam of the restaurant’s kitchen, helping to clean up. It was ten o’clock at night.
‘News conference,’ Mac said again. ‘At the Bird’s Nest. Tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock.’
‘You’re sure the skull wasn’t Betty Jo’s?’
‘We got a preliminary report. We just left Champaign. If you go online now you can get email addresses for the television and print newsrooms. Say a major update in the long-unsolved Pribilski-Dean murders is going to be announced.’
‘Bales and Powell will come at you for this.’
‘Legally, they’re entitled. The remains were released only so they could be re-interred.’
‘You need new frickin’ legal troubles?’
‘Just, please send out the emails.’
‘She trusts you a lot, doesn’t she?’ Reed said when Mac clicked off.
‘More than has been good for her. She was scared stiff I was going to prison. Plus, she’d have to pay off the restaurant’s bills from what’s left of her savings.’
Reed shifted in the darkness. ‘A chief suspect, Bud Wiley, is dead. Doc Farmont is gone, maybe never to return.’
‘Leaving Horace Wiggins feeling like he’s hanging out all by his lonesome?’
‘It was indeed a pleasure, rattling him last night.’
‘We have to get him to testify he took more pictures, and identify who ordered their suppression.’
‘If Wiggins doesn’t budge?’
‘Our news conference announcing that the skull doesn’t match your sister’s vertebrae will expose the Peering County Sheriff’s Department as being a co-conspirator in your sister’s murder. That will set reporters loose on the cops, along with Randall White, Luther Wiley and anybody else they think was involved. With luck, the reporters will shake something loose.’
Reed had turned to look out the side window. ‘Why would anybody want her head, Mac?’ he asked after a moment.
He had no idea, and for a few minutes they drove in silence, staring out the windshield at the interstate disappearing under the front of Mac’s truck.
Reed pulled out his phone. ‘I better call Bella, warn her about what’s going on.’ He thumbed in a number. ‘Bella? Reed. Mac Bassett was right: it wasn’t Betty Jo’s head that was buried with her. There’s going to be a news conference tomorrow to announce that. You best turn off your phone until I stop by and give the all clear.’ Then: ‘Well, sure: Doc Farmont and Randy White; Horace Wiggins from over at the paper; Bud Wiley and Luther; likely old Clamp Reems himself.’ He listened for another minute, then clicked off. ‘Bella said Luther Wiley was quite shook up when Bella got to Wiley’s to identify Betty Jo. Almost irrational, Bella said.’
‘Bella have an opinion about that?’
‘She said Luther was saying him and Betty Jo were an item, freshman year. Bella had never heard a thing about that.’ Reed slumped back in the seat. ‘Thirty years on, this thing keeps getting thornier and thornier.’
They crossed into Peering County at one o’clock. A moment later, the cab of Mac’s truck was lit red by the flashing lights of a police cruiser charging up from behind.
‘What the hell?’ Reed said, turning to look out the back window.
Mac pulled over and two deputies walked up, one on either side of the truck.
‘Reed Dean?’ the cop on the passenger’s side asked.
‘Of course,’ Reed said, his voice up an octave.
‘Please step out of the vehicle, sir,’ the deputy said.
‘What’s this about?’ Mac asked.
‘Easy does it, Mr Mayor,’ the deputy on Mac’s side leaned on the door so Mac couldn’t open it.
‘Am I under arrest?’ Reed said.
The cop just shrugged.
SIXTY-FIVE
Mac followed the sheriff’s cruiser as it sped north. Several times Reed turned around to look back at Mac’s truck. His face was white and frightened in Mac’s headlamps.
Mac’s first thought was that something had happened to Reed’s wife or her two adopted children, but sheriff’s deputies didn’t wait along a dark highway to intercept for that. More likely, Jimmy Bales had finally realized that Reed’s need for his sister’s bones had less to do with proper interment and everything to do with proving the sheriff’s department had been corrupt from the beginning. Bales was probably pulling out all the stops to get the bones back.
There were no lamps lit in the cabins along the river, no lights flickering from cars parked along Poor Farm Road. The Bird’s Nest was dark as well, its parking lot empty. He wondered if April had sent off the emails to the news organizations. That had been important, two hours ago. It might be more important now, if Bales was determined to shut down Mac’s investigation.
Two other cruisers drove into the sheriff’s parking lot at the same time they pulled in. It was no coincidence. Those cars must have been posted to watch the other main roads leading into town. Jimmy Bales had been hell bent on making sure they were intercepted.
Bales was waiting just inside the door. ‘You wait there,’ he said to Mac, pointing to a bench against a wall.
‘What’s this about?’
Bales grabbed Reed’s arm and steered him down the hall.