“No. But he was going to check to see if Sean fathered Lindsay’s baby. We can ask if that is done.” Zander glanced back as Seth weighed the brain. “He’s almost finished.”
After the brain had been examined and the samples removed, all the organs were typically placed in a plastic bag and returned to the empty chest cavity. Then the ribs were replaced and the Y incision stitched closed.
Seth returned to the cranial cap and lifted it with precision gentleness. There were two notches on the edges, sawed by the doctor to line the cap back up in position on the skull and keep it in place. With skill and caution, he set it in, and his eyes crinkled in pleasure.
“That will do,” he said with satisfaction to the assistant, who’d watched the process with concern. The two of them efficiently stretched the scalp back over the cap. “You got it from here?” Seth asked. She nodded and picked up a curved needle to stitch the scalp back together.
The doctor took a few seconds to study Copeland’s face. With the jaw closed, there was no visible sign of the bullet hole in the palate. Seth rested a gloved hand on the officer’s shoulder and took a deep breath.
After a long moment, he turned to Zander and Ava, and gestured for them to follow him to the other side of the room, away from Nate Copeland. Seth’s expression was all business. “You had wanted to know if Sean had fathered his wife’s baby. I got the lab results back, and he is the father.”
Something relaxed in Zander’s chest. It didn’t mean Lindsay wasn’t having an affair with Billy Osburne, but it eliminated a possible minor motivation.
“But Lindsay and Sean wouldn’t know that was a fact if she was sleeping with Billy Osburne,” said Ava.
Shit. She’s right. The motivation couldn’t be crossed off the list.
“We need to find Osburne,” Zander said.
“I want to look at the property behind the Fitch home first. Billy Osburne second.”
Zander agreed.
21
It was well past lunchtime by the time Zander and Ava returned to the coast from their visit to the medical examiner’s office. They had hit a Dairy Queen drive-through on their route back, and the SUV still smelled of french fries.
It was a better scent than in the medical examiner’s building.
“Straight to the Fitch house?” Zander asked.
“No time like the present.”
The sheriff hadn’t found Billy Osburne and was getting frustrated. Even over the phone, Zander heard it in his voice.
He took the narrow winding road to the Fitch location, feeling a sense of déjà vu. A lot had happened over the two and a half days since he had been there last. The road turned to gravel, and the homes grew farther apart. He spotted the Fitch house and parked on the road’s shoulder. The two of them studied the small white ranch in silence. Behind the house, tall firs swayed, shedding needles and small branches.
“Windy,” Ava commented.
“I wouldn’t live with trees of that size near my house.”
“Hell no.” She leaned forward and pointed at low bushes a dozen yards from their vehicle. “Look.”
Several bikes lay on their sides, partly hidden by the greenery.
“Kids.” Annoyance had Zander immediately opening his door. Kids would be curious and snoop around a crime scene; that was a natural instinct at that age. But he’d have to be the bad guy and chase them off. He counted four bikes, each in a different stage of wear and tear.
Nostalgia enveloped him. A bike and a deep inquisitiveness had sent him and his childhood friends on many adventures. They were fearless, convinced that their world was open to exploration. The more prohibited the location, the more exciting. The fenced-off electrical station behind the middle school. The barn with the caved-in roof on the neighboring property. The row of rotten-smelling dumpsters behind the strip mall.
Three locations that would distress their parents—which made them powerful kid magnets.
“At least they’re outside and not playing video games.”
Zander snorted. “I’ll grab a couple of flashlights from the back.” He popped the rear hatch and grabbed two small LED units. It wasn’t dark, but the gray clouds cast a pall. It would be hard to see in the shadows of the forest.
She took a flashlight, and they headed around the left side of the home.
“Think the kids would go inside?” Ava murmured.
“I trust the county locked it up tight, but I can guarantee you the kids tried every door and window.”
“Guarantee?”
“I was a nosy kid once,” Zander admitted. He would have been fascinated, oblivious to the disrespect, if this had occurred in his childhood neighborhood.
“I was too, but I wouldn’t try to enter a home where people had been murdered.”
“You can add this to your list of differences between the sexes.”
“Not all boys,” she added.
“Not all boys,” he agreed with a grin. He held up a hand as he heard young voices behind the home.
Ava sighed. “Crap. They must be at the tree.”
The two of them turned the corner and saw three boys who appeared to be eleven or twelve circling the trunk of the tree. A fourth was up the tree, several branches above where Sean Fitch had been hanged. The branch used in the hanging had been removed to process for evidence. Crime scene tape still circled a large portion of the backyard.
Zander fought back the instinct to yell at the boys. They don’t understand.
“A teaching moment,” Ava said quietly. She raised her voice. “Hey, kids? Can you get away from the tree and come over here for a minute?”
Four startled faces spun their way. “It’s the cops!” The boys froze and then scrambled, each darting in a different direction. The boy in the tree shot down the trunk quicker than an angry bear and took off, the red hood of his jacket flapping behind him.
Zander took a few rapid steps after one and halted, glancing back at Ava. Her hands were on her hips, acceptance in her expression.
There was no point.
“We could wait by the bikes,” he suggested.
“What for? I suspect we scared them enough to stay away, and I doubt they would listen to the lecture I was ready to give.”
“How’d they know we were law enforcement?”
She gave him a droll look. “You ooze law and order in your stance alone. Even if you weren’t FBI, they’d struggle to look you in the eye.”
“‘Ooze’? Is that a compliment?”
“I think so.”
Zander wasn’t so sure. “They probably saw us here the other day. No doubt spying from a distance.”
“Possibly.” Ava exhaled, scanned the backyard clearing, and eyed the dense forest that started beyond the police tape. “How do you want to do this?”
“We should have more people.”
“In a perfect world. But it’s you and me.” She spread out her arms, stepping away from Zander. “Fingertip-to-fingertip distance. We’ll start by that big fir and pace a grid. Keep an eye out for anything that a watcher could have left behind . . . trash . . . footprints.”
They spent the next half hour attempting to walk in straight lines while stepping around thick trunks and underbrush, sweeping every inch of the ground with their lights. Every few feet Zander looked up, tracing his beam up the bark and branches of the firs and trying to avoid being poked in the eye by falling pine needles. The gigantic trees creaked and slowly swayed in the wind.