Murder in the Mist (19 page)

“Thanks, Amy.”

She waved goodbye and walked toward the Silly Lobster. Just as Mitch and Laura crossed the street back toward the newspaper, Amy shouted, and trotted toward them. “I almost forgot until I saw him.” She pointed to where Benjamin Noone squatted. “He lives closest to the fringe of the park. Can’t see his cabin from here, and none of us go near it. He’s weird.”

A faint breeze crinkled through the trees. A bird chirped happily, and another answered.

Laura asked, “Weird in what way, Amy?”

She shrugged. “I dunno know…just weird. Got lots of junk all around. Yells at anybody who comes in his yard. You know…creepy.”

Mitch thanked the girl again.

Inside the office, Laura asked Mitch what prompted his visit.

“Dr. Musuyo is doing the autopsy today. I know you don’t plan to attend, but I thought I’d ask in case you changed your mind.”

“Huh-uh, no way. I’ve been to one, and that one is enough to last me a lifetime. Change of subject. I asked Aunty Philly about the people who live close to Acadia’s boundary lines. Amy verified everything she said, except according to Aunt Philly there are a couple of abandoned cabins up there, too. You think the killer might be hiding in one of them?”

Mitch merely shrugged. “Won’t know until I check it out.” He touched the bill of his cap. “Have you noted any unusual activity since you printed the articles about the dead woman and Lynnette Braswell?”

Laura mimicked his shrug. “I think the most outrage came from Aunt Philly’s group of Friday Sisters. They’re all a-twitter about holding a séance to see if they can conjure forth another spirit that might lead them to the killer.”

Mitch offered a “spare me” shake of his head. “They are an interesting group of ladies. I’ll miss them when I return to Texas. Catch you later, Friday.”

“Mitch, when you check out the houses on the fringes of the park, can I go with you? I’d love to take a few pictures.”

“Sure. I’ll pick you up Saturday morning.”

“If you’re not busy, come by tonight and fill me in on the autopsy report.”

“Only if I can bring a pizza.”

Laura grimaced. “How can you think of food and autopsy in the same sentence?”

“Never gave it much thought.”

Without another word, Mitch walked out of the office.

****

Mitch pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. He hadn’t slept well since the discovery of Daisy Fuller’s body at the park. He’d considered Laura’s suggestion that the killer had taken a ten-year hiatus before committing another murder. If this was the case, what had triggered the motivation to take another life? The other part of him wanted to believe Daisy Fuller’s murder was in no way connected to Lynnette Braswell’s.

He bit back a bitter smile as he walked down the long, sterile hall. Most autopsies were scheduled days after the discovery of a body. Not much call for such a thing in a small town. He pushed through the morgue’s double doors. Inside, the odor hit him at once. Too antiseptic. Too disinfected.

Dressed in a blue gown and cap, Ken Musuyo motioned to the cabinet. “Extra cap, gown, and gloves are in the cupboard. Help yourself.”

Mitch walked over and snagged the gear and covered himself. Then he stood back as an observer.

Ken Musuyo introduced Mitch. “This is James Hirsch. He’s the morgue attendant/diener and will assist me.” Mitch and Hirsch acknowledged each other with a nod.

The diener unwrapped the body while Dr. Musuyo looked up at the microphone suspended from the ceiling. “Testing…testing.” Satisfied it was working, he proceeded with business. “Unwrapping the body now.”

Hirsch pulled back the external layer of heavy duty plastic. Next he unfolded a plain white sheet. Then he unpeeled the internal layer of plastic, much like a dry cleaning bag, from the corpse’s body. Each layer was folded down around the gurney’s legs.

While Musuyo prepped the body, the diener said, “Because the body was nude when found, there is no inventory of clothing or jewelry. Sand and seaweed samples were collected from the victim’s hair. White particles from the hair and body test positive for sodium chloride.”

Afterward the body was weighed and measured and placed on the autopsy table. The diener photographed the inside of the evidence bag for any debris that might have fallen from the body. The cadaver was placed face up on the table, and a rubber body block was placed under the patient’s back. “We’re ready, Dr. Musuyo.”

Hirsch wheeled the gurney over to the cutting table. It was obvious to Mitch the two had done this several times before. Musuyo moved to the head of the table. Hirsch moved to the feet. On the count of three they slid the naked corpse from the gurney to the metal slab, then Hirsch wheeled the table away.

First, Musuyo cataloged the victim’s naked body. “Daisy Fuller, female, approximate age thirty-five, five foot six, one hundred twenty-five pounds.” He gave her hair and eye color, and also commented that she appeared to be in good health.

He used the words “victim” and “deceased” a lot. Raising her right arm, he noted a brown mole on the inside of her right breast.

Musuyo moved on to identify perceived injuries, stating that multiple contusions to the exterior were possibly due to the ocean’s waves battering the body against the interior walls of the cavern. “No apparent defensive wounds on the right or left arm. No bruising on the facial areas.”

He moved to the outsides of each leg and noted multiple scratches before moving to the inside of each leg. At the left leg he bent for a closer observation. “Mitch, take a look at this.”

Mitch also leaned in. “Green and yellow tinges around the ankle.” He glanced at the doctor. “Looks like someone grabbed our victim around the ankle.”

Musuyo nodded as he lifted the left leg. He used a magnifying glass to examine the perceived injury. He frowned, studying the abrasion, and placed his fingers around the ankle. “Bruising on outer side of the ankle is indicative of a thumb print.”

He used his gloved hand to poke and prod the waxy skin. He rolled the body to its stomach, and lifted the long brown hair to note the bruising along the neck region of the spine. X-rays had verified a cervical fracture between the C1 and C7 vertebrae. Moving his attention down the spine, he said, “Large blue butterfly tattoo on right shoulder approximately two inches in diameter. Bruising at the lower lumbar region.”

He reached up and pulled the magnifying glass closer to the buttocks. “Bruising on the right and left glutes.” He then finished his initial exam by narrating the condition of the bottoms of the feet. “From the bruises and superficial wounds to the soles, it appears the victim was not wearing shoes.” He used a scalpel to open an inch-long cut on the sole. He scraped the area onto a slide and handed it to Hirsch with instruction to examine the contents.

Hirsch placed the slide under a smaller microscope and reported, “The debris appears to be pieces of pine needle, crushed leaves, and dirt.”

Mitch’s voice was low and deep. “This definitely places the victim in the national park.”

Musuyo nodded as he recorded the evidence. He removed the plastic bags from her hands. Both he and the diener leaned close while Musuyo scraped each fingernail. Hirsch collected the samples. Next Dr. Musuyo swabbed each nail with a cotton swab, testing for traces of blood. He looked at Mitch. “Nothing. It appears she didn’t put up a fight. No skin, no blood.”

Musuyo instructed Hirsch to bring over the inkpad and fingerprint the victim. This took a few minutes, due to full rigor mortis. They worked methodically, the doctor popping each finger to release the joints while Hirsch did the inking and fingerprinting.

With the printing done, Musuyo moved down the body to examine between the victim’s legs. Although the corpse was nude when found, and in the water for approximately seventy-two hours prior to being washed ashore, he still had to examine the interior of the body.

“No bruising on the inner thighs, no lacerations of the labia majora or labia minora,” Dr. Musuyo recorded. He combed the pubic hairs and Hirsch collected the strands in a plastic bag. Musuyo then picked up several long-stemmed cotton swabs. After the internal exam he handed them to Hirsch with instruction to match the spermatazoa with the DNA from the coffee cups that Ranger Dorsey had bagged and identified as Louis Castle and Joe Manfred.

Dr. Musuyo again narrated, “For the external examination, I have concluded there is no evidence of sexual assault. However, there is evidence of non-motil spermatazoa in the cervix.” He shut the mic off and looked at Mitch. “This concurs with what her friends stated at the park. My guess is the semen will match with either Castle or Manfred, or both.”

“How long will it take to determine the DNA matches?”

“It’s modern day, Mitch. Shouldn’t take Hirsch more than thirty minutes.”

Mitch wanted to shoot the clock. The ticking seemed to grow louder with every second while he waited and observed Dr. Musuyo continuing to examine the body for clues. Twenty-nine minutes and thirteen seconds passed before the diener returned.

Hirsch reported. “Semen matches are ninety-nine percent positive for Castle and ninety-six point nine percent for Manfred.”

Musuyo shrugged. “Rules out rape. Okay, let’s turn her on her back and clean her up.”

Hirsch turned on a hose. He and the doctor hosed down the body. This was routine procedure prior to making the first incision. It was important that factors from the outside—dirt, algae, microscopic crustaceans, sea salt, and other debris—not contaminate the internal organs.

Dr. Musuyo matter-of-factly turned off the hose. “The outside has told its story. Now we will see what the inside reveals.”

This was the part Mitch hated the most. He sucked in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. No matter how many autopsies he attended, his stomach always felt queasy. He pulled the surgical mask over his mouth and nose as he watched Musuyo make a small puncture to release the body gases. Depending on the rate of decomposition, the odor could be overwhelming, and sometimes the bodies splattered. With precision, the doctor made the initial incision.

While Musuyo probed the organs, he said, “Toxicology came back positive for both alcohol and cannabis, as well as tannic acid, which means that at some point in time she drank tea.” He turned off the mic and spoke to Mitch. “Which confirms what the victim’s friends stated. By the way, her friends didn’t say anything about eating a meal, did they?”

Mitch frowned at the question. “I’d have to go through my notes to confirm, but I’m positive none of them mentioned food. Why? What did you find?”

Mursuyo’s brow furrowed as he reached up to turn on the microphone. “What do we have here?” He used a pair of needle-nosed tweezers to pluck a brown object from the stomach. He held it closer to the microscope. “A partially undigested peanut. It appears the victim may have either eaten peanuts or a crunchy type of peanut butter not too far prior to death. With tannic acid in the urine analysis, a strong conclusion is that she had a peanut butter sandwich and tea as her last meal.”

They both lapsed into silence as Mitch continued to observe. He sighed heavily. “Ken, how soon will you know whether she died from a broken neck or if she drowned?”

Musuyo didn’t crack a smile as he narrated into the microphone. “No sea water evident in the lungs, which draws the conclusion the victim did not drown. Official cause of death—cervical fracture.”

Mitch roused himself. “Damn. I don’t wish anyone dead, but I was hoping evidence would confirm suicide. Since there’s no substantiation pointing to the victim’s friends, it’s safe to say we can rule them out as suspects. As much as I hate to think we have a murderer in Cole Harbor, it appears that may be the case.”

Dr. Musuyo removed his gloves. “What are the chances the killer poses as a camper, picks out a victim, then moves on, and that Daisy Fuller just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

“Where murder is concerned, anything is possible. Send me your report as soon as it’s ready.”

Mitch removed the disposable gown and gloves and dumped them inside the hazardous waste bin. He bid the doctor a good afternoon and crossed the room, closed the door behind him, and exited the morgue the same way he entered. Outside in the sunshine, he sucked in the fresh air to clear his lungs of the smell of chemicals and death.

He walked the short distance to his office to spend the rest of the afternoon filling out forms and writing his report, and to formulate a plan of investigation. He wanted this mystery solved before Sheriff Gilman’s return. This was his watch, and he had no intention of leaving Cole Harbor with an unsolved murder on the books.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Bryan frowned at the hard knot that had settled in his gut. He stood in front of the newspaper’s large glass door and read Laura’s name and title. His body hummed with the feel of her presence as he watched her sitting with her full attention to the computer screen.
Bryan, old boy, all you have to do is convince her that she likes you.
So why did he feel like he was about to approach a man-eating shark? The two sandwich bags he held suddenly felt like lead weights, and he regretted his idea of a picnic lunch rather than taking her to a restaurant. Before he could abandon the idea and ditch the sacks in a public waste receptacle, Laura looked up, offered a smile, and motioned him inside.

She closed the laptop. “Right on time. I’m starved.”

He held forth the two white bags labeled with large red lobsters wearing chef’s hats. To his chagrin, she was not smiling. “I thought a picnic at the gazebo might be fun. Can I entice you with lobster rolls?”

When she didn’t give an immediate response, he said, “Or…not.”

The discomfort of his smile echoed in his blue eyes. She definitely wasn’t dressed for eating outdoors. “Listen, bad idea. I can see I’m not scoring any points here.”

Laura’s own blue eyes narrowed. She arched a brow. “Had you warned me, I would have dressed for a picnic.” And then she smiled. “But a girl has to eat, and I never turn down lobster rolls from the Silly Lobster.”