Whispers of the Dead (3 page)

I
either. Like Tom I was no stranger to the odour of decomposition,
and after spending the past week at the facility I'd become well and
truly acclimatized to it. But I still accepted the jar, wiping the scented
Vaseline on my top lip. My eyes instantly watered from the pungent
vapour. I took a deep breath, trying to still my jangling nerves. What the hell's wrong with you? You're acting like this is your first time.
The sun was warm on my back as I waited for Tom to get ready.
Low and dazzling, it brushed the tops of the trees as it made its slow
descent into evening. It would come up again in the morning no
matter what happened here, I reminded myself.
Tom finished zipping up his overalls and gave a cheery smile. 'Let's
see what we've got.'
Pulling on our latex gloves, we walked up the overgrown path to
the cabin.
The cabin door was closed. Gardner paused outside. He'd left his
jacket with the boxes of overalls, and had put on a pair of plastic
overshoes and gloves. Now he slipped on a white surgical mask. I saw
him take a deep breath before he opened the door and we went
inside.
I've seen human bodies in most states of death. I know how bad
the different stages of putrefaction smell, can even differentiate
between them. I've encountered bodies that have been burned to the
bone, that have been reduced to soap-like slime after weeks underwater.
None are pleasant, but it's an inevitable part of my work, and
one I thought I was inured to.
lint I'd never experienced anything like this. The stench was
almost tangible. The nauseatingly sweet, bad-cheese stench of
decomposing flesh seemed to have been distilled and concentrated,
cutting through the menthol under my nose as though it wasn't
there.The cabin was alive with flies, swirling excitedly around us, but
they were almost incidental compared to the heat.
The inside of the cabin was like a sauna.
Tom grimaced. 'Good God . . .'
'Told you to wear shorts,' Gardner said.
The room was small and sparsely furnished. Several of the forensic
team had broken off what they were doing to glance over as we'd
gone in. Shuttered blinds had been pulled up to allow daylight in
through the windows on either side of the door. The floor was black
painted boards covered with threadbare rugs. A pair of dusty antlers
hung over a fireplace on one wall, while a stained sink, cooker and
fridge stood against another. The rest of the furniture - TV, sofa
and armchairs - had been roughly pushed to the sides, leaving the
centre of the room clear, except for a small dining table.
The body was lying on it.
It was naked, spread-eagled on its back, arms and legs draped over
the table edges. Swollen by gases, the torso resembled an overstuffed
kitbag that had burst open. Maggots dripped from it to the floor, so
many of them that they looked like boiling milk. An electric radiator
stood next to the table, all three of its bars shimmering yellow. As I
watched, a maggot dropped on to one of them and disappeared in a
fat sizzle.
Completing the tableau was a hard-backed chair that had been
positioned by the victim's head. It looked innocuous enough, until
you thought to wonder why it was there.
Someone had wanted a good view of what they were doing.
None of us had gone any further than the doorway. Even Tom
seemed taken aback.
'We left it like we found it,' Gardner said. 'Thought you'd want to
record the temperature yourself
He went up a notch in my estimation. Temperature was an important
factor in determining time since death, but not many
investigating officers I'd come across would have thought of that.
Still, on this occasion I almost wished he'd been less thorough. The
combination of heat and stench was overpowering.
Tom nodded absently, his gaze already fixed on the body. 'Care to
do the honours, David?'
I set his case down on a clear area of floorboards and opened it up.
Tom still had much of the same battered equipment he'd had since
I'd known him, everything well worn and neatly ordered in its place.
But while he might be a traditionalist at heart, he also recognized the
benefits of new technology. He'd kept his old mercury thermometer,
an elegant piece of engineering with its hand-blown glass and tooled
steel, but alongside it was a new digital model. Taking it out, I
switched it on and watched the numbers on its display quickly start
to climb.
'How much longer will your people be?' Tom asked Gardner,
glancing at the white-clad figures working in the room.
'A while yet. Too hot for them to stay long in here. I've had an
agent pass out already.'
Tom was bending over the body, careful to avoid the dried blood
on the floor. He adjusted his glasses to see better. 'Have we got a
temperature yet, David?'
I checked the digital readout. I'd already started to sweat. 'Forty
three point five degrees.'
'So now can we turn off the goddamn fire?' one of the forensic
team asked. He was a big man, with a barrel-like stomach that
strained the front of his overalls. What was visible of his face under
the surgical mask was red and sweating.
I glanced at Tom for confirmation. He gave a nod.
'Might as well open the windows too. Let's get some air in here.'
'Thank the sweet Lord for that,' the big man breathed as he went
to unplug the fire. As its bars dimmed, he opened the windows as far
as they would go. There were sighs and mutterings of relief as fresh
air swept into the cabin.
I went to where Tom was staring down at the body with a look of
abstract concentration.
Gardner hadn't been exaggerating; there was no question that this
was a homicide. The victim's limbs had been pulled down on either
side of the table and fastened to the wooden legs with parcel tape.
The skin was drum-tight and the colour of old leather, although that
was no indication of ethnicity. Pale skin darkens after death, while
dark skin will often lighten, blurring colour and ancestry. What was
more significant were the gaping slits that were evident. It's natural
for the skin to split apart as the body decomposes and becomes
bloated by gases. But there was nothing natural about this. Dried
blood caked the table around the body and blackened the rug below
it. That had to have come from an open wound, or possibly more
than one, which suggested that at least some of the damage to the
epidermis had been inflicted while the victim was still alive. It might
also explain the numbers of blowfly larvae, as the flies would have
laid their eggs in any opening they could find.
Even so, I couldn't recall ever seeing so many maggots in a single
body before. Up close, the ammoniac stink was overpowering. They
had colonized the eyes, nose, mouth and genitals, obliterating whatever
sex the victim had been.
I found my eyes drawn to the way they seethed in the gaping slit
in the stomach, causing the skin around it to move as though it were
alive. My hand involuntarily went to the scar on my own.
'David? You OK?'Tom asked quietly.
I tore my gaze away. 'Fine,' I said, and began taking the specimen
jars from the bag.
I could feel his eyes on me. But he let it pass, turning instead to
Gardner. 'What do we know?'
'Not much.' Gardner's voice was muffled by his mask. 'Whoever
did this was pretty methodical. No footprints in the blood, so the
killer knew enough to mind where he put his feet. Cabin was rented
out last Thursday to someone calling himself Terry Loomis. No
description. Reservation and credit card payment were made by
phone. Man's voice, local accent, and the guy asked for the key to be
left under the mat by the cabin door. Said he'd be arriving late.'
'Convenient,'Tom said.
'Very. Don't seem too worried about paperwork here so long as
they get paid. The cabin rental ended this morning, so when the key
wasn't returned the manager came up to take a look and make sure
nothing was missing. Place like this, you can see why he'd be
worried,' he added, glancing round the threadbare cabin.
But Tom wasn't paying any attention. 'The cabin was only rented
from last ThursdaylYou sure?'
'That's what the manager said. Date checks out with the register
and the credit card receipts.'
Tom frowned. 'That can't be right. That's only five days ago.'
I'd been thinking the same thing. The decomposition was much
too advanced for such a short period of time. The flesh was already
displaying a cheesy consistency as it began to ferment and moulder,
the leathery skin slipping off it like a wrinkled suit. The electric fire
would have speeded things up to some extent, but that didn't explain
the amount of larval activity. Even in the full heat and humidity of a
Tennessean summer it would normally have taken nearer seven days
to reach this stage.
'Were the doors and windows closed when he was found?' I asked
Gardner without thinking. So much for keeping quiet.
He pursed his lips in displeasure, but still answered.'Closed, locked
and shuttered.'
I batted flies away from my face. You'd think I'd be used to them
by now, but I'm not. 'A lot of insect activity for a closed room,' I said
to Tom.
He nodded. Using tweezers, he carefully picked up a maggot from
the body and held it up to the light to examine it. 'What do you
make of this?'
I leaned closer to take a look. Flies have three larval stages, called
instar, in which the larvae grow progressively larger.
'Third instar,' I said. That meant it had to be at least six days old,
and possibly more.
Tom nodded, dropping the larva into a small jar of formaldehyde.
'And some of them have already started to pupate. That would make
the time since death six or seven days.'
'But not five,' I said. My hand had strayed towards my stomach
again. I took it away. Come on, concentrate. I made an effort to apply
myself to what I was looking at.'I suppose he could have been killed
somewhere else and brought here post mortem.'
Tom hesitated. I saw two of the white-suited figures exchange a
glance, and immediately realized my mistake. I felt my face burn. Of all the stupid . . .
'No need to tape the arms and legs to the table if the victim was
already dead,' the big crime scene officer said, looking at me oddly.
'Maybe corpses in England are livelier than over here,' Gardner
said, deadpan.
There was a ripple of laughter. I felt my face sting, but there was
nothing I could say to make it any better. Idiot. What's wrong with you?
Tom fastened the lid back on to the killing jar, his face studiedly
impassive. 'Think this Loomis is the victim or the killer?' he asked
Gardner.
'Well, it was Loomis's driver's licence and credit cards that were in
the wallet we found. Along with over sixty dollars in cash. We ran a
check: thirty-six years old, white, employed as an insurance clerk in
Knoxville. Unmarried, lives alone, and hasn't been in to work for
several days.'
The cabin door opened and Jacobsen entered. Like Gardner she
was wearing overshoes and gloves, but she managed to make even
those look almost elegant. She wasn't wearing a mask, and her face
was pale as she went to stand by the older agent.
'So, unless the killer booked the place in his own name and considerately
left his ID behind, the likelihood is that this is either
Loomis, or some other male we don't know about,' Tom said.
'That's about it,' Gardner said. He broke off as another agent
appeared in the doorway.
'Sir, there's someone asking to see you.'
'I'll be right back,' Gardner said to Tom, and went outside.
Jacobsen remained in the cabin. Her face was still pale, but she
folded her arms tightly in front of her as though restraining any
weakness.
'How d'you know it's male?' she asked. Her eyes flicked automatically
to the seething activity around the corpse's groin, but
she quickly averted them again. 'I can't see anything to say either
way.'
Her accent wasn't as strong as some I'd heard, but it was pronounced
enough to mark her as local. I looked at Tom, but he was
engrossed with the corpse. Or at least pretending to be.
'Well, apart from the size--' I began.
'Not all women are small.'
'No, but not many are as tall as this. And even a big woman would
have a more delicate bone structure, especially the cranium.
That's--'
'I know what a cranium is.'
God, but she was spiky. 'I was about to say that's usually a good
indication of gender,' I finished.
Her chin came up, stubbornly, but she made no other comment.
Tom straightened from where he'd been examining the gaping
mouth.
'David, take a look at this.'
He moved aside as I went over. Much of the soft tissue had gone
from the face; eyes and nasal cavity were heaving with maggots. The
teeth were almost fully exposed, and where the gums had been
the yellow-white of the dentine had a definite reddish hue.
'Pink teeth,' I commented.
'Ever come across them before?'Tom asked.
'Once or twice.' But not often. And not in a situation like this.
Jacobsen had been listening. 'Pink teeth?'
'It's caused by haemoglobin from the blood being forced into the
dentine,' I told her.'Gives the teeth a pinkish look under the enamel.
You sometimes find it in drowning victims who've been in the water
for some time, because they tend to float head down.'
'Somehow I don't think we're dealing with a drowning here,'
Gardner said, clumping back into the cabin.
He had another man with him. The newcomer also wore overshoes
and gloves but didn't strike me as either a police officer or a
TBI agent. He was in his mid-forties, not plump exactly, but with a
sleek, well-fed look about him. He wore chinos and a lightweight
suede jacket over a pale blue shirt, and the well-fleshed cheeks were
covered with a stubble that stopped just short of being a beard.
But the apparently casual appearance was a little too contrived, as
though he'd styled himself on the chiselled models from magazine
advertisements. The clothes were too well cut and expensive, the
shirt open by one button too many. And the stubble, like the hair,
was slightly too uniform to be anything other than carefully
groomed.
He exuded self-assurance as he walked into the cabin. His half
smile never wavered as he took in the body tied to the table.
Gardner had dispensed with his mask, perhaps out of deference to
the newcomer, who wasn't wearing one either. 'Professor Irving, I
don't think you've met Tom Lieberman, have you?'
The newcomer turned his smile on to Tom. 'No, I'm afraid our
paths haven't crossed. You'll have to excuse me if I don't shake hands,'
he said, theatrically showing us his gloves.
'Professor Irving's a criminal personality profiler who's worked
with the TBI on several investigations,' Gardner explained. 'We
wanted to get a psychological perspective on this.'
Irving gave a self-deprecating grin. 'Actually, I prefer to call myself
a "behaviouralist". But I'm not going to quibble about titles.'
You just have done. I told myself not to take my mood out on him.
Tom's smile was blandness itself, but I thought I detected a coolness
about it.'Pleased to meet you, Professor Irving. This is my friend
and colleague, Dr Hunter,' he added, making up for Gardner's
omission.
The nod Irving sent my way was polite enough, but it was obvious
I didn't register on his radar. His attention was already moving to
Jacobsen, his smile widening.
'I don't think I caught your name?'
'Diane Jacobsen.' She seemed almost flustered, the cool she'd displayed