Body Condition: Intact save for significant postmortem damage to face, hands, and abdomen due to animal scavenging. Feral hogs reported at body location. Rigor: Full: Livor: Posterior, purple, fixed.
Body Length: 68.5 inches. Weight: 158 pounds. Hair: Black and abundant, cut short. Eyes: Unobservable. Nasal Cavities and Other Facial Features: Unobservable. Ears: Clotted blood on external ears, otherwise unremarkable. Teeth: Anterior damaged and incomplete (postmortem), posterior natural, in good repair. Glasses/contacts: Unknown.
Small raised brown mole below right nipple.
No evidence of disease, congenital abnormality, or medical intervention.
INTERNAL EXAM
Heavner noted that the man’s heart weighed 270 grams and was grossly unremarkable. His pericardial sac was free of fluid and adhesions. His cardiac vessels were patent and followed the usual distribution with no evidence of atherosclerosis or thrombosis. His lungs were normal, his airways free of obstruction or foreign debris.
The man’s brain weighed 1,360 grams and was grossly unremarkable. His adrenal and thyroid glands, immunological system, musculoskeletal system, and skin were grossly unremarkable. Ditto the one remaining kidney.
The liver, spleen, pancreas, gall bladder, appendix, stomach, intestines, and left kidney were not present for observation or weighing.
Radiographs were taken. Aortic and inferior vena cava blood samples were retained for toxicologic analysis. Microscopic analysis to follow.
Heavner’s notes concluded with:
The body is that of a well-developed, well-nourished adult Asian (?) male appearing compatible with an estimated age of 25 to 35 years.
CAUSE/MANNER OF DEATH: Undetermined.
Bottom line. Heavner hadn’t a clue who the guy was or what had killed him. Yet there she was, talking him up to the media. Would an interview with Nick Body be next?
Leaving Barrington’s, I’d felt psyched. Certain I could slap a name on the faceless man. Certain that if he’d been murdered, I could help nail the bastards who did it.
While I had been en route to the annex, bubble-wrapped in the dark stillness inside my car, Lizzie’s question had arrowed back, tough and unbending.
Why did I care so deeply about this case? Was I really driven by a desire to do right by the victim? To return his body to those who’d loved him? To gain justice for his death?
Or was the truth somewhat less admirable? Was I on a personal crusade to destroy Margot Heavner? To punish her for supporting Nick Body and the malice that he and his kind represented?
Was my goal purely selfish? Was I dragging colleagues into my private drama to irk the patootie out of my new boss and impress the big enchilada in Chapel Hill?
I turned to the photos on my phone.
Had been scrolling a while when I spotted an image that froze my breath.
6
SUNDAY, JULY 1
I’d examined the photos over and over. Then transferred them to my Mac and sharpened each pic individually with Photoshop. I’d zoomed in and out on varying details. Tried black-and-white, different hues, saturations, and levels of contrast. Compared what I was seeing against Heavner’s notes.
By three a.m., my head was throbbing, and my eyes felt like hot balls of gravel behind my lids. Not a migraine but painful enough. I’d steeled myself for one quick run through the faceless man’s clothing and possessions, then lights out.
Didn’t happen. The fourth of those images had jolted me alert. A close-up of a tattered scrap of paper. I stared, puzzled and confused.
An online search had provided a partial answer. But no clue to the meaning of that answer.
The images had stormed unchecked throughout the three hours of sleep my hyper-jazzed brain had allowed. The blood-soaked clothing. The gutted body. The scrap. I awoke, still headachy and exhausted.
Strong gusts were spitting leaves and other missiles against the black rectangle that was my window. The mockingbird was playing elsewhere. Or hunkered down, awaiting sunrise or calmer headwinds.
I thought about lying in bed all day. About abandoning my illicit crusade for the faceless man. About sucking up to Heavner, maybe dropping by on Monday with a toe-in-the-water attempt at détente. Then I remembered her tone and the look of loathing on her face. And her self-serving interviews with Nick Body.
I got up and put on my running gear. Slipped out into the warm, windy predawn blackness.
Shapes bobbed on the choppy surface of the pond, heads tucked, necks forming inverted U’s against the buffeting blasts.
Skin-puckering flashbacks. Glinting teeth. Bloodied feathers. Sightless eyes.
A trench-coated silhouette.
I left Sharon Hall, ran past Queens University and on to Freedom Park. The place was deserted, all night creatures still burrowed deep in their nests, dens, and holes—the opossums, foxes, junkies, and drunks. The only sounds were my footfalls, the pummeling air, and the twitching branches and vegetation.
By the time I headed home, windows were glowing, and headlights were slicing the slowly yielding darkness. To the east, a buttery crack was wedging open the meeting point between earth and sky.
After a long, hot shower, I fed Birdie, then brewed coffee strong enough to revive roadkill. Armed with my notes, I dialed Hawkins.
Got the recorded voice I expected.
Left a message.
Next, I sent a text to another area code.
Talk when you’re awake?
Ten minutes later, Ryan phoned.
“Bonjour, ma chère.”
“Hey,” I said.
“Feeling all right?” Besides Mama, Ryan was the only person who knew of my recent diagnosis. Sometimes I regretted looping him in.
“It’s an aneurysm, not bubonic plague.”
“I’m happy to pop down early.”
“I’m fine. Stop asking.”
“Got it. Are you up with the birds because you miss me so badly?”
“Something like that.”
“My toes go all sweaty when you talk mushy.”
“Happy Canada Day.”
“Merci, madame.”
“Doing anything special to celebrate?” Polite for: Why have you gone incommunicado?
“Yesterday I was at Fer a Cheval, a hunting and fishing camp near Mont-Laurier.”
“In pursuit of?”
“Walleye and trout.”
“Catch anything?”
“A cold. I’m home now.”
“Bad weather?”
“Chilly and rainy.”
“It’s July.”
“Thus, the absence of snow. No matter, I’m jammed with work.”
“Business is still booming?”
“I’ve got a builder convinced his lawyer is defrauding him out of billions, a single mom wanting the entire life story of a nanny applicant, and parents terrified that their son may be shacking up with his former high school biology teacher.”
“How old is the teacher?”
“Thirty-seven.”
“And the kid?”
“Nineteen.”
“He’s legal to shag the vicar’s grandmère if he wants. Assuming she’s mentally competent and willing.”
“So I’ve informed them. I’m also doing some digging for the SQ.”
Since police detectives are restricted in ways private investigators are not, they sometimes turn to PIs when a case has dead-ended. Ryan didn’t elaborate, so I didn’t ask.