“Better late than never.”
Hunter clasped Phil on the shoulder. “Make sure the CSU team doesn’t muck anything up. I’m going to meet the M.E. by the cruiser.”
“You got it.”
Ten minutes later, Hunter pushed off from the hot hood of his Ford Taurus. A white van bumped down the winding, pot-holed dirt road. He’d worked with Dr. John Ahern many times before. He was a good man and an even better forensic pathologist. Too bad promptness wasn’t on his list of credentials.
John pulled to a stop behind Hunter’s car, his tires kicking up enough dust to nearly choke him. The deputy M.E. stepped out.
“Hey, John.” Hunter extended his hand.
John winced and straightened slowly. “Hunter. Sorry for the delay. It’s been a long day. I was tied up handling a real stickler of a case.”
“Figured.”
“Heard you got something interesting out here.”
“You could say that.”
The passenger side door opened and a tall, long-legged brunette eased out, and Hunter couldn’t help but stare at the enticing vision in chocolate brown.
“I thought you always worked alone.”
The pathologist chuckled. “Dr. Herlihy’s a forensic anthropologist who’ll be teaching at Brahman University in the fall, but she’ll be working with me this summer on a case-by-case basis.” He wagged his index finger. “Now before you start griping about how I get help when the sheriff’s department is on a hiring freeze, I say you talk to the mayor, not me.”
“Got it.” Wasn’t Ahern’s fault he was lucky.
“Kerry Herlihy.” She extended her hand.
The doctor had a strong, firm grasp, and her hands were cool to the touch. No surprise. The M.E. always set the van’s air conditioner high enough to keep a body chilled.
Dr. Herlihy looked him straight in the eye. He liked that in a person, not to mention she had to be close to six feet, a few inches shorter than him.
Hunter slid a look to her left ring finger. Bare. Then again, who would wear a diamond ring to a crime scene?
He cleared his throat. “Hunter. Hunter Markum.” He inclined his head in the direction of the dirt road. “The body’s this way—or rather the head. The CSU team arrived a couple of hours ago.”
As both doctors spun in the direction of the scene, Dr. Herlihy’s eyes widened.
“Don’t worry, they know not to touch anything without your permission,” Hunter said.
Her shoulders relaxed. “Thank you.” Dr. Herlihy turned to John. “I need my bag from the back.”
Ahern clicked a button on his remote and the back door popped open. She grabbed a brown leather carryall with a hand shovel and a red-handled brush poking out of the top. She nodded and stepped back onto the path.
“Here, let me carry that for you,” Hunter offered.
“Sorry, no. I never let anyone else handle my tools.”
Hunter held up his hands. “Suit yourself.”
Ahern’s temporary hire kept her gaze straight ahead as they walked the five hundred feet to the crime scene, her attention riveted on the path. Twigs cracked under their feet and birds warbled out their mating calls. Given Dr. Herlihy didn’t ask a single question on the way, he guessed she didn’t want any information to prejudice her investigation.
Once the three of them reached the site, Hunter hung back and watched the experts at work. A young, female CSU, with a camera dangling around her neck, spoke to the crime scene lead, while a middle-aged man he’d just met today, mapped the area and triangulated the region to the crossroads. Two others, identical twins, Maggie and Molly something, joined the medical examiner’s team.
The forensic anthropologist knelt and pulled an everyday garden shovel from her bag. Her clean, unpainted nails were clipped short. She seemed to be a practical woman. Nice.
The good doctor tapped the ground with the bottom of the trowel, stabbed the earth with an orange flag and tapped again. Every so often, she’d plant another flag.
Hunter was fascinated. “What are you doing?”
She looked up and blinked. “I’m outlining the gravesite.”
Okay. “Unless you have X-ray vision, how do you know exactly where the body is?” Especially since no bones were showing, other than the skull.
Her face lit up as she smiled. “I listen and feel. Once someone disturbs the ground, it remains soft for years. I tap the ground until I reach an area that’s hard-packed. I then know the body is inside that perimeter.”
She was good.
Kerry Herlihy moved around the perimeter of the site with the grace of a dancer. Her long brown, curly hair was tied back in a neat braid, a few loose strands lifting in the slight breeze. She pushed the wisps behind her ear with her left hand as she brushed away the dirt from around the body with her right.
After the technicians helped clear away some of the soil, she crooked a finger in a come here motion to the photographer. “Could you take a shot of this shovel mark?” She pointed to some striations about a foot deep along the inside of the grave.
Hunter stepped forward. “Hard to believe a shovel mark would be present after all this time.”
“I worked a case in which the police were able to find the exact shovel used to dig the grave by markings such as these.”
“Interesting.”
“Grave’s too shallow for this to be premeditated,” Phil said.
Hunter looked over his shoulder. “Don’t sneak up behind me like that.”
“Since when did you become Mr. Jumpy? You always had nerves of steel.”
He shouldn’t have snapped at Phil, but he was enjoying his conversation with the new doc. “Maybe the guy didn’t read the How to Bury a Victim manual.”
Phil laughed.
Kerry Herlihy looked up, her lips nearly lifting in a smile.
Phil planted his hands on his hips and looked around. “I’m going to recheck the area to see if we missed anything.”
“I can’t imagine we missed much, but go for it,” Hunter said. “Too bad there aren’t any neighbors to interview. Standing around is not my thing either.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Dr. Herlihy hadn’t unearthed enough of the body to give Hunter any details of the victim, so he did what he dreaded most—continued to fill out the report. Hunter reread Bill’s statement. He checked his watch and scribbled the departure time of the informant.
Half-hour later, Phil returned. He wiped his brow and peered down at the gravesite. Kerry Herlihy had exposed about half of a human body.
“Looks like whoever buried this person took his clothes.”
“Yeah, naked of everything, including jewelry.” Sweat trickled down Hunter’s back, and he fanned himself with his notebook.
Dr. Herlihy had a healthy pink glow. No clinging fabric on the curve of her slim back.
Phil nodded toward Kerry, breaking Hunter’s attention. “She figure anything out yet?”
“Just that we have a dead person.”
Phil laughed.
“Wasn’t meant to be funny,” Hunter said, and Phil sobered.
Hunter crouched across from her and pointed to the skull. “I see the skeleton has a piece of metal in the cheek. I read in a journal it’s possible to get an ID from it.”
His stomach churned. His older sister’s pretty face flashed before him, not the cracked bones of her skeleton, causing Hunter to suck in a long breath. If his sister had survived her mugging and possible rape, she might have had a plate in her face too.
Kerry tapped the metal with the handle of a brush. “The titanium in the cheek is a result of a bad break. We can get the serial number off the moldable plate and run it, but don’t get your hopes up. That will only tell us where the plate was manufactured, not who received it or implanted the device.”
“Damn. I was hoping it would tell us which doctor performed the surgery.”
“Sorry. I know everyone believes that.” Kerry lifted a spongy looking piece of transparent rubber and twisted it around in her fingers. “This is a PTFE implant used to augment the contour of the chin. We might get lucky with this.” Her brows raised, and her pretty eyes sparkled.