Finally, after what seemed like hours, a whistle. Moreno was gesturing for her.
She picked her way into the copse carefully, eyes on the ground, making sure she didn’t tread on some unseen, uncollected bit of evidence accidentally.
The smell hit her first. Deep, intense, rancid, and rank. Wet, musky, rotted meat left in the sun too long. She steeled herself for the first look.
Moreno was waiting, hands on hips. “Tell me what you see.”
The first impression was unbearable. It never ended for her; the dead and the gone were always a mimicry of themselves, wrong, so very wrong. It took her a second to recognize death: slitted eyes, limbs tangled, mouth drawn back in a rictus grin. The next second registered the condition of the body. Though decomposing, something was clearly wrong. She glanced at the hands. Hand. Only one evident, sticking up from the muck and mud like it was reaching to the sky from a grave. Balled into a fist, a huge diamond winking. The rumors were right.
“She was burned.”
“Correct. Why?”
“To hide evidence, maybe? She didn’t do it to herself.”
“No? You’re sure?”
The world had reasserted itself, and Holly was able to look closer, taking the body in sections. “There is clearly animal damage. We’ll have to wait until autopsy to see what might be a wound versus a bite mark. Did Forensics find anything nearby, gas cans, lighters, the like?”
The edge of Moreno’s lip rose briefly. He nodded to a pretty, dark-haired woman standing ten feet to his left.
“This is Sherrie, she’s the death investigator from Forensic Medical. Holly Graham, Franklin Homicide. Talk.”
Holly kept her face straight at Moreno’s introduction, simply nodded professionally, as if hearing her name and title associated with the word homicide was a commonplace occurrence. Inside, her heart raced.
Jesus, you got it. Don’t blow it, sister.
“Good to meet you. We have to get her back to the shop, give her a thorough once-over, but it certainly looks like she was burned here. The grass and leaves are scorched around the body.” Sherrie referred to her clipboard. “To answer your question, no, we haven’t found gas cans, lighters, anything else flammable that would indicate she set herself alight. As you can see, the burns are worse on the lower extremities. Could be she was standing up when she caught flame, and then fell down. With her buried in the mud like that, anything could be hidden out of sight, but burning yourself to death without leaving some sort of evidence behind is hard to do. Whether this is our primary crime scene or just a dump site is yet to be determined. I don’t see that we’ll be able to pull usable prints, the hands are in bad shape, so without DNA or dentals... No sense jumping to conclusions until we have a chance to work it all out.”
Holly nodded sagely. “Thanks for the rundown.”
Sherrie made a note. “Cool. We’ll take her shortly, Sarge.”
“Do it. Make sure she’s first up, okay?” Moreno wasn’t asking, but Sherrie didn’t look impressed.
“I’ll let Dr. Fox know, sir.”
She walked to the nearby gurney, started giving instructions to the morgue guys with her.
Holly blocked it out. Even the smell had lessened. She was sure this was Sutton Montclair. She wasn’t recognizable facially, of course, not with the burnt skin and shortened tendons pulling her face into a bizarre death mask. Holly didn’t know what Sutton’s wedding set looked like, either, though based on the house, it was clear the Montclairs had money, and as such, Sutton’s rings would be enormous. It was the spill of reddish-blond hair, still lovely, though matted with rain and muck and the desiccated flesh that clung to it, crawling with all sorts of bugs, that told her so. The hair was the giveaway. Plus, there were no other missing women who fit this description from the area. Hard to argue with that logic.
And then it hit her. “Her hair didn’t burn.”
Moreno was by her elbow again. “No, it didn’t. Not all the way. Isn’t that strange? You’d think it would go up like a phoenix.”
“Regret, maybe? He burned her here, and changed his mind and put out the fire before it consumed her whole head?”
“Hard to control a fire like that. But that’s a solid possibility. Either way, it’s time to go talk to Mr. Montclair. You have your cuffs? You should make the arrest.”
“Yes, sir, I do. Before we go, may I ask...how was she found?”
“Birds. A veterinarian from Animalia across the way called it in. He’d seen Sutton Montclair’s face all over the news outlets, saw a huge circle of prey birds swooping around. From the number of birds and extended time frame, he knew it was something large, and phoned it in last night. It filtered down and I came out to take a look, just in case.”
“You didn’t call me.” The words were out before she could think, but Moreno gave her that avuncular half smile.
“It was zero dark thirty and you looked like warmed-over shit when you went home last night. You needed the sleep. She wasn’t going anywhere without you. And you know the first rule of homicide investigation. You can’t go it alone. We’re a team, and we split things up. You’re here now. And now the real work is going to begin.”
“Yes, sir.”
She glanced to the sky. There were still some hawks hanging around, riding the thermals. Sometimes, it was as simple as looking to the sky to see where the feast was being held.
She’d been so close, this whole time.
Holly shielded her eyes against the sun and watched the ME’s death investigators ready themselves to load the body onto the gurney for transport. A cry went up as they lifted the body. Sutton Montclair’s beautiful, partially burned hair was still in the mud.
“Ugh,” Moreno said.
“Totally.”
The DI grabbed a bag and carefully lifted the remains of scalp and hair into it. Holly finally felt the gorge begin to rise. “Does that happen often?”
Moreno saved her. “Anything can happen to a body left out in the sun long enough. Come on, let’s get out of here. It’s going to be a long day. I’ll meet you at Montclair’s place. We’re all set on the paper. Judge Kerr signed off on the warrants late last night.”
“We should amend the physical search warrant to let us take a look around for gas cans and other flammable materials. Don’t want this getting tossed on a technicality.”
Moreno gave her a smile. “Yes, we should. Good call.”
The van doors slammed. Holly had a momentary bit of sorrow, allowing herself to feel the loss of another human, then slapped her sunglasses down and walked to her car. Better to get it over with quickly, rip off the Band-Aid. She couldn’t deny it now. Ethan Montclair was their indisputable prime suspect, and she wanted to see how he reacted to seeing the results of his elemental handiwork.
Crawling past the ever-present construction on Highway 96, wondering to herself, Did he do it?
For the first time, her gut told her he had.