A Desperate Place

by Jennifer Greer

  Bryan, the lanky photographer, his shaggy brown hair flopping over his eyes, grinned over the top of her cubby. “Greetings, McKenna. I come bearing gifts.”

  She perked up. “What have you got?”

  “Only the crime-photo equivalent to the Mona Lisa.” His white T-shirt was smeared with mud, and an angry-looking red scratch puckered the skin along his forearm.

  “What happened?”

  “Mayhem in the line of duty. I slipped down the embankment!” He held up his arm to reveal a shallow gash from his wrist to his elbow. “Ripped my arm on a tree branch. I had to crawl back up through clusters of poison oak. I’m doomed tomorrow.”

  “So we both took a header today.” She stuck her leg out from under the desk so he could see her scraped knee, now swollen and bruised. “I was standing too close to the house fire when it blew.”

  “Cool.” He nodded slowly, brows raised with new respect. “Took one for the team. Excellent.”

  Whit smiled. “Where’re the pics?”

  He nudged his chin toward her computer. “Already uploaded them.”

  She clicked into the Chronicle’s photo gallery, and a group of pictures of the crime scene near Gin Lin Trail appeared on the screen. One image, a close-up of the body bag being lifted to the gurney while emergency personnel stood in the background, would definitely make the front page. “Great shot!”

  “Pulitzer, baby. Pulitzer.”

  “You’d have my vote. Wish we knew who was in that bag.” The second photo showed a bear lying on its back. “Is this the bear that dug up the body?”

  Bryan nodded. “Yeah. The flesh-eating bear crossed the river, and before it decided I was good eatin’, the Department of Fish and Wildlife took him down with a tranquilizer gun.”

  “What did they do with him?”

  He shrugged skinny shoulders. “Don’t know.”

  “I’ll find out.” After reviewing the photos again, Whit pointed to two of them. “Let’s run these.”

  “Great minds think alike. My fave, too. I’ll pass them over to page layout. I caught some video for the online rag as well.”

  “Well, hold on, hotshot. I also got a few pics today. Mine aren’t as good because they were taken with my iPhone, but they’ll do for second page.” She showed him her crime scene shots, and he grudgingly gave her credit for scoping out an aerial scene.

  “I’ll sharpen those up a bit for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  He turned abruptly, scratching his left arm. “I’m off to shower, then grab a pizza and beer with some buddies. Ciao!”

  “See ya.”

  After rereading her notes for the Applegate story, she decided that the fisherman, Mr. Wolcott, provided a nice descriptive scene. However, a key element was missing—the who. The police had not ID’d the body yet, or so they’d said. But it was officially a murder investigation, so she could run with that.

  Thank God her sleuthing had uncovered the kids who’d witnessed the killer burying the body. She couldn’t use their names because they were under eighteen, and she wanted to protect their identities anyway, but she could certainly use their eyewitness account, and with any luck trade the information with Detective Riggs. Unless the cops had found the kids too, but that wasn’t likely. She’d been unable to persuade them to come back to camp. They refused to leave their eagle-eye vantage point on the rock.

  Whit popped a piece of spearmint gum into her mouth and read local missing persons reports for the past month. Only one other adult had been reported as such, and that was a male in his seventies. She didn’t have enough information to search NamUs—National Missing and Unidentified Persons—which collected data from across the nation.

  She wrote diligently for the next hour, the police scanner a muted static in the background. She paused to gather murder statistics for Jackson County and fleshed out the story with some history of the last murder victim found buried in the Applegate. A fifteen-year-old girl who’d disappeared walking to church, her bones discovered twelve years later. Whit had recently covered the murder trial, all the while thinking of her own daughters. Both were fiercely independent but still vulnerable and naïve, the very attitude that made young women easy pickings for creeps.

  The Gin Lin Trail victim was a fresh homicide with fresh leads. She needed more information.

  Whit reached for her phone and sent a text to Riggs.

  Quid pro quo.

  CHAPTER

  8

  A BRIEF THUNDERSTORM HAD passed, and now a humid quiet settled over the valley. The night air glowed yellow beneath the parking lights as Riggs watched the transport van back into the delivery bay of the Oregon State Police Crime Lab in Central Point, where the medical examiner’s facilities were located. She noted the time of arrival on her notepad: 10:01 p.m. She’d tailed the van from the hospital where Niki’s body had undergone x-ray procedures. Because this was a criminal case, she kept a visual on the body during transport to maintain chain of custody at all times.

  A couple of local TV vans had also followed, probably wrapping up last-minute video for the early morning shows. So far they had not intruded, so she had no problem. If the news crews had any idea who they were trailing, they’d storm the gates for close-ups and questions. No one, not even the transport crew or the x-ray technician, knew the identity of the victim found in the Applegate. X-rays were usually taken with the body bag in place, so this case seemed no different to the hospital tech. He had asked a few questions, but Riggs gave vague answers. So far, so good.

  She sipped the remains of a green smoothie that Richard had dropped off at the hospital. Bolstering her immune system had been a priority after chemo. He had purchased an industrial-strength Vitamix and made it a personal mission to feed her a smoothie three or four times a week. He was not happy with her long hours and insisted on making his “quick kick” tonight. This one had spinach, kale, arugula lettuce, coconut milk, avocado, apple, strawberries, blueberries, flax seeds, and ice made with purified water. The fruit made the whole thing bearable, though it still tasted slightly bitter. Her empty stomach was less discerning and zealously absorbed the chilled liquid.

  She drove into the loading bay and parked next to the van. She stepped out of the truck as the heavy metal door rolled to a close behind her with a tomblike thud.

  The attendants efficiently unloaded the body and wheeled the gurney through the receiving doors straight into the windowless autopsy room, which housed only one autopsy bay and a refrigerated wall unit large enough for six cadavers.

  Her phone buzzed with an incoming text. Riggs unclipped her phone from her belt, saw the message from Whit, and smiled. She was so proud of Whit for getting back on track with her career. However, their relationship had certainly been put through a ring of fire because of their opposing jobs. The first month back on the job, Whit traded information on an apparent suicide, having discovered evidence that exposed the victim’s relative as a potential murderer, but Riggs already had the information and refused to provide a lead in return. A level of trust had to be established. Whit was a professional and understood the nature of informant trades, so the situation resolved itself, but not without a few days of tension. They also had a mutual agreement that their friendship was not a card on the table to be played in place of a real lead.

  She returned the text to Whit. They would meet at Porter’s later and negotiate a trade.

  The attendants parked the gurney in the autopsy bay.

  Dr. Bruce Weldon, the medical examiner for Jackson County, thanked the attendants and sent them on their way. He waited until the door closed behind them, then addressed the corpse in his usual dramatic fashion.

  “What a privilege, and what a sad occasion, dear Ms. Francis. If only I could have met you under better circumstances.”

  He was a beefy sixty-two-year-old with thick, dark, often-disheveled hair crowning a hulking six-foot-five frame and hands like padded gloves. He was a wine connoisseur and lover of literary classics who fr
equented the Ashland Shakespeare Festival and nursed a small winery he’d inherited from his brother. It was no secret he liked his vino in his off hours.

  Riggs suspected every autopsy was a stage performance for Weldon. Each case was a dark mystery to be solved. Horrible twists of fate and the macabre fascinated him. He was unusual, to say the least, but seemingly harmless. She humored his propensity for drama, convinced that he had missed his true calling: acting. Ironically, Niki Francis could not have chosen a more perfect medical examiner to be her costar for her final scene on earth.

  In the locker room, Riggs quickly changed into scrubs. Running water into the sink, she used a bar of soap and scrubbed the day’s grime from her face, then applied a light moisturizer. After a quick glance in the mirror, she noted the shadows beneath her gray eyes, a lingering effect of chemo. Her gaze fell on the paper-thin scar that trailed alongside her hairline and puckered just slightly under her ear. She didn’t mind the scar. Like so many other cancer survivors, she accepted it as a badge of courage.

  Refreshed and confident, she stepped into the autopsy bay, slid a plastic bib over her scrubs, gloved up, and joined Dr. Weldon in examining the x-rays.

  Under the whir of ceiling fans, neither talked as they prepped for the coming procedures. They were fully aware of the magnitude of their work this night. They would document everything diligently. The recorder, with suspended mic, was already turned on. The murder of Niki Francis, like the deaths of Whitney Houston and other mega-celebrities, would no doubt generate a media frenzy, especially given the nature of her demise.

  Detective Panetta quietly stepped through the door and reached into the linen basket for a surgical gown. Though his expression was grim, he teased, “Looks like I got the lucky straw tonight.”

  Weldon took him seriously. “That’s true enough. We don’t often get celebrities in this neck of the woods. I would’ve preferred to conduct the autopsy in the morning, though.” He shook his head. “Lots of people around here are feeling threatened. Afraid this case will be confiscated right out of our hands. Then, if something goes wrong, all we’re left with is the blame and none of the credit.”

  Panetta nodded. “I have it on good authority that the DA and others want some answers before they face the national media.” He slipped the gown over his street clothes and bent to cover his shoes with booties.

  Weldon addressed the corpse. “Ms. Niki Francis, it’s show time.”

  Riggs and Weldon put on clear plastic face shields. Panetta arranged his paper mask over his mouth and nose and nodded.

  Weldon snipped the tag from the body bag. “Note the time: ten oh eight PM.”

  They studied the cadaver for any obvious clues. The fingernails and toenails were scraped and cut to the quick and put in marked plastic bags; the clothes were carefully cut off and set aside for Riggs to tag and photograph later. They examined the external body, which was bloated now from internal gases, the skin on the victim’s back a marbled blue.

  Weldon commented, “She was lying on her back for the few hours after she died, according to the livor mortis. There are no signs of defense wounds or bruising.”

  “No broken bones, except for the bear attack, of course,” Riggs said, stepping around the table as she photographed the body. She leaned over the vic’s face. “There is the suggestion of a handprint on her cheekbone. A slight bruising? Do you see it?”

  “Hmmm. You’re right. That might suggest suffocation. A hand over the mouth and nose.” Dr. Weldon shifted his focus to the x-rays glowing from the wall screen. “This one is a bit curious. X-ray number four.”

  Riggs approached the screen with a sense of foreboding. She pointed to a gray area near the spine at the base of the skull. “Looks like the cervical vertebra has a tumor, which I find very interesting, considering some reading material we found at the vic’s house this evening. This is a tumor, right, Dr. Weldon?”

  “Very possibly.” He pushed his bifocals higher up on his bulbous nose. “There’s calcification as well. Hmmm. Could be a bone spur from an old injury. Let’s see when we get in there.”

  Riggs made eye contact with Panetta, who inclined his head. They silently agreed that the actress might have known about the tumor because of the medical journals found in her study. If Niki knew, then she must have sought treatment from her doctor, but as of yet Riggs had not heard back from her primary care physician to confirm. Not that it had any bearing on the case, but every piece of the puzzle had to be gathered and assembled. The people closest were interrogated first, then the net spread out from there. In this case, all possible contacts had to be investigated nearly all at once. Tonight the team was assisted by every available patrolman. The entire network of city, county, state, and federal law enforcement were scouring every possible lead. And all of them were waiting for the autopsy report.

  Weldon used a scalpel to make the Y-incision from each shoulder, down the middle of the stomach, making a short jog around the belly button and down to the pubic bone, exposing the stomach and chest. It always amazed Riggs how quickly the ME worked, slashing away at the layers of skin, cartilage, and muscle like a butcher at your local grocery store. The dead had no need of meticulous lifesaving surgery, though she found Dr. Weldon’s skills surprisingly precise.

  The smell of rotten flesh and bacteria that had grown in the vic’s intestines amplified, wafting into the small confines of the room, settling in Riggs’s nose and the back of her throat, even into the pores of her skin.

  Panetta blinked a few times but said nothing.

  In minutes, they became accustomed to the smell, their bodies adapting. The natural urge to abandon the task passed with a sense of relief. Riggs felt her shoulders relax, and she focused entirely on the possibility of finding the cause of death.

  “You could pass for a much younger woman, my dear.” Weldon sliced the flesh to the pubic bone. “You’re lean and obviously took good care of yourself. No self-indulgence here.”

  Riggs met Panetta’s gaze over the victim’s body. They both flicked a glance at Weldon’s wide girth bulging under the surgical gown. She’d wondered how he could continue his path to obesity after viewing, up close and personal, the effects on the human body that an unhealthy lifestyle could produce. More aware than ever of her own body after surviving cancer—and after months of watching Weldon slice through mounds of yellow fat—Riggs was very particular about her diet.

  Weldon picked up a pair of garden shears and cracked through the ribs, opening the chest cavity.

  Panetta grimaced, cringing with each hard snap of bone.

  Riggs had gotten used to the smells and noises of the autopsy room to a certain extent over the past eight months. However, bone cracking still had the power to make her cringe. She asked Panetta, “Are you all right?”

  “I have to admit,” Panetta said from behind his surgical mask, “my trips down the gardening aisle at Home Depot are not as pleasant as they once were.”

  Weldon paused, gardening shears in hand, then addressed the corpse again. “You don’t mind the bone snappin’, do ya, Ms. Niki Francis? You just want justice. I hear ya. You’ve come to the right place. I’m not gonna’ let ya down.” He proceeded to chop the ribs loose.

  Riggs lifted the chest plate and ribs, setting them on a nearby table. They began scooping blood and decomposing fluids from the chest cavity into a plastic flask for measuring.

  She photographed and weighed each organ, taking careful notes; then Weldon sliced them open, searching for any abnormalities. Riggs selected a portion from each cut and placed them into containers filled with formalin for further testing. It was hard not to think of Niki Francis as she remembered her in the movies. She’d never helped with an autopsy where she knew the corpse, because it definitely made the process personal. It was unnerving.

  Weldon slid his hand under the victim’s neck. “I can feel the tumor. That was causing you some grief, wasn’t it, Ms. Francis? Well, we’ll just see about that.” He turned to Riggs. “
Stitch her back together so we can turn her over. I’d like to incise the tumor now.”

  The organ remains were transferred to a plastic bag, which Riggs pressed into the body cavity, and returned the chest plate to its original position. She stitched the Y-incision closed with large, zigzag stitches.

  With little effort they rolled the body over. Riggs tucked the chin and handed Dr. Weldon the scalpel again.

  He worked his way down, slicing quickly through muscles and finally exposing the vertebrae. “Oh my.” He paused, silent for so long Riggs wondered if he was all right.

  “Dr. Weldon?”

  He finally nodded confirmation to himself. “Looks like an osteochondroma.”

  “What’s that?” Panetta asked.

  Weldon explained, “This type of tumor is generally benign. This is not what killed Ms. Francis.”

  “When we were at the vic’s house earlier today,” Riggs explained, “we found a lot of reading material on rejuvenation medicine. Spinal cord injuries. Maybe she had already been diagnosed. What side effects would she have at this stage?”

  “Guessing from its position on the vertebrae, numbness, tingling in her arms. Maybe nausea, headaches.”

  “So aside from feeling the lump, she would have had symptoms?”

  “Oh yes.” He peered intently into the incision, tilting his chin up to view the tumor through the lower half of his bifocals. “Now that is a coincidence.”

  “What?” Riggs asked.

  Weldon quickly cut away the last of the tendons attached to the tumor and scraped it loose from the bone. He positioned it under the surgical light.

  Panetta stepped closer, his nose wrinkled at the bloody glob, which was about the size of a tangerine.

  Weldon held out his hand. “Riggs, hand me the magnifying glass.” With infuriating slowness, Weldon examined the tumor under the magnifier. He tapped a white spot with the scalpel. “Not really a calcification.” He shook his head. “No. More like a … tooth.”

  “A tooth?” Panetta frowned.