Peter took this moment to fill his wife in on what had been found in the renovated storefront.
“So when do think you will get back?” Eileen asked.
“It shouldn’t be but an hour or two. Just long enough for Dr. Haggard to make some observations of the body in place and then discuss with the FIU personnel the securing and removal the body and that weird mound of “stuff” next to it.”
The Drake clan piled into Eileen’s minivan and, once safely strapped in, proceeded to Martha’s soft ice cream stand, a local landmark situated along State Route 9, across from the Great Escape amusement park. During the short trip, along the back roads along the base of the small mountains to the west of State Route 9, Peter recounted for Eileen his latest lawyers-are-scum exchange with Ned Khoury. Peter and Eileen then exited their car, along with Gary and Susie. They ordered their cones and sat at a picnic table to enjoy watching the other people who were doing much the same at other nearby tables.
From where they sat, beneath tall pine trees, they could also look across the road at the oldest portion of the Great Escape amusement park. This section, featuring sedate boat and train rides and displays of miniature nursery rhyme and Mother Goose buildings and settings was built in 1954, as Storytown , U.S.A. Peter remembered back to when he was Susie’s age, getting to go, with his family, to this amazing place once each summer. His parents would get free admission passes in return for displaying Storytown , U.S.A. brochures and posters at their motel.
Now he was a parent of his own brood and they would soon be going to that amusement park. As he watched Eileen and the two little ones at the picnic table with him, he congratulated himself on so far, so good. Sure, all the real credit went to Eileen, but he hadn’t screwed up anything too badly. Their kids were bright, healthy and happy. In his work, he had seen enough examples of good families raising children who turned out badly and visa versa. He was beginning to get a sense that caring parents could only hope to improve the odds for their children, without any guarantee. Eileen and he could give their love and their time and attention. Beyond that, they could pray God that it was enough. Oh yes, Peter believed in God. He’d seen more than enough evil in his work to convince him of the opposite.
Try as she might, Susie’s efforts to keep up with the melting ice cream in the heat of the early evening were doomed to failure. As usual, Gary couldn’t have cared less. He was too busy enjoying his “num-num’s”, as he called any and all treats. How he managed to have ice cream dripping off of his ear was a mystery best left unsolved.
After using a water fountain to wash down their sticky, but happy children, they drove back home, where Peter took a turn supervising baths and preparation for bed. Once he had tucked them both in, he kissed Eileen again, and headed back to the village to meet with Dr. Haggard.
Chapter 4
When he arrived at the south end of the village, Peter found that the crime scene was in good hands, being guarded by a couple of familiar patrol officers from the Sheriff’s Department. Peter chatted with Scott Dawson and Terri Jeffreys for a few minutes and offered to pick them up some coffee. Several members of the Forensic Identification Unit team were already there, to assist Dr. Haggard, and to collect and transport the body to the forensic lab in Albany afterward.
Peter took advantage of the wait to re-acquaint himself with this portion of the village. Even though he had been back in the area and working locally for a couple of years, he had not had occasion to explore the downtown of his childhood. This was’t even the part of town where he had spent the most time. He was, for example, some five blocks away from the Methodist church where the basement had been outfitted as a youth center and he, along with four friends had played as the Holy Roller Band, with Peter the lead singer, butchering versions of songs by the Doors, Three Dog Night, Credence Clearwater Revival and other blameless bands that had done nothing to deserve this abuse. Despite everything, the kids loved them. It was the closest he ever came to fitting in during his high school days.
The first thing that he noticed was that a breeze had picked up since the afternoon and that the temperature and humidity were both dropping. Tomorrow night might well be one of those peculiar August evenings having the cool bite that reminded you that, in this part of the world, summer ended fairly abruptly and that the average first frost was only five weeks away. In truth, Peter was convinced that the only truthful statement about this part of the world was that the next blizzard was almost always just over the horizon, even in August.
Christies, an ice cream and fast food place up the street still cooked their foot-long hot dogs and the salty smell of them was mixing with the other scents coming from restaurants and head shops along Canada Street as he walked up the hill. Many of his childhood friends, including the keyboard man for his high school rock band, had worked summers at this place. He stopped at the open front counter of Christies, bought three coffees and brought them back to share with the deputies. He then continued his wandering around, looking into the windows at kaleidoscopic displays of tee shirts, sweatshirts and baseball caps. Peter knew that if he walked to the intersection just to the south, he would find more of the same - fast food joints and gift and souvenir shops along the Beach Road, which spanned the southern end of the lake.
From the intersection, Peter could see a portion of the battlements of the re-creation of Fort William Henry, the short-lived French and Indian War fortress. The gun enclosures glared menacingly down on the shore along the end of the water, much as they had done some two hundred plus years ago. Well, they looked menacing, unless you happened to know that the college kids who fired the guns during reenactments for the tourists sometimes loaded bras and other garments into them, which were then shot out into the lake. Still in all, it was one of the major tourist spots in the area that, despite the commercialization, had some real history to it.
Before it was rebuilt, there had been some serious archeological excavation of the grounds of where the French had burned down the fort after capturing it from the English. The event that was better remembered in history was the massacre of the English soldiers and their camp followers after the French had promised them safe passage south to Fort Edward, following Fort William Henry’s surrender. James Fenimore Cooper assured the event’s lasting infamy in his book, Last of the Mohicans. Peter also recalled that in the same book, Cooper wrote of a little canoe trip by his heroes, travelling by water from Lake George to the Hudson River, despite the fact that the two bodies of water do not connect. The locals had long since forgiven this geography faux pas, in light of the tourist boon.
In fact, Peter’s dad, who was a history teacher and an amateur historian in his own right, had spent a lot of time in the mid 50’s with garden trowel and small brush, at the site of the fort recovering various artifacts from that earlier time. The question of whether his devotion to the dig reflected his love of history or his need to get away from a houseful of Peter and his four siblings, aged ten and younger, was a regular debating point at later family gatherings. The excavation had been cut short by a decision of the property owners to bulldoze through the area, build the replica fort and begin to generate income via guided tours. Peter’s dad never set foot on that site again.
Not surprisingly, Dr. Jeffrey Haggard appeared precisely at 10 P.M. Peter watched Dr. Haggard removing a small suitcase from his car. Neatly dressed in a button-down short sleeved shirt and pressed khakis, Peter realized that one word popped into his head describing the good doctor – meticulous. As Dr. Haggard looked about and spotted Peter, a big grin spread across his pleasant face.
“Counselor, it is good to see you.” He reached out to shake Peter’s hand.
“Likewise, Doctor. How’s life treating you?”
“Well enough, although very busy, as you well know.”
“I was pleased to hear that the Forensic Identification Unit had been able to twist your arm enough to get you to come all the way up here to our little slice of heaven.”
&n
bsp; “Actually it was no imposition at all, as I have a small seasonal home on the east side of the lake. I will just spend the night there and head south in the morning to handle the autopsy.”
The two walked over to the entrance of the storefront, where the patrol officers checked their ID’s and signed them into the crime scene log. This procedure could later be used by Peter at a trial to establish who had access to the scene and when. Peter had long ago become a real stickler for crime scene protocol and the chain of custody of evidence.
One never knew what particular criminal case might wind up going to trial.
He was pleased to see that the Sheriff’s Office was willing to shoulder the expense of maintaining the integrity of the scene. He had known agencies that would have just secured the entrance of the storefront with yellow crime scene tape and argued that that was sufficient. Just as they were about to go in, Inv. Tanner Saint, who had been designated the investigator-in-charge, arrived to join them.
A FIU investigator escorted the three into the building and through the tangle of construction toward the rear and down a half-flight of stairs to what had once been a kitchen. At the right corner, Peter saw the archway and opening that had earlier been cleared of bricks. This portion of the large room was brightly lit by a bank of construction lights, in the center of which sat the slouched, almost morose figure of a person in a tattered suit, covered in a heavy layer of dust. Peter and Inv. Saint hung back a few feet in order to let Dr. Haggard and the FIU investigator take in the scene and discuss the photographs that had been taken and what had been done that might have disturbed the scene.
One of the reasons why Peter hung back was that he did not want to make himself a witness in any future prosecution, just as he never participated in the interviews of defendants. If he was deemed a material witness then he would be disqualified from prosecuting the case at trial – a real issue in a small prosecutor’s office, which might only have one or two qualified trial attorneys.
Pulling a small rectangular foam pad from his suitcase, Dr. Haggard knelt down on the pad next to the body and, armed with a flashlight and a tongue depressor, he beckoned for Tanner to join him as he began his initial examination of the figure before him, periodically dictating his observations into a small tape recorder. Peter stayed just far enough away that no one could swear that he had seen and heard everything. Peter was also quite glad to have such a professional sounding excuse to avoid close proximity to the corpse. Despite the total lack of blood and other fluids in this instance, Peter still felt a bit queasy.
“Well, gentlemen, it would appear that this might be an adult male, and given the nonmedical method of his hand amputations and the somewhat less than gentle manner of the removal of his teeth, together with his location between two solid walls, I would have to suspect homicide of some sort.”
“Careful, Doc. You are really climbing out on a limb”, said Tanner.
“Actually, if this body was out in the wild somewhere, these injuries might well be the innocent consequences of being in contact with nature. Not only is that not the case on this occasion, but it appears that we are looking at a rather rare phenomenon for this part of the world.”
“What’s that? He said to the doctor, knowing that it would elicit a response.” Peter narrated in a loud stage whisper.
“This fellow has been mummified.”
Inv. Saint looked quizzically at the doctor. “You mean like the pharaohs?”
“Very much the same, although without the embalming preparations and wrappings that were used by the Egyptians. As you can see, instead of a collection of bones, or decaying flesh, his skeleton is covered in what looks a bit like…
“Beef jerky!” interrupted Inv. Saint.
“A good analogy, Investigator. Instead of decomposing, under certain circumstances a body will go through a drying and shriveling process. Although this is most common in arid climates such as Egypt, the same thing can happen to a body anywhere, so long as it is kept in a dry and warm place. Instances of infant mummification have been documented in England, for instance, where the little bodies have been placed in drawers or in the walls behind fireplaces.
Dr. Haggard then leaned into the enclosed area where the body seemed to wait patiently for the doctor’s verdict. As he shone his flashlight along the walls and up toward the ceiling, it lingered on a large, dust covered pipe, shaped in a “z” pattern, exiting out the back wall near the ceiling.
“That seems to be the chimney for the building’s furnace. I expect that this furnace provides hot water as well as heat and so would run periodically throughout the year. It would be a source of heat, dry air and air movement through convection. If you look closely, it appears that the joints of the vent pipe may leak a little, which would also account for the black gritty soot mixed with the dust on the body and elsewhere. All in all, the ideal conditions for mummification.”
“Now we do have to confirm that the body was placed here just after death, rather than moved here at a later time, but once here and fully mummified, it would remain unchanged indefinitely. Then, so long as the conditions remain the same, about the only things that can cause changes to the body are rodents and the brown house moth.”
Any idea how long ago he died? I noticed that there is not much of an odor coming from that area.” Peter said.
Dr. Haggard replied, “That’s true. It appears that he has been in between those walls for quite some time, but it will take more examination and tests to come up with an approximate time of death. It may well be that extrinsic evidence will be more definitive than anything that the body will tell us.
Donning the requisite latex gloves, he picked up the tongue depressor again and gently began to move the remains of the body’s suit around, looking at collars, pockets and other areas that he could get to without moving the body.
Peter noticed that the doctor then reached into an inside pocket of the suit jacket that the figure wore, removing a wallet. As Dr. Haggard carefully opened and pulled out the contents, the FIU investigator took a number of photos of the process. He then dropped the wallet and its contents into a plastic bag held open for him by the investigator, who then wrote on the bag and sealed it. With a quiet grunt, Dr. Haggard got to his feet and walked over to Peter, flexing his legs as he did so.
“I am not getting younger, at least according to my knee joints.” “While I found no ID, there was a receipt of some sort in his wallet. Although it looked to be written in Italian, I think that it reflected a date of June, 1958.”
“Italian?” said Inv. Saint.
“1958?” Peter found the implication stunning.
“Now, of course that bit of information would only mean that he did not die before that date, but it is a starting off point. After all, how often do people carry around receipts for decades? ”
Peter smiled and rolled his eyes sheepishly, to suggest that he might not clear out his own wallet very often.
“I also saw a dollar bill in the wallet that was a silver certificate, a type of bill that was discontinued some years ago,” continued the doctor.
Peter then said, “Okay. So let’s put the time of death, or should I say ‘decade of death’ aside for now. Any thoughts on the cause of death? Carrier from FIU said he thought he saw some marks around the neck.”
“Yes, I saw them, too. However, as I said before, one of the post mortem changes that can occur with a mummified corpse is rodent attack and the throat would be a likely target for them. And I did not see other indications of injury apart from the absence of hands and the area of the mouth but, no, I cannot even speculate about cause of death until I have conducted a full autopsy, and perhaps not even then. Anymore than I can explain why there is a jagged chunk of wood, seemingly polished or sanded on one side, embedded into the sleeve of his jacket or why there is a pile of what might be dried meat and bone chips on the floor next to the body.”
“Now I cannot see any visible stab wounds or gunshot injuries in the exposed part
of his body or in his clothing, but the fact that he has mummified is a good thing, as his soft tissue, though dried and shrunken, is still present, so that it can be examined for sign of injury. As you know, that is not usually the case with a body left out in the elements for a length of time.”
Dr. Haggard had the FIU member secure paper bags over the ends of the body’s arms and the two then discussed the best method of removing and transporting the body to the Albany facility. The use of paper bags in these circumstances was standard operating procedure as plastic bags might cause a buildup of moisture which could affect later examination. Paper bags breathe.
So, what’s next, Doc?” asked Peter.
“I have asked FIU to slide a plastic sheet under the body in order to catch anything that might shake loose during transport. They will bag that pile of material on the floor separately.”
Wiseguys in the Woods Page 5