Zoe partnered with Allison.
“What do you think happened to him?” the teen asked as they rode through a patch of trees near the farm’s line fence.
A distant boom echoed from down the valley. A hunter sighting in his rifle, checking its accuracy for the upcoming deer season. “The gunshots probably spooked Cisco.”
“After what happened last year, I wonder why Mr. Springfield went out alone instead of waiting for us.”
Zoe wondered the same thing. “Maybe he had plans and needed to get back early.”
“I sure hope he didn’t get hurt.”
Zoe agreed. Dale had become a good friend since boarding his and his wife’s horses at the barn. He had an easy smile, a hearty laugh, and a talent for putting everyone at ease, whether they agreed with his politics or not. In addition, Dale was always happy to help with chores even if it meant getting dirty. Not what Zoe had expected from a well-to-do politician.
With any luck, they’d find him muddied and miffed, two-footing it to the barn. But just in case, she had a well-stocked first aid kit tucked in her saddlebags. If someone else found him, they would call her.
Almost a mile from the barn, the sloppy trail they were riding opened into a graveled pull-off next to a narrow country road. Zoe and Allison reined in and listened for approaching traffic.
“Okay, let’s go.” Zoe tapped Windstar with her heels and led the way. The clip-clop of the horses’ shod feet rang against the pavement. They rode in silence for a few minutes as she scanned the trail ahead, hoping to spot Dale trudging toward them. Instead, all she saw was a squirrel scurry across their path and up a tree.
Allison sat up straighter in her saddle and threw her head back. “It’s beautiful today. Look at the sky. It’s almost as blue as it is out in New Mexico.”
Zoe caught the note of yearning in the teen’s voice. “Do you wish you were still out west?”
“Yeah, I do,” Allison said after a moment. “When I get done with high school, I wanna go to either Western New Mexico University or the University of New Mexico.”
“Really?” Rose had neglected to mention this to Zoe. “Does Logan intend to stay there too and keep working in the oil fields?”
Allison cut loose with a bubbly laugh. “Who the heck knows what my idiot brother plans to do? Mom’s really pissed at him right now.”
“Oh? What’d he do?”
“It’s what he hasn’t done. He’s not returning her phone calls or texts. I mean, it’s funny, right? Mom took us out west to get away from computers and phones and technology. Now when he avoids the stuff, she gets all weird about it.”
Zoe smiled. “I know your mom wants him home for Thanksgiving. That’s not too far off, you know.”
When Allison didn’t respond, Zoe looked back, expecting to see her daydreaming again. Instead she was scowling and staring intently through the trees. “Is that…?”
Zoe hauled on the reins, swinging down from the saddle at the same time. Leaving Windstar with Allison, Zoe charged through the underbrush, slipping on wet leaves and tripping over rocks and downed branches. Heart pounding, she dropped to her knees beside Dale Springfield, sprawled on the damp woodland floor, his arms extended over his head. One leg was torqued at an unnatural angle, that foot bootless. His bloodied head was turned to one side, eyes open, but sightless.
“Ah, no,” she breathed, her chest heavy.
“Do you need my help?” Allison called, her voice still unsteady.
“Stay there.” Zoe knew without checking, but slipped her fingers into the groove of Dale’s neck anyway. The coldness of his skin startled her. The lack of a carotid pulse did not. She dug her penlight from her pocket and leaned down to flick it in his eyes. The pupils remained fully dilated.
Sitting back on her heels, she stuffed the light in her pocket and stared at what was left of the man with the quick wit and rollicking laugh. She sniffed away the rush of tears and retrieved her phone. After pulling up speed dial, she keyed a familiar number. It only rang once.
“Pete,” she said, “I need you. I have a dead body.”
Two
Pete found an ashen-faced Allison Bassi waiting for him on horseback at the graveled pull-off where Zoe had directed him on the phone.
“Hi, Chief,” the girl said, her voice tight. “Do you want to ride double? Or you can take the horse, and I’ll stay here. You can’t miss them. Zoe and Mr. Springfield are right down that trail.”
She sounded a little too eager for him to select the second option. The poor kid’d had more than her share of experience with dead bodies. However, neither choice appealed to him. Horses were not his preferred mode of transportation. Ever. He studied the trail Allison had indicated. Trees too close together for his Ford Explorer to maneuver. “How far are they?”
She gave him a wide-eyed shrug. “I dunno. Not real far, but the trail’s pretty muddy.”
Pete trusted his boots more than a half-ton beast with a brain the size of a baseball. “I’ll walk.” He noticed her pained look. “You can wait here and flag down the ambulance.”
“Okay,” she said, obviously relieved.
Pete gathered his evidence collection bag from the rear of his vehicle and crossed the narrow road.
Allison hadn’t been kidding about the mud. Ten yards down the well-used trail, the stuff clung to his feet like wet concrete. When he slipped and nearly went down, he decided to hike through the woods, battling briars instead of muck.
He spotted Zoe’s horse tied to a tree roughly a quarter mile from the road. Zoe, her short honey blond hair curling around the edge of a ball cap, stood next to the animal, leaning on a tree, arms crossed. He paused despite the situation, admiring the sight of her, sexy as hell even in a sweatshirt and fleece vest. And those skin-hugging jeans.
She looked up when Pete stepped on a branch, eliciting a loud snap. “You walked?”
He ran a hand across his face to erase the appreciative smile. “My Explorer wouldn’t make it in here.”
“You could have ridden Allison’s horse.” A trace of a grin crossed Zoe’s lips. By now, she must have figured out why he always avoided her invitations to ride.
“Maybe another time. What’s going on?”
The grin vanished. She tipped her head toward the trail ahead of them. “He’s right up here.” She left her horse where it was and led the way. “I backed off after I confirmed he was deceased. Figured Franklin would want to check out the scene, so I didn’t want to contaminate it.”
“He’s a little busy this morning.”
“Oh?”
“We had an OD. I left him with Nate and the county crime investigators. Franklin said you should process the scene since it’s probably an accidental death.”
She raised an eyebrow at Pete. “Franklin likes to keep the high-profile investigations for himself. If he knew who my accidental death was, he wouldn’t be so quick to turn the case over to his lowly deputy coroner.”
Pete tensed. What had Allison told him? Zoe and Mr. Springfield are right down that trail. “Not Dale Springfield?”
“Uh-huh. Monongahela County Commissioner Dale Springfield.”
Dammit. “I didn’t realize he had a horse at your place.”
“Two horses. His and his wife’s. For over a year now.”
Pete rubbed his forehead, trying to quell the mental rumblings. The death of one of the top politicians in the county was bound to stir up a nest of vipers. But right now, he needed to focus. One headache at a time. “Tell me what happened.”
As they trudged through the undergrowth next to the trail, Zoe told him about the planned trail ride and how Dale Springfield had already left by the time everyone else arrived. She described his horse’s solo return to the barn. “Cisco’s notoriously gun shy. Any loud noise will set him off.”
“Set him off? How?”
/> “Bucking. Rearing. You name it. About this same time last year, Dale took a bad spill. Some hunters were sighting in their rifles, probably a mile or more away. It didn’t matter to Cisco. He bucked Dale off and bolted. And that wasn’t the only time. Dale’s wife, Hope, usually rides with him. Cisco and Hope’s horse, Domino, are barn buddies, so as long as he’s there, Cisco stays close by and Hope can catch him.”
“Any idea why the wife didn’t go with him this morning?”
“None. Domino was throwing a fit in his stall before Cisco came home alone.”
“How long has it been since the horse returned to the barn?”
Zoe checked her watch. “Not quite an hour ago.”
They stopped a few yards short of the deceased male lying about ten feet off the trail. “And how long do you think it took for the horse to get from here to there?” Pete asked.
“Ten, maybe fifteen, minutes.”
Pete pulled out his notebook and pen to start a timeline. “So Springfield’s accident occurred about a little over an hour ago. Roughly eleven fifteen.”
“That’s about right.”
“And you think his horse threw him,” Pete said.
“Yeah.” Zoe hugged herself. “We’ve been hearing gunshots all morning. Sounded like a deer rifle. Probably someone was sighting it in.”
A common practice around the area with Pennsylvania’s buck season only two weeks away. Even from where they stood, Pete could see the blood on and around the victim’s head. “Any chance he was shot?”
“Sure there’s a chance, but I doubt it. There are a lot of rocks where he landed. He probably bashed his head on them.”
“Why would a man who knows his horse is gun shy go riding alone at this time of year?”
“I asked myself the same thing, and I think I might know.”
Pete looked down at her, but her gaze stayed on the body. “Okay. Why?”
“This is the first nice day we’ve had in weeks. And this time of year, it might very well be the last one until spring. Plus, since you can’t hunt on Sunday, it’s the only day we trail riders feel really safe in the woods.” She glanced at him then looked down with a sheepish smile. “I know you’re a hunter, but let’s face it. Some of you guys shoot at anything that moves. It may be small-game season, but I don’t trust someone won’t mistake me and my horse for a squirrel or a rabbit.”
“I don’t think it’s so much a matter of mistaking you for a rabbit as it is simply not realizing how far a bullet from a missed shot travels. But point taken. And for future reference, it’s still legal to hunt some things—coyote, fox, and crows as an example—on Sunday. You should wear blaze orange when you ride.”
“Wonderful.” Her voice oozed sarcasm. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Pete set his bag on a downed tree and unzipped it, removing his digital camera. He handed it to Zoe. “You get the photos. I’ll take measurements and sketch out the scene.”
“Okay.” She tugged off her leather gloves and stuffed them in her vest pockets.
They started with an overview, showing the body’s relationship to his surroundings. Then Zoe moved in for closer shots.
Zoe loved her work. Most days. But not so much when a patient or a victim was a friend. It was all she could do to compartmentalize her feelings. Tamp them down. Be professional.
She snapped one final shot of Dale’s body as it lay, showing the odd angle of the broken leg.
From behind her, Pete asked, “Any idea why he’s so far off the trail?”
“He may have tried to hang on.” She studied the ground between the trail and the victim. Rocks and leaves were strewn everywhere. The muddy earth had been churned and marred with hoof prints. “Cisco probably spooked on the trail and came crashing through the trees there, bucking the whole time. Dale finally came off here. Or maybe Cisco slammed him into a tree.” She looked up. “There are some low branches that could account for a blow to his head.” She aimed the camera up and snapped some shots of them.
Pete picked his way through the underbrush, staying clear of the path of destruction, but leaning in for a closer look. He pointed in the direction of torn-up dirt and rocks. “That’s blood.”
Zoe moved to his side and followed his finger. “You’re right.” She hadn’t noticed the slimy swipes of red mingling with the glistening mud. She lifted the camera and zoomed in for more photos.
“So he didn’t fall where you found him.”
She lowered the camera and surveyed the entire area. Cisco’s path was clear. The ground was torn up the most closest to the bridle path, but his hoofs had left a trail of prints and muddy divots leading to the body and on through the woods. “He spooked at a gunshot over there.” She gestured to the riding trail. Thinking out loud she mused, “Dale lost his seat and went off, but his foot got hung up in his stirrup and Cisco dragged him. That would account for his missing boot. When it came off, Dale’s foot finally came free, and he ended up where he is.” She pointed at the body. “In between his head got bounced on rocks. Maybe he even got kicked.” She cringed. Nasty way to go, but it could happen to anyone who rode.
“Good theory.” Pete took a slow step, and then another, scanning the woodland floor. “There.” He pointed. “The missing boot.”
“Got it.” Zoe battled through a stubborn bramble to photograph the errant boot before Pete could collect it as evidence.
He handed her a pair of latex gloves. “Trade you for the camera. My turn to take pictures.”
Zoe relinquished the Nikon and picked her way back to Dale, wiggling her fingers into the gloves. “Take notes too, okay?”
Pete held up his pen and notebook. “Of course.”
She stood over the body a moment longer, taking a fresh look at it. “His arms extended like that matches the new theory of being dragged. So does the way his coat is all bunched up around his armpits.” Dropping to her knees, already wet and mud-soaked, she took Dale’s head in her hands. The chill of his skin again gave her pause.
“What’s wrong?” Pete asked.
“He’s really cold.”
“He is dead,” Pete pointed out, as if she weren’t already aware.
But it didn’t feel right. Instead of continuing her examination of the victim’s skull, she slipped a hand into his shirt, resting her palm against Dale’s chest. It reminded her of a chunk of meat fresh out of the refrigerator. “I noticed he felt cold when I checked for a pulse. Too cold. It’s only been…” She did some quick calculating. “…about an hour since Cisco came running back to the barn. And it couldn’t have taken much more than ten or fifteen minutes for the horse to gallop home. It was chilly out early, but it’s warming up. He shouldn’t be this cold this fast.” She looked to Pete for some experienced cop wisdom.
Instead, the experienced cop scowled. “Are you sure about the time?”
“I’m not off by more than five minutes.”
“Maybe the horse didn’t come straight back to the barn. He stopped along the way to graze.”
Zoe thought about Domino bellowing in his stall. “Not likely. Horses are herd animals by instinct. Cisco knows where he lives. He would have hightailed it home the second he dumped Dale.”
Pete scribbled on the pad. “Interesting. Keep going. Maybe you’ll find something to explain it.”
Zoe had wrapped Dale’s hands in bags and nearly completed the preliminary exam when her horse, still tied to a tree a few yards down the trail, spun to face the other way, his ears pricked. A minute later, she spotted three firefighters trudging toward them lugging a rescue litter. A pair of County EMS paramedics trailed behind. The recovery team gave Windstar a wide berth and then stopped.
Zoe recognized her coworkers from the ambulance’s C Crew. “Hi, guys.”
The paramedics made their way around the firefighters. “Hey, Zoe. Chief.” One of them made a paine
d face at the victim. “Looks like you don’t need us.”
“Only for transport,” Pete said. “The coroner’s van is at another scene.”
Zoe rocked back on her heels and stood. Her gloves were plastered with dried grass, mud, and Dale Springfield’s blood. The exam had revealed cuts and abrasions on the back of the body as well as obvious fractures to the back of the skull. She felt pretty certain the autopsy would turn up other broken bones as well. So far the evidence supported her theory about Dale being thrown and dragged.
However, the onset of rigor in the small muscles of his jaw and face and the light pink hint of lividity she’d noted along with the abrasions on his back when she’d rolled him to his side and lifted his shirt, combined with the chill of his flesh, called into question his time of death.
She stepped away, peeled off the gloves, and watched as the recovery team moved in to load the body onto the litter, working as gently as if Dale were still alive.
Pete held out a brown paper bag. Zoe deposited the gloves into it. “Any new ideas to explain the low body temp?”
“Afraid not.”
He put a comforting arm around her. Unlike Dale, Pete radiated warmth even through layers of uniform and his jacket. She leaned into him, but noticing a glance and a grin from her EMS cohorts, she resisted the urge to rest her head against Pete’s shoulder. “Maybe the autopsy will give us some reasonable answers,” he said.
“Maybe. I’ll let you know.”
Pete raised an eyebrow at her.
She nodded in response to his unasked question. “I intend to assist.”
“I thought you’d completed the six autopsies you agreed to.”
“I did.” And she hadn’t managed to make it all the way through any of them without fleeing for fresh air. The human body, laid open on a stainless steel table, emitted some god-awful smells. “But Dale was a friend. A really sweet guy.” And the time of death inconsistency nagged her. “I need to follow through on this case.”
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