All the Secret Places

by Anna Carlisle

“I would say that they were deliberately knocked out,” Stephen said. “See the jagged edges of the maxilla, here, and how the ramus broke off almost cleanly here at the zygomaticomaxillary suture. There’s also damage to the nasal bone and septum, here, which might indicate a misplaced blow. That’s just speculation, of course.”

  “Can you tell what was used to do it?” Witt asked, moving forward to better see.

  Stephen shook his head. “Could be just about any heavy, blunt object. A hard enough blow to just the teeth could knock them loose from the alveolar bone, but this damage is even more severe. A more precise tool wouldn’t have caused all this peripheral damage.” He looked to Gin.

  “I agree,” Gin said. “This is consistent with a deliberate effort to remove the teeth.”

  “But . . . I don’t get it,” Witt said. “Why would anyone do that during the Civil War? I mean, nowadays, a crook might be worried about dental records, but they didn’t have those back then.”

  “Who knows?” Stillman shrugged. “People are crazy.”

  While Gin occasionally agreed with that assessment, she was still troubled by the missing teeth. “I think we need to hold out the possibility that this man died much more recently than the 1860s. Given the preliminary evaluation of the conditions, a body could decompose to this state in as little as a couple of years. Are there plans to evaluate the clothing?”

  “Of course,” Stillman said. “It’s going straight to the lab when we’re done here.”

  “Didn’t they recover some buttons?” Witt asked.

  “Yes, they’re over here.” Stillman went to the counter where he picked up a plastic tray; as he carried it over, the metal contents rattled. “We recovered six of these.”

  Everyone peered at the buttons, which all bore the same eagle design that Fred had pointed out to her. One had been cleaned, however, and the dull patina of the brass made the design stand out in high relief.

  “Those are probably worth something,” Stillman said.

  “There’s also these.” Stephen fetched another tray containing two of the metal rectangles like the one Fred had showed her. “Not sure what they are, though.”

  “I have to give credit to Fred Rappaport, but he says those were used to attach a shoulder plate.” Gin repeated what the coroner had told her. “Were any other ornaments or metal pieces found?”

  “No, nothing that was turned in here,” Stephen said. “But anything organic—leather, silk embroidery, cotton thread—would have decayed at the same rate as the wool.”

  “And they didn’t have zippers then,” Witt added. “They didn’t start using them until the 1920s. I did a paper on them in middle school.”

  “Of course you did,” Stillman said sarcastically. “Probably joined the sewing club then too.”

  Witt shrugged far more graciously than the taunt warranted, and Gin wondered how he endured his more senior partner’s running commentary day after day.

  “I think that’s all we have for you,” she said. “Unless you have anything to add, Stephen?”

  “No. At this point, we’ll wait for the soils report to come back, as well as any findings on the textile samples. I do take your point regarding the teeth and the possibility that the body’s not nearly as old as the uniform suggests. The truth is that we really don’t have enough here to determine the age of the body yet. We’ll hold off on issuing the certificate—maybe the investigation will turn up something conclusive.”

  Stillman frowned. “Wheeler’s going to want that as fast as she can get it. She’s getting a lot of media pressure.”

  “There’s always a lot of media pressure in cases like these,” Gin muttered. She knew she ought to keep her mouth shut, but this had been a pet peeve of hers since her very first year on the staff in Chicago. “But we can’t afford to cave to it. Until we know if there were other factors that could help us pinpoint the cause and time of death, it would be irresponsible to release any conclusions.”

  “Well, in that case, call when you know something,” Stillman said. “I’ll let her know you’re busting your hump, okay?”

  He lumbered toward the exit, and Witt followed, offering a quick thanks as he headed out. Stephen waited until the door had closed behind them, snapping off the portable dissecting lamp that had illuminated the remains.

  “Sometimes I wonder what would happen if we ran this place the way those guys think we should,” he said.

  Gin laughed. It was a relief to be able to speak her mind without the officers there. “Well, we’d clear cases a lot faster,” she said. “We might even be able to give Captain Wheeler the answers she needed in the time frame she asked for—just as long as no one cared if we ever got anything right.”

  7

  After she’d helped organize their findings while Stephen put away his tools and the techs covered and removed the remains, taking the various bagged samples with them to be sent to the forensics lab, Gin said her goodbyes, promising to be in touch. Stephen was headed to the daily briefing, in which he and his colleagues would discuss their findings and offer each other input on any open cases, as well as discuss any bodies that had been brought in since the prior day.

  Gin missed those sessions. She’d been lucky to serve under a respected chief, Reginald “Ducky” Osnos, who had also mentored her since her first day on the job. Ducky had been tolerant of his staff’s mistakes, generous with his advice, and patient with their caseload. He’d also been exacting, demanding, and famously difficult to impress—but the hours that she and the other pathologists spent together, practicing a craft that few understood, had made her proud of the work she did.

  Now, as a contract consultant, she was neither fish nor fowl in a sense. She could offer opinions, particularly in matters where she had deep expertise, primarily decomp cases. But the department was in no way bound to listen to or act on her advice, and they could take her off a case at any time without cause. She felt vulnerable in the presence of the detectives, particularly Stillman, knowing that if he decided to push hard enough, he could easily have her excluded.

  She knew Captain Wheeler only slightly. Her impression of the captain was that she was extremely dedicated and just as ambitious. Gin had heard rumors that Wheeler was planning to parlay her term as captain into a run for city office, and as the daughter of a mayor, she knew just how many irons she must have in the fire—and how many people she would have to answer to if she was to amass the influence she’d need to be elected.

  When Lily’s remains were found, seventeen years after her disappearance, it had been a media sensation; the public had clamored for answers. In an era of social media explosion, it was no longer just the traditional news outlets that exerted pressure for justice on the county police department. Jake had nearly fallen victim to the circus, and her father had been arrested and held on a lead that turned out to be false.

  Gin and Jake had survived it all . . . but she wasn’t sure they could do so again. If Jake were dragged into the investigation of the body merely because it was found on his land, it would mean more of the public scrutiny that he detested and quite possibly a negative effect on his business.

  These depressing thoughts were going through her head as she walked into the bright midday sunshine of the plaza in front of the medical examiners’ offices. Like the building itself, the plaza was constructed of blocky sections of concrete, with very little grass or ornamentation, but that didn’t stop workers from using it to enjoy their lunch breaks in warmer weather. Now, with the temperatures hovering around freezing, there was only one person sitting on a bench, a man in a parka and ball cap hunched over his phone.

  As Gin approached, he stood up. “Hey, Gin.”

  It was Tuck Baxter, his uniform shirt obscured under the bulky coat. At the last moment, Gin recognized the logo on his cap as being that of the Penn Quakers and couldn’t help laughing.

  “Seriously?” she said, pointing at the cap. “You don’t even know if your daughter will like basketball enough to join
the team.”

  “Oh, I’m fairly certain she will. And I’m ready to sign on as number-one fan.”

  “We could use a few cheerleaders,” Gin laughed. “What are you doing here, anyway? Missing your old job?”

  As soon as the words were out, Gin regretted them; if there was bad blood between Tuck and the county department, he probably didn’t want to be reminded.

  “Something like that,” he said mildly. “Truth is, I was hoping they’d let me sit in on the autopsy. When that didn’t happen, I figured I’d wait for you and see if I could learn anything. What do you say, there’s a decent falafel joint down the street—I’ll buy.”

  “I—um—” Gin was torn. Her stomach had been growling for the last half hour, and she could use someone to bounce her ideas off of. But the case officially belonged to the county now, and it was their decision how much or little to involve the Trumbull police.

  In a case like this, they would rely on local police for crowd control, access to local facilities and contacts, and—depending how long it took to solve—resources like office space and services for a command center and media outreach. Depending on the complexity of the case, they might borrow manpower for interviewing witnesses, checking databases and records, and even search and rescue.

  But neither Gin nor Tuck had the power to make any of those decisions.

  “Why do you care?” she blurted. “I mean, this is an anomaly. Other than my sister’s murder, Trumbull hasn’t had an investigation like this in years. You could spend all your time on the drug problems, the break-ins and robberies, things like that—and still keep busy every day of the week.”

  “Yeah,” Tuck agreed. “And I will. It’s not like I’m trying to stir things up or anything. I think I have a good grasp of what the job entails, and I plan to do it to the best of my ability. It’s just . . .”

  His voice trailed off, and he stared up at the ugly building, scratching the back of his neck.

  After a few moments, Gin began to wonder if he was going to finish the thought. But he finally dropped his hand and looked directly into her eyes.

  “I left on a bad note,” he said. “I wasn’t fired, and I wasn’t exactly asked to leave—not publicly, anyway—but people certainly knew I was pushed out. I don’t like that. I think I was right. I think other people were wrong. Some of those other people are more wrong than the rest—wrong and possibly crooked. I got caught in a mess because I didn’t keep my mouth shut, and I got hammered for it. I don’t mind—I wouldn’t respect myself if I’d stayed silent—but I don’t like taking someone else’s fall.” He regarded her steadily, then added, “See what I’m saying?”

  “Um, no, not really. But that’s okay. I accept your—your mysterious motives. It’s just that I can’t really tell you anything that I find out about this case. You’ve got to know that, right?”

  “Let me ask you something,” Tuck said. “If something is going to become public knowledge anyway, eventually—and if you accept my word that I take my oath seriously and would never do anything to undermine an active case—then wouldn’t it make sense to keep me in the loop? I mean, just in matters that could affect the town I’m supposed to protect and serve.”

  Gin was caught off guard: the brand new chief of police was asking her to confide in him—when she hadn’t even known him long enough to decide if she trusted him.

  “And besides,” he added, “you’ve already compromised your ethics, wouldn’t you say? I mean, given that you’re involved with a suspect, shouldn’t you have declined to consult on this one?”

  “Jake’s a suspect?”

  “Well, I don’t know that, officially,” Tuck admitted. “But if I was running the case, I’d be looking hard at anyone who worked on that site, who had twenty-four-hour access to it.”

  “You—you wouldn’t say that if you knew him. Jake would never . . . He isn’t capable of . . .” Gin grew increasingly flustered.

  “Hey, don’t sweat it. It’s just checking boxes. And I don’t care who’s running a case—there’s a certain amount of questions you have to ask yourself at the outset that you already know the answers to.” He narrowed his eyes, and Gin resisted the urge to fidget under his intense gaze. “At least, you think you know the answers. But then again . . . sometimes, you prove yourself wrong.”

  Gin didn’t respond to the insinuation—if that’s what it had been. And a moment later, he grinned, and the intensity left his expression. “Hey, Liam.”

  Gin turned to see Detective Witt approaching. He gave a friendly wave.

  “What are you doing over here, Baxter? Miss me?”

  “You know it. Actually, I miss the food. There’s nothing in Trumbull that compares to the Strip.”

  “My mom would be very disappointed to hear you say that,” Gin said lightly, matching her tone to his. “She worked hard to bring Jezebel’s and Sea Mist to town. They’ve both gotten great reviews by Pittsburgh bloggers, you know.”

  “Sorry, sorry,” Tuck laughed, holding up a hand in surrender. “I was basing that comment on the greasy spoons out where my daughter and I were staying while we looked for a house. But we move in on Friday, so I’ll spend the weekend trying out the local fare. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Gin agreed. “Where did you find a house?”

  “Right on Spruce—found a two-bedroom rental less than a mile from the station, actually. Can’t beat the convenience, and Cherie can walk to school.”

  “Aw, that’s great, man,” Witt said. “How’s she adjusting?”

  “Eh, you know kids,” Tuck said. “Generally bounce back like rubber bands. And I’ve got a lead on a basketball team that might try her out. Coach is supposed to be a bit of a dragon, though.”

  Witt laughed. “Hey, listen, Stillman said he’d call you later to let you know what we need. There are some people he wants to interview, and he needs the names of the firefighters who responded. He was also hoping you could help us get in touch with the Rudkin brothers who sold that land to Crosby.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll poke around and see what I come up with.”

  “Great. We’ll try to stay out of your hair after that. I know you’re trying to get settled and all.” Witt gave Gin an assessing glance. “Just don’t steal our talent, okay?”

  “Who, Gin here? Not a chance.” Baxter winked at her. “I’ve had to revise my opinion somewhat.”

  “Oh? What exactly was your opinion?” Gin inquired.

  Baxter shrugged. “Wasn’t sure. I figured your mom oversold you—she seems to think you’re a genius. Far as I can tell, you fall a bit short of the mark.”

  “You . . . what?” Gin stammered.

  “You parked in a red zone. That is your Touareg, isn’t it? Looks like they’re giving you a ticket now.”

  “Oh, no!” Gin looked down the street where she’d congratulated herself on finding a spot within a block of the facility. As the sun melted some of the snow and ice that the plows had pushed up onto the curb, she could see that the curb was indeed painted red.

  “Too late now. I’d just wait and see if you can explain in traffic court. Maybe you could wear a tight skirt and cry or something.”

  Gin bristled. “I’m going to assume that you already know how offensive that comment was.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Baxter’s smile was easy and confident. “Which part?”

  “I’ve been to seminars in Cook County where I learned that in order to stay above any suggestion of harassment, it’s best to say nothing at all.”

  “Yeah, well, I must have missed that one. Anyway, I guess you could file a formal complaint.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Gin said drily. She was nearly positive that Tuck Baxter was teasing her.

  “I was talking to Stephen, and he told me he actually read some paper you wrote when he was in med school, that you know what you’re talking about.”

  “You know Stephen Harper?”

  “Gin, I’m not sure what you’ve heard about me, but I’ve worked for
the county for almost twenty years. I was in homicide for a while before I got moved to property crimes.”

  This was news to Gin. “But I never heard your name during my sister’s investigation.”

  “I’d moved on by then.”

  “Shit went downhill once you left,” Witt said. “You used to keep things interesting, at least.”

  “Yeah, well, sometimes you have to buckle down and do the job they give you. Anyway, this chief position was just the exit I needed, even if I’m going to have to turn over every case with teeth to you guys, just so I can spend all my time settling domestics and directing traffic on the never-ending road construction.”

  Witt chuckled and offered his hand. The two men shook, and Gin and Tuck watched Witt walk to his vehicle.

  “So Trumbull’s your idea of exile,” Gin said when he was out of earshot.

  The sharp stab of resentment surprised her; she’d never felt defensive of the town in the years she’d been away. In fact, she’d told plenty of people that she came from a dying town of 6,000 people, that there was no reason to return, that it was a miracle the other 5,999 people hadn’t left too.

  But hearing the same sentiment from Tuck Baxter made her want to convince him that Trumbull was worthy of his admiration.

  “I’ll keep an open mind,” Tuck conceded. “But listen. I could really use a win on this one . . . I need to prove that I can do more than just run a fourteen-person force writing tickets and chasing misdemeanors. I need to show that I can handle bigger things.”

  “To yourself? Or to Captain Wheeler?”

  “Let’s just call that part of what I don’t want to talk about.”

  Gin considered for a moment. The investigation was firmly in the hands of the county now. But as in her own sister’s investigation, the official version didn’t take into account the reality of the way things happened in a small town. Locals might be leery of opening up to officers they didn’t know, especially if they got a whiff of city-bred impatience.

  “People here are going to think that you getting the chief job was a promotion,” she said. “Chief Crosby was a much admired figure. From what you’re telling me, you feel that the opposite is true.”