As before, I dropped from the pier, crossed the mud, then side-stepped around the barrel into the creek.
The sheriff was right. The tide was coming in. The water had crept to a point just below the barrel’s brim.
This time we had a plan. I would go underwater and maneuver the lasso under the bottom rim of the barrel. That accomplished, I would hold the up-side while Gullet and Zamzow heaved on two auxiliary lines attached to the down-side.
Though not without mishap, the plan worked. After three tries the second rope looped the barrel. Panting and dripping, I tightened both nooses and tugged, testing. The lines seemed secure.
I signaled to Gullet. Gullet signaled to Miller. Miller called to Tybee. Beyond the pier, the cruiser’s engine turned over.
Slowly, the ropes grew taut. The barrel shifted, rocked back into place.
Gullet waved. Miller shouted. The cruiser’s engine raced again. Holding my breath, I crouched down like a baseball catcher and pushed on the bottom of the barrel with my shoulders. Nothing budged.
Lungs burning, I pushed again and felt movement.
I surfaced to the sounds of sucking and scraping. The barrel was oozing from the water onto the mud.
With Gullet and me pushing and Zamzow guiding, the barrel crept up the bank, filthy water pouring from gashes in its sides.
One eon and we’d gotten above the high tide line. Another and we’d moved from mud to solid ground. When we finally crested the bank, Miller was waiting with her camera and a hand trolley.
Wordlessly, Leland Moultrie indicated a spigot beside his veranda. Thanking him, I moved to the house, stripped off the waders, bent at the waist, and ran water through my hair and over my face. Oswald Moultrie appeared from inside and offered me a towel. I almost hugged him.
When I returned from my cleanup, Miller was still snapping photos. I watched fluid ooze from the barrel, wondering about the person inside. Had he or she been dead decades? Years? One full moon? Was the body bloated and discolored from its time in the sea? Had scavengers slithered, crawled, or swum through fissures in the metal, long ago stripping the flesh from the bones?
If a full autopsy was impossible, would Emma ask that I examine the bones?
Did the queen like bad hats?
A sudden thought. Could the body in the barrel be one of Cruikshank’s MPs?
A terrible thought. Could it be Helene Flynn?
A clapper rail called from some hidden perch. Its rattle snapped me back to the present.
Miller was snugging her trolley to the barrel. Gullet pushed, raising one side, and the prongs slid beneath. With Tybee and Zamzow spotting, Miller wheeled her cargo off to the coroner’s van.
That was it. I’d done my part. Miller and the deputies could load the damn thing.
The clean, dry deputies.
Leaning on Tybee’s cruiser, I laced on my sneakers. Then I crossed to Gullet’s Explorer, dug out my pack, and dragged a comb through my hair.
I caught my image in the rearview. Mascara had been a really bad idea.
* * *
Tybee and Zamzow stayed behind to shoot video and walk the area, and to continue interrogating the Moultries. Gullet and I followed Miller to the MUSC morgue, a plastic sheet separating us from the Explorer’s seats.
While I showered and changed into scrubs, Miller off-loaded the barrel. Fifteen minutes after arriving, I rejoined her at the intake area just inside the rolling metal doors.
“Where’s Gullet?” I asked.
“Got a call.”
“From his couturier?”
Miller laughed. “Could be. Sheriff’s mindful of his appearance, and that don’t mean mud up his gumpy. I suspect he may also be detailing that SUV of his. You’re to let him know what we find.”
“You phone Emma?”
Miller nodded. “Coroner says open her up. Allocation’s my call. Either you or one of our pathologists wins the cigar.”
“You sticking around?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
Miller logged the case and prepared an ID marker, CCC-2006020299. I positioned the card while she shot close-ups of the barrel and chain.
“Chain’s in good shape.” Miller was squinting through her viewfinder. “Barrel’s a bucket of rust.”
“The two could be made of different metals.”
“Or could be a new chain wrapping an old barrel.”
A puddle spread across the cement as we worked, carrying with it the smell of decay. When Miller finished with photography, we both inspected the barrel’s exterior. As she’d predicted, any words or logos were long gone.
“There must be lots of companies that manufacture fifty-five-gallon drums,” I said.
“Dozens,” Miller agreed.
After snapping a few Polaroid backups, Miller disappeared, returned with a crowbar and chain saw.
“OK, sweetie, how do you want to go about this?”
“No reason we can’t just knock it open,” I said.
“Worked for Larry and Moe.” Miller pulled on big leather gloves, crowbarred one edge, then tried to lever the lid. The thing stayed put.
“You whacked this sucker pretty good,” Miller said.
“I had a little adrenaline working.”
After prying more edge, Miller inserted the crowbar and thrust down on the shaft. Half the lid popped free, sending wet rust particles cascading downward. Miller inserted her fingers, tugged at intervals along the lid’s perimeter, then yanked upward. The metal disc came away in her hands.
An old, damp smell rose from the barrel. Rotten seaweed. Stale salt water. And more. The smell of death.
Setting the lid on the concrete, Miller picked up a flashlight, and we both leaned in.
The form was human, but not human, a grotesque reproduction in waxy white. It sat humped over, head between its knees.
Miller’s nostrils narrowed. “You may be off the hook on this one, doc.”
I wasn’t so sure. In the presence of moisture, the hydrogenation and hydrolysis of body fat can lead to the formation of matter containing fatty acids and glycerol. This greasy, sometimes waxy substance is known as adipocere, or grave wax.
Once formed, grave wax can hang around a long time, forming a cast of the fatty tissues. I’d seen corpses in which adipocere preserved the body and facial features, while putrefaction turned the insides to soup.
“Body was put in feet first, then shoved down,” Miller said.
“Or the victim was forced to climb in and squat,” I said.
“Naked.”
“Looks small.” I spoke without thinking, caught up in the usual swirl of sadness and anger.
“Female?” Taut. Miller was swirling with me.
“I’d rather not speculate.”
But I already knew. I’d seen too many ravaged wives, coeds, stepdaughters, waitresses, hookers. My gender was the little guy, the one who took the punches.
“Lots of sand,” I said, refocusing my anger. “Probably used to weight the barrel.”
“Rocks would have been a better choice,” Miller said. “One whack with a boat propeller, one erosion point, sand’s outta there. Probably why the thing became buoyant and washed up.”
“Let’s get her on a table,” I said.
Together we lowered the trolley so it lay parallel to the concrete, moving carefully, as though afraid to jostle the occupant. Pointless. She was past caring.
Miller donned goggles, revved the chain saw, and cut the barrel lengthwise from rim to rim on two sides and the bottom, removing the section immediately overlying the body.
The remains were back-side down in the barrel’s lower half, head tucked between tightly flexed legs. I could see abrasions in the adipocere where the knees and shins had scraped against the drum’s inner surface.
While I’d showered and changed to scrubs, Miller had draped a gurney with plastic sheeting. Removing her goggles and leather gloves, she now wheeled it into position. Together, we shifted the gurney’s removable tra
y to the floor beside the barrel. When we’d pulled on surgical gloves, I took the head and Miller took the buttocks.
“Ready?” Tense.
I nodded.
We lifted an inch, testing. The soapy flesh held.
“OK,” I said.
We lifted another inch, then another, tugging gently at any resistance. Slowly, the barrel released its prisoner. We held a moment, allowing fetid liquid to drip. I nodded. Stepping sideways, we lowered the body and raised the tray. I circled the gurney.
Though the flesh was grotesquely distorted, the hair and skin sloughed, the genitals told me the victim was, indeed, female. Her time in the barrel had left her molded into a fetal curl.
Crazy, but the woman seemed to be shielding herself from the indignities her unnatural death would call down upon her. From me. From Miller. From the army that would gather to reconstruct the horror of her final moments, to detail the destruction wrought by her watery confinement.
Some part of me wanted to cover this woman, to protect her from the gowned figures, the glaring lights, the flashing bulbs, the gleaming instruments. But the rational part of me knew that would do her no good. Like the man on Dewees, and the man in the trees, the woman in the barrel needed a name.
I vowed to give that to her. To find the identity that would link her with the living. To end the anonymity that kept her from being mourned, from having her suffering recognized.
Working together, Miller and I eased the woman from her side to her back. I waited while Miller shot pictures. Then, using gentle pressure, we tried to manipulate the tightly clasped limbs.
“Poor gal’s kinked like a cement contortionist,” Miller said. “This may take muscle.”
We increased our pressure. One by one, the arms yielded and we straightened them at the woman’s sides.
We shifted to the legs. While Miller pushed on the right knee, I pulled on the ankle. The rigor yielded.
As the woman’s leg straightened, a glob slid from her belly and settled by her hip.
Thup.
Miller voiced my thought.
“Holy hell, what’s that?”
20
“LET’S LOWER THE OTHER LEG,” I SAID.
Miller took the knee. I took the ankle. Together we unlocked and straightened the limb.
The belly was a chasm of putrefied jelly, emitting a stench that could have emptied whole villages.
Breathing through my mouth, I circled the table.
The glob was the same greasy white as the woman’s flesh, but covered with silky brown wisps.
I checked the woman’s thighs. Brown wisps spiderwebbed her flesh.
Threads? Hair?
I poked the glob. It felt somewhat firm, but slough-prone, like overripe fruit.
Or flesh.
Sudden insight.
Using a fingertip, I scraped up and examined several wisps.
Fur.
As Miller watched, I dug into the glob and extricated one scrawny limb. Then another.
Miller’s eyes widened. Wordlessly, she found the hind legs, and, together, we uncurled the small creature. Hairless, bloated, and marinated in decompositional runoff, its species was unrecognizable.
“Fido, Felix, or Flopsy?” Miller asked.
“It’s not a rabbit. The face is flat and the fore and hind limbs are equal in length.” I probed the nether regions and extracted a long, thin tail. “Let’s check the teeth.”
While I held the head, Miller pried the jaws.
“It’s a cat,” I said.
I pictured Birdie. I looked at this woman, dumped in a barrel with her pet like so much garbage.
I fought the urge to slam my fist into the stainless steel. I closed my eyes.
Focus, Brennan. You will further the investigation only if you focus.
“Let’s find out who she is,” I said.
Miller wheeled the gurney up the ramp and into the hospital. I followed and we ascended to an autopsy room. First off, I checked the fingers to see if we could recover any prints or print fragments. Not a chance.
Miller rang a tech to request X-rays. While the body was gone we both filled out forms. Neither of us spoke.
When the X-rays arrived Miller popped them onto wall-mounted light boxes. While she and the tech transferred the woman’s body to an autopsy table, I moved along the row, examining gray and white images of her insides.
The brain and organs were mush. The eyes would yield no vitreous fluid. This case would be strictly skeletal. My baby.
I focused on the bones. I saw no obvious fractures or anomalies. No surgical implants, pins, or plates. No foreign objects. No bullets. No metallic trace.
No teeth or dentures.
“We won’t be needing Bernie Grimes,” I said. “She’s edentulous.”
“Senior citizen?” Miller asked.
“Middle-aged, not geriatric,” I said, distracted by what I was seeing on the last two films.
Miller came up beside me.
“Gold star for diligence, Kyle,” she threw over one shoulder to the tech who had shot the X-rays. “Good angles on the kitty.”
“I wasn’t sure—”
I cut Kyle off. “Look at this.” I pointed to a white spot the size and shape of a small rice kernel, dead center below the cat’s neck.
“That an artifact?” Miller asked.
I shook my head. “It shows up on both plates.”
Double-checking the feline X-rays, I got a scalpel, returned to the gurney, and made an incision. Thirty seconds of probing produced a tiny cylinder. I held it on my palm for Miller and the diligent Kyle.
“I know you’re going to tell me what that is,” Miller said.
“Pet ID chip, properly known as a transponder.”
Miller looked at me as though I’d said it was a snakebot designed to maneuver through space.
“The device consists of a miniaturized coil and memory circuit encased in biocompatible glass. It’s implanted using a hypodermic syringe, just under the skin, between the shoulder blades.”
“By controllers of the Matrix?”
“By veterinarians. The procedure takes less than a minute. My cat has one and he hasn’t a clue.”
“How’s it work?” Miller sounded skeptical.
“The chip’s memory circuit contains a unique preprogrammed identification number, which can be read by a scanner. The scanner sends a low-power radio signal to the coil, which sends a copy of the ID number back to the scanner. The number can be checked against a central databank, where the pet’s ownership records are kept.”
“So if Fluffy takes a powder, Fluffy’s owner gets her back.”
“If Fluffy is lucky enough to get bagged and scanned.”
“Isn’t that an irony. Easier to trace a cat than a human being. What’s the shelf life?”
“Theoretically, the chip can function up to seventy-five years.”
“Who’s got these gizmos?” Dawning comprehension.
“Vets. Animal shelters. SPCAs. They’re pretty common.”
“So the dumb sonovabitch may have left the proverbial smoking gun.”
I nodded. “As least as to an ID of the victim.”
Miller produced a ziplock and I deposited the capsule. She turned to Kyle.
“Find me a vet who can scan this thing.”
While Kyle disappeared in search of a phone, Miller and I resumed our examination of the body.
“Think she’s white?” Miller asked, looking at what remained of the face.
“The cranial X-rays suggest Caucasoid skull and facial architecture.”
“What’s telling you middle-aged?”
“Moderate arthritis. Bony spicules where the ribs attach to the breastbone. Think you can harvest the pubic symphyses?”
“With guidance.” Miller went in search of a striker saw.
I centered a rubber headrest behind the woman’s neck. Her face provided scant clue to her appearance in life. The eyelids were gone, the orbits filled with the s
ame waxy material that clung to her bones. No lashes, brows, or head hair remained.
Miller returned. While I snapped photos, she removed the pubic symphyses, then took them to find a soaking container. I was shooting a facial close-up when something caught my attention. Setting the camera aside, I leaned in.
A groove circled the woman’s neck, penetrating a quarter inch into the crumbly flesh. The groove was narrow, less than half the width of my little finger.
Postmortem? An impression created by contact with something in the barrel? Damage due to marine scavengers?
Grabbing a magnifying lens, I ran a finger over the furrow. The edges were clean and well defined. No way the indentation had been caused by nibbling creatures.
I heard a door open, close, then footsteps. Miller said something. I didn’t look up. I was following the furrow’s path, checking its orientation. Checking the flesh above and below.
The groove was horizontal, with an irregular enlargement on the left side of the neck. Abrasions nicked the surrounding tissue.
“What’s so intriguing?”
I handed Miller the glass. She studied the groove. Then, “This what I think it is?”
“Horizontal furrow. Defensive fingernail scrapes.”
“Ligature strangulation?”
I nodded.
“What kind of ligature?”
“Smooth, round cross section, small diameter. Maybe a wire of some kind.”
The grooved flesh jogged loose a memory. Cruikshank dangling from an oak in the Francis Marion National Forest.
Miller must have had the same thought. “What about hanging?”
“With hanging, the furrow rises to a suspension point. This one’s horizontal all the way around.”
I studied the woman lying in a puddle on stainless steel. The usual signs of asphyxia had been obliterated by decomposition and saponification. There were no petechia from increased venous pressure. No indicators of cyanosis. No tissue hemorrhage. No trachea, no esophagus, no muscle to section. Nothing that would allow a pathologist to definitively conclude that death had been caused by strangulation.
“When the bones are stripped I’ll examine the larynx, especially the hyoid and thyroid cartilages. But, given what I see, I’m reasonably certain.”