Deadly Harvest (14 page)

“You all right?” he asked her.

“I'm fine,” she said quickly. “But you…you were…”

He got back in the bed, lowering himself suggestively over her. “I was just—”

He broke off, frowning.

“Jeremy, you were—”

“I woke you up, didn't I? I'm sorry. I guess I must have gotten up for some water. I can never get used to the heating systems up here. I'm always thirsty,” he said.

She realized that he had no idea that he had been standing at the foot of the bed, talking to someone who wasn't there.

“Damn, you're cold,” he told her suddenly, levering his weight off her and pulling her against him. “Some northerner,” he told her.

“I'm…fine. Really.” She curled in against him, grateful for his warmth and knowing she wasn't fine. She was still freezing. It was long minutes until the chill began to fade, and all the while he held her, cradling her tightly.

“Do you dream?” she asked him at last.

His hands, which had been caressing her back, went still. “Everyone dreams,” he said.

“True. Do you ever remember your dreams?”

“Sure, sometimes. Everyone does.” He moved away from her, rising and grabbing his robe from a nearby chair. “I'm going for that water now. Do you want some?”

“Sure,” she said.

She heard his footsteps on the stairs and looked around the empty room.

She didn't want to be alone there—maybe because she couldn't quite convince herself that it
was
empty.

Leaping up, she found his discarded shirt, slipped it on and raced down the stairs after him.

She noticed a weak gray light trying to seep past the edges of the front-hall drapes and realized it was early morning. Very early morning.

But it was morning nonetheless, and she was grateful.

He was worried about Rowenna, Jeremy thought, as he looked across the kitchen table to see her drinking coffee and looking back at him—and apparently he wasn't the only one.

He'd been surprised when Joe Brentwood had called him—he'd thought he would have to jump through hoops to get hold of Brentwood and convince him that he needed to be fully included in the investigation. Instead, Brentwood had called him early, only a few minutes after Rowenna had joined him downstairs and they'd decided to go ahead and make coffee.

“Harold is starting the autopsy first thing,” Joe had begun without preamble. “Let me give you the address. Be here by seven sharp.” Then he'd told Jeremy to make sure Rowenna stayed safe and hung up.

Jeremy liked having Rowenna with him, despite the circumstances, but given her experience finding the body, he didn't think she needed to be there for the actual autopsy. It had nothing to do with her gender, because in his experience, he'd found that women M.E.s were as calm, thorough and efficient as men, not to mention that he'd seen six-foot, two-hundred-pound male cops turn green and pass out at the first scalpel cut. It was just that he'd been to a score of autopsies in the course of his career, and he was willing to bet cash money that her life hadn't included a single one.

He put his phone down and turned to her. “I've got to rush. That was Joe, asking if I wanted to attend the autopsy.”

“Really?” she asked, and smiled. “I hadn't gotten the impression he liked you all that much.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Hey, I didn't say
I
didn't like you. He's just being careful, I guess. He's a good cop.”

“I'll take your word for it.”

“He cares. He's always cared. He knows people, and he likes them—once he gets to know them. He also believes in justice. You know, along with truth and the American way and all that.”

“I'll consider myself forewarned. Listen, wait here till I get back, okay? I don't want you going home by yourself, just in case.”

“Sure, no problem. I like wearing the same clothes two days in a row.”

He stood and looked down into her eyes. They were such an extraordinary color. Like gold, against the dark tone of her sleek hair. Her features were beautiful, as well, her nose straight and small but not too small, her mouth well-formed and generous, cheekbones high, brows delicate and arched. He cupped her chin, relishing the softness of her skin against his palm.

“We can always drive out there later and pick up some of your things. Don't you think it makes sense to stay here in town? Close to Brad—and your friend Joe. Makes it easier for you and him to do…whatever voodoo you two do,” he said, trying to make light of it.

She flushed and tried to turn away, but his hold was firm.

“Everything I do when I help the police is based on logic, you know.”

“Sure it is,” he said skeptically.

“I'm serious. I put myself in the place of the victim. I find out everything I can about them, and then I try to imagine what they were thinking, what they were feeling. I'm not a cop. I only make suggestions based on what I feel when I'm in that person's shoes. It's just that sometimes my suggestions have been good ones.”

“While I'm gone, why don't you go out and buy something new to wear? Since you're so worried about it and all. Although your jeans looked fine to me.”

She grimaced. “Jeremy, I was lying in the dirt in those jeans.”

“Okay, good point. Run down the street and buy something else, then.”

“They sell really nice wiccan robes down the street,” she teased.

“I'm sure you'd look lovely in one,” he said, refusing to rise to the bait. “I'm going upstairs to shower. I'll see you before I head out, but please, promise you'll stay in town and wait for me. Don't go out to your place without me.”

“It's all right. I'll be around. I want to go to the library and maybe the museum, anyway. Just give me a call when you're back.”

 

She was ready and waiting to take her shower as soon as he finished his, and he was downstairs, getting ready to leave the spare set of keys on the counter, along with a note, when she came down, dressed and ready to head out.

“I'm starving,” she told him. “I'm going to go get some breakfast.”

He handed her the keys, and she thanked him.

“Do you want me to drop you somewhere?” he asked.

She laughed. “Are you kidding? It's only a few blocks to walk, and it's nice out.”

“It's cold.”

She laughed. “You think
this
is cold? You ain't seen nothin' yet, mister.”

Even in jeans, boots, a sweater and a denim jacket, she still somehow managed to be a picture of elegance and grace, he thought, as he pulled out of the driveway.

Jeremy wasn't sure why, but he was always surprised by the normalcy of the people who worked at the morgue. The receptionist, perky and midtwenties, seemed equally comfortable greeting the living and walking in and out of a room where human bodies lay in various stages of exposure and decomposition.

She took him back and introduced him to “Harold,” aka Dr. Albright, one of the eight medical examiners working in the office. Harold and his assistant had already begun work on the unknown woman's body, and Joe Brentwood stood rigidly nearby, watching.

It was a long process. The deceased had been X-rayed when she arrived, her clothing taken away to be analyzed, and blood samples were already being processed. Jeremy learned all that by listening to Dr. Albright speaking into the microphone that was hanging down above the body, so he could describe the process as he worked. He identified the body as that of a young woman between the age of seventeen and thirty-three, standing approximately five foot three and weighing one hundred and twenty pounds. Her neck had been broken, probably postmortem, perhaps even by the weight of her skull as it fell forward due to the staging of the corpse in the fields. Death appeared to be the result of strangulation; heavy bruising was clearly visible around the neck and throat. Trace evidence taken from the body thus far included organic matter, such as dirt and vegetation, insect matter and other undetermined substances.

The stench of decomposition was strong, even in the cold autopsy room. Joe gestured toward a stainless-steel table along one wall, silently suggesting that Jeremy take a mask.

Jeremy was happy to do so.

He found it almost impossible not to distance himself a bit—to stand, like Joe, a few feet back, arms crossed over his chest, and try not to imagine that the rotting flesh and protruding bone on the table had once lived, breathed, laughed.

More photographs were being taken, but Jeremy was certain they were not for identification purposes.

Her face was too badly disfigured for that.

Not, he soon discovered, by the murderer. The damage done to the flesh of her face—other than the red slash across her mouth—had been caused by the birds of prey and insects who had fed upon her while she had reigned atop the stake in the field.

She had had sex shortly before death, and the bruising over her genitalia strongly indicated that it had been rape. Dr. Albright estimated the time of death at about a week prior to the discovery of the body. She did not appear to have been in a state of malnutrition or dehydration prior to death.

The M.E.'s voice became a drone in Jeremy's head.

The doctor made the Y incision so he could begin examining the internal organs, and the corpse became even less recognizable as human.

Heart a normal weight, two hundred and seventy grams; brain, normal, thirteen hundred grams; lungs, also normal, the left, three hundred and seventy grams, the right, four hundred.

Kidneys, both normal, left, one hundred and thirty grams…

Pancreas, spleen, liver…

Tissue samples were taken for later analysis. The assistant removed larvae found in the flesh, and Jeremy knew they would be important in establishing the exact time of death.

He became aware of a soft humming, just below the sound of the water that ran continually to keep the autopsy table clear, and he turned and noticed a computer running nearby. The screen held the image of a sightless skull covered in rotting flesh—the skull belonging to the woman on the table. Alongside it, an automated program ran a series of graphs, and as he watched, the computer began to rebuild her face, even as she lay dead ten feet away. Robbed of life, she was yet given it back.

By the time the doctor stepped aside and his assistant began stitching up the body, a human being was appearing on the screen. Statistics and math were putting her back together, just as the surgical thread was.

She had been pretty.

Young, and pretty.

But not as pretty as Mary.

Or as flat-out beautiful as Rowenna.

But the dead woman was certainly attractive enough to have drawn attention. He was surprised by how relieved he felt to know that he hadn't been mistaken, that death hadn't worked so cruelly on the body that he had been wrong to swear that it wasn't Mary. This woman was indeed shorter. Dark haired, curvy, probably quick to laugh and flirt. To live.

He hadn't felt queasy during the cutting, or even while listening to the description of her wounded flesh, which could be even worse.

But seeing her face, seeing what she had been in life…

“It's amazing, isn't it?” Joe said grimly.

Jeremy was grateful that he hadn't jumped when the policeman's voice startled him out of his thoughts.

“This will be in the papers and on the news by tonight, correct?” Jeremy asked him.

Joe nodded grimly. “I hope you're aware that we're holding back a great deal.”

“I would never discuss a case with the press.”

“We've held back any mention of the slashed face. I'd asked my men not to mention that the body had been found fixed up like a scarecrow, but that got out somehow anyway.”

Jeremy stared at him evenly. “Not through me.”

Joe shrugged. “I didn't say you had anything to do with it. Too many emergency personnel on site. Someone was going to squeal. But I'm hoping we can keep it quiet about what he did to the mouth. That's got to be symbolic of something, don't you agree?”

“I would imagine, yes.”

“Come on, let's get out of here,” Joe said. “Harold—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll call you faster than I can think if I get anything,” the M.E. promised.

He nodded to Jeremy, who inclined his head in return. “Thanks for letting me sit in.”

Harold Albright, his eyes huge behind the magnifying glasses he was wearing, said, “Glad to have you here. You ask me, it's good to have an outsider with the right credentials in as a witness.”

Joe actually set a friendly hand on Jeremy's shoulder as they headed out, saying goodbye to Miss Cheerful on the way.

Outside in the parking lot, Joe Brentwood inhaled a deep breath and shook his head. “I'll never get used to the smell of death.”