of the city manager in a dark suit that I thought would have looked silly out here even if it wasn’t plastered to him like wet tissue paper, glanced uneasily back and forth between Hazen and me, trying to decide which flag to salute.
‘Uh, Lieutenant, I thought I’d get your take on this – ’ Hazen began.
‘Yes, sir,’ I said, wondering what it was about him that irritated me so much. ‘I’ll be happy to give you that as soon as I know something. Right now I’d appreciate it if both of you would wait behind the tape.’
Hazen looked at me with a questioning expression, like a man who’s not quite sure he heard right, took in the kind of breath you do when you’re about to give somebody an attitude adjustment, but then apparently had second thoughts. He glanced back at the reporters, made a show of shrugging and flashing his let-the-man-do-it-his-way smile, then retreated, the gofer hopping from one weed clump to the next behind him until they reached the tape and stooped inexpertly under it.
Turning back to Wayne, I said, ‘So what have we got?’
‘I’ll show you,’ he said, leading the way toward the medium-sized possum oak at the centre of what was left of the gathering, which now consisted mostly of Wayne’s crew, a dozen or so uniforms and a few EMTs waiting for their cue.
‘Don’t worry where you step along here,’ Wayne said. ‘We did all we could with the ground, but you know what that’s worth when it’s already trompled to pieces before you get to it.’
I’m not sure what I’d expected, but this definitely wasn’t it. The oak’s lower branches had been hacked away with a heavy-bladed tool, probably a machete or axe, and what looked like a six-foot length of four-by-four had been lashed to the trunk with coarse-fibred rope to form a cross-beam. Pinned by two thick bridge spikes driven through the wrists, with several loops of rope binding the arms to the beam, was the corpse of a woman, head fallen forward as if she were looking down at us with dull eyes as we stood before her slack body. All my life I’d heard of corpses having expressions of horror or pain on their faces, reflecting the manner of death, but the job had taught me better. The only expression death leaves the dead is indifference, and that was all I saw in the woman’s features now.
Stepping in for a closer look, I could pick out individual drops of rain refracting the light like jewels in her dark hair. A strip of silver duct tape that had apparently been placed across her lower face had been pulled back to expose the bloody mouth and chin. A torn and bloodstained ecru cashmere pullover sweater still covered most of her torso but she was naked from the waist down. The insides of her thighs were black with congealed blood. Her feet had been turned to the side and a third spike had been driven through the heels and deep into the wood of the tree trunk. More blood had run down from the arms and feet to form a black puddle in the wet grass.
Wayne said, ‘Them spikes up there at the top went through between the radius and ulna just proximal to the carpals on both sides and didn’t cut either one of the radial arteries, even with all the struggling she did.’
Looking up through the rain at the dead, grey face, I said, ‘I know her.’
All eyes came to me.
‘It’s Deborah Gold.’
‘The psych doc?’ said Wayne.
I nodded absent-mindedly, thinking about Jerusalem thieves, Texas psychologists, and dying hard. Dr Gold had been a department consultant at one time, mostly doing the pre-hire psych screening of new applicants, and she and I had a history.
Mouncey squinted as she took another look at the face. ‘Believe you right, Lou,’ she said. ‘Look like some hard miles on her since then.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Especially the last few.’
‘Be damned,’ Wayne said, squinting up at the empty eyes.
Lying in the weeds not far from the base of the tree I saw a pair of expensive-looking alligator shoes which, by reason of living mostly with women all my life, I knew were the kind called pumps. Bloody earlobes and grooves around three of the curled fingers meant the victim must have been wearing jewellery, which the killer had apparently taken while she was still alive. The hands themselves were fairly slender and long-fingered with what looked like a clear lacquer covering the well-manicured nails.
Something about this thought caught at me. I stepped in for a closer look at the hands, seeing no significant injuries anywhere other than the wrists. I thought about the hundreds – maybe thousands – of crucifixes and images of Jesus on the cross that I’d seen in my life, filing the question away for later.
‘Now look here,’ Wayne said, gloving up again. He reached up and placed one thumb against the corpse’s forehead to push the head upward and back, and with the other prised open the jaw to reveal a mass of bloody flesh and clotted, curly hair.
I shone my pocket flashlight into the cavity. ‘What is this?’ I said. ‘Doesn’t look like any tongue I ever saw.’
‘It ain’t, Lou,’ he said. ‘Matter of fact, I don’t think her tongue’s even in there.’
I turned to look at him.
‘Then where it at?’ Mouncey asked.
‘Question of the hour,’ Wayne said. ‘First thing we did was grid the area out about fifty yards around the site and all the way down to the road and the tracks over there, but no luck so far. We’ll keep opening up the circle if we don’t find it.’
‘So,’ I said. ‘What’s this in her mouth?’
Wayne cleared his throat. A quick glance at Mouncey. ‘Believe that’d be her snatch, Lou,’ he said.
‘Law,’ said Mouncey, bending down for a look at the bloodied groin. ‘Wait by the river long enough, e’thing in the world gone float by.’ She straightened up and looked at me. ‘How you figure it, Lou? We lookin’ for Romans or what?’
Wayne gave her a strange look, then turned back to me, saying, ‘There was some camouflage netting wrapped around her when we got here. That’s it in the evidence bag over there.’
Keeping to the grass tufts as best I could, I excuse-me’d my way around the tree through the cops and EMTs, the pine needles, dead leaves and bracken looking mostly undisturbed behind the tree, at least out to a distance of a yard or two.
Joining Wayne and M again, I looked closely at the wrists and the spikes that had been driven through them. The heads of the big nails showed an impressed waffle pattern.
I said, ‘What leaves a mark like this?’
‘Framing hammer,’ Wayne said. ‘Most likely a California.’
I glanced at him.
‘Daddy was a carpenter,’ he said.
Working at the horse farm as a kid, I thought I’d swung every kind of hammer there was. I knew about framing hammers, but the idea of individual state models was new to me.
I said, ‘What makes it a California?’
‘Longer handle, straighter claws. Wider face with checkering, like you see there.’
‘And she was alive when she was
