on their way to the scene where she’d told him a young Ute woman had supposedly been attacked by a bear.
They had entered Ute territory a few miles back. The terrain was rough, the location remote. At least Tom didn’t have to worry about being followed. Theirs was the only vehicle on the road.
“I’m surprised you’re still doing field work considering your administrative position at the lab,” he said. He shot a quick glance at her. Even after all this time the mere sight of her nearly took his breath away.
“I don’t do as much as I’d like anymore, but when a particular case catches my interest, I like to get out in the field. Besides, the lab is a small operation and sometimes I’m the only one available to show up at a crime scene.”
“What’s so interesting about this particular case? A bear attack doesn’t sound like something the crime lab would be involved with.”
“Normally we wouldn’t. The coroner ruled it as an attack, but Patrick had a bad feeling about it and brought us some of the evidence to look at and when I examined the photos and such, more questions than answers jumped into my head. There are some troubling inconsistencies.”
Apparently, the secret to getting Callie to talk was to ask about her work, he thought. “So, what kind of inconsistencies?” At the moment the tension between them was gone and he wanted to keep the easy conversation going.
She frowned, the gesture unable to take away from her beauty. “There’s no question that the wounds on the victim were made by bear claws. Turn right up here,” she said and pointed to a narrow dirt trail, then continued. “Those wounds were lethal in that she bled to death from them.”
“Then why the questions?”
“No bear scat or tracks found in the area. While the wound patterns themselves were consistent with claws, the amount of pressure used to inflict those wounds was not. Also, there were no bite marks. When did you ever hear about a bear attack where the bear didn’t bite?”
“Never,” he replied. “What about DNA analysis. Wouldn’t that show you if it was bear?”
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