Brigands Key Page 4

  Roscoe peered at the horizon. Charley shaded his eyes and squinted into the distance in the same direction. He could make out a small white speck. Roscoe rummaged through a plastic crate, found his old Bushnell binoculars, and trained them on the speck. “It figures,” he said. “Randy Sanborn’s already parked over the professor’s mystery hole. Got his dive flag raised. Son of a bitch.”

  “You gonna ease over and take a look, Roscoe?”

  Roscoe didn’t answer for a moment, seeming to weigh things in his mind. “Nah,” he finally said. He picked up a small, bright orange book off the console and thumbed through it, pausing over a couple of pages, reading silently. He replaced the book, pushed the throttle forward, and swung about to port. “Let’s go get some mullet from the channel while the gettin’s good.”

  “I thought we were going to catch reds and grouper instead.”

  “You got a lot to learn, college boy.”

  * * *

  Sanborn knew himself to be just a half-assed diver, having logged too few dives to consider himself anything but. Given the woeful, systemic lack of staff he contended with, it was smart to become a jack of all trades. Hence, his diver status. Made perfect sense for a coastal town the size of Brigands Key, though until now he’d never had a single need to call upon that ability. But it always looked good on his bio and now it was coming in handy.

  As luck and cheap government would have it, Sanborn was diving without a fellow officer. The department had only himself trained as a diver. Greenwood was topside, minding the boat, thinking about lunch. There was no one left to buddy with and he didn’t want to bring along just anyone to wreck his investigation by screwing with evidence and hunting arrowheads.

  So he’d asked Julie Denton to join him. She jumped at the chance. Serendipity happens. She was the only available, trustworthy dive buddy in town and he had a legitimate reason for asking her to join him on this dive. He could kick himself for not having thought of this years ago.

  The spring was exactly where Grant had said, pinpointed by GPS to within five feet. Technology. No end to it. It’d behoove folks to not throw out the old techniques just yet, though. One honker of a solar storm could knock out every satellite orbiting the planet and GPS would be nonexistent once again, stranding travelers and deleting bank accounts everywhere.

  Sanborn drifted close to the mouth of the spring, a diamond of clear water. Chalk one up for Grant; the outsider had discovered a miracle of nature right under the noses of Brigands Key lifers and know-it-alls.

  Julie held back. Sanborn motioned her forward and she eased alongside. She caught him staring and her eyes iced over. He tried to smile, realizing he must look ridiculous. Smiles through facemask, mouthpiece, and octopus hoses come out like grimaces.

  Julie had agreed to not touch anything and to not enter the cave. Just keep hold of his safety line and fish him out if need be. She had no equipment for underwater shots but he’d located the clunky, twenty-year-old underwater camera the City purchased long ago, squirreled away in a closet of never-used equipment. Julie would have to compose from her own notes and memories.

  Sanborn flipped the switch on his lamp. Nothing. He jiggled it and the beam lit the water. He swept the beam about in the cave. Clear and spooky. He hesitated and pulled himself in against the current.

  The cave was broad and deep and foreign, and its walls shivered as he swept them with the beam. Nothing struck him as peculiar, but then he didn’t know what he’d expected. He saw no sign of ancient human habitation. No wigwams, no spears, no canoes. Just rocks and sand.

  He negotiated the left side of the cave, feeling the knobby gray wall with his hand. A sudden dread crept into him and he glanced nervously back toward his exit, to make sure he always had it in sight.

  Grant had said the body was wedged into a niche, trapped in place by the flow of the current. Sanborn shone the light about, searching. There were three sizable niches in the wall. He pulled himself toward the nearest and studied it. A band of sand, dazzlingly white, blanketed the bottom like snow. He reached out his hand, recalling Grant’s certainty that the local bumpkins would screw up his important research. Don’t want to disappoint the good professor. He stirred the sand, scattering the flakes into a cloud.

  He uncovered a tooth, a molar.

  Resisting the urge to snatch it up, he unhooked the camera from his belt and swung it forward. He aimed and clicked, the flash illuminating the dim cave like daylight. There’s your Goddamn context, he thought. He set the camera aside and tucked the tooth into a small plastic bag.

  Continuing around the room, Sanborn gently fanned the bottom, clearing away the snowflakes. He found a large, flat bone, picked it up, turned it, felt its thickness and weight. Way too big for a human. Looked like a hip bone. He was no zoologist, but hell, he watched Animal Planet. Big things, mastodons and bison and camels, used to roam Florida, way back when. This had to be something like that.

  Intrigued, he again brushed the cave bottom, clearing away two inches of sand, and uncovered a seven-inch tooth that curved and tapered like a scimitar to a fine, wicked point. Sabertooth. Ice Age Florida was a scary place. He could see why this appealed to geeks like Grant. He was a kid all over again. He tucked the dagger of a tooth in a separate bag. Another five minutes netted a broken spear point and half a dozen more teeth, both human and animal.

  Another object caught his eye. There was nothing prehistoric or exotic about it. He picked up the heavy black—and totally modern—nightstick and ran his fingers along it, feeling the nicks and dents and scratches that whispered a history of brute force.

  He swept the room with light once more and let the current carry him out through the mouth of the cave. He motioned Julie to the surface and followed her. Tommy helped them onto the deck of the boat and they shrugged out of their dive gear. Sanborn spread his finds, except for the nightstick, out on the deck.

  Tommy crowded in. “What you got, whale bones?”

  “Nope. Some kind of extinct animals, I imagine. Got some Indian stuff, too. Teeth, another spear point. Part of Grant’s story checks out.”

  “Unless he planted this stuff to back up his story.”

  Julie reached for the human teeth. “May I—?”

  Sanborn shrugged. “I reckon they’re all Indian teeth. John Doe has all his intact, not missing any. So go ahead. I’ll turn these over to Grant after I make him sweat a while.”

  Julie picked up the teeth and turned them over, then replaced all but one, an incisor. “You may not want to give this one back just yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “It has a filling.”

  Chapter Four

  The intercom buzzed. Gerald Hammond jumped and slapped down his scalpel. “What now, Jackie?” Biggest autopsy ever in Brigands Key and interruptions were the rule of the day. No one understood “No Interruptions.” He should just drag the corpse back to his office where he had complete control. Here at City Hall Annex he was just another public employee.

  “Randy’s back off the water,” Jackie said cheerfully. “He’s hauling in Dr. Grant.”

  “Terrific,” Hammond said.

  He had canceled his patients for the remainder of the day and toiled in blissful silence, having locked the door and unhooked the phone, pestered only by Jackie’s frequent inquiries. The hours had passed and his unease had grown.

  The door clattered open and Sanborn entered. Grant followed, scowling, no doubt snatched away from his favorite soaps.

  Sanborn dragged a stool close and motioned Grant to do the same. Grant ignored him, ran a hand through his dark hair, and leaned against a stacked cabinet and plunged his hands deep into his pockets, his scowl deepening. Great.

  Sanborn spoke first. “I hear you’ve got a cause of death and it isn’t drowning.”

  Hammond nodded toward Grant. “Who invited James Dean?”

  “I suggested he come along.”

  “Am I a suspect?” Grant asked.

  “Everyone’s a sus
pect. Except me.”

  “You going to tell me how bad you ruined my site?”

  “It’s not your site anymore.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Hammond shifted uneasily. “This is why I didn’t want him here,” he said. “Now then. Mr. Doe here was murdered.”

  “You said there wasn’t a mark on him.”

  “There isn’t, almost.” He leaned close to the body. “I’ve done a standard Y-incision of the torso. Good specimen, really. This guy was in great shape. Take a good look. Can you spot any injuries, any trauma? Apart from my having splayed and gutted him like a fish.”

  Sanborn crowded in, studying the cadaver, glowering. “Just give me your damned report.”

  “Follow me.” Hammond went to a corner sink, washed up, and took a seat at a garage-sale desk and began typing on a computer keyboard. He swiveled the monitor toward them. On screen, John Doe lay intact and unopened, naked to the world. In the corner of the screen, a counter ticked off the time of filming.

  He dragged the mouse and the images advanced in time, settled on an image and zoomed in on the man’s chest until the camera was practically on top of it. “Right there,” he said, pointing with the cursor to a spot a couple of inches right and below the left nipple. “See that?”

  “What?”

  “Christ, you’re blind. Right there.” The cursor drew a circle the size of a dime. Within the circle, a tiny, almost invisible, mark lay. “Puncture wound, right through the heart. The diameter is less than a millimeter. This guy was stabbed with an implement like a long needle or ice pick. Very lethal, very hidden.”

  Sanborn studied the image. “And the internal damage?”

  “Whoever did it jiggled the point inside the victim to ratchet up the trauma.”

  “Anything else?”

  “The trachea is crushed.”

  Sanborn straightened and held his arms out, slowly crooking one, drawing the other inward toward himself in a stabbing motion, working through movements. “The killer seizes John Doe from behind, clamps his left arm around the victim’s neck, cutting off oxygen. The victim panics. The killer finishes him off with a stab into the heart.” He whistled softly. “The whole thing is over in seconds. Professional work.”

  “You’re a savant, Randy.”

  Sanborn took a small plastic bag out of his pocket, set it on the desktop, and opened it. He withdrew five human teeth and lined them up. From another bag he withdrew the nightstick and set it beside the teeth. “What kind of grill has John Doe got?”

  Hammond opened the dead man’s mouth. “Pretty healthy one, I’d say. A couple small cavities, no crowns, caps, bridges. Not missing any, teeth are all intact.”

  “Got his dental molds and x-rays yet?”

  “Course I do. You sign for it and I’ll overnight them to the FBI to see if anything comes up. Fingerprints, too.”

  “Send a tissue sample for DNA typing while you’re at it.” Sanborn turned to Grant. “Tell me about Indian teeth.”

  “Paleo-Indians had hard, worn teeth. No daily intake of sugar to rot them. They would wear down through tough chewing on grains and nuts.”

  “These are all paleo teeth?”

  “If you thought so, you wouldn’t be asking.” Grant studied the teeth for a moment and picked up an incisor and turned it over in his palm. He handed it to Hammond. “This one’s recent. It has a filling.”

  Hammond examined the tooth. Sure enough, it bore a sizable filling in the back. The root had been sheared off. “John Doe’s not missing any teeth. This belonged to someone else.”

  “The murderer was in the spring with John Doe and got his tooth knocked out,” Sanborn said. He handed the nightstick to Hammond. “With this, I’ll wager. You need some real force to break a tooth loose underwater. John Doe didn’t go easily.” He looked at Grant.

  “For Christ’s sake,” Grant said. He opened his mouth wide.

  Sanborn peered into Grant’s mouth, pushing his head to one side and back again. He released him and stepped away. “Not missing any. Could stand a little flossing, though.”

  “Maybe I had an accomplice,” Grant said.

  “Maybe.” Sanborn turned again to Hammond. “You fixed the time of death?”

  Hammond looked nervously away. “This isn’t Hollywood. Evaluating time of death isn’t an exact science.”

  “Let’s have it.”

  “John Doe appears to have been dead less than a day when he arrived here. Less than half a day.”

  Sanborn leaned in. “Okay. Tell me why.”

  “Lack of discoloration. The skin should have started changing color between twelve and twenty-four hours. This one looked good.”

  Sanborn studied the body. “Looks a little blue to me.”

  “He does now. A day later, he’s supposed to be blue.”

  “He looked pretty unnatural yesterday too.”

  “That was discoloration due to gravity. The blood settling in the lowest areas. I’m talking now about discoloration due to decomposition.”

  Sanborn looked at Grant. “You claimed you found the body around ten yesterday morning.”

  “That’s when I did find it.”

  “And you arrived there at nine.”

  “I spent an hour getting my gear ready, starting notes, mainlining hard drugs.”

  “So John Doe was murdered and left in the open sea in an undiscovered spring either that morning or night, hours before you discovered the spring. Those are some pretty incredible odds, Dr. Grant.”

  “Good to see you come to grips with it.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “It’s a damned strange world.”

  “Jerry, what else you got?”

  Hammond’s mouth felt dry. “John Doe died between a couple weeks ago and a couple of months ago.”

  “You just said he’s been dead less than a day!”

  “I said he appeared to have been dead less than a day. The first problem with that was the lack of rigor mortis. That sets in within maybe three hours after death, but goes away after three days. So that ruled out the one-day scenario. But there's a lot more problems." Hammond went back to the corpse and selected a forceps and gently probed the intestines. “This isn’t pretty. Leave now if you’re squeamish.” He pulled open the flap of skin that covered the intestines, exposing a gray, collapsed mass. “See how the tissue has broken down? This is the result of enzyme action and consistent with nine days.”

  “No smell and no exterior degradation,” Grant murmured.

  Hammond glanced at him. “Bingo. Why isn’t he breaking down outside the body cavity? In decomposition, there are four general stages. You have fresh, or autolysis; you have bloated, or putrefaction; you have decay, or putrefaction with carnivores; and you have the dry, or diagenesis.”

  “I know all this, Jerry,” Sanborn said, his face clouding.

  “Decomposition is a gang-bang,” Hammond said. “Enzymes, bacteria, insects, carnivores—they all demand a piece of the action. Enzymic decomposition is called autolysis. Your digestive tract is chock full of enzymes like hydrochloric acid. Strong stuff, right? While you’re alive, your gastrointestinal tract produces mucus that keeps your guts from dissolving. When you kick the bucket the natural protections cease but the enzymes don’t. They start to break down gastrointestinal tissues. You get a perforated stomach and intestines, even some of the esophagus. The enzymes seep into the lung cavity and the abdomen, continuing the digestion. The lungs break down rapidly in the enzymes and you get a bubbly, bloody fluid. That’s pulmonary autolysis. In advanced cases, the fluid is a brownish-green. Stinks to high heaven.

  “Now if this guy were a drowning victim, pulmonary autolysis would be even faster, because drowning sparks convulsive vomiting, which draws gastric enzymes into the lungs.” Hammond eased the chest cavity apart. “Look closely. Tell me about the lungs.”

  Sanborn swallowed audibly as he leaned in. “They’re gone,” he said after a moment.

  “Completely. N
ot removed, but dissolved by autolytic process. They turned to fluid and leaked out through the nose and mouth. That would indicate that the body has been dead for a week or two.

  “Brain tissue also undergoes autolytic breakdown, just not as fast. Much slower.” He motioned to the John Doe’s head, the top of which was covered with a white cloth. He removed the cloth, noting with some satisfaction the sick look on Sanborn’s face. “I’ve removed the front of the skull. The brain is gone. All that’s left is a disgusting sludge. But that would have taken weeks in the brain. See, Randy? Fresh outside. Unfresh inside. The chronology of decomposition is all wrong. It simply makes no sense.”

  Sanborn shook his head. “That can’t be right. There are a bunch of qualifiers with the rate of decomposition.”

  “True. Exposure to oxygen affects the rate. Tissue immersed in water takes twice as long to decompose as tissue exposed to air. Still not enough to explain the discrepancy.”

  Grant looked up. “Oxygen? This was not seawater he was in. It was fresh spring water. Springs have lower oxygen levels than other water bodies.”

  “That would add a little time to the rate. Not a lot. What else you got about springs?”

  “They’re chilly and pure. Not much in the way of microbes.”

  “Okay, we add a few days extra. I’m concerned about something else. Anthropophagy.”

  “Flesh-eating,” Sanborn said. “See, I paid attention in class.”

  “Wonders never cease. This guy should have been scavenged. Crabs should have lined up at the buffet table. Fish would nibble. Sharks would gobble up whole chunks of him.”

  “There weren’t any fish or crabs in the spring and the body was a good forty feet in from the vent,” Grant said. “Saltwater marine life doesn’t have much liking for freshwater. And the current is strong. It would take quite an effort and will for sea life to work upstream into the cave.”

  “Was the body floating?”