I make a mental note to get with the CSU that processed the scene. If the second slug wasn’t found inside the body, maybe it’s still at the scene, in a wall or in the ground.

“Going on to Wound Two.” Using the swab as a pointer, he indicates the hole near the groin. “The missile entered the anterior aspect of the left thigh, just to the left of the genitalia. It fractured the superior ramus of the pubis, tore through the neck of the bladder, and left the body through the perineum, compromising the entire genitourinary tract.”

“Jesus,” I hear myself say, but I’m keenly aware that the buzzing of the overhead lights seems inordinately loud as I stare down at a hole the color of raw meat. Despite the chill, I feel sweat break out on the back of my neck.

I swallow hard. “So there’s no slug for the second wound.”

“Correct.”

“Was he alive when he sustained it?”

“Yes.” Doc Coblentz shifts his attention to the neck. “Interestingly, the vertebrae are free of any fractures.” He indicates the throat area, where the rope dug a deep groove into the flesh.

“What does that mean?” I ask, but I already know.

“I would venture to guess he was hoisted up from the ground as opposed to being dropped down from the rafters,” he tells me. “Unconsciousness would have occurred in a relatively short period of time, probably one or two minutes. Death occurred when the oxygen and blood flow to the brain were cut off. Most of the damage you see here occurred postmortem, gravity working against the weight of his body.”

I think about that for a moment. “Would he have survived the gunshot wounds if he hadn’t been hanged?”

“Well, both were serious, penetrating wounds. But there were no major arteries involved. Hemorrhage was present, but not life threatening. If he’d received prompt medical attention, and barring any preexisting medical conditions, he would have survived.”

Some of the tension leaves me when he pulls the sheet up and covers the body.

“Any sign that he was engaged in a struggle or physical confrontation?”

“No.”

“Tox?”

“Won’t be back for two or three days.”

“What about that Amish doll, Doc? Do you know if it was put into his throat before or after his death?”

“Before. There were abrasions on the upper part of the pharynx, along with a minute amount of bleeding. It wouldn’t have been a comfortable ordeal for the victim.”

“I get the sense there was a lot of rage involved with this crime.”

“I agree.” He shrugs. “The level of brutality…”

I think about that a moment and then ask, “Do you have anything preliminary on Julia Rutledge?”

Doc Coblentz shakes his head. “I performed a cursory exam upon her arrival. As you’ve probably already deduced, she sustained several stab wounds, including a deep chest wound. I can’t give you a cause of death until I get her on the table.”

“What about the object in the wound?”

He turns to a stainless tray on the counter behind him and picks up a plastic evidence bag. “I knew you’d want to see it, so I extracted it first thing.”

It’s an Amish peg doll exactly like the one we found in Dale Michaels’s mouth. I know what’s inscribed into the base before I look: HOCHSTETLER. I pass the bag back to the doc.

“I’ll get it couriered to the lab ASAP,” he tells me.

I thank him and start toward the alcove. As I remove the biohazard gear and toss it into the receptacle, it strikes me that for the first time in the course of my career, the autopsy of a murder victim has raised more questions than it answered.

CHAPTER 16

It had been a long time since Jerrold McCullough was afraid. He’d lived a long, full, and sometimes difficult life. He’d lost a two-year-old daughter when he was twenty-six years old. He’d spent some time overseas in Bosnia when he was in the military. At the age of forty-two, he survived a serious car accident in which he’d lost a limb—and nearly his life. He lost his wife of twenty-four years to cancer several years back. Yes, Jerrold McCullough had faced his fair share of adversity. Each time that bitch fate dealt him a blow, he’d conquered it and come back from it a smarter, stronger, if lonelier, man.

But as life had proved, there were some things you didn’t come back from. Sure, you went on with the business of living. You fell in love and got married. You had children and you brought them up right. But through it all, you knew your life was one big fat lie.

The rain had been coming down for five days now, and the creek behind his house crested last night. By dawn, the brown, churning water had encroached another twenty feet into his backyard. If the rain didn’t let up soon, he figured by midnight it would overtake the deck, where in summer, he kept the barbecue and lawn chairs. It was hard to believe that roaring monster was the same creek he’d swum in with his kids when they were young. The same creek where he caught that eight-pound largemouth bass—the one no one had believed him about. The same creek where he and his wife had gone skinny-dipping after getting drunk the day their last child went off to Ohio State. That had been ten years ago now and he still smiled every time he walked by that deep swimming hole. He figured if he was going to die, he’d just as soon it be here, where he’d raised his family.

He’d found the second note last night when he came home from his Lions Club meeting. It was on plain notebook paper and had been left in his mailbox. You’re guilty. He’d known it was coming; he hadn’t been surprised. What had surprised him was the fear. He was only fifty-four years old, and frankly, he wasn’t through living yet. But what could he do? Go to the police? Tell them a dead woman was sending him notes?

He hadn’t seen her since that night in his driveway. He’d never admit to it, especially to the others, but he believed in ghosts. In fact, he knew they existed. He’d been seeing little two-year-old Tessa for years. On occasion, he still saw his wife, too, only the way she’d looked before the cancer ate her up. And so when he saw Wanetta Hochstetler, standing in the driveway, looking at him with that accusatory expression, he hadn’t questioned his eyesight, blamed it on the bad light, or even doubted his sanity. He accepted it as truth because he’d always believed that sooner or later, a man paid for his deeds.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to go down easy. He was a fighter by nature, and by God he’d just as soon live for another twenty or thirty years. He wanted to pass this house and property on to whichever of his children came home to Painters Mill, once they realized the Holy Grail wasn’t in Dallas or Sacramento or Atlanta. So far none of them had been takers, but they would. Sooner or later, everyone came home.

He poured coffee into his BEST GRANDPA IN THE WORLD mug, added a dollop of milk, and then opened the patio sliding door and stepped outside. Cold drizzle fell from a glowering sky the color of granite. Something inside him sank when he noticed the water was just ten feet from the deck now. He’d put a lot work into it. He’d sunk pressure-treated four-by-four posts into three-foot-deep post holes and filled them in with concrete he’d mixed himself. He’s used treated two-by-sixes for the decking, two-by-fours for the rail. Damn shame that the water was going to take it all, but then, that was the nature of the creek.

Pulling up the collar of his jacket against the chill, he walked to the edge of the deck. He sipped coffee and listened to the water take down another tree upstream. When he turned to go back inside, she was coming up the steps. Not little Tessa. Not his beloved Luann. But Wanetta Hochstetler. She was wearing an Amish dress and dark head covering pulled low and shadowing her eyes. Black shawl over her shoulders. Her shoes were covered with mud.