Category:

So much space, Donner thought. Drive him crazy.

The mortuary was a level down. Doctor Leitch from the county coroner's office met him there, the body already laid out for inspection, covered by a plastic sheet. Donner was relieved when Leitch peeled it tastefully back rather than whipping it away with a flourish. It meant he'd dealt with murders before; they'd become mundane to him, not cause for fuss and drama.

Frost dusted the eyelashes of the dead man, and the ends of his hair. A Y-shaped incision on his chest had been neatly stitched, as had the one that circled his scalp.

"Pretty straightforward, at least on the face of it," Leitch said, pointing to the obvious wound in the cadaver's throat. "Large cut here, severing pretty much everything that matters, leading to massive blood loss. He died within seconds. But then you look  closer."

The pathologist leaned down, staring into the open wound. He prodded two gloved fingers into the florid maw.

"A blade inserted here, most likely a hunting knife, pushed right through, between the C3 and C4 cervical vertebrae, cutting the spinal cord. If he wasn't dead from blood loss, he was dead from this. No blood at the scene, though."

"So, he was moved after the fact."

"Yup," Leitch said. "Strikes me as unusually thorough. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to first make absolutely sure he was dead and then prevent his discovery. But I guess that's why you're here."

"Yeah," Donner said. "Tell me about where he was found."

"Up in the foothills," Leitch said. "In the trees, way out in the sticks. My guess is whoever dumped him there reckoned he wouldn't be found till the thaw, maybe March or April. By that time, coyotes would've taken most of him. We'd have had a job identifying him, I can tell you that. But a man named Johnny Colfax found him first. His dog sniffed the body out, I believe."

"Have you spoken with Mr. Colfax?"

"Only briefly. The Jefferson Sheriff's Office and the Golden Police Department have both had their way with him, but neither made much of it. Between you and me, I think they're out of their depth. They're arguing about jurisdiction, both sides wanting it out of their hands. I believe you coming along is the answer to their prayers. Let the G-man take care of it. Especially when they found out he had a record."

Donner had received the email yesterday afternoon, pinged by the National Crime Information Center when Golden PD had uploaded the data. The body had been found almost a week ago, but it had taken a few days to ID him: Bryan Shields, aged thirty-seven, had bought himself a lifelong membership to the National Sex Offenders Registry when his credit card details were found in the payment records of a child pornography website. Probably shunned by friends and family for what he'd done, so no one to miss him when he disappeared. The first box ticked on Donner's checklist. That, the open throat, the body dumped in the asshole of nowhere. It all fit the pattern, and Donner's supervisor had begrudgingly given him permission to check it out.

And here he was, Bryan Shields, dead as dead can be, one more crumb on a trail that Donner had been following for nearly two years.

"What now?" Leitch asked.

"I gotta make a call," Donner said. "Excuse me."

He exited the mortuary into a tiled corridor and took his cell phone from his pocket. McGrath answered on the second ring.

"Well?" she asked.

"It's our guy," Donner said, "no question. Everything fits." 

"Shit," McGrath said. "You want me to fly out?"

"No, there's nothing you can do here. Just try to keep Holstein off my back while I dig around a little. There's a guy I need to speak with, the one who found the body."

He listened to McGrath breathe, his partner biting back a question, until he could stand it no more.

"Say it."

"Shit," she said again. "Are you sure you want to do this to yourself? I mean, who cares if some sick fuck gets killed and dumped in the woods? It's one less creep for us to worry about."

"I care," Donner said. "It's my job to put these bastards away. Mine. Not some goddamn crazy with a hunting knife."

"All right," McGrath said. "I'll do what I can at this end. Call me if you need anything, day or night." 

"Thanks," Donner said, meaning it. 

"Yeah."

McGrath hung up.