"Gone for Good" - читать интересную книгу автора (Coben Harlan)

12

Belmont, Nebraska

Sheriff Bertha Farrow had seen worse.

Murder scenes were bad, but for overall vomit-inducing, bone-crunching, head-splitting, blood-splattering grossness, it was hard to beat the metal-against-flesh effect of an old-fashioned automobile accident. A head-on collision. A truck crossing the divider. A tree that splits the car from the bumper to the backseat. A high-speed tumble over a guardrail.

Now, that did serious damage.

And yet this sight, this dead woman at this fairly bloodless scene, was somehow much worse. Bertha Farrow could see the woman's face her features twisted in fear, uncomprehending, maybe desperate and she could see that the woman had died in great pain. She could see the mangled fingers, the misshapen rib cage, the bruises, and she knew that the damage here had been done by a fellow human being, flesh against flesh. This was not the result of a patch of ice or someone changing radio stations at eighty miles an hour or a rush truck delivery or the ill effects of alcohol or speed.

This had been intentional.

"Who found her?" she asked her deputy George Volker.

"The Randolph boys."

"Which ones?"

"Jerry and Ron."

Bertha calculated. Jerry would be about sixteen. Ron fourteen.

"They were walking with Gypsy," the deputy added. Gypsy was the Randolphs ' German shepherd. "He sniffed her out."

"Where are the boys now?"

"Dave took them home. They were kinda shook up. I got statements. They don't know nothing."

Bertha nodded. A station wagon came tearing up the highway. Clyde Smart, the county medical examiner, stopped his wagon with a screech. The door flew open, and Clyde sprinted toward them. Bertha cupped a hand over her eyes.

"No rush, Clyde. She ain't going anywhere."

George snickered.

Clyde Smart was used to this. He was closing in on fifty, about Bertha's age. The two had been in office for nearly two decades. Clyde ignored her joke and ran past them. He looked down at the body, and his face dropped.

"Sweet Jesus," the M.E. said.

Clyde squatted beside her. He gently pushed the hair back from the corpse's face. "Oh God," he said. "I mean " He stopped, shook his head.

Bertha was used to him too. Clyde 's reaction did not surprise her. Most M.E.s, she knew, stayed clinical and detached. Not Clyde. People were not tissue and messy chemicals to him. She'd seen Clyde cry over bodies plenty of times. He handled each DOA with incredible, almost ridiculous, respect. He performed autopsies as though he could make the person recover. He'd deliver bad news to families, and he'd genuinely share their grief.

"Can you give me an approximate time of death?" she asked.

"Not long," Clyde said softly. "The skin is still in early rigor mortis. I'd say no more than six hours. I'll get a liver temperature reading and " He spotted the hand with the fingers that jutted out in unnatural directions. "Oh my God," he said again.

Bertha looked back at her deputy. "Any ID?"

"None."

"Possible robbery?"

"Too brutal," Clyde said. He looked up. "Someone wanted her to suffer."

There was a moment of silence. Bertha could see tears forming in Clyde 's eyes.

"What else? "she asked.

Clyde quickly looked back down. "She's no vagrant," he said. "Well dressed and nourished." He checked her mouth. "Decent enough dental work."

"Any signs of rape?"

"She's dressed," Clyde said. "But my God, what wasn't done to her? Very little blood here, certainly not enough for this to be the murder scene. My guess is that someone drove by and dumped her here. I'll know more when I get her on the table."

"Okay then," Bertha said. "Let's check Missing Persons and run her prints."

Clyde nodded as Sheriff Bertha Farrow started walking away.