Hero's Return

“And now?” Flint’s phone rang. He buzzed the dispatcher to hold all his calls unless they were urgent. “I’m sorry. The phone’s been ringing off the hook. You probably haven’t heard. One of the locals found skeletal remains in Miner’s Creek.”

“Actually, I did hear. That’s—”

Flint’s phone rang again. He groaned as he picked up, listened and rose from his desk. “That was the coroner. I have to run next door. Not sure how long it’s going to take. Where are you staying?”

“I just got in.”

“You’re welcome to stay with me and my wife, Maggie. Or you can always go out to the ranch. I think your room is as you left it. Hawk and Cyrus have been busy running the ranch. No time to redecorate even if they had an inclination to do so.”

Tucker nodded. “I’m looking forward to seeing the place—and the rest of the family. So you’re married. Congratulations.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry I have to run.” Flint came around his desk to put a hand on Tucker’s shoulder again. “I’m glad you’re back. I hope it’s to stay.” He looked worried. Not half as much as he was going to be, Tucker thought.

“I’ll be sticking around.”

Flint sighed. “Then we’ll talk soon. You have a lot to catch up on.”

As his brother went out the door, Tucker rose and stepped to the desk and the box sitting there. Just as Flint had said, it was addressed to him. He didn’t recognize the handwriting—not that he figured he would. Picking up the pocketknife lying beside the box, he still hesitated, afraid of what was inside, but unable not to open it to find out.

He sliced the tape across the top and carefully turned back the flaps. A faintly moldy scent rose from the box along with the rustle of newsprint. For a moment, he didn’t see anything but wadded-up newspaper and what appeared to be pages from a magazine.

Hesitantly, he pushed some of the paper aside and blinked, unsure for an instant as to what he was seeing. With a startled gasp, he jerked back as though bitten by a rattlesnake. Heart pounding and sick with disgust, he reached in and removed the wadded-up paper until all that remained in the box was the tiny battered naked doll.

One dull dark eye stared up at him—the other eye missing from the weather-beaten toy. Shaking all over, his stomach heaving, he lurched around his brother’s desk to throw up in the trash.

CHAPTER THREE (#u5116cf9d-d5b1-50f9-bf71-3d2d10e4b2be)

FLINT STOOD AT the edge of the autopsy room, trying to breathe normally. He’d never liked the morgue, especially early in the morning when the smells always got to him.

Today the morgue reeked of eggs and sausage. Sonny had been eating a breakfast sandwich when Flint had come in.

“Busy morning. They brought in a homeless man.” He nodded toward the second table where the naked corpse lay, its chest cavity open. “Looks like a heart attack given the condition of the heart.” He made a motion as if offering to show it to him, but Flint waved that off.

Sonny, making a “your loss” face, put aside his sandwich to move to the other table where the skeletal remains had been placed in the positions where each had once been when connected.

“Amazingly, she’s only missing a few fingers,” Sonny was saying. “But the deputy who brought back the earth she’d been found in is still sifting through it, so he might find them yet.”

Flint merely nodded.

“You can tell a lot from bones. Like this fibula,” Sonny said, picking up the left leg bone. “The length of the long bones tells us about what age she was—early twenties. From measuring the femur, tibia, humerus and their radii, I can tell that she was about five foot six. She was medium boned. If you look at the state of the bones, you can get a pretty good indication of how long she was buried along the creek bank. Fifteen to twenty years, but closer to twenty years.”

“You’re sure it’s been that long?” Flint asked, thinking how impossible it might be to identify the woman, let alone locate next of kin if they did.

“It’s not an exact science. It takes a while for the body to decompose to the skeletal stage.” Sonny started to put the leg bone back but held it up one more time. “Looks like she broke her left leg. It’s an old break that was long healed before she went for a swim.”

He put down the bone and picked up another one. “These bony ridges form where the muscles were attached to the wrist. She could have had a job where she used her hands, like a waitress.” Putting that bone back, he picked up the skull.

Flint saw that tufts of long blond hair were still attached to it. “What about DNA from the hair?”

“Already sent some over to the lab. But look at this.” He pointed at the teeth. “Not a great diet. She had cavities and not much dental work.”

“So what killed her?” Flint asked.

Sonny shrugged. “The obvious would be drowning, right? But this is what I really wanted you to see. I thought you’d find it interesting.” He turned the skull. Flint had to move closer to see what Sonny was pointing to. “Wood. See, some of the wood splinters are still embedded in the side of the skull. I’m betting that’s what killed her.”

“Wood?”

He nodded and began to walk him through it. “Assuming she either jumped into the river to swim or fell, depending on what time of year it was, her head made contact with a tree limb violently enough to kill her.”

“Is it possible the blow to her head didn’t kill her instantly? Her remains were found a dozen yards from the creek.”

“She might have been able to get out of the water, but she wouldn’t have been able to go far. She wouldn’t have survived long with that kind of head injury. Certainly not long enough to hide herself under a pile of driftwood.”

“So it appears to have been an accident, but someone covered up her death by hiding her body,” Flint said.

Sonny gave that some thought. “Had that one a few years ago, you might recall, where the fisherman slipped on the rocks, fell and hit his head. Made it almost back to his car before he died. His wound wasn’t as severe. I supposed she might have been able to get out of the water and crawl a few yards. Seems more likely someone helped her and, when they saw that she was badly hurt or dead by then, hid her body. At least she wasn’t swimming in the creek alone.”

“My brothers and I used to go fishing and swimming by ourselves all the time. Never even considered that we might fall and hurt ourselves badly enough to kill us.”

Sonny shook his head. “Kids. But this woman was old enough to know better. I have to wonder why her companion tried to cover up her death. Must have felt responsible. Well, whoever it was, he’s had to live with it all these years. Guess it’s come home to roost now, though, huh.”

“Maybe,” Flint said, not as optimistic as Sonny apparently that justice would get done on this case. Fifteen to twenty years was a long time. The case was ice-cold. Not to mention the fact that the statute of limitations had run out for the crime of hiding a body.

He said as much to Sonny. “No hurry on this case since no one reported a woman this age missing fifteen to twenty years ago.” He frowned as he looked at the coroner and realized what he’d said. “What makes you think it was a man who buried her?”

“No woman would cover up her friend’s death,” Sonny said with confidence.

“You ever meet my ex-wife, Celeste?” he joked.

The coroner laughed. “I have five dollars that says it was a man.”

“You’re on, but more than likely we’ll never know.”

“Oh, you’ll find him. Want to bet that I’m wrong about her age?” Sonny asked.

“No. I’m not going to let you hustle me.” Flint took one last look at the bones on the table. “What I don’t understand is why someone didn’t report her missing,” he said more to himself than to the coroner. “A family member, a friend, someone. I’ve checked and there are no missing-persons reports that match up from that time period.”

“Could be she wasn’t from here. Or maybe family tried to report her missing. It was before your time as sheriff. Anyway, as you know, law enforcement doesn’t get too involved when the missing woman is in her early twenties unless there is reason to believe it might have been foul play.”

Flint knew that to be true. Often missing persons that age simply have hit the road and don’t want their relatives to know where they’ve gone. Kind of like his brother Tucker.

“Could be, too, that she didn’t have any kin looking for her,” Sonny said. “Or they had some reason they didn’t want the law involved.”

* * *

AS TUCKER HEAVED up the last of his breakfast and wiped his mouth, he heard Flint’s concerned voice behind him.

“Tuck?”