A Rip Through Time(16)

“In my expert opinion,” Gray says, “the cause of death is murder.”

McCreadie gives a sharp laugh. “You always were the clever one.”

Murder? That surprises me. Yet McCreadie had mentioned an intellectual puzzle. Is this more than a body snatching?

“Have you notified Addington?” Gray asks.

McCreadie grumbles something unintelligible and definitely uncomplimentary about this Addington fellow. Then he says, “I’ll need to fetch him within the hour, so you need to work quickly.”

Gray only grunts. A tap of metal. I peer through to see him leaning over the body, prodding at it.

“My preliminary assessment is that this part seems to have been inflicted postmortem.”

“You’re certain of that?”

A low growl from Gray. “No, Hugh, I’m not certain at all. That’s why I called it a preliminary assessment. You will get a proper ruling from Addington.”

“If I expected a proper anything from him, you wouldn’t be here.”

“I would certainly be here. It is my laboratory.”

“Laboratory”? That must be the Victorian word for an undertaker’s preparation room. It still makes no sense. McCreadie brought a murder victim to an undertaker, and then he’s bringing the coroner here for the autopsy?

“I would agree all this seems postmortem,” McCreadie says. “What I want is your professional opinion.”

“You lack faith in your own judgment,” Gray says. “It is a poor quality in a criminal officer.”

“I lack faith in my medical expertise, because I am not a medical officer, Duncan.”

“It doesn’t take a doctor to realize how much simpler it would be to do all this if your theatrical property is already dead.”

“Theatrical property?”

“A ‘prop’ as they call it these days. Yes, that is disrespectful to the young man, but there is not anyone here to judge me for my callow phrasing.”

“I meant, why do you call him a prop?”

“Because all this is clearly staging. One does not do this to a body unless one has a message to convey.”

“Or unless one is a madman.”

“Madmen still have messages, perhaps more than those in possession of their faculties. I have no opinions on the mental state of this killer. My interest is the body, which isn’t all that interesting.”

McCreadie sputters. “How can you call this ‘not interesting’? It is the most bizarre murder I have ever seen.”

That has me twisting and craning to see more.

“The staging is interesting. My concern is the murder, which is terribly pedestrian. Simple strangulation.” Gray lifts something out with what looks like tweezers. “You’re looking for woven rough cord. Hemp, I believe. Likely rope.”

McCreadie lifts something. “Like this?”

Dangling from his hand is a length of old rope. Exactly like the one used to strangle me.





SEVEN


I stare at that rope. I don’t hear what they say about it. I just stare until a word snaps me out of it.

Beak? Did they say something about a beak?

I’ve obviously misheard, but that incongruous word is enough to bring me back to myself, and with that, I almost laugh. The victim was killed with an antique-looking piece of rope. Uh, because we’re in 1869? It’s just regular rope here. Old, yes, but otherwise, not nearly as incongruous as it’d been in my time.

Gray is saying something about wanting to remove another rope from the victim’s legs to determine whether they’re seized in that position. That has me craning forward again, still unsuccessfully. I can see the knees, which are drawn up. I squint until I can make out a length of rope wrapped around the victim’s ankles. So he didn’t go into rigor while sitting. That would be difficult—he’d need to die seated and somehow not fall out of the chair. Rigor mortis is a temporary condition, starting about six hours after death and dissipating around forty-eight hours.

Yep, I may not have been on a date in over a year, but I am intimately acquainted with the principles of forensic science, having spent far too many nights snuggling with textbooks, hoping it’d help get me into the homicide unit someday.

As Gray cuts the rope, he holds it steady, and I rock forward, wanting to warn that he’s getting his fingerprints on it. Or is fingerprint analysis not a thing yet? One area I haven’t studied is the history of forensic science, seeing no practical use for it.

Well, that’ll teach me.

Gray cuts the rope, and the victim’s legs stay in the same position, indicating rigor. He massages one and then the other.

“Death at least eight hours ago and less than thirty-six. I’ll let Addington take the core temperature—he can handle that much.”

McCreadie mutters something uncomplimentary, presumably about the coroner again. Would it be a coroner? Medical examiner? Or just a doctor with a basic knowledge of pathology?

“Tell Addington you had to cut the rope to move him,” Gray says. “I’ll leave the hands where they are.”

I squint to see the victim’s hands, but McCreadie stands between my sight line and the upper body.

“The feathers were intact?” Gray asks.

Feathers?