Strong Cold Dead (Caitlin Strong, #8)(40)

Whatley finished washing his hands for the second time and went to work on the third.

“That I’m tired of the days ending too late or starting too early on account of you,” he groused.

“I didn’t kill that man, never mind tear him apart, Doc.”

“No, Ranger, you didn’t.” Whatley shook his hands free of water, then pulled a long stream of paper towels from the dispenser over the sink. He dried his hands yet again and then rolled the sleeves of his lab coat back down. “And if you came here this afternoon expecting me to tell you what did, I’m afraid you wasted the drive.”

Frank Dean Whatley had been the Bexar County medical examiner since Caitlin was in diapers. He’d grown a belly in recent years, which hung out over his thin belt, seeming to force his spine to angle inward at the torso. Whatley’s teenage son had been killed by Latino gangbangers when Caitlin was a mere kid herself. Ever since, he’d harbored a virulent hatred for that particular race, from the bag boys at the local H-E-B supermarket to the politicians who professed to be peacemakers. With his wife lost, first in life and then in death, to alcoholism, he’d probably stayed in the job too long. But he had nothing to go home to, no real life outside the office, and he remained exceptionally good at his job.

The body currently covered up on one of the room’s steel slabs represented the remains of the victim found just outside the Comanche reservation earlier that day. Whatley had certainly completed at least his preliminary examination quicker than she ever expected, perhaps coaxed by this being a Homeland Security matter, thanks to Jones.

“If you can’t tell me what did kill the man, Doc,” Caitlin ventured, “maybe you can tell me what didn’t.”

“You notice anything about the wounds?” Whatley asked her.

“I couldn’t tell much about them through all the blood and mess.”

“Let’s take a walk,” he said, starting for the door.

*

In his office, Whatley switched on his computer and positioned the screen so that Caitlin could follow along without standing over his shoulder. He inserted the drive containing the pictures he’d shot of the victim, enlarging one that showed a deep wound that had shredded skin and flesh all the way to the bone.

“Tell me what you see, Ranger.”

“Three individual tears, one starting above the other two.”

“If this were a bear, there’d be five. If a mountain lion had done this, there’d be four. And in both cases the claw cuts would be symmetrical—more shallow for the bear, and teeth marks clearly evident for the mountain lion.”

“What about this case?”

Whatley hesitated, looking as if he had no intention of responding at all. “If I didn’t know better,” he said finally, “I’d say you were looking at wounds that could only have been made by talons, as opposed to claws. And the depth and width of the wounds are indeed consistent with some kind of raptor.”

“As in, what, a bird of prey?”

“If I didn’t know better, Ranger, yes.”

“But you do know better, right, Doc?”

Whatley turned the monitor more her way. “What I know is that whatever did this would need to be maybe ten to fifteen times the size of the talons of a hawk or osprey. The curvature of the wounds tells me that whatever ripped the victim apart did so while standing on two feet before him.”

“So what am I looking for, Doc?”

Whatley’s expression crinkled, like someone had balled up his skin. “Something I sure as hell can’t identify. Didn’t your great-grandfather come up against something like this in his time?”

“It was my great-great-grandfather. And what he went up against turned out to be nothing like this.”





35

AUSTIN, TEXAS; 1874

Jimmy Miller stumbled his way down the street from the saloon, toward the hotel where he shared a room with three men who smelled even worse than he did when they took off their boots. They’d made him drink more than his share of whiskey and couldn’t stop laughing when he puked his guts up all over the woman who was supposed to be his first.

He was halfway down the dark street before he realized he had no idea where the hotel actually was, even as his stomach was turning again. He leaned over just as a flood of vomit poured up his throat, splattering his boots and leaving his mouth tasting like cow shit. That’s when he saw the match flare on the plank walkway across the street, a cigar coming to life.

“I got me a gun,” Jimmy managed, fumbling for his Colt. “Don’t you move!”

“I’m not going anywhere, son,” Steeldust Jack Strong said from the shadows, puffing away.

“I know who you are,” Jimmy said, recognizing the voice, which for some reason made him think of a hot blacksmith’s anvil. He managed to get his gun out, but the world before him was teetering too much to hold it steady. “I’ll shoot you dead I will, Ranger.”

“Good shot, are you?”

“Damn good. You don’t want to test me.”

“I’m sure I don’t, least not sober. Ever kill anybody, son?”

The gun felt like a lead weight in Jimmy’s hand. “What if I have?”

“It’s a lot harder under these conditions is all I’m saying. The night, the rain and all.”