A Merciful Promise (Mercy Kilpatrick #6)(11)

“Let’s take a look.” Bolton jerked his head for Truman to join him.

The two men moved closer to the body, checking where they placed their feet.

“I assume no ID?” Bolton asked.

“Didn’t see any in the immediate area. Could be underneath him, I guess.”

“Lividity is on his back. Not his side,” Bolton pointed out.

In other words, he had lain on his back for several hours after he died, creating a purple mottled pattern where the blood had settled. Not curled up on his side as in his current position.

He had definitely been moved.

“Help me move him onto his back.”

Truman held his breath, and they gently rolled him backward, crushing more of the hay and exposing the right side of the victim’s head. His hair was a matted, dry mess of blood. His head and arms flopped.

“Rigor is gone,” mumbled Truman.

Rigor mortis typically came and went within thirty-six to forty-eight hours. He’d been right that the victim had been dead for longer.

Bolton got closer to the crusted mass of bloody hair. He carefully touched and prodded at the skull. “I think we’ve got a gunshot wound under this mess. No exit wound?”

“I don’t see one.” Depending on their size and the distance from which the gun had been fired, bullets could bounce around inside the skull, making scrambled brains instead of creating an exit. “Examiner coming?”

“Yes, I talked to Dr. Lockhart. She said she’d be out as soon as possible.” Bolton sighed. “I’ll start checking for missing persons of his description. Would you guess he’s somewhere in his forties or fifties?”

“Hard to tell.” His face had deep wrinkles around the mouth, and the partially gray hair was the main clue to his age.

“Fingernails are short and grimy. Hands dirty. He knew physical work,” Bolton suggested.

“Or he worked with plants or vehicles.”

Bolton lifted a shoulder in agreement. They were getting ahead of themselves.

“Hopefully the medical examiner will find some distinguishing marks—scars or previously broken bones to help me search.” Bolton made a notation in his notebook.

“I imagine he’s been reported missing,” Truman said.

“You’d be surprised.” Bolton’s writing hand froze, and he shot a sharp look back to the body.

Truman tensed. “What?”

Bolton stared at the man for a few more seconds. “Is this the same?” he asked under his breath. He continued to study him from feet to face for a long moment.

Truman waited, knowing better than to interrupt an investigator in midthought.

“We found a John Doe a month ago,” Bolton said slowly. “He was naked and dumped in La Pine. Decomp was a lot further along because the temperatures had been so high.” He frowned. “He was in his early thirties. This subject feels older to me.”

Truman’s skin crawled. “Cause of death?”

“Gunshot wound to the head, but there was an exit.”

“You said John Doe. You haven’t identified him?”

Bolton looked grim. “Not yet.”

“Do you see any other similarities to this one besides male, naked, shot in the head, and dumped?”

“Not yet. But that’s a lot in common. The other one wasn’t dumped in a country field. He was left close to a residence. The owners had been out of town for a few weeks, otherwise we would have found him sooner and possibly identified him.”

“The owners were cleared?”

“Yes, they were shocked to find the body on their property when they returned from a cruise to Alaska. Older couple in their late seventies. Good thing neither of them had a heart condition.” Bolton’s brown gaze met Truman’s. “I’ll know more after I run some searches and get the autopsy report.”

Truman squatted and studied the tall hay of the field at eye level. “Look in that direction.” He pointed. “I didn’t walk that way, and I’m pretty sure Britta came from the direction of her driveway. Something broke the grass in a faint path to the main road.”

Bolton crouched. “Could have been an animal attracted to the scent.”

“But left the body alone? No bite marks. No claw marks.”

Bolton put away his notebook. “Let’s take a look.” Another crime scene tech arrived, and Bolton gestured at the tech who had shot the earlier photos. “Hogan, come with us. Get some images of this trail.”

They followed the tech along the faint path as he snapped photos and they all watched for footprints. As they neared the fence along the country two-lane road, the grass faded away, replaced by firm soil. Obvious boot prints showed where someone had possibly ducked between the two horizontal rails of the fence. The three of them bent to awkwardly step over the lower rail, carefully avoiding the prints. On the other side of the fence, they spotted tire tracks and more footprints and crouched to take a closer look.

Hogan was pleased, a toothy grin on his face. “Excellent tire prints. We can easily cast those. The footprints too.” The ground was soft where the vehicle had pulled to the side of the road and left deep ruts.

“Two sets of boots,” Truman pointed out. “One appears to be a hiking boot and the other a cowboy boot.” The complicated grid of the hiking boot sole offered a sharp contrast to the smooth print of the cowboy boot. “They didn’t even try to hide them.”