A Merciful Silence (Mercy Kilpatrick #4)(8)

Ouch.

Truman sighed and stood. He shook hands with the deputies and went on his way, thankful Deschutes County was willing to book the sovereign citizen.

Time to see if there’s any pulled pork left.





FIVE

It was nearly 8:00 p.m. by the time Mercy reached the small building where the local medical examiner kept an office. Typically bodies went to the medical examiner’s primary building east of Portland for autopsy, but Dr. Natasha Lockhart had a small facility in Bend for herself and an assistant. Two vehicles were in the lot, and Mercy hoped one belonged to Dr. Peres. The other she assumed was the odontologist’s or Dr. Lockhart’s.

Inside, Mercy followed the sounds of conversation and found Dr. Peres in a large room with three stainless steel tables. Bins from the recovery were stacked along one wall, and Dr. Peres had set out four dirty skulls on one table. She and a petite blonde woman were deep in discussion, studying a fifth skull in the small woman’s hands, and didn’t hear Mercy enter.

“Dr. Peres?” Mercy asked quietly, not wanting to startle them and have a skull drop.

Both women turned. Victoria Peres had a scowl on her face, while the blonde woman gave Mercy a wide smile. Mercy couldn’t help but smile back. She was tiny, with wavy hair and warm brown eyes. Mercy immediately felt like a giant. No doubt the tall Dr. Peres felt the same way around the woman.

“You must be Agent Kilpatrick.” The blonde woman held out her hand, balancing the skull in the other. “I’m Lacey Ca—Harper.”

Mercy took her hand. “Caharper?”

“Harper,” Lacey said firmly. “I married recently. Victoria was one of my attendants,” she added with a quick glance at the forensic anthropologist.

Dr. Peres gave the first smile Mercy had seen from the woman. “Dr. Harper is the forensic odontologist I told you about.”

“I’m still not used to hearing ‘Dr. Harper,’” admitted Lacey. “My husband, Jack, loves the sound of it, but I’ve been called Dr. Campbell for too many years. My father was Dr. Campbell too.”

“As in the former state medical examiner?” Mercy asked. She’d met the man a few times in Portland before he retired.

“That’s him.”

“You didn’t want to follow his path?”

“Teeth are sufficient for me, thank you,” she said with a small eye roll.

Mercy gestured at the skull in Lacey’s hand. “What do the teeth on that tell you?”

Lacey’s eyes lit up. “All sorts of things. But I’ll let Victoria start. She’s been looking them over.” Lacey set the skull in the line with the others. Three of the skulls had mandibles set next to them. Victoria hadn’t exaggerated about the damage. Broken and missing teeth made the group look as if they’d been stolen from a Halloween store. Again Mercy’s attention was caught by the smallest skull. Many of its tiny teeth were brutally shattered. Each skull also had a spiderweb of fracture lines near a temple. Some had a hole or two in the same area.

Are those impacts the cause of death?

“I haven’t had time for a proper examination of each skull,” Victoria said, distinctly reluctant to share any findings. “I still need to clean them up better.”

“But you have first impressions,” Mercy coaxed. “I’ll take them all with a grain of salt, understanding they aren’t concrete and could change.”

“This isn’t how I work.” Victoria frowned.

“Completely understandable. It’s a risk I need to take because we must move as fast as we can.”

Victoria took a deep breath and exchanged a look with Lacey, who lifted one shoulder. “We are positive about some things,” Lacey pointed out.

“True.” Victoria gestured at the five skulls. “You ever play that game of ‘one of these things is not like the other’?” Her voice took on a lecturing tone.

“Like from Sesame Street?” Mercy was amused. Clearly one of the skulls was much smaller.

“Yes. And I’m not referring to the size of the child’s skull. I’m talking about ancestry.”

“Oh.” Mercy looked again. To her all the skulls were similar. Dirty ivory in color, with eye sockets, an opening where the nose had been, and seams across the smooth parts. She couldn’t see them as people. Except for the tiny one. Every time she looked at it, for no reason she pictured a young girl with blonde curls. “I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

“Exactly. But before I get into ancestry, first of all, there is one adult female, one teenage female, and two adult male skulls in addition to the child’s skull.” She ran a finger above the eye sockets of the first large skull. “See how the bone juts out over the orbits of the eyes? And how the forehead slopes back? This one is male. Now compare it to the one next to it. The brow ridges are smoother; the forehead more vertical. Not to mention the skull is smaller and the bones more delicate. It’s also much lighter than the other one.”

Mercy looked at the next two skulls in line. “The third is a male and the fourth is female,” she said slowly.

“Correct.” The forensic anthropologist was pleased with her new student.

“And the child?”

Dr. Peres gently lifted the small skull and looked directly into the deep spaces where its eyes should have been, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Lacey and I have agreed the child is between five and eight. I feel the structure has more feminine characteristics, but like I said at the scene, it’s difficult to tell at this age.”