The Naturalist (The Naturalist #1)(56)

I have no memory of what happened after that last punch, but I can imagine.

Gunther probably uncuffed me and put me in his squad car and drove me to this hospital. I’d be willing to bet it’s not the closest one to the police station.

This is the situation I was trying to create. Had he arrested me, I would have been seriously screwed and facing jail time. However, I wasn’t expecting the beating to be so savage.

The one I got at the hands of Devon and company was just meant to scare an out-of-towner. Officer Gunther’s beatdown on me was pure fury. It was primal.

For a brief second I got a glimpse of what Juniper and Chelsea saw in their last moments—except I suspect theirs was far more terrifying. Mine was just brutal.

“Just nod if you feel alert enough for me to tell you what’s going on.”

I give her a nod. She moves a chair close to the bed and has a seat. Her name tag says Dr. Talbot.

“You had a dislocated jaw. It popped back in pretty easily. Nothing is fractured. But I want to keep it stabilized for another day. It’ll be swollen for a few more, and I don’t recommend you eat any monster-size hoagies for a month. Understand?”

I nod again.

“You’ve got a costal cartilage fracture. That will hurt for a while but should take care of itself. Your face is pretty banged up, but your looks should come back. If you had any to begin with. If not, now is a good time to think about that nose job.” She gives me a smile. “So, the prognosis is nothing permanent. But you’re going to be sore for a while. I’ll give you some pain meds for the short term. We’ll see how you do in a few days. I recommend ibuprofen or beer after that.”

I hold my hand in front of my face and tap the palm.

“You want a mirror? Think you can handle it?”

I nod. She pulls a small hand mirror from the drawer in my bedside table and holds it up to my face.

My cheeks are fleshy lumps of purple and yellow. There’s a long blue line along my jaw surrounded by burst blood vessels.

As a paramedic I saw the results of a lot of beatings. You could almost deduce the incident by the kind of trauma inflicted. Bar fights had lots of eye injuries around the orbits and cracked ribs when the assailant had their victim on the ground and just took shots kicking at them—basically what happened to me when Amber’s friends let loose.

In domestic violence calls, I’d often notice a lot of burst vessels around the face, as the attacker would slap their victim over and over. Slapping was some kind of punitive response, not defensive. It’s meant to inflict pain, whereas a punch is intended to incapacitate.

After Gunther punched me, he started slapping me. I struck a deep personal chord within him. This wasn’t just because I humiliated him over his sexual involvement with Chelsea; I touched on something else—impotent rage. He couldn’t be there to protect her, a girl he helped make vulnerable. So instead, he diverted all that energy toward me. As I lay on the ground unconscious, and Gunther opened his fist to slap me, I don’t think he saw my face. It could have been his own, or more perversely, Chelsea’s.

Talbot pats me on the knee. “I’m going to let you get some more rest. If the swelling comes down, I might take the bandage off your head later on today. You’re a pretty fast healer. Try to keep that up.”

After she leaves, I stare at the curtains. Daylight trickles through swaying branches, creating a hypnotic pattern as the wind rocks them. Through a tiny slit I can see the snowcapped peak of a mountain in the distance.

I’m in a serene mental place because of all the painkillers. If I don’t move my mouth, I can almost forget the trauma my body went through. Better enjoy it while I can. In the next few days, it’s going to be excruciating.

And after that, then what?





CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE


DEPARTURES

I’m making notes on a yellow pad Talbot was kind enough to provide for me after she noticed I hadn’t touched the remote for the television.

I’ve been thinking of a kind of equation, a simplistic version of MAAT. I found Chelsea’s body fairly quickly once I understood how to narrow down the search area to find soil that had been recently disturbed. While I don’t know how well the local flora would cooperate in other areas, this worked pretty well for this part of Montana.

The equation is more of a program, a kind of if/then decision tree. It starts with calculating the likelihood of there being a missing person who fits the vulnerable profile and comparing it to geographical information and population density. In theory, I could change some of the variables and apply it elsewhere. Instead of looking for vegetation variations, I might use topological data to calculate where a killer might decide is the most remote yet accessible location to hide a body. Forensics specialists will use methane probes to look for decomposing bodies. Another means might be to use sonar to look for soil density and thermal imaging at certain times of day. A body buried underground would lose heat differently than surrounding earth.

Another thought is to use lidar—lasers that map the 3-D landscape. Had I the opportunity, I would love to see if there was some kind of subtle indentation or outdent roughly the same size as a body. This could be statistically significant and provide another way to scan a large amount of area in a short time.

There’s a knock on the door, and Dr. Talbot pokes her head in. “Good, you’re up. Let’s check on that mug of yours.”