Close to the Bone (Widow's Island #1)(3)

“Not many. Mostly old-age deaths. The occasional tourist who climbs over the fence at the Widow’s Walk doing that selfie thing with their phone.”

Henry wasn’t a medical examiner. Depending on the state and county, either a medical examiner who had well over a decade of medical education or a coroner investigated deaths. Oftentimes a medical degree wasn’t required to be a coroner. Henry had heard of rural counties where the mayor or sheriff filled the role.

The body was fully skeletal. The deputies had told him the teenagers had been trying to dislodge a jacket buried in the dirt when they’d discovered the bones. The jacket had been wrapped around the skull. The deputies had responded, uncovered torso bones, and then asked for the coroner. Henry’s stomach had roiled when he’d spotted the braces on the skull’s teeth.

Young.

But adults have braces too.

He had carefully moved the rest of the dirt from around the skull and taken a closer look at the teeth. Years ago he’d dated a dentist who had taught him some basics about tooth eruption. The second set of molars had barely erupted on this skull, something that typically happened as a teenager, give or take a few years.

The jacket had looked like something a teenage girl would wear, and the skull had delicate female characteristics.

Deputy Kurt Olson had informed him that fourteen-year-old Becca Conan disappeared two years ago, and the FBI had been involved in the investigation.

“Get the FBI back out here,” Henry had told him. “There’s a possibility their case has been solved.” He quickly scanned the visible bones and the skull, searching for a clue that could point to cause of death. Like cracks on the skull that suggested hard blows, nicks in the bones that indicated the stab of a knife, or a crushed hyoid that suggested strangulation.

Nothing obvious caught his eye as he knelt in the dirt.

Now the FBI agent stood in front of him, looking upset to be responding to the death of someone quite young. Henry understood and wished his first case as a coroner hadn’t been a child. Why wasn’t it a senior citizen who died asleep in bed? Their life fully lived.

Not a child hidden in the dirt.

“I’d like to take a look,” said the agent.

“Over here, Special Agent Wilde.” Henry led her a few yards to the scene.

“Call me Cate, please, Doctor.”

“Henry,” he responded.

Cate squatted next to the skull. “Braces?” She immediately looked to Tessa, who nodded. The two women looked nauseated.

“What is it?” Henry asked.

“Oh jeez,” said Kurt, rubbing a hand over his bald scalp, looking from one woman to the other. “I didn’t think of her.”

The other deputy, Bruce, exchanged a confused glance with Henry.

“Becca Conan isn’t the only missing teen girl from this area,” said Cate in a hollow voice. “Our friend Samantha Bishop disappeared when we were fourteen. She had braces at the time.”

“But so did Becca,” Kurt added.

“Excuse me.”

The three deputies whirled around at the sound of the new voice, their hands hovering over their weapons. A young man with a flashlight had appeared from the woods and held up his hand at the deputies’ reactions. “Whoa. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“This is a police investigation,” announced Tessa. “Please leave the island.”

The young man twisted his lips. “Well, I live on the island. And my uncle sent me to find out what happened. Your lights are making a glow that we can see above the woods from our side.”

“You’re Rex Conan’s nephew?” Cate asked, placing herself between the young man and the skull.

“Dustin.”

Henry pegged Dustin to be in his midtwenties and wondered why the deputies hadn’t recognized him. Everyone knew everybody on the islands.

“Why didn’t Rex come himself?” Cate frowned.

Dustin shrugged. “That’s my job. I’m the caretaker of the mansion and island, and I do whatever else Rex needs.”

“Since when?” asked Kurt. “I hadn’t heard that someone lived with Rex.”

Kurt’s aggrieved tone made Henry hide a small smile. The deputy had taken it personally that he wasn’t informed.

“About six months.” Dustin stepped aside and craned his neck to look past Cate. “Is that a skull?” His mouth formed an O as his eyes widened.

The group looked from one to another.

We can’t deny it.

“Yes,” said Cate. “It was discovered tonight. You can go inform your uncle that we’re conducting an investigation.”

“Is that Becca?” Dustin backed up a few steps, shock on his face.

“We don’t know,” Henry said in a firm voice. “It’s too early to tell.”

“I need to go tell Rex,” Dustin said as he started to turn. “He’ll want to see this.”

“Wait!” Cate dashed forward and caught Dustin’s sleeve, earnestly meeting his gaze. “Let’s not upset Rex until we have some facts. This could be someone else.”

Dustin jerked his arm from her grip, annoyance replacing his shock. “He deserves to know a skull has been found on his property . . . and you didn’t ask permission to be here.”