Gideon patted his hand on Marge’s desk. “We came to meet the doc.”
“Dr. Christopher didn’t look thrilled this morning when he came through here. Said something about fishing.”
“He’ll get over it,” Gideon said. “Thanks, Marge.”
They strode down a center hallway and through another set of double doors. He pushed them open, and they were greeted by a man in his late thirties. Tall and lean, he had the bearing of a wrangler, especially the thick mustache that looked straight out of central casting. A white lab coat covered a plaid shirt and worn jeans.
Gideon extended his hand, and they shook. “Thanks for coming in today. Dr. Peter Christopher, I’d like you to meet Detective Joan Mason.”
“Heard there was another cop on the scene yesterday,” Dr. Christopher said.
“Just happened to be in town,” Joan said.
“I’ve not had a body so badly burned in a long while, so whatever expertise you got is welcome, Detective.”
“Thank you,” Joan said.
“You two slip on gowns,” Dr. Christopher said. “I’ll meet you in the suite in a few minutes.”
“Will do, Doc,” Gideon said.
Gideon fished gowns out of a closet and handed a set to Joan, along with gloves and booties for her shoes. She slid on the paper gown, trying not to think about the last time she had dressed in front of him as she secured the ties at her waist and yanked on the gloves and booties.
She followed Gideon into the exam room as she had followed hundreds of other detectives into suites larger and more sophisticated than this one. Regardless of the room’s size, however, they all had a way of shrinking down to the one gurney and the one sheet-draped body.
Dr. Christopher reached for the edge of the sheet, and Joan braced as he carefully pulled it back. Laid bare before them were the charred, blackened remains of this unidentified human. Most people who died in fires were killed by smoke inhalation, but what the fumes did not destroy, the fire did.
“Do you know if the victim is male or female?” she asked.
Annoyance seemed to ripple through Gideon. She had promised not to insert herself into the investigation, but if he was that great of a detective, he would have figured out by now that she played it a little loose with the truth.
“Female,” Dr. Christopher said as he moved to the head of the table. “I would say midtwenties.”
“Cause of death?” Joan asked.
“That’s an interesting question,” Dr. Christopher said.
“How so?” Gideon asked.
Dr. Christopher pointed a gloved finger to the victim’s blackened neck. “If you look very closely, you’ll see what appears to be a ligature mark around her neck. The implement cut into her skin, so whoever was trying to strangle her was not playing around.”
Joan leaned closer to the remains, reeking of smoke and chemicals. “It takes strength to make that kind of mark.” Avery Newport’s roommate had been filled with a cold medicine to make her groggy. “Women as a group tend to favor killing methods that do not involve direct contact. Poison. A gun or knife in a moment of passion or fury. Strangulation is personal and sexual in many ways. Generally, it’s done by men.”
Gideon shifted his stance. “But I saw her move. I’m sure of that.”
“There was a significant amount of smoke and heat trauma in her lungs. Both factors led to her death,” Dr. Christopher said.
“Clearly, our boy didn’t get the job done,” she said. “The question is: Was he sloppy, or did he want her alive, knowing the fire would kill her?”
“Do you think she surprised him while he was torching the place?” Gideon asked.
Pleased his curiosity had elbowed past his annoyance, she said, “Depends on the ligature he used. Did he have it in his pocket, or did he grab an electrical cord that was handy?”
“The ligature was thin,” Dr. Christopher said.
“Easy to carry in a pocket. Effective. Painful,” Joan said. “He disabled her and then set the blaze.”
“She was trying to get out,” Gideon said.
“She was tough. A fighter,” Joan said with respect. “Any ideas who she might have been? Is this Lana Long?”
“I called all the women who worked at the beauty shop, and none has seen or heard from Ms. Long since her last shift at the salon,” Gideon said.
“These remains fit the general size and description on Ms. Long’s driver’s license,” Dr. Christopher said. “I’ve extracted DNA from her teeth and have sent it off to the lab, but I’ll still need a sample of her DNA to compare it to.”
“She had a packed bag at her apartment. There might be hair or skin samples. Anything else you can tell me about her?” Gideon asked.
“I took X-rays. There’s an old break to her left wrist, and though I can’t say for certain until I complete the autopsy, she may have been pregnant.”
“Pregnant?” Joan pictured the woman clawing her way across the floor toward safety. Normally, it would have been a five-second walk. But to a semiconscious woman choking on smoke and heat, it would have taken much more time.
“I believe I saw the outline of a fetus on the X-ray,” Dr. Christopher said.
“An unwanted pregnancy would be a motive for a man to murder a woman,” Joan said. “How pregnant was she?”
“Again, a guess,” Dr. Christopher said. “Three or four months.”
“Elijah would have been incarcerated when this woman became pregnant,” Gideon said.
“Did he have conjugal visits?” she challenged.
“I’ll speak to the warden,” Gideon said. “What about personal items? Did you find anything on her body?”
Nodding, Dr. Christopher moved to a stainless-steel tray holding metal remnants from a pair of jeans and a melted phone. “The jeans are generic. The phone must have been in her back pocket. It’s melted.”
“Identifying the body might lead to a phone account, and the phone company can give you texts and call numbers,” she said.
“If you can confirm the pregnancy and especially the fetus’s DNA, call me,” Gideon said. “The majority of women who are murdered are killed by someone they know or who professes to love them.”
“I’ll see if I can fast-track the DNA test,” Dr. Christopher said.
As they pushed through the exam-room doors and stripped off their gowns, Joan’s mind churned with facts and frustration. Regardless of the choices this woman had made, she did not deserve to die, and neither did her child. “The forensic team is at the fire scene now?”
“Yes.” Gideon wadded up his paper gown and tossed it in the bin on top of hers.
“I want to see if they’ve discovered anything.”
“They don’t work for you.”
“You going to claim jurisdictional protocol?”
“No. I care more about solving this case than soothing my ego. But a detective on paid suspension would give a defense attorney a field day in court.”
His calm logic was irritating. But also correct. “I’ll fly under the radar.”
He reached for his hat and traced the brim with his fingertips. “Same rules apply, not that you’ve followed them yet.”
“You won’t know I’m here,” she said innocently.
He muttered a curse and headed to his SUV. In her vehicle, she followed him back into the center of town, and each parked across from the beauty salon.
As she stepped out, she spotted a tall man with broad shoulders. His back was to her, but she recognized him easily enough.
Clarke Mead. He was Ann’s estranged husband and the fire chief. In his midthirties, he had dark, close-cropped hair with a matching mustache. He had always rocked that Magnum, P.I. vibe, and the extra years now only enhanced the look. Gideon and Clarke had been friends since middle school. Both their families owned ranches, but the Meads had sold years ago. Gideon and Clarke had played ball together, drank beer behind the high school bleachers at football games, and gone to UM together. Two peas in a pod. Both had loved the town enough to stay and serve their community. They would protect it no matter the cost.
Hearing Gideon’s footsteps behind her, she did not wait for him but strode toward Clarke. When his head turned, dark eyes narrowed as surprise and questions hiked thick eyebrows. “Joan Mason?”
She thrust out her hand, oddly glad to see the big lug. “As you live and breathe.”
He wrapped lean fingers around hers, hesitated briefly before he pretended not to notice her scars. “Damn, I thought you were never coming back.”
“I didn’t, either. I suppose you can figure out why?” she said.
“I got a good idea why,” Clarke said as he looked back at the burned pile of debris. “You been by to see Elijah?”
“I have.”
“And?” Clarke kept his focus on Joan as Gideon walked up.
“Cool as a cucumber,” Gideon interjected. “Couldn’t have been more charming.”
“He’s a slick bastard,” Clarke said. “Don’t be fooled by it.”
“Have you seen him at all since the fire?” Joan asked.
“Sure. I visited him about nine years ago. Curious, I suppose. Maybe hoping that on some level he was suffering. Of course, he wasn’t. He seemed perfectly at peace.”