Indelible

Rigor mortis had set in, fixing the body in a casketing position. Swan's hair was plastered to most of his face with sweat and blood. Still, she could see his mouth and eyes were slightly open, and there was a purple-blue cast to the side of his face where it had rested on the carpet. His chest was narrow, his ribs pronounced. The waistband of his pants gaped at the top as if he had recently lost weight. His hands had not been bagged to preserve evidence from the scene, such as gunpowder residue or any fibers he might have clutched in his hand – and "clutched" was the right word in this case; Swan's right hand was in a tight fist.

Reggie said, "I tried, but I couldn't get his hand open."

"That's fine," Sara said, thinking that if she was able to find gunshot residue, there would be no proving whether or not it came from Reggie's or the dead man's hands. "Do you have photographs of the scene yet?"

He shook his head no. "I've got my drawings here," he said, taking a folded mailing envelope out of his pocket. Inside were three sheets of paper with crude diagrams of the crime scene. He seemed apologetic when he showed them to Sara. "I was go

"That's fine," she repeated, smoothing out the papers on a table by the sink. The bed and armoire were two lopsided rectangles across from each other. Luke Swan had been reduced to a stick figure with two X's for eyes. His right hand was under his body, the other out to his side. She asked, "He was lying on his right hand?"

Reggie nodded again. "Yeah. It was stuck like that when we turned him over."

Deacon added, "Rigor mortis was extremely pronounced."

"What time did you get there?"

"About two hours after the accident," he said, and Sara tried not to dwell on the fact that the man who would have performed the autopsy was already calling it an accident.

"Did you have trouble moving him?"

"We had to break the rigor to get him on the gurney."

"Arms and legs?" she asked, and he nodded yes. Rigor mortis generally started in the jaw and worked its way out to the extremities. The body would take anywhere between six and twelve hours before it became fixed.

Jeffrey spoke for the first time, saying, "Maybe he panicked. Maybe he was high on something that got his heart rate going."

"We'll do a tox screen."

Hoss broke in with strained politeness, "Wa

Sara told him, "Rigor mortis can be brought on more quickly by strenuous exercise before death. A depletion of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, would cause the muscles to stiffen more quickly."

The sheriff nodded, though she could tell from his expression that he had not absorbed the information.

Sara opened her mouth to explain again, but something about Hoss's posture told her it would do no good. He was so much like her grandfather Earnshaw that she caught herself smiling.

Reggie said, "These're the casings from the bullets," indicating a line he had drawn near the door. Two more were marked beside the victim. "The twenty-twos were here and here. The nine-mil is here by the door."

Jeffrey cleared his throat, seemingly reluctant to speak. "Did you fingerprint the casings?"

Reggie let his rancor show this time. "Of course I did." He added, "And the guns. We traced the Glock back to Robert. It's his service weapon. The Beretta had the serial number shaved off."

Hoss nodded, tucking his hands into his pockets.

Sara asked Deacon, "Gloves?" and he took a box down from the cabinet by the sink. All the men watched Sara as she pulled on two pairs of surgical gloves, one over the other. Deacon rolled over a mayo tray, and she glanced down at the instruments, relieved to find a breadloafing knife, scissors, scalpels, and the other requisite tools for autopsy.

Deacon said, "I'll help you with this," and together he and Sara folded back the sheet covering the lower half of Luke Swan's body. His jeans and underwear had already been removed, which meant she could only guess by the lack of blood spatter from the head wound as to where the pants had been on the body.

Swan was a small man, probably no more than five seven and around a hundred sixty pounds, his body containing none of the grace his last name implied. Though he kept his blond hair long to the shoulder, he was far from hirsute, with a sparse patch of pubic hair around his groin. His penis was slightly tumescent, the swollen testicles showing signs of petechiae. His legs were spindly, and a large scar ran down the side of his left thigh. Sara guessed the wound had come during childhood. At the time it must have been a significant injury. For some reason, she thought of the scar on Jeffrey's back, and wondered what had been going through Jeffrey's mind when his father had hit him.

She asked Paul, "Do you mind taking notes for me?"

"No, ma'am," he said, turning to a fresh page in his notebook.

"He's how old?"

Paul said, "Thirty-four."

She nodded, thinking that fit the man in front of her. She called out her findings so far, pausing to give Paul time to write. Back in Grant, she used a Dictaphone for her reports, and she was not used to having to pause the natural cadence of the exam.

"Skin is slightly dry, probably due to lack of nourishment," she said, ru

"What's that?" Hoss interrupted.

Jeffrey explained, "He was using the area between his toes to shoot up to try to hide the fact that he was using." To Sara, he said, "That would explain the ATP."

"Depending on what he was using, it might." She asked Deacon, "Have you taken blood and urine?"

The man nodded. "It'll take a week or two to get it back, though."

Sara held her tongue, but Jeffrey said, "Can we get a rush on that?"

Hoss said, "It'll cost."

Jeffrey shrugged, and Hoss gave a slight nod to Deacon, indicating it was okay.

Sara examined the surface of the body, finding nothing remarkable other than a star-shaped scar below the right ankle.

She asked Deacon, "Can you help me open his hand?"

He put on a pair of gloves, and as they all watched, Deacon tried to pry open the fingers. The hand would not give, and he adjusted his footing, giving himself a wide stance as he tried to press his thumb into the small opening between Swan's thumb and index finger. When he put his shoulder into it, the finger broke open. The next was easier, and one by one he broke back the fingers and thumb. The snaps sounded like twigs breaking.

"Nothing," Deacon said. He was leaning over the hand, and he moved out of the way so that Sara could see. Fingernail grooves cut into the meaty flesh of Swan's palm, but it appeared empty.

Deacon asked, "Death spasm?"

"Those are very rare," Sara answered, looking back at the chest where the fist had been. "He was lying on his fist. The weight of his body could have closed the fingers and the rigor fixed it in place." She looked around, finding a rolling lamp in the corner. "Do you mind getting that so I can take a closer look?"

He did as he was asked, unwrapping the cord and getting Paul to plug it into the wall socket. The bulb flickered a few times but easily illuminated the empty palm.

Using the sharp edge of the tweezers, she scraped under his fingernails, removing dry skin as well as some larger, unidentifiable flakes. She put them in a specimen bottle, along with some nail clippings, and watched Paul seal them with a strip of bright green tape.

While Reggie took photographs, Sara held a ruler next to the scars and other identifying marks she had found. They progressed to the head, and she used her fingers to pick out pieces of skull and gray matter before pushing the hair back off Swan's face and exposing the entrance wound on the left side of his head.