Last to Die

SEVENTEEN

I NOW CALL TO ORDER THIS MEETING OF THE JACKALS,” ANNOUNCED Julian.

Maura watched as six boys took their seats in the chemistry classroom. Because they sat together at Julian’s table in the dining hall, Maura had come to know all their names. In the second row there was Bruno Chinn, who never seemed to sit still for a minute, and even now was fidgeting and twitching in his chair. Beside him, Arthur Toombs sat perfectly still, his burn-scarred hands clasped together on the desk. Those scars, she’d been told, were the ugly souvenirs of a fire set by his own father. Near the door sat Lester Grimmett, a boy obsessed with quick escape routes. A quick escape out a window had once saved his life, and he always, always chose a seat near the exit. And in the front row sat the two newest members of the Jackals, Will Yablonski and Teddy Clock. Their stories, Maura knew all too well.

Six boys, six tragedies, Maura thought. But life went on and here they were, some of them scarred, all of them survivors. This club was their way of dealing with the losses, the bad memories, a way for even these powerless children to feel like warriors.

But as crime fighters, they seemed a rather unimpressive lot.

Only Julian stood out, tall and commanding, a club president who looked the part. Although Jane had dismissed the Jackals as nothing more than CSI High School, it was clear that Julian took his role as club president seriously. And the other boys in the room looked every bit as serious.

“Today, Jackals, we have a real forensic investigator joining us,” said Julian. “Dr. Isles works at the medical examiner’s office in Boston, where she performs autopsies. She’s a medical doctor. A forensic pathologist. A scientist. And …” He looked at her with pride. “She’s my friend.”

My friend. Two such simple words, yet the way he’d said them held a far deeper meaning for both of them. She stood up, smiling, and addressed the club with the same respect that they regarded her.

“Thank you for the introduction, Julian. As he told you, I’m a pathologist. I work with the dead. I examine human remains on the autopsy table, and I look at tissues under the microscope, to understand why people die. Whether it was the natural result of a disease process. Or whether it was caused by trauma or toxins. Poisons. Since my scientific background is medicine, I can advise you on …” She paused, glimpsing movement in the hallway. A flash of blond hair. “Claire?” she called out. “Would you like to join us?”

All the boys turned at once to look at the doorway. Claire could hardly slip away unnoticed, so she gave a shrug, as if she had nothing better to do anyway. She walked straight to the front row and dropped indifferently into the chair next to Will. All the boys were still staring at this exotic creature who’d just wandered into their midst. Indeed, thought Maura, Claire Ward was a strange girl. With her white-blond hair and pale eyelashes, she looked otherworldly, like some forest nymph. But her bored expression and slouched shoulders radiated pure American teenager.

Claire looked around at the speechless boys. “Do you guys actually do something at these meetings, or do you just stare?”

Julian said, “We’re about to discuss what we found in the willow tree.”

“Which I had nothing to do with. No matter what anyone says.”

“We just follow the evidence, Claire. Wherever it leads us.” He looked at Maura. “I thought, since you’re the medical expert, you could start by telling us the cause of death.”

Maura frowned. “Cause of death?”

“The rooster’s,” called out Bruno. “We already know the manner of his death was homicide. Or chicken-cide, I guess you’d call it. But how did he die?”

Maura looked around at the faces watching her. They’re serious, she thought. They’re actually treating this as a death investigation.

“You did examine him,” said Arthur. “Didn’t you?”

“Only briefly,” Maura admitted. “Before Mr. Roman discarded the remains. And based on the angle of his neck, I’d say it was clearly broken.”

“So would that be death from strangulation or spinal cord trauma?”

“She just said the neck was snapped,” said Bruno. “I’d call that neurologic, not vascular.”

“And what about the time of death estimate?” said Lester. “Do you know what the postmortem interval was?”

Maura looked from face to face, startled by the rush of questions. “Time of death is always tricky, if there are no witnesses. In humans, we look at a number of indicators. Body temperature, rigor mortis, livor mortis—”

“Have you ever tried doing vitreous potassium on a bird?” asked Bruno.

She stared at him. “No. No, I can’t say that I have. I admit, I don’t know much about chicken pathology.”

“Well, at least we have a cause of death, then. But what was the point of cutting him open? Why pull out his guts and hang him in the tree?”

Precisely the question I asked in the clearing.

“That issue gets into profiling,” said Julian. “For now, we’ll stick to the physical evidence. I went back into the woods to try and find the body, but I think some scavenger made off with it, so we don’t have the remains to examine. I also searched for footwear impressions around the chicken coop, but I’m sorry to say the rain pretty much wiped those out. So I guess we’ll move on to what you guys found.” He looked at Bruno. “Do you want to go next?”

As Bruno moved to the front of the class, Maura sat down, feeling like the student who hadn’t done her homework. She had no idea what the bouncy, twitchy little Bruno would have to share. He pulled on latex gloves and reached into a brown paper sack. Out came the three twig dolls, still attached to their twine nooses, and he laid them on the stainless-steel lab counter. Such trivial things, she thought, looking at them now. Under the classroom’s bright fluorescent lights, the reddish brown splatters looked like mud stains, not blood at all. Dangling from the willow tree and twisting in the wind, they’d seemed unholy. Now they had lost their power, reduced to nothing more than what they were: bundles of twigs.

“Here we have exhibits A, B, and C,” said Bruno. “Human figurines that appear to represent two males and one female. They’re made up of various twigs and bark, tied together with twine. It’s the twine I looked at. I determined that it’s made of jute. I also found samples of the same kind of twine in the barn, where it’s used to tie up bales of hay for the horses.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a sample of string. “See? Identical. From our own barn!” He sat back down.

“Arthur, you want to go next?” said Julian.

“I identified the twigs,” said Arthur, rising to his feet. “The bark skirt was easy. It’s Betula papyrifera, the American white birch. The twigs weren’t as easy to figure out, and there are two different kinds. Based on the smooth green bark and the pointed buds, I think some of them are Fraxinus nigra, the black ash. The other twigs I was able to identify because of their star-shaped pith. I think they’re balsam poplar. You can find all these trees down by the stream.”

“Good work,” said Julian.

Maura stared at Arthur as he sat down and she thought: That fifteen-year-old knows more about trees than I ever will. CSI High School was turning out to be far more impressive than she’d imagined.

Lester rose from his chair, but he didn’t move to the front of the classroom. He stayed right by the exit, where he felt safe. “I looked at the rope that was used to hang the victim from that high branch. I had to go back and climb the tree to get the sample, since we couldn’t find Herman—the victim—in the woods.”

“And what did you find out about the rope?” said Julian.

“It’s quarter-inch white nylon, diamond braid. All-purpose, good tensile strength. Resists rot and mildew.” Lester paused. “I searched all over the place, to see if I could find the source. And I found a whole roll of it in the toolshed.” He sat down.

“We’ve established that all the materials needed to make these dolls can be found right here, on the school grounds. The twigs. The twine. The rope.” Julian looked around the room. “So now comes the hard part, answering the question that Bruno asked earlier: Why? Why would someone kill a rooster, slice him open, and gut him? Why hang him up along a trail that we walk almost every day? A place where we’d be sure to come across it?” He waited for an answer.

Arthur said, “Someone wants attention.”

“Or hates roosters,” said Bruno, looking pointedly at Claire.

“A religious rite,” suggested Will. “Like Santería. They kill chickens, don’t they?”

“A psychopath kills animals for fun,” said Lester. “Maybe he enjoyed it. Maybe he got a thrill, which means he’ll do it again.” Lester paused. “Next time, it might not be a chicken.”

That made the room fall silent.

It was Teddy who broke the hush. “I think it’s a message,” he said.

“What kind of message?” asked Julian.

“He’s trying to tell us something. Trying to warn us.” Teddy’s voice faded to a whisper. “Does anyone else wonder why there are three dolls?”

Maura looked at the twig dolls. Then she looked at Claire, sitting in the front row, flanked by Will and Teddy.

Two males. One female.