Volcano Watch

CHAPTER FIVE

Before I could return to my workbench, the medical examiner called.

Georgia lay on the metal tray with her mouth pried open.

“Just getting started,” Randy Burrard said. “Afraid I’ve been out with the flu.”

I focused on Randy, who’s way too sweet-faced for this job. Actually, he did look a little green. As far as I’m concerned, anybody who dissects the deceased has a right to look green. I said, “Feel better,” meaning it.

“Thanks.” Randy gestured at Georgia. “Surprised the heck out of me when I looked in her mouth. Thought you’d want to get this out yourself.”

Yeah.

I went over to the table. Randy had covered her with a sheet but it barely rose over her breasts. I tugged it to her chin. I wanted to say something to her. I could think of nothing.

But it wasn’t Georgia, it was her husk, and so in the end I just bent and looked at the soil in her mouth.

“Livor mortis discoloration on her lower back and buttocks,” Randy said. “Livor starts soon after death and is fixed within four to five hours. So she died lying face up, or was quickly rolled onto her back.”

I nodded. That’s what we’d assumed on the ice. We’d found her face down but there was no livor purpling on her face. She’d lain on her back long enough for blood to pool and livor to fix. But if she’d died on her back, how had the soil gotten into her mouth? Maybe a struggle, and her face was forced into the dirt, and then she was rolled over. Maybe. I gently probed between her teeth and gums. Nothing there. In fact, the grains primarily coated her tongue, the roof of her mouth, the insides of her teeth. However the soil got there, she must have lost consciousness or died right then; otherwise she would have spat the stuff out. My own tongue quilted; I wanted to spit. Instead, I tweezered the stuff out of her mouth, collecting half a thimbleful, and examined it under the brutal autopsy lights. Pumice, and bits of tree bark.

I thought about that. If there was enough bark in the soil to show up in this thimbleful, why wasn’t there bark in the samples from her boots and clothing?

Randy said, “You notice that bruising around her mouth?”

I placed my hands above the marks, spreading thumb and fingers apart. My thumb fit just beneath her lower lip, and my fingers rested along the cheek and chin opposite. Someone had forced her mouth open. Held it open.

“Nothing down her throat,” Randy said, “although I’ll get a better look when I…”

I said, “I understand.”

But I didn’t. Someone had opened her mouth and dumped in pumice and tree bark? Maybe during the death struggle — he’s trying to suffocate her? With half a thimbleful of soil? That was hardly enough to choke on. In any case, Randy’s initial assessment, on the phone, was that she’d died from a subdural hematoma. So, blow to the head and she’s dead, or nearly so.

Then why the soil in the mouth? Some creepy arcane message?

I brought up the image of Georgia’s face, after we had set her on her back on the ice. Her mouth had been closed. Had she shut it herself, before dying?

Or had the killer done it, unable to look at her lying there dead, open-mouthed.

What kind of killer closes her mouth to end her silent scream?