'Jesus,' he said.
'Rusty? What?'
For one thing, she's still caked with shit, he thought… but that wouldn't go on the record. Not even if Randolph or Rennie only listened to the first sixty seconds before crushing the tape under a shoe heel and burning whatever remained. He would not add that detail of her defilement.
But he would remember.
'What?'
He wet his lips and said, 'Brenda Perkins shows livor mortis on the buttocks and thighs, indicating she's been dead at least twelve hours, probably more like fourteen. There's significant bruising on both cheeks. They're handprints. There's no doubt in my mind of that. Someone took hold of her face and snapped her head hard to the left, fracturing the atlas and axis cervical vertebrae, CI and C2. Probably severed her spine as well.'
'Oh, Rusty,' Linda moaned.
Rusty thumbed up first one of Brenda's eyelids, then the other. He saw what he had feared.
'Bruising to the cheeks and scleral petechiae—bloodspots in the whites of this woman's eyes—suggest death wasn't instantaneous. She was unable to draw breath and asphyxiated. She may or may not have been conscious. We'll hope not. That's all I can tell, unfortunately. The girls—Angela and Dorothy—have been dead the longest. The state of decomposition suggests they were stored in a warm place.'
He snapped off the recorder.
'In other words, I see nothing that absolutely exonerates Barbie and nothing we didn't goddam know already'
'What if his hands don't match the bruises on Brenda's face?'
'The marks are too diffuse to be sure. Lin, I feel like the stupidest man on earth.'
He rolled the two girls—who should have been cruising the Auburn Mall, pricing earrings, buying clothes at Deb, comparing boyfriends—back into darkness. Then he turned to Brenda.
'Give me a cloth. I saw some stacked beside the sink. They even looked clean, which is sort of a miracle in this pigsty.'
'What are you—'
'Just give me a cloth. Better make it two. Wet them.'
'Do we have time to—'
'We're going to make time.'
Linda watched silently as her husband carefully washed Brenda Perkins's buttocks and the backs of her thighs. When he was done, he flung the dirty rags into the corner, thinking that if the Bowie brothers had been here, he would have stuffed one into Stewart's mouth and the other into fucking Fernald's.
He kissed Brenda on her cool brow and rolled her back into the refrigerated locker. He started to do the same with Coggins, then stopped. The Reverend's face had been given only the most cursory of cleanings; there was still blood in his ears, his nostrils, and grimed into his brow.
'Linda, wet another cloth.'
'Honey, it's been almost ten minutes. I love you for showing respect to the dead, but we've got the living to—'
'We may have something here. This wasn't the same; kind of beating. I can see that even without… wet a cloth.'
She made no further argument, only wet another cloth, wrung it out, and handed it to him. Then she watched as he cleansed the remaining blood from the dead man's face, working gently but without the love he'd shown Brenda.
She had been no fan of Lester Coggins (who had once claimed on his weekly radio broadcast that kids who went to see Miley Cyrus were risking hell), but what Rusty was uncovering still hurt her heart. 'My God, he looks like a scarecrow after a bunch of kids used rocks on it for target practice.'
'I told you. Not the same kind of beating. This wasn't done with fists, or even feet.'
Linda pointed. 'What's that on his temple?'
Rusty didn't answer. Above his mask, his eyes were bright with amazement. Something else, too: understanding, just starting to dawn.
'What is it, Eric? It looks like… I don't know… stitches!
'You bet.' His mask bobbed as the mouth beneath it broke into a smile. Not happiness; satisfaction. And of the grimmest kind. 'On his forehead, too. See? And his jaw. That one broke his jaw.'
'What sort of weapon leaves marks like that?'
'A baseball,' Rusty said, rolling the drawer shut. 'Not an ordinary one, but one that was gold-plated? Yes. If swung with enough force, I think it could. I think it did!
He lowered his forehead to hers.Their masks bumped. He looked into her eyes.
'Jim Rennie has one. I saw it on his desk when I went to talk to him about the missing propane. I don't know about the others, but I think we know—where Lester Coggins died. And who killed him.'
12
After the roof collapsed, Julia couldn't bear to watch anymore.'Come home with me,' Rose said. 'The guest room is yours as long as you want it.'
'Thanks, but no. I need to be by myself now, Rosie. Well, you know… with Horace. I need to think.'
'Where will you stay? Will you be all right?'
'Yes.' Not knowing if she would be or not. Her mind seemed okay, thinking processes all in order, but she felt as if someone had given her emotions a big shot of Novocaine. 'Maybe I'll come by later.'
