Dead Guilty

took several swigs of water and screwed the cap back on. ‘‘I’m all right.’’
‘‘The trick is to focus on the work.’’
Neva nodded and walked back to David, Jin and Lynn Webber’s good-natured smiles.
‘‘Chuck over here’’—the sheriff pointed to one of his deputies—‘‘threw up so often when he was new, we all started calling him Upchuck.’’
Jin handed her a template and a pad of graph paper. ‘‘You can help me with the sketches,’’ he said.
‘‘We’ll have the bodies ready for you as soon as we can,’’ Diane told Lynn Webber.
Lynn nodded. ‘‘Do you want me to have the diener clean the bones?’’
‘‘Please. Unless we find their driver’s licenses tucked away in their clothes.’’
‘‘I’m not usually that lucky.’’ The sheriff looked up at the two hanging corpses again. ‘‘Something tells me these are going to be hard to identify. Judging from the clothes they’re wearing, I’d guess they might be some poor homeless people who crossed paths with a killer.’’
‘‘You don’t think it’s a suicide pact?’’ asked the other sheriff’s deputy, a hefty man who had been studying the woods, looking almost anywhere but at the bodies. ‘‘Ain’t most hangings suicide?’’
‘‘Yes, most are,’’ said Diane, ‘‘but how did they manage it without anything to stand on?’’
‘‘I guess you’re right. But they could’ve climbed the trees and jumped.’’
Lynn Webber and Diane winced at the thought.
‘‘Or maybe the fourth guy chickened out and, not wanting to leave a good ladder, took it with him.’’
‘‘I’m sure the crime scene investigation and autopsy will sort all that out,’’ said the sheriff.
‘‘I’ll leave you to it.’’ Dr. Webber dusted her hands together, mentally washing them of the crime scene, even though she hadn’t touched anything. ‘‘I need to clear my calendar for these new clients.’’ She turned to Diane. ‘‘If you’d like to attend the autopsy, you may.’’
‘‘Thanks. I’d like to collect the ropes and the insects inside the corpses.’’
‘‘You’re welcome to it. I hate collecting larvae. Though Raymond, my diener, doesn’t seem to mind.’’
Dr. Webber left them and disappeared through the undergrowth up the trail. The sheriff’s gaze followed her until she was out of sight.
She was replaced by the two deputies coming back from the road. It was apparent by their faces they had something to tell the sheriff.
‘‘Edwards and Mayberry—that’s the timber guys— said they seen a place where it looks like a vehicle mighta come through the bushes,’’ said the taller of the two, waving his hand to shoo away flies as he spoke. ‘‘Said there’s a place where the weeds was kinda beat down.’’
‘‘They’s supposed to be some old timber roads over yonder.’’ The other deputy pointed northeast of the bodies. ‘‘Right through there.’’
Diane motioned to the sheriff. ‘‘Let’s have a look.’’ She turned to David. ‘‘After the photographs and sketches are done, start a grid search under the corpses. We need to clear a work space so we can get the bodies down. Go ahead and collect the insects.’’
The sheriff ordered his deputies to follow David’s instructions and not get into trouble. He and Diane walked to the edge of the clearing where the deputy had pointed. A large fallen pine tree covered head high in broken limbs, briars and loose brush blocked the path. It was a place where Brer Rabbit might have hidden.
The sheriff stooped and looked through the bram bles at the tree stump. ‘‘It was cut down with a chain saw. And not long ago—I can still smell the pine.’’
‘‘Could the timber guys have done it?’’ asked Diane.
He shook his head. ‘‘We can ask, but I can’t see why they would do it. They were counting trees, not cutting them down. And why would they pile a bunch of weeds and dead limbs on top of a fresh tree? A lot of work for no purpose.’’
‘‘So the tree was cut and brush was piled on top of it to hide the crime scene, or block access to it,’’ said Diane.
She took out her digital camera and snapped pic tures of the blockade from different angles. The side leading away from the woods was as the timber sur veyors had described: a ghost of a trail where tires had crushed the dry weeds.
Seeing the direction from which the tire tracks had come, Diane walked back through the brush, squatted and examined the ground on the