Not even in Vegas, never mind in Sweeny.
Half-trained cops. Budget constraints. A shortage of fully qualified forensic pathologists who could actually do the job. There were a lot of obstacles between a dead body and the pathologist’s knife.
Grade’s plan was never to fool the science; he didn’t have the background or, usually, the time for that. No, he aimed at giving an overworked and underpaid deputy the opportunity to let something slip through the cracks. If that failed, the second line of defense was just to make it a mess for whoever caught the case.
In LA County, 46 percent of homicide cases went unsolved. Grade would rather get a “no suspicious circumstances” on the file, but he’d settle for a cold-case stamp if he had to. Most of the time, he got it.
Of course—Grade stepped away from the body to get a sterile swab out of his kit—the fact his clients knew how the system worked had helped his stats there. He just hoped this case wasn’t going to tank them.
Grade shook that thought out of his head. The time to second-guess himself had been roughly thirty—he checked his watch again—eight minutes ago, before he’d started work. He’d waived his rules and taken the contract. No one had forced him. Now he just had to do the best job he could and make sure that whatever happened, there was nothing to tie him personally to this case.
There were a few different crimes that Grade could be charged with. Desecration of a corpse. Accessory after the fact. Tampering with evidence. The state would probably go with the catchall “obstruction of justice,” and Grade would be looking at at least five years in prison.
In Kentucky.
The plastic crinkled under his knees as he knelt on it and tilted the woman’s head back. He thoroughly cleaned out both her nostrils with either end of the swab. The cotton tip came out stained brown from old blood and decorated with particles of dust and bits of fluff.
It made Grade’s nose itch. He resisted the urge to rub it as he dropped the swab into his makeshift trash can. The nails next. He picked up her hands and turned them over, her skin very white against the blue of his gloves. She had a glossy navy gel manicure, and two of her nails on her right hand were snapped off down to the tender, raw, quick.
Grade set a folded sheet of blank paper on the woman’s chest and laid her hands on it. He got his pocketknife and flicked the blade open. It got a quick swipe with an antibacterial wipe, just in case, and then he cleaned under the unbroken nails with a series of quick, businesslike strokes. Gray dust, bits of dry skin, and a few flecks of paint were picked out and dropped onto the paper. He finished, folded the paper in on itself, and tossed it into the can with the swab.
He set the woman’s hands neatly on her stomach and repeated the same process with her feet. She’d lost the nail entirely from the little toe on one foot. Grade also gave her bloody heel a quick scrub to remove anything that might have gotten lodged in the skin during her fall. It paid off. He felt something catch on his glove as he worked. Not enough to rip the latex, but definitely not just hard skin.
“Let’s see,” he muttered to himself as he pushed her leg up. Rigor mortis hadn’t set in. He probably had another couple of hours before he had to worry about that, give or take when they’d been killed. The overhead lights—spotlights sunk into the ceiling—were good enough that he didn’t need to get his flashlight. He probed at the bloody flesh with his thumb until he felt something under the skin. A splinter, maybe.
It was strange. Grade could take a body apart like it was a roast chicken and feel nothing. The corpse didn’t, after all. But he had to bite his tongue on the urge to apologize as he squeezed cooled, torn skin between his thumbs until he saw the dull head of something poke out of the raw flesh.
He knew why…Dory at the kitchen table, her hands palms up on her knees as Grade blotted away blood and tweezered out chunks of wood. He muttered “sorry” with every new sliver he found dug in under her nails and the heels of her hands. Dory never flinched, though…but that didn’t help much.
Grade caught the tip of his tongue between his teeth and used the point of his knife to work the foreign object out. He caught it as it dropped and turned it between his fingers. Not wood, after all. A brad nail that must have come loose on the stairs. That could have raised questions. Grade wiped it clean and dropped it in with the rest of the things he needed to burn.
He leaned up to peel the woman’s lips apart with his fingers. One tooth was gone. From the nub that stuck out of her gum, it had been a crown. Grade grimaced and pried her mouth open to check. He swept his finger around the inside of her mouth, under her tongue, and into the pockets of her cheeks.
No tooth.
Shit.
He pulled his hand back and wiped it on his leg. The red smears left on the fabric weren’t from her lipstick.
Grade leaned his elbow on his knee and stared at the dead woman’s face as he weighed up the next step. The odds were she’d swallowed it, but there was no way to know for sure. He bounced his heel absently as he tried to put himself in the mind of a deputy sheriff. Would a broken, missing crown raise enough suspicion to make it worthwhile pushing for an autopsy?
It wouldn’t, Grade decided. Dental emergencies happened, and people didn’t always deal with them immediately for one reason or another. If Grade planned to drop the body at the bottom of the house’s grand staircase, that would be different. The dead woman obviously cared about her appearance. Someone like that wouldn’t go to a party with a missing tooth.
A run to Whole Foods, though? Maybe.
Not that therewasa Whole Foods in Sweeny, Grade thought sourly as he caught up with himself. He’d have to go to Louisville for that.
Plastic crinkled as Grade stood up and stepped back. He picked up the tags of tape that held it down at the corners and pulled it around the corpse. Not too tight, but he made sure every loose seam was sealed up. He left one flap open, just over her stomach.
The mental timer he’d set when he’d taken the job nudged the back of his brain. Two-thirds through the time he’d allocated himself for this stage… and with half the job left to do, that math didn’t work.
It was going to have to.
He’d already soaked up most of the blood, stained cloths rolled up and tied in vacuum-pack bags, and doused the stained areas of the floor with bleach solution. It had lifted the tacky scabs of half-dried blood and diluted the wine down to rosé. The mix of alcohol and chlorine hung in the air, strong enough to catch in Grade’s chest as he breathed it in.
Might be an idea to dilute it a bit more next time. Grade pulled his mask up over his mouth and nose, the stiff bridge of it a familiar itch across the bridge of his nose, and got down on his knees. He scrubbed up the sludgy mixture, dumped the sodden cloths in a bag, and did it again with new ones. The need to hurry up gnawed at the back of Grade’s brain as he worked, a dull, nervy prod that settled in the hinges of his jaw like pressure.
He ignored it.
