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“I’ve already spoken with him. I’m curious about the death of Albert Hill.”
“The refinery fellow,” Dr. McGrade told the jailer, “who drowned in the still.”
The jailer sipped and nodded. “Down in Coffeyville.”
Bell asked, “When you examined Mr. Hill’s body, did you see any signs of bullet wounds?”
“Bullet wounds? You must be joking.”
“I am not joking. Did you see any bullet wounds?”
“Why don’t you read my report from the inquest.”
“I already have, at the courthouse.”
“Well, heck, then you know Mr. Hill tumbled into a still of boiling oil. By the time someone noticed and fished him out, about all that was left was his skeleton and belt buckle. The rest of him dissolved . . .” He paused for a broad wink. “Now, this wasn’t in my report: His belt buckle looked fine.”
“How about his bones? Were any broken?”
“Fractured femur. Long knitted. Must have busted his leg when he was a kid.”
“No holes in his skull?”
“Just the ones God put there for us all to see and hear and breathe and eat and whatnot.”
“And no damage to the vertebrae in his neck?”
“That I can’t say for sure.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t understand what this has to do with the Corporations Commission . . .”
Bell saw no reason not to take the coroner and the jailer into his confidence. If the word got around, someone might come to him with more information about Albert Hill. He said, “Seeing as how Mr. Hopewell was shot while I was discussing the commission investigation with him, I am interested in running down the truth about the deaths of other independent oil men.”
“O.K. I get your point.”
“Why can’t you say for sure whether the vertebrae in Mr. Hill’s neck suffered damage?”
“I didn’t find all of them. The discs and cartilage between them must have dissolved and the bones scattered.”
“That wasn’t in your report.”
“It did not seem pertinent to the cause of death.”
“Did that happen to the vertebrae in his spine?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did his thoracic and lumbar vertebrae separate and ‘scatter’ the way you’re assuming his cervical vertebrae did?”
The doctor fell silent. Then he said, “Now that you ask, no. The spine was intact. As was most of the neck.”
“Most?”
“Two vertebrae were attached to the skull. Four were still connected to the spine—the thoracic vertebrae.”
“How many cervical vertebrae are there in the human skeleton? Seven?”
