"Daffy told me."
"We save those things for a reason. Reasons like this." The car was acting squirrely, having a hard time with traction. More than once Boldt was tempted to reach over and grab the wheel, but Dixon did a good, albeit disturbing, job of talking while driving. "Vicryl had been used in two of the three cases. It's a woven suture made by a company called Ethicon-it's used internally for closures. But the Vicryl used in both Peter Blumenthal and Glenda Sherman was a number two. That's huge, way too big for human use. Horses, cows-gorillas, maybe; not humans. The point being that oversized woven suture will loosen up on you. Your knots fail. In the case of a kidney, let's say you've tied off an artery with it. It comes loose and you have forty-five percent of the body's blood flow pouring into the back side of your intestines. You're dead real fast. Real fast. Like walking down the street and keeling over, which is how Sherman was found by 911. Do I have your interest yet?"
There was a red flare burning like a Roman candle on the left side of the road up ahead. Dixon slowed and turned at the flare, following a good number of rutted tire tracks. They wouldn't be the first on the scene. "A vet?" Boldt repeated. "May I use your phone?" he asked, taking the car phone from the cradle before Dixie consented. It took him three calls to find Daphne. She was staying at Sharon's, looking after Agnes Rutherford in Sharon's absence. "How do you feel about unpaid overtime?" he asked rhetorically, not waiting for her answer. "It's not a surgeon, it's a veterinarian. Dixie has the proof. Roust Lamoia. Make a list, just like the AMA list. All the local vets capable of this. Think of ways to narrow it down. Find out about the distribution of a drug called ..." He looked at Dixie. "Ketamine."
Boldt repeated it. He added, "We're closing in, Daffy. Search and Rescue found the bones."
"I'll find Lamoia. We'll be at the office."
"And I want a psych profile, ASAP," Boldt reminded, though the phone had gone dead. "Out of range," Boldt said. He hung up. "There's more," Dixie announced proudly. "The Ethilon-a suture used for the subcutaneous closure-followed what we call a continuous interlocking stitch. I'm talking about Chapman now, about those photos you took to Dr. Light Horse. I got your memo. She's right about the technique used on the closures. And it all fits with a vet, incidentally: They use the interlocking because of its strength. The giveaway is the subcutaneous stitch, the continuous interlocking stitch. it is always done right to left by right-handers and left-to-right by left-handers. This one was left-to-right."
"A leftie?" Boldt asked excitedly. "That certainly narrows the field, although whether a person is right- or left-handed is not the kind of thing we have access to." He realized that it would require a hell of a lot of manpower to chase down a lead like that. "I thought that would interest you."
Boldt nodded but was thinking how difficult it would be to verify or investigate. And if they sent out detectives asking questions, they would only serve to tip off the harvester, to give him time to clean house and shut down shop. They needed the cart before the ox: They needed the pair of snipping shears that Dixie believed connected at least two of the victims. They needed a witness. Even a dead one. "We're here," said Dixie, pulling over.
The air smelled impossibly good, and the sound of the raging river, growling from below them in the darkness, brought back memories of twenty years earlier when Boldt and Liz had found time to explore the peninsula. The four-wheel drive vehicles were parked below, their headlights and search lights revealing a dug-up area that looked like the surface of the moon. The entire landscape was riddled with deep test holes, the work of a yellow backhoe that now sat off to one side. As Boldt's eyes adjusted, he saw that they had worked their way up this bank of the river-some sixty yards worth of excavations. Those lights were now aimed onto the grave, an angry black hole that looked like a huge mouth locked open in mid-scream. There were maybe ten people-all men---crowded around the hole, some leaning on shovels, some in sheriff uniforms, most drinking coffee from plastic thermos cups. Their attention fixed on this hole in the ground and its contents, which remained out of sight for Dixon and Boldt as they slid down a small incline, the sound of the river growing even louder. It no longer sounded peaceful. The closer they drew to this hole, this grave, the more menacing that sound. Two of the four-wheel drives were running. The light was a blue sterile wash, out of keeping with the natural surroundings, like the illumination at a photo shoot or movie set.
They avoided the other holes as they approached. one of the uniforms from the sheriff's office introduced himself. This site was well outside of the city limits, outside of Boldt's jurisdiction, but still in King County and therefore within the professional domain of Dr. Ronald Dixon. jurisdictional differences could create tremendous headaches for all concerned if ego and territory became issues. Boldt kept this in mind and let Dixie do all the talking. The deputy sheriff was nice enough. He asked to be brought up-to-date. Dixie managed to tell him as little as required, without reference to Sharon Shaffer's abduction or the harvesting linkage, for which Boldt was grateful. To date, they had managed to keep this out of the press. The press could be a nightmare.
A light mist began to fall. Boldt turned up his collar. one of the Search and Rescue guys offered him rain gear but he declined. They had hand dug a series of terraced shelves descending from surface grade to the partially exposed bones below. Boldt felt impatient: This site could be the harvester's first kill, perhaps his first harvest, and as such might hold clues to both his character and methods. Criminals made mistakes the first time around that they often eliminated as time wore on and the number of their crimes rose. As the depth of the hole increased, different strata of soils could be seen. "Remember," one of the men warned from overhead, "this sucker is undercut something fierce! There's not enough floor in the very bottom to support you. Stick to the shelves. That last step is as low as you dare go." It looked as if a shovel had pierced the tender layer of soil that still supported the skeletal remains, causing a hole through which the fevered gray foam of a dark angry river could be seen threatening. Some water splashed up and into it. Over the roar of the white water another of the crew shouted, "It's dangerous down there. That hole you're looking at was caused by my foot!"
Dixie stepped onto the first terraced landing, standing about knee deep in the wide mouth of the excavated hole. Boldt followed, the two of them standing side by side. Dixie reached up and was handed a powerful flashlight, the size of a small biefcase. He turned it on, illuminating the haunting mask of a hollow-eyed skeleton that stared back at them. Boldt could clearly make out an arm and part of a leg. Dixie said, "She's beautiful."
"If you say so," answered Boldt.
Dixie ran the light down her extremities, and as he did he recited the names of the various bones he saw: "humerus, radius, ulna, tarsus, metatarsus." When he reached the "proximal phalanx," he accidentally directed the bright light into Boldt's eyes. "Skull and pelvis; most of the remaining ribs. We're lucky."
Boldt reached out and steered the light back to their subject.
"Not her," he was thinking. He said, "One thing about a murder: There are always two witnesses."
Dixon said, "Now, if she'll only tell us who the other one was."
"The harvester," Boldt said softly. There was no doubt now. Two of the ribs were cut sharply, their ends clearly missing. A whole section of her rib cage cut away like an empty box.