“Lots of stuff is federal stuff,” replied Decker.
“Too much,” snapped Ross with another dollop of spit delivered to his porch. “Government is into every damn thing we do. I’m sick of it.”
“So you’re into every person for themselves?”
“I’m into keeping the government outta my business. And I’m into the government stop taking sides of folks that don’t need no help. Look at me, I got nothing. You don’t see me crying about it. You don’t see me asking for handouts because I got some problem, or because I feel like somebody didn’t give me a fair shot. Hell, nothing about life is fair. You don’t like it, go back to where you come from, is what I say, and don’t let the American flag hit you on the ass on your way out.”
“Interesting philosophy,” noted Decker.
“Hell, I don’t know nothing about philosophy. I just see the world with my own two eyes. For what it really is.”
“And what is the world, really?”
“Not nearly as good as it used to be for people like me.”
Decker decided to shift the discussion. “So, you maybe saw people around that house, you said?”
“I forget now.”
“Mr. Ross, if you know something you really need to tell me.”
“Why’s that, I wonder? ’Cause you’re a Fed? That supposed to be some magic word or something?”
“No, I’m a cop trying to find out the truth.”
Ross grinned maliciously. “That’s what they say on TV too. I didn’t believe it then, don’t believe it now.”
“If you saw something and don’t tell us, the people who killed those men might come to the same realization. That you might have seen something. You could be in danger.”
In answer, Ross lifted the blanket covering his withered legs to reveal a sawed-off shotgun. He lifted the muzzle in Decker’s general direction.
“Had this baby a long time. Remington double ought Magnum load. Locked and loaded. Anybody comes after me, they’re in danger. Including Feds. And I don’t fire no warning shots. Never saw the need.”
Decker took a step back. “Just so you know, threatening a federal officer is a crime. And if you fire that kind of load with a shortened barrel it’ll knock you and your wheelchair right through a wall with the recoil and dislodge any fillings you might have. And your chances for a second shot are nil because you’ll probably have a concussion.”
“Who gives a damn about a concussion if whatever I’m firing at looks like a piece of Swiss cheese?”
“And I’m pretty sure sawed-off shotguns are illegal in Pennsylvania. I could arrest you for possessing one.”
The old man leaned forward. “Maybe you’ll learn this, Amos, while you’re here, and maybe you won’t.”
“What’s that?”
“There ain’t nothing really illegal in Baronville.”
Chapter 22
“Decker!”
Decker had just passed by the Murder House when the person called out.
It was Kate Kemper. She was standing in the front doorway.
Decker stopped and turned to look at her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, coming toward him.
“Just out for a walk,” he said.
She checked her watch. “And your walk just happens to take you past here at four o’clock in the morning?”
She came to stand in front of him, while he looked over her shoulder at the house.
“Just itching to get back inside there, aren’t you?” she said.
He focused on her. “Wouldn’t you be too, if you were me?”
She looked at his sticking-up hair. “I meant to ask you about your hairdo when we first met, but I figured maybe it was just the way you wore it.”
“I had a head injury.”
“How’d you get that?”
“An exploding trailer.”
She gaped. “What? How did that happen?”
“We were checking out a mobile home trailer when someone decided to turn it into an oven with me and my partner inside. We got out before we got barbecued, but the thing went boom when the propane tank ignited, and part of the boom hit me in the head.”
“Do you know who did it?”
“Not yet. But I’m working on it. I take it personally when someone tries to kill me.”
“I would too.” She studied him. “I checked you out since our last meeting. The Bureau speaks incredibly highly of you.”
“Uh-huh. Find anything interesting inside?”
She cocked her head. “Not into flattery?”
“I never really saw its value.”
“Okay,” she said, looking at him appraisingly. “I guess the answer to your question depends on how you define ‘interesting.’”
“How would you define it?”
“How about forensically? The ME got back to us with some more information. Care to hear it?”
“I didn’t think you wanted us involved.”
“I just said things had to run through me.”
“I’m listening.”
“The man in the basement overdosed on carfentanil. It’s an anesthetic used for large animals, like elephants. It’s about the strongest commercial opiate out there. The Russians use it as a weapon of assassination.”
“That would account for the foam on his lips.”
Kemper smiled strangely at this, but continued, “The guy you found hanging died by strangulation.”
“But it couldn’t be from the hanging.”
Kemper hiked her eyebrows. “So you knew that already?”
Decker nodded. “And I hope you’re not relying on the local ME, because he also royally screwed up the time of death. I know more about forensics than he does.”
Kemper looked at him curiously. “How do you know he screwed up the TOD?”
“He completely missed obvious red flags in the evidence. And by your look, you know that to be the case. So tell me what else you found.”
“How do you know I found out anything else?”
“Because you strike me as someone who likes to do things her way, and not rely on the locals to spoon-feed you information.”
She smiled. “I’m beginning to see another side of you, Decker.”
“I’ve got a lot of them. So what did you learn?”
“You’re right. I brought in my own medical examiner. She looked over the bodies and the test results and came to certain conclusions that were not exactly in line with the local ME’s results. But let me hear your analysis of the TOD first.”
“Rigor starts about two hours after death, beginning in the small muscles, face, neck, and moves outward to the larger muscle groups in the body’s extremities. The process then reverses itself. Full rigor is typically reached around twelve to eighteen hours after death. The body can remain stiff for a similar time range. Then rigor begins to reverse and completely resolves itself after anywhere from thirty-six to forty-eight hours, depending on certain factors, including environmental, and the body eventually becomes flaccid.” He paused before continuing. “Now, let’s apply that here. Vics dead twenty hours or longer in an abandoned house and one of them in a moldy basement? They’d be covered in insects and eggs, along with the beginnings of body decomp. And the limbs of the guy in the basement didn’t feel stiff in the way that people in rigor usually do. They were off somehow, at least to my touch. And they were way too cold for the ambient temp of that place. The ME should have seen that from his core temp test, but he just assumed his thermometer was broken.”
Kemper was nodding the whole time he was talking. “Now let me tell you what my person thinks. She thinks the vics were killed around the time the local ME thought, but under a very different scenario.” She stopped and studied him. “Care to think how that’s possible, taking into account what you know?”