“Just twenty-one.”
“Real shame.”
“Yes.”
He adjusted his weight as if his hip bothered him. “Was it cancer? Cancer strikes many these days.”
Greer cleared her throat. “It was a car accident.”
He shook his head. “Young kids drive like bats out of hell. No sense.”
She’d not been driving recklessly. Or at least she’d not thought she had been. Rising, she dusted the dirt from her knees. “Thanks.”
“Sure.”
In her car, she switched on the engine. The blast of cold air did little to cool the heat of her skin, now flushed and hot. She put the car in drive and glanced toward Jeff’s grave. The caretaker stood next to her brother’s spot, leaning on his shovel and staring at Greer’s truck. She raised a nervous hand in farewell and he nodded.
She drove back toward the entrance and as she pulled out on the main road, she glanced in her rearview mirror. The caretaker was still staring at her.
Bragg had inspected Sara’s belongings and had found the red rope bracelet bagged and tagged in the box. His heart sped up when he lifted the bag and studied the red rope bracelet. Made of three braided thin red strips of yarn, the bracelet’s craftsmanship was amateurish and reminded him of something a teenager would wear. It hadn’t appeared out of place on Edwards but on Wentworth it was a huge red flag. What the hell did the red rope bracelet mean?
It took him a couple of hours, but he put all the details of the two murders into the ViCAP system. The national database contained details of other murders throughout the country, and if his killer had a hit anywhere else in the country maybe this detail would pop a match. ViCAP was not a perfect system. Cops in small localities with limited funding didn’t always have time to enter crimes into the database. His inquiry was a crapshoot but better than no shot at all.
He pushed away from the desk, grabbed his hat, and headed to the medical examiner’s office. Dr. Watterson would be doing Sara Wentworth’s examination this afternoon and he wanted to be present.
The heat hit him hard as he stepped outside. One hell of a hot spell had hit Texas, and now they were knee-deep in summer’s brutal temperatures. He’d grown up working outside and had learned to ignore the heat. For some reason, he thought about Greer outside. She’d said harvest time would be soon, which meant she was likely in the fields working in the heat preparing.
It was a hell of a lifestyle switch. Knowing she was raised in the world of country clubs, pools, and fancy trips, he doubted she’d known a bit of manual labor before she’d moved to Bonneville. But he’d felt the scrape of calluses on her hands and seen the depth of her tan when he caught a flash of white flesh just inside the cleavage of her dress.
That little bitty peek shot right through his body. As he’d stood there wondering if she could kill a man or if she was trouble waiting to happen, he’d been rock hard. His voice had been calm, steady, as he’d imagined touching those white breasts.
Bragg shook his head. “Son, you been out of the game too damn long.”
He’d dated over the years. Even been serious about one gal about ten years ago. But he’d never been able to bring himself to pull the trigger. He’d had a host of excuses. Work earned the lion’s share of reasons. The last gal he’d dated had been just fine. And he couldn’t give her a reason why he didn’t want to get married. And when it occurred to him not having a reason wasn’t reason enough, he’d broken it off.
He parked and strode the short distance inside. He stepped onto the elevator and found the doctor and his assistant preparing the instruments standing by an exam table holding a body clad with a white sheet.
Dr. Watterson pulled on rubber gloves. “Usually I don’t have the pleasure of seeing you twice in a week.”
“Not that I don’t like you, doc, but this isn’t my idea of a fun date.”
The doctor chuckled. “You weren’t the pretty face I was imagining when I started this day.”
“Looks like we’re stuck with each other.”
Dr. Watterson pulled down the microphone, suspended over the table, until it was inches from his mouth. He clicked it on and pulled back the sheet covering the body.
Sara Wentworth’s pale bluish body lay on the table still and flaccid. Her head rested on a block and her blond hair was brushed off her face. The tech had removed her make-up. She’d been a pretty woman. And it was clear she’d taken pride in her appearance. Her skin was in excellent shape. Her hair neatly trimmed. Her nails manicured. She’d not scrimped on herself.
“Not often we have someone freeze to death in Texas during such a bitch of a heat wave.”
Bragg donned rubber gloves and approached the table. “No, I suppose you don’t.”
“I’ve sent her blood off for analysis so we’ll know soon if she had drugs in her system. There is no sign of physical trauma on her body. No defensive wounds.”
“Like Rory Edwards.”
“Yes.”
“You think this is a suicide?”
He shook his head. “Can’t say right now.”
Bragg thought about the red bracelet. She’d worn one and so had Rory. Could the two have had something going on no one knew about? His death had clearly been assisted, whereas hers showed no signs of a second party.
Winchester was running the numbers on Wentworth’s phone and searching for connections to Rory and Greer.
“I did find an interesting fact about her.” The doctor walked from the head of the table to the foot. “Look at her left foot.”
He glanced at the pale, long, manicured nails and instantly saw what the doctor found odd. “She’s missing her two small toes.”
“A recent injury?”
Watterson turned the foot so Bragg had a full view. “No. They’ve been gone a long time.”
“Birth defect?”
“No. Look closely, and you’ll see suture lines. The toes were removed.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “It could have been an accident, but given her cause of death the first thought that comes to mind would be frostbite.”
Bragg leaned in and studied the old injury. “Frostbite?”
Dr. Watterson peered through protective goggles. “Sure, if she’d been exposed to the elements for a long time she could well have lost toes or fingers.”
“I asked her parents directly if she’d had any mental instability problems and they said no.”
“Might not have been a suicide attempt. Could have been a ski accident. And remember, frostbite is a guess. She could have dropped a rock on her foot or God knows what.”
Bragg would have bet a month’s paycheck Sara’s past included more instability than her parents had conceded. “I’ll see if I can find her medical records.”
Dr. Watterson reached for his scalpel and made a neat clean Y in the chest’s center. “I’d be curious myself.”
The doctor continued the exam for several hours while Bragg watched. After he’d sutured her back together and covered her with a sheet, the doctor shook his head. “I can find nothing wrong with her. She was a healthy woman.”
“So why’d she end up dead in a freezer in East Austin?”
Willie Nelson’s “Georgia on My Mind” played on the radio as Greer studied the stack of invoices on her desk. Several times she’d lost her train of thought and had had to recalculate a column of numbers. When she added a row of numbers and came up with a different answer for the third time, she tossed her pencil on the desk and sat back in her chair.
She glanced out the window and saw Mitch working with the horses. He’d barely spoken since his arrival, but she’d noticed he carried a little less worry in his shoulders. His patience with the horses remained endless even when Beauty nipped or Buttercup lagged. And José had said he listened well in the fields and had caught on quickly with operating the equipment.
At first blush she’d never have put Mitch and Bragg together but the more she’d watched him today the more she’d seen
similarities. Mitch’s coloring was lighter, but he had a square jaw like his uncle and he carried himself with the same straight-backed posture. Both were over six feet and though Bragg had a broader chest Mitch would fill out more given time.
Bragg.
Why did her thoughts keep circling back to Bragg?
The man didn’t trust her. His distrust reflected in his gray eyes. Though he’d kept silent about Mitch’s working here, he didn’t like it.
She rubbed her hands over her eyes and tried to work away the fatigue. She didn’t have time to worry over what was out of her control.