debris pile on the southwest side of the property.
'Pretty ugly,' he said recoiling at what he was seeing. 'Looks like his arms were pulled off.'
Emily Kenyon balanced herself on a large piece of Formica countertop from what had once been a seventies- era kitchen. It annoyed her that the Spokane tech was taking over the scene. She moved closer, to claim her turf.
Mark Martin had been a handsome man, in good physical condition for someone in his early fifties-lean and muscular. He worked for the local power utility as its chief engineer and was known to bike the dozen miles to the office in the summer. His curly silvering hair was matted with mud. His blank eyes stared into nothingness.
'Let's shoot stills and video and get him with his wife,' Emily said, kneeling by the body and studying every inch of its battered form.
Peg Martin's body was already ziplocked and ready for the ambulance and the ride to Spokane where she'd be processed as if she were nothing. Not the bake-sale lady. Not the woman who did everything for the community whenever anyone asked. Peg was an apparent murder victim. Emily looked at Mark Martin's battered and nearly sanded-off skin. He had on boxer shorts and a single sock. He might have had on a shirt, but it was gone with his arms.
She was sure he, too, had been the victim of a gunshot wound. A scenario played in Emily's mind. It was a familiar one. She'd worked at least three cases of similar presentation back in Seattle. She thought about the position of the wounds and whether or not they were dealing with a murder/suicide. She hadn't heard there were any problems between the Martins. She had checked. There had never been a single domestic violence call from their residence to the sheriff's office. Not a single one. They had seemed a happy couple, though they did tend to stick to themselves. Peg did her school stuff like a trooper, but Mark was a more introspective type-the typical engineer.
'The kind that snaps,' Emily said to herself.
A gentle breeze blew from the north, picking up a little dust and fiber. The scene was not really the type to yield much in the way of trace forensics. A tornado had likely stripped away any scraps of evidence. The processing going on now was more about documenting that everything had been done properly when the defense got Emily on the stand. She doubted it would ever get that far, though. It seemed like the shooter was dead. The only question was where were the boys?
Emily caught the loose tendrils of her long ponytail and stuck them behind her ear. The wind blew harder. It seemed that time stood still. People were frozen in their duties, digging through the debris, ferrying a body bag to the second victim. Even the flashing lights atop the cruiser seemed to become still. Her heart stopped, too. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something she didn't want to see.
She knew they had to be there.
Where else could they be?
'Please, no,' she said softly as the world started to crank back into action, at first in a stop-start fashion like one of those old school filmstrips. Then faster. Then finally at normal speed. She turned her attention to a chunk of drywall with some obvious blood spatter. It was about ten feet from where she stood.
'What is it?'
The voice was Jason Howard's. The earnest deputy could see that Emily was frozen in her tracks. Stiff. Intent on something in the remains of the house.
'He's over there,' she said, indicating the drywall.
Jason walked closer, but didn't see what Emily had discovered.
'Help me move this,' she said. The pair bent over and lifted the chalky board. It was like turning a rock at the beach to see what might scurry out to get away from the exposure of the light of day. Yet nothing moved.
'It's Donovan, I think. Maybe Nicholas,' she said. 'I saw the tips of his fingers'
'Jesus, Detective,' Jason said, remembering how touchy Emily had been. The boy was in jeans and a button- down shirt. Remarkably, he was intact. Even his face, which struck Emily as resembling his mother's so much that it was disconcerting, was untouched. It was almost like he was asleep.
'I know him,' Jason said. 'He's in my little brother's Cub Scout troop. Nice kid.'
Emily waved the techies over. 'Let's process this area as best as we can and get a board over here and get him out of here ''
'He looks so peaceful,' Jason said.
Photo flashes ricocheted off the boy's pale skin. Two coroner's employees hoisted him on to the stretcher, which they had spread with a midnight-blue body bag. Handles for easy transfer flapped in the wind.
'Wonder if he died of internal injuries related to the storm,' Jason added.
Emily was wondering the same thing, but not for long. The two coroner assistants, both young men from Spokane, set the body on the bag and started zipping, working from the feet toward Donovan's angelic face, white and calm.
'What?' the younger of the two said to his partner, as his gloved fingertips slipped from the zipper.
'Your hands are covered in blood,' Emily said. 'Where did all that come from?'
She stared at the dead boy.
'Roll him over.'
'We'll look at him in the lab,' the other said.
'You'll roll him now.'
'Not protocol, sorry.'
'Maybe you don't hear too well up in Spokane,' she said, almost amused with herself that she'd now felt more of a kinship with the tiniest of law enforcement operations.
'This is our scene, my scene, and you'll follow my orders'
'Someone's cranky.' It was Sheriff Brian Kiplinger, lumbering his meaty frame across the debris field. Emily and Jason were so involved with what they were doing that neither had heard him arrive. He just appeared in the morning light.
Emily acknowledged her boss with a nod.
'Someone hasn't had a good night's sleep for I don't know how long,' she answered. She shifted her weight and waited for the sheriff to blast her, but he didn't.
'Tell me about it.' He fixed his steely eyes on the coroner's assistant with the bloody glove and the bad attitude. 'I was speaking to him'
The young man sank into the mud.
'I'm trying to preserve the evidence.' He was embarrassed and defensive.
'What evidence? This is a goddamn disaster zone. If the lady ... If my chief detective wants to see the backside of this kid, she's gonna'
The chief was a nice save from the 'lady' comment. She was the only detective in the office.
It flashed in the young man's mind to roll his eyes, but he refrained. Instead he rolled the body to the side.
'Good enough?' He fought once more to suppress a smirk. Lucky for him, his effort worked.
'Yes, thank you'
With the sheriff, Jason, and the two interlopers from Spokane looking on, Emily lowered her gaze to the darkened backside of Donovan Martin. His shirt was stiff and shiny. It was soaked in blood.
'Can't say for sure,' she said. 'But it looks like we've got another homicide victim here'
'Jesus, that makes three'
'Or four?'
'Depending on where we find Nicholas's body.'
Sheriff Kiplinger watched as Emily followed the dead boy to the coroner's van. The panel doors were open. A set of steel racks filled the back end. There were no seats. It was more a hearse with a lab destination than a family vacation van headed to Yellowstone, which it closely resembled. A mountain scene was painted on the spare tire cover. The Spokane County coroner approved the secondhand purchase of the van and liked the airbrushed painting. Not only did the coroner have a bad eye for artwork, he was cheap to boot.
By 10:15 A.M., it was tragically clear that there were no bodies left in the wreckage of the home. Dogs had been used in the surrounding field and back wooded area that fed off the creek. But nothing was found. No sign of anyone. No sign of Nicholas Martin.
