“I can see where it wouldn’t be.” But no doubt Nate Masterson had approached it with his characteristic perfectionist tendencies. Mastersons did tend to go above and beyond. “Can you tell us about what you found?”
“There isn’t much to tell, I’m afraid. The reports are about as accurate as anything I can give you. I have the notes I dictated during the process. I’ve copied them to a USB drive for you. And the photos taken. I’m not a medical examiner, Miranda. I did a stint in pathology years ago, but to be honest…if there was something there, I could have missed it.”
“Cause of death?” Knight demanded. Miranda shot him a look at the rude tone. Nate stopped speaking and glared back.
Well. That would be a fun match. The men were about the same height, but Nate was a wall of solid muscle. He outweighed Knight by at least fifty pounds. Still, Knight had that dangerous air about him that gave a woman the shivers.
She’d have been an idiot to miss the challenge in Nate’s eyes. He was the most…passionate…of the Masterson brothers. She’d once seen him lay out a drunk who’d been harassing Susie Templeton about ten years back. With one well-placed punch.
And she suspected Nate had pulled the force behind it back at the last minute.
Miranda took it on herself to defuse the situation.
She kicked Knight in the shin—lightly—under the table.
He shot her a glare. It was apparently his customary expression of choice. No doubt they’d be discussing it later.
She shot him a glare right back.
Knight really needed an attitude adjustment if he was going to make PAVAD his goal. There were hundreds of agents nationwide who would want the opportunity about to be handed to him. She wasn’t certain Knight deserved it.
She’d have to ask around, check with other agents who’d worked with him before. Max, perhaps. Max was keenly observant—he’d know everything there was to know about Allan Knight. And Max would be able to tell her if there was something more going on, or if Knight’s bad attitude was just a natural part of his character. “I’m sorry for Agent Knight, Nate. He gets antsy easily. What was Helen’s actual cause of death?”
She remembered the woman. Large, weathered, and mean. She hadn’t exactly been an endearing member of the community. But she hadn’t deserved to be buried in her son-in-law’s barn.
Jac was at Miranda’s left, silently taking notes as was her habit. Kelly was next to Knight, her nose buried in Nate’s copy of the files, looking for discrepancies in the originals versus the photocopies they had.
Nate turned his attention back to her. She studied him, cataloging the differences—and similarities—between him and the only other man in the room right now. Both were tall, but Nate was a solid wall of man muscle that was almost perfection to look at. Well, Knight could be considered pretty perfect to look at, too. If he had a better attitude.
Attitude made all the difference.
“She had injuries to her right occipital lobe and to the back of her skull here,” Nate began, and Miranda tuned back in for the details. “But that wasn’t what killed her. She asphyxiated. Debris was in her lungs. In her eyes, nose, and mouth, as well. That’s what required the decree that it was death by homicide. She was breathing in soil for several minutes until she suffocated.”
That jibed with what information they already had. Miranda had hoped Nate had found something probative, something that wasn’t already in the reports. No such luck. “So basically…”
“Someone struck her on the right side of her head. She probably hit her head again when she fell, and then someone most likely buried her alive. All of this is speculation on my part based on what I found. It’s up to you and Joel to figure out the exact details.”
Now they had to find out who had struck an almost sixty-year-old woman, wrapped her in a pink and orange quilt, and buried her in Luther Beise’s barn, alive.
13
Jim followed the group around the best he could. He thought the Talley girl was the one in charge. That was a real shocker. A far cry from the nerdy girl who had always been with Monica. The two had been as thick as thieves. Jim hadn’t thought much of her then. Just a punk kid who had had everything handed to her by her grandmother.
Strange that she was the one brought here to find Luther’s family. Unless that had been on purpose. He would have thought there was a conflict of interest. She could be considered a material witness if he wanted to get technical about it. Knew Helen and Pauline and Luther and the kids. All of them. Including Jim. Maybe Monica had said something to her.
Maybe she just had to find the answers.
Maybe Helen’s ghost had called to her or something. Jim wasn’t so certain he didn’t believe in that spiritual bull. Not anymore, anyway.
Over the past nine weeks, he’d dreamed of Helen more times than not. How she’d looked when he’d last seen her.
How she’d looked when she’d been sneering at him and telling him he was a worthless piece of crap that didn’t deserve Luther’s help back then. Telling him he was just a worthless freeloader.
She’d known. She’d known what he’d been doing coming around her back door back then. It for sure wasn’t for the food.
Helen had accused him of chasing after her granddaughter. His own cousin’s kid. Well, stepcousin, rather.
Maybe he’d kissed Monica once or twice. Took her shirt off. Gone farther than he wanted to remember now. She hadn’t been a virgin, though. Far from it.
But, then again, her mother had been a bit of a slut, too. He blamed her, mostly.
Had Pauline not pissed
