Filed to story: Return of the Reaper Story
“Has to be all the Yankees movin’ down this way,” Dane said, smiling.
“You have a problem with Yankees, sheriff?” Agent Dauber said without a trace of a drawl.
“Notice I didn’t say damnYankees,” Dane said, bringing out a rumbling chortle from Agent Godshall.
The agents used their unmarked car to follow Dane in his county car to Royal’s Funeral Home. He’d called ahead to ask Billy Royal to stay and wait for his guests from Decatur. They entered the funeral home through the service entrance that led to an extensive basement complex and the morgue.
Alexander Krogstad lay naked and supine on the embalming table. A plastic band with his DOD, full name, and a bar code was affixed around his right wrist.
“I took fluid for the tox screen as you asked, Sheriff,” Billy said. “Otherwise, I’ve not touched him.” Billy was the oldest member of the Royal clan still working in the mortuary business since his father retired ten years earlier. The family had been preparing folks for burial since before the Confederacy.
“Any guess as to time of death?” Agent Dauber asked.
“Hard to say. His body temperature was very low when we took it. I understand he was found in a tub of water.”
“He wasn’t checked into the motel, but the night manager says his car wasn’t there before ten last night,” Dane added.
“Has to have died within the last eighteen hours then,” Agent Godshall said.
“Not with that core body temperature,” Billy said as he shook a Pall Mall from a pack.
“Mind if I smoke?” Godshall asked and pulled a crumpled box and lighter from his coat pocket.
“I don’t mind. I mostly just let mine burn. Covers the more unpleasant odors.” Billy accepted a light from the GBI man.
“What do you mean about his temperature, sir?” Agent Dauber said.
“This man’s core temp was at the level of a man dead much longer than last night. I’d put it twenty-four hours or more before the time he was brought in here.”
“That’s not possible unless a dead man drove to that motel last night,” Dauber said.
“Or someone drove him there in his own car,” Godshall said.
“Or he froze to death,” Dane said.
Everyone turned to him.
* * *
It was determinedfrom various tests that Alexander Krogstad had indeed frozen to death.
Or rather, his heart had seized after prolonged exposure to cold, bringing on hypothermia. How this was accomplished was pure speculation. His toxicology screen came back negative for drugs, alcohol, or any toxins, though he did experience a severe blow to the head that was forceful enough to split the skin at the hairline, bruise the frontal lobe of the brain, and cause a mild concussion. The autopsy also revealed two pairs of burn marks, one pair to the nape of the neck and another set to the lower back. Then there was the matter of the livid bruises around the wrists of both hands.
Someone had tied him up.
“I can think of worse ways to go,” Agent Godshall said. He stirred his third refill of coffee at the Waffle House on 53. “You just drift off to sleep.”
“Not like any homicide I’ve ever seen,” Dane said and spooned up some Bert’s Chili. It was close to ten and long past suppertime with the family. “Why kill a man that way?”
“More like torture gone wrong.” Agent Dauber poked her fork at what passed for a salad at the Waffle House. “They hit him twice with a stun gun. I’m betting that’s how he got the head injury. Whanged his forehead on the tub surround or sink edge when he fell.”
“So, what did they want? Did they getwhat they wanted?” Godshall asked. “Either way, we make this a crime scene. We’ll be taking this bugger off your hands, Sheriff.”
“That suits me fine, Agents. But if you can tell me, what’s the state bureau’s interest in a dead schoolteacher?”
“He was a bad boy, Sheriff,” Godshall said.
“A
verybad boy,” Dauber put in.
==
The early morningair was crisp and clean closer to the top of the ridge. The sun had not risen high enough to burn off the thick fog that filled the holler below like soup in a bowl. An overnight dusting of snow would make the two-toed marks of deer stand out as clear as words on a page. Isaac Kane stood with his daughter Merry on the lee side of the trunk of a tall pine and watched the dawn light spill across the top of the clouds of mist like butter melting on a pile of mashed potatoes.
“How long you think we need to wait?” Merry said, adjusting her mittened grip on the stock of the Hawken rifle.
“Till this fog clears,” Isaac said. “You aren’t getting impatient, are you?”
“Just cold. This wind coming over the ridge is making my butt numb.”
“Can’t go down in the holler till we can see our way and other folks can see us.”
“You think there’s other hunters down there?”
“Could be. You never know. But till there’s a clear line of sight, we stay right here.”
Isaac crouched by her, his .54 caliber rifle across his knees. As they watched, the tops of the fog bank turned to wisps of rising vapor cut through by rays of the light coming over the far hill.
“You think this is okay?” Merry asked, breaking a long silence.
“What’s okay, honey?”
“You taking me hunting like this?”
“Don’t other dads take their kids out for deer?”
“Sure. If they’re boys. Dads take their sons.”