“And? You look upset. I’m guessing the note indicates it wasn’t a suicide?”
“I am upset. The killer set fire to the note, hoping it would burn with the body.”
“But it didn’t.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“Are you gonna tell me what the note said?”
“Do you remember the Copeland murders twenty years back?”
Lines formed across Gemma’s forehead. “That family who lived out by the old highway, the one who got murdered on Friday the thirteenth? Sure. Who doesn’t remember the County’s most horrific unsolved crime? A mom and dad beat to death with a baseball bat along with their two kids. What does it have to do with Ben?”
“You’re right about the date. Somebody murdered the Copelands on Friday, October 13, 2000. But the killer used a hammer, not a baseball bat. I already had Dale fact-check that. The note underneath Ben’s body was all about the Copeland family. Imagine him holding on to that piece of paper clutched in his hand. I figure he had it there for a reason, trying to hide it from the killer. He’d scribbled the note himself. I recognized Ben’s handwriting. It said he knew who killed the Copelands and why it happened.”
“But if all this time Ben knew, why didn’t he say something to you before now?”
“That’s the question on my mind, too. Was old Ben involved in the murders? If so, what was his motive? Did the killer threaten him to keep his mouth shut? I mean, look where we are. Ben’s dead, and someone shot him in the head during one of the worst storms in a decade. A lot of questions yet to answer.”
When Tuttle stepped in, Lando glared at the coroner. “Took you long enough to get here. I saw you flirting with Tina.”
Jeff Tuttle handled criticism the same way he viewed his job. He used humor and sarcastic wit to survive the never-ending stream of bodies that ended up in his morgue. “What’s the rush? Has the victim got somewhere else to be?”
“I’d like you to do whatever it is you do here so I can get the asshole who did this. Is that too much to ask from a taxpayer?”
“Ah, so you’re the impatient one. Got it.”
“Could I get a little less attitude and more work? What else do you have to do?” Lando fired back. “My crew and I have been up all night. So excuse me if I’m not in the mood to stand around cracking jokes.”
“Testy, aren’t we? Fine. Show me what you’ve got.”
Knowing there was a body in the basement—someone she had known—Gemma stiffened her spine and decided to tag along.
After thumbing on his flashlight, Lando led them down into a cavernous basement, once used for storing inventory. But now, the shelves were long bare, and the wood appeared to be rotting in places.
Gemma caught a whiff of decomposition. The unmistakable odor blended with the stale, musty air and the damp conditions in the cellar.
Tuttle went to the body, bent down over it for a few minutes, then straightened back up again. “He was shot right here. There’s blood splatter on the rug. See?”
Lando nodded. “I figured that.”
Tuttle pointed to a series of crimson red droplets still damp. Without waiting for anyone else’s comments, the coroner moved to the side. “What that means is this. The rug was already down on the floor. The moment Ben got shot, he dropped right where he stood. That’s when the killer wrapped the rug around him and tried his hand at arson, probably using an ordinary lighter to set fire to the inside of the carpet. Some of it burned. Most of it didn’t. Not enough oxygen to fuel a little starter fire down here with all the damp floor conditions.”
“Which means the killer was probably waiting down here for him, right? He already had the rug in place, and as soon as Ben was in position, he shoots him in the head.”
“Sounds reasonable to me.”
Since Lando had already bagged the note as evidence, he now handed it off to Tuttle to get his input. “I found this in Ben’s hand. Partially burned. The best part, anyway.”
Tuttle looked amused but read the letter before cutting his eyes back to Lando’s. “Why, Chief? I do believe you might need to open up a cold-case murder investigation now. The bottom half of that note was burned right off before Ben named the killer.”
“Bite me,” Lando snapped. “Just give me the time of death, and you can