Ray was Castle County's On-Call Medical Examiner-also the county coronerand Alan wanted him here when CID arrived, if that was possible.
"Roger, Sheriff," Sandy said self-importantly. "Base is clear."
Alan went back to his officers on the scene. "Which one of you verified that the women are dead?"
Clut and Seat Thomas looked at each other in uneasy surprise, and Alan felt his heart sink. One point for the Monday-morning quarterbacks-or maybe not. The first Crime Investigation Unit wasn't here yet, although he could hear more sirens approaching.
Alan ducked under the tape and approached the stop-sign, walking on tiptoe like a kid trying to sneak out of the house after curfew.
The spilled blood was mostly pooled between the victims and in the leaf-choked gutter beside them, but a fine spray of dropletswhat the forensics boys called backsplatter@otted the area around them in a rough circle. Alan dropped on one knee just outside this circle, stretched out a hand, and found he could reach the corpses-he had no doubt that was what they were-by leaning forward to the very edge of balance with one arm stretched out.
He looked back at Seat, Norris, and Clut. They were clustered together in a knot, staring at him with big eyes.
"Photograph me," he said.
Clut and Seaton only looked at him as if he had given an order in Tagalog, but Norris ran to Alan's cruiser and rooted around in back until he found the old Polaroid there, one of two they used for taking crime-scene photographs. When the appropriations committee met, Alan was planning to ask for at least one new camera, but this afternoon the appropriations committee meeting seemed very unimportant.
Norris hurried back with the camera, aimed, and triggered it.
The drive whined.
"Better take another one just to be safe," Alan said. "Get the bodies, too. I'm not going to have those guys saying we broke the chain of evidence. Be damned if I will." He was aware that his voice sounded a shade querulous, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Norris took another Polaroid, documenting Alan's position outside the circle of evidence and the way the bodies were lying at the foot of the stop-sign. Then Alan leaned cautiously forward again and placed his fingers against the bloodstained neck of the woman lying on top.
There was no pulse, of course, but after a second the pressure of his fingers caused her head to fall away from the signpost and turn sideways. Alan recognized Nettle at once, and it was Polly he thought of.
Oh jesus, he thought dolefully. Then he went through the motions of feeling for Wilma's pulse, even though there was a meatcleaver buried in her skull. Her cheeks and forehead were printed with small dots of blood. They looked like heathen tattoos.
Alan got up and returned to where his men were standing on the other side of the tapes. He couldn't seem to stop thinking of Polly, and he knew that was wrong. He had to get her off his mind or he was going to bitch this up for sure. He wondered if any of the gawkers had ID'd Nettle already. if so, Polly would surely hear before he could call her. He hoped desperately that she wouldn't come down to see for herself.
You can't worry about that now, he admonished himself You've got a double murder on your hands, from the look.
"Get out your book," he told Norris. "You're club secretary."
It Jesus, Alan, you know how lousy my spelling is."
"Just write."
Norris gave the Polaroid to Clut and got his notebook out of his back pocket. A pad of Traffic Warnings with his name rubberstamped at the bottom of each sheet fell out with it. Norris bent, picked the pad up off the sidewalk, and stuffed it absently into his pocket again.
I want you to note that the head of the woman on top, designated Victim 1, was resting against the post of the stop-sign. I inadvertently pushed it off, checking for pulse."
How easy it is to slip into Police Speak, Alan thought, where cars become "vehicles" and crooks become "perpetrators" and dead townspeople become "designated victims." Police Speak, the wonderful sliding glass barrier.
He turned to Clut and told him to photograph this second configuration of the bodies, feeling extremely grateful that he'd had Norris document the original position before he touched the women.
Clut took the picture.
Alan turned back to Norris. "I want you to further note that when the head of Victim 1 moved, I was able to identify her as