The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,73

and scoring on the intercostal ribs.”

Elvira shook her head. “I’m not sure. My best guess is perimortem. I can’t definitively say.”

“It’s entirely possible an animal attacked her,” Tean said, moving to consider the amputation sites, “although this damage could have been caused by scavenging—not the pigs, because the marks aren’t consistent with pig teeth, but coyotes are a possibility. Actually, just to double back, coyotes also have been reported to eat bones, and we did see a coyote trying to scavenge the body. That might explain where the limbs went.” Tean paused, turning this over in his mind before continuing. “It’s entirely possible that, during an animal attack, a limb was amputated. But no animal purposefully amputates all four limbs and scatters them, and no animal attack would leave these tool marks on bone. Someone used a hatchet or an axe to dismember the body.” He glanced up and saw the look of surprise on Elvira’s face. “After that last case,” he explained, “I decided I ought to do some reading about forensics.”

“Don’t tell anybody,” Elvira said, “or they’ll give you my job. Here’s the real question: do you think this was an animal attack?”

“An animal clearly inflicted some of this damage. And if the bite pattern or the teeth marks are distinctive, we might even be able to match it to a particular animal, assuming we have a suspect. But if the wounds are perimortem, as you say, and none of them is the proximate cause of death, then my answer is no. This was not an animal attack.”

“But someone wanted it to look like one. You see why I wanted your opinion. I don’t want a repeat of last year.”

She was talking about the last murder that Tean had gotten tangled up in, when Jem’s foster brother had been killed. The killer had left the body for scavengers, hoping that animal predation would hide the killing wound.

“This is similar,” Tean said. “But whoever amputated those limbs made a mistake. My guess is that the killer had two safety mechanisms, if that’s how we want to describe them: first, hoping that the pigs would consume and destroy the remains; second, if they didn’t, hoping that the amputations and the bite marks would suggest some sort of animal attack.”

Elvira nodded, still considering Joy’s body. Then she looked at Tean. “Thank you. If we recover any more of the remains, I’ll need your expertise again.”

“You already knew everything I told you,” Tean said with a small smile, “but I appreciate the sentiment.”

“I didn’t know all of it, and I needed to hear some of it from an expert.”

“Of course. If the pigs—or the coyotes—did consume the limbs,” Tean hesitated, “it’s possible that key evidence has been destroyed.”

Elvira sighed and nodded. “I know.”

22

Jem woke that morning with a paw over his eyes. For a moment, the old fear was there, paralyzing Jem, the thought of Antony lunging at him in LouElla’s basement, teeth closing around his arm. Then Scipio did a huge doggy snore, and the knot between Jem’s shoulder blades loosened. He tried to tell Scipio to move, but another paw was over his mouth.

Worming free, Jem saw that it was late morning, the light spilling in through the sliding glass door that led onto the balcony. He vaguely remembered Tean leaving for work. Scipio had rolled onto his back, apparently untroubled by the fact that Jem was trying to get up, and the Lab was now sleeping with all four paws in the air and looking incredibly comfortable.

In the kitchen, he poured himself a bowl of Trix with two-percent milk—breakfast staples that, at some point, Tean had started stocking just for Jem. The doc had left something on the counter, and Jem studied it between slurps of sweetened cereal milk. It was the rental application for Tean’s apartment complex. Tean had filled out the forms in blue ballpoint ink. He knew Jem’s full name, his date of birth, and his Social. At the end of the form, Tean had filled in his own information as a cosigner. On top of the form, on a yellow sticky note, Tean had written, Better act fast. All Jem needed to do was sign, carry the application down to the manager’s office, and voila. Tean had even left the blue ballpoint pen, capped, next to the form.

But Jem didn’t grab the paperwork, and he didn’t take it downstairs. He sauntered through the apartment in the plaid boxer shorts he was wearing, examining the landscape