is just a good guess, understand? But it might just help you track down a few possibles before you get the official report. Figuring on the size of the roots that grew in and around the ribs and spine, I’d say—” he stopped, thought about it for a moment “—ten years. Give or take a couple of years on either side of that.”
Chad nodded, and then his eyes met mine.
Twelve years would be about the right time frame, I thought. But maybe the body had been there for as few as eight. And I was comforted to see more caution than optimism in Chad’s expression.
“You didn’t find a bullet,” I said, hoping that somehow I’d missed them bagging one up.
“No,” the stockier tech said. “And given this—”
Briefly, he shook his head as the sweep of his hand took in the forest. Then he stepped to the edge of the ravine, looked downward, and shook his head again as he spoke.
“What we’ve got here is a decade—more or less—of constant erosion, aggressive plant growth and exposure to the elements. Odds are, any physical evidence is long gone or so deeply buried that there’s no hope of finding it. Not even with dozens of people looking for it. And, frankly, this kind of case doesn’t warrant the manpower. So anything we find out about this gal is going to have come from her remains.”
As his partner spoke, the taller blond technician had slowly turned in place, his thoughtful gaze taking in the entire area enclosed by the yellow plastic tape.
“Hollow tree,” he murmured. And then he said more loudly: “We missed checking the tree trunk. The body was probably stuffed there first, so it’d be a good idea to take a look inside.”
Years earlier, a murderer had judged the rotting hole at the base of the massive tree large enough to serve as the entrance to a makeshift tomb. But over those years, woody vines as thick as a man’s arm had snaked up and around the dying tree. Encouraged by the light sifting through the thinning canopy overhead, new growth had crowded the ragged opening. Neither the crime-scene investigators nor Chad looked enthused about flattening themselves on the ground and angling their bulky upper bodies into the cramped hole. And, in fact, I doubted that any of their shoulders were narrow enough to fit.
The taller investigator pointed.
“Is that poison ivy?” he asked. “What is it they say? Something about three leaves?”
“Leaves of three, let it be,” Chad answered. “And yes, that is poison ivy.”
“I suppose you could avoid it if you were careful,” the tech with the jowly face observed.
I hadn’t been careful the night before, I thought as I stood listening, waiting for the men to work out the problem and reach the inevitable—and unwelcome—conclusion. Just lucky. I could still make out the impression of my elbows and knees in the humus-y soil next to the tree, and realized that I’d missed crawling through a patch of poison ivy by just a matter of inches. But then, I’d been concerned only that Tina might be inside.
“Hole’s too small for a grown man to crawl into it,” the taller technician said. “We’ll have to enlarge the opening to get a good look inside. A chain saw would do the job. Probably easy enough to get our hands on one. Be messy, though. Faster and easier if one of us was small enough…”
His voice trailed off about the time I noticed that the hole in the trunk was spun with tattered spiders’ webs. Only my pride and the three pairs of male eyes turned my way kept me from shuddering.
“I’ll do it,” I said without enthusiasm.
I waited for a moment, hoping that some valiant man would try to stop me. Would say that, in fact, the chain saw would be a better choice.
Wishful thinking.
Sighing, I slipped my billy club from my belt, then undid the buckle and wrapped the leather strap around my holster. I handed the holster to Chad, stepped over to the tree and, trying not to think about what my uniform—already perspiration stained—was going to look like by the time I finished, I used the billy club to clear the webs and bits of loose, termite-infested wood from the narrow opening.
I exchanged the billy club for a flashlight, turned the brown ball cap that was part of my uniform around so that its bill protected the back of my neck, then lay down on my right shoulder. Avoiding the