Dead Guilty Read Online Free PDF Page B

bodies?’’
The
passenger,
a
tall
lean
man
close
to
thirty,
stepped
out
and
shouldered
his
video
camera
and
trained it on the two timber cruisers.
‘‘You are the two who found the bodies, right?’’ the
reporter asked again.
‘‘We found them and called the sheriff. That’s all
there was to it,’’ Steven told her.
‘‘Tell us about the scene.’’
‘‘The sheriff told us not to talk about it,’’ said Chris.
‘‘He can’t order you not to talk.’’
‘‘And you can’t order us to talk.’’ Chris shrugged.
‘‘As soon as we saw the bodies, we left and called the
sheriff. That’s it.’’
‘‘How many bodies were there?’’
‘‘We can’t say anything about it.’’
‘‘What was it like, coming upon dead bodies?’’
The two of them glared at her a moment. ‘‘What
do you think it was like?’’ said Steven. ‘‘How many
times
have
you
found
dead
bodies
in
your
work
place?’’
Diane was glad to see that they were more reluctant
to talk to the reporter than they were to talk with her.
As
the
reporter
was
trying
to
pull
answers
from
Chris and Steven, Diane saw the two deputies, Chuck
and Leon, coming up the trail from the crime scene
to tape off the vehicle path through the woods. She
walked down to meet them.
‘‘I’m glad you’re here. I fear I was going to have
a hard time keeping that reporter from crashing the
crime scene.’’
‘‘That’s Pris Halloran from that little TV station in
Atlanta,
WXNG,’’
said
Chuck.
‘‘She
cruises
around
listening to her scanner. She’s always trying to break
a
big
story.
Mostly,
she
makes
a
whole
lot
out
of
nothing.’’
‘‘The
guy’s
Kyle
Anthony,’’
said
Leon.
‘‘He
got
fired from one of the big Atlanta stations after he was
arrested for possession of cocaine.’’
‘‘I think both of them’s hungry for some kind of big
news score,’’ said Chuck. ‘‘I see she’s giving the timber
guys a hard time.’’
From the stiff posture Chris and Steven had taken,
folded
arms,
head
down,
Diane
guessed
Chuck
was
right.
‘‘Would you get that damn thing out of my face?
You trying to get a view of my tonsils?’’ Chris’ voice
carried clearly down the road to where Diane and the
deputies were securing the crime scene tape.
‘‘Looks like Chris Edwards needs a little backup,’’
said Leon.
The three of them walked up to them at a fast pace.
‘‘Everything all right here?’’ asked Leon.
‘‘I’m
just
conducting
an
interview,’’
said
Pris
Halloran.
‘‘We’ve got to get back to work.’’ Steven opened
the door and slid into the driver’s seat.
‘‘You know,’’ said Diane, ‘‘if the sheriff gets up to
the road and you aren’t there, you’re not likely to get
another chance to talk with him today.’’
That got the reporter and the cameraman moving.
They jumped in their SUV and backed up to the turn
around and left before Chris and Steven could make
their getaway.
    ‘‘Fill
me in,’’ Diane said to Jin when she finally got
back to the main crime scene.
Jin handed over the sketches he and Neva had made.
‘‘We found
something interesting.’’
He led
her to
the
bodies
through
the
path
they
had
searched
and
cleared. ‘‘Notice anything funny?’’
Diane scrutinized the corpse in front of her, tuning
out
the
aroma
of
decaying
flesh.
She
looked
at
the
hands tied at the wrist, well on their way to becom
ing skeletonized.
‘‘Well, damn,’’ she said.
The killer had cut off the fingertips, leaving an open
wound for the flies to lay their eggs and the maggots
to
infest
quickly.
The
flesh
on
the
hands
was
eaten
away before the rest of the body.
‘‘Damn’s
right,’’
said
Jin.
‘‘No
chance
of
getting
prints.’’
‘‘I suppose the others are the same.’’
‘‘Yes. Lots of good opportunities for getting some
thing from the ropes, though. I’d
like to watch you
examine them. Been wanting to learn to do that.’’
‘‘Finding anything on the ground?’’
‘‘Lots