Cold Path by Melissa F. Miller

Author:Melissa F. Miller [Miller, Melissa F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brown Street Books

18

Bodhi spotted Bette and Fred in the buffet line and pointed at an unoccupied table out on the terrace. The air was crisp, which meant there were few hardy souls eating al fresco, despite the heaters spaced throughout the seating area. It would afford them some privacy.

Bette nodded. Eliza joined the buffet line while he headed outside to secure the table. Once the others arrived with their sandwiches and chips, he went inside and piled a plate with salad and fruit, swept four bottles of water into the crook of his arm, and maneuvered through the crowd back out to the terrace.

“It’s a little chilly,” he acknowledged as he handed out the waters. “But we want to be able to talk without being overheard.”

Fred and Bette exchanged a look.

“What?” Bodhi asked.

Bette smiled knowingly. “Using my keen investigative insight, I sense this is a working lunch.”

Fred nodded. “You two are up to something.”

Eliza shrugged. “Guilty as charged.”

“Let’s hear it,” Bette prompted.

Bodhi arranged his napkin on his lap. “Sure. But if you want to tell us about your morning first, we’re all ears.”

Bette arched an eyebrow. “Right. The panels are so fascinating that Fred and I have been debating the merits of finding a caffeine drip to keep ourselves awake for the afternoon sessions. So, let’s start with your news. Spill it.”

“The body that Davina Jones found almost certainly dates to the mid-1800s.”

“Holy crow,” Fred murmured.

Bette shook her head, in a fast, short motion, as if she were shaking water from her hair. “So . . . She’s—a hundred and fifty years old?”

“Thereabouts,” Eliza confirmed.

“Obviously, we can’t date her with precision just by performing a visual examination. But we’re confident that specialized testing will back up our assessment.

“And she’s so well-preserved that Dexter really thought she was a contemporary corpse?” Bette mused.

“Yes. The relatively good condition of the body actually makes it easy to tell she didn’t die recently,” Eliza explained. “If she’d been killed and dumped without embalming, she’d have been putrid and bloated, skin peeling off, the whole deal.”

Fred blanched and dropped his sandwich to his plate.

Eliza leaned across and stage-whispered to Bette, “Weak stomach.”

Bodhi pressed on. “She’s not just an old corpse. She’s an old hanging victim.”

Bette paused, her water bottle hovering midway to her lips. “Are you saying she was murdered?”

He made a slow down motion, palms out, urging caution. “We can’t say that for sure. She may have committed suicide. But there’s no doubt she was hanged, the ligature left deep furrows in her neck—they’re still visible.”

“Hanged,” Fred mused.

“Possibly lynched, according to Davina Jones,” Eliza added.

“We’d need to autopsy her to see if her hyoid bone was fractured or if any petechiae signs are visible on her eyes or elsewhere, but the likely cause of death was cerebral anoxia.” Even though he realized the words were gibberish to the two police chiefs, he wanted them to have as much information as possible.

But they weren’t listening anyway.

“Wait. Professor Jones was at the autopsy? Dexter told you that was a no-go.

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