Shattered Palms (Lei Crime Series) by Neal Toby

Author:Neal, Toby [Neal, Toby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Lei slipped another pair of gloves on and knelt beside Dr. Gregory. He and his assistant, Tanaka, wore masks and long rubber gloves. They used trowels and wide paintbrushes to uncover the body as if it were a specimen at an archeological dig.

“Anything I can do?” Lei asked.

“Yeah. Why don’t you and Pono move the dirt we take out farther away and do another check through it for any useful trace?” Gregory swiped his arm across his forehead, leaving a muddy streak. Under the rubber coveralls, he was wearing a bright aloha shirt decorated with hula dancers.

Pono turned back, his phone to his ear, holding up a finger. “I’m updating the captain,” he said.

Lei moved the dirt away from the grave and sifted it through her hands, piling it a couple of feet away from the body.

Gregory glanced up and around. “Beautiful out here. What’s with all the chopped-down ginger?” Lei told him what Ferreira had shared earlier. Pono rejoined them just as they got to the victim’s face.

Tanaka used her paintbrush to gently dislodge the dirt from familiar features. “Six-foot white male, late twenties or early thirties,” Gregory said. “Brown hair. Anyone recognize him?” Gregory turned to look at Lei and Pono.

“It’s Mark Jacobsen,” Lei said. She rocked back on her heels and looked at Pono. “He was our suspect, but it turns out he’s a victim. I don’t know what this means.”

A long pause. No one else had anything to say. Lei was sickened by sorrow and anger, looking at the young ranger’s gentle face, dirt filling his mouth and nostrils. Someone had murdered him and dumped him here. She wondered if he’d been the one to shoot at her—or if he’d been dead, lying in the back of his own truck, when she’d pulled up to his house.

“I already checked the pockets for ID—nothing. I’ll take prints,” Dr. Gregory said.

“I don’t think he’ll be in the system unless he has a record,” Pono said. “Visual ID on the body by us should be enough, and I confirm this is Jacobsen, the ranger we’d worked with.”

“Cause of death appears to be an arrow wound.” Gregory pointed to the nub of black fletching protruding from the man’s chest. “Looks like the killer got him right through the heart. Whoever is taking these shots is damn good with a bow.”

“I know how hard it is to hit something,” Lei said. “I took a shot at the tires of Jacobsen’s truck and it was a total fail.”

“In all these cases, the shooter hasn’t removed the arrow,” Pono said. “The arrow’s a lead. It can be matched to others. It might carry trace. It’s interesting that the killer left them.”

“Be pretty messy to take them out,” Lei said. “That could cause other trace, a cascade effect with wound bleed and transfer.”

“Or the killer could be squeamish about what he—or she—is doing,” Pono said.

“Well, since I’ve handled all the arrows, including the one recovered from your Chinese poacher who lived, I can tell you that these are very common, cheap arrows.

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