The Theory of Death Read online

  IN ANY SEASON, woodlands hiking was tricky business. There was a sameness to the forests and it was very easy to get disoriented. Plus, phones often didn’t get good reception, if they got any at all. In freezing weather, when the trails were iced over and each step had to be made with care, Decker knew that getting lost was not an option, especially with Tyler in tow. He opened his car trunk, pulled out his survival backpack, and looped it over his shoulder. It had water, thermal packets, freeze-dried food, and most important a warm change of clothing. He had a compass, a pad of paper, a camera, and some evidence bags.

  The woods in winter were fifty shades of gray and none of them sexy: stark, colorless, and bleak. Thousands of bare trees sat in snow, their roots buried under scattered detritus and rotting flora. Evergreens and pines were scattered among the deciduous trees, and Decker got a hint of Christmas aroma depending on how the icy wind blew. And the entire place dripped water: cold and clammy.

  McAdams shifted on his feet. “How long do you reckon to be out there?”

  “A couple of hours. Thanks for the coffee, by the way. Are you warm enough?”

  “I’m fine. Do you want me to carry that, Old Man?”

  “If you’re going to call me Old Man, then yes, you can carry the pack.” Decker took it off and gave it to McAdams.

  “This is heavy.”

  “You offered.”

  The kid smiled. It opened up his face. McAdams was a good-looking boy: a thin patrician face, long straight nose, hazel eyes, and normally short, dark, curly hair. Girls would think him handsome if he’d lose the perpetual scowl.

  They took their first tentative steps into the woods. Decker looked around. Some areas were more protected than others, which meant the snow layer was uneven. No shoe prints to be seen, but there was the same disturbance that he’d found in the backyard. He looked around and sipped coffee.

  “What are you thinking?” McAdams asked. “That she was killed and dragged into the woods out back?”

  “I didn’t see any evidence of a murder scene in the house. Nothing upended and no overwhelming smell of bleach or antiseptic. But I didn’t take a microscopic look.”

  “So maybe she was taken into the woods at gunpoint and the bad guy shot her there?”

  “I don’t know, Tyler.” Decker paused, then pointed. “The snow has been messed with between those two trees going up the hill. Let’s go there and have a look.”

  They walked a few minutes without talking, the snow crunching under their feet. Decker trudged slowly, looking up and down and to and fro and left and right. Not likely he’d find anything of evidential value, but at this point in his life, it was a habit. They seemed to be trodding on a natural trail with the ground underneath somewhat free of rocks or roots. The snow was deep but he could still feel the ground under the soles of his boots. As they climbed high and went deeper, the temperature dropped and an arctic mist rose from the ground. Visibility was curtailed.

  “This is creepy,” McAdams said. “This doesn’t bother you? It’s like flying blind.”

  “Then we’re lucky we’re walking and it’s in daylight.”

  “You are intrepid.”

  “This isn’t the wilds of Africa.” Decker stopped to survey his surroundings and check his compass. “Let me just take down a few coordinates.”

  “I was never one for camping.”

  “Growing up like you did, I’m not surprised.” Decker looked at him. “We’re about five minutes from civilization. Nothing’s going to happen to us.”

  “What if the yeti isn’t a myth?”

  Decker laughed. “C’mon, Tyler, let’s go this way.”

  The old man led and the young lad followed, the two of them walking for another ten minutes deeper into the bowels of the woodlands. The trek was slow and slippery, the gelid mist stinging the eyes, the temperature cramping the muscles and numbing the face. Decker kept his eyes focused on the disturbed ground until they reached a copse of trees.

  He stopped.

  The ground was covered in puddles of snow and dead foliage. But he could see clearly that the location had been the target of recent activity. There were wild animal tracks: foxes, rabbits, deer, vultures and maybe a bear too stupid to hibernate. Decker’s nostrils perked up. “I’m definitely smelling some kind of carrion.”

  “I can’t smell. I think my nose froze.”

  “Let’s follow my nose. It can’t be too much farther.”

  “Oh joy.”

  “Don’t get sick on me, McAdams. You might have gotten a little soft these past months.”

  “I’m fine.” He adjusted the straps of the backpack. “I think.”

  Decker motioned him to the right. They walked a couple of hundred yards, and as they did, McAdams said, “Yeah, I’m smelling something now.” More walking. Tyler covered his nose with his gloved hand. “God, that’s putrid.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty bad . . .” Decker stopped in his tracks. “Oh dear God.”

  They were both looking at the half-eaten nude corpse. Most of the torso was gone and had become an empty bowl of blood and torn guts. The neck had been eaten through as well, leaving a decapitated head that had rolled several inches from the body. The legs and arms had sustained numerous bites with chunks taken out of the flesh. She had been nude, but her clothes lay piled neatly beside her body, reminiscent of Elijah Wolf. Winking from under the detritus was something metal.

  Decker squatted down and brushed a few leaves aside. He was staring at a 9 mm Ruger stainless-steel pistol. He left it where he found it and took out his compass. He made a small map on his pad of paper and then he looked up. “Let’s go back and call it in.” He looked up at McAdams, whose skin tone was pale and ashen and not from the cold. “You okay, Tyler?”

  The kid nodded. “This isn’t pretty bad. It’s very, very bad.”

  “It is.” Decker took a swig of coffee. “Drink.”

  “I don’t think . . .” He did a dry retch and swallowed hard. “I’m . . . okay.”

  “You’re gray, Tyler.” Decker took out a camera and began snapping pictures. “Catch your breath and drink the coffee. It’ll help because if something’s going down the gullet, other things can’t come back up.”

  “You think so?”

  “Are you going to heave?”

  “No.” Another swallow. “I’m fine.” To prove it, McAdams took out his iPad and began taking pictures as well. Looking through the touch-screen camera was helpful.

  He could pretend he was watching Netflix.

  CHAPTER 16

  DO YOU KNOW who she is?” Stella Grady worked in the hospital morgue in a bigger town near Utica. It was her day off and she was kind enough to schlepp to Greenbury to act as the coroner. She was tall and big-boned with short dark hair, dark eyes, and a square chin. She was wearing a heavy coat with big boots, the soles encased in blue shoe coverings to prevent contamination. Underneath she had on blue scrubs. She was in a crouch.

  “I believe she was Katrina Belfort, but I have to get her ID’d by someone who knows her,” Decker said. “Belfort is a professor at Kneed Loft. She didn’t show up for work today and that’s unusual.”

  “I hope someone can identify her. There’s been lots of animal activity all over the body and the head’s a mess.”

  “I’ll pass around the least gruesome postmortem face I have. I’d like to at least put it on what’s left of the neck and torso so it doesn’t look so awful. We have a gun. Do you have a gunshot wound?”

  “We’ve got a large crater here.” Stella handled the head delicately. “Something blew out the back of the skull.”

  “Like a short-range gunshot from a Ruger?”

  “Very possibly.” She regarded the gun in the bag. “I have to examine this more closely, but I get a feeling that something else was at play besides a single gunshot wound.”

  “So you’re not thinking suicide?”

  “Not sure what it is yet, Detective. This could have been one well-placed bullet, but t
he occiput is an odd area to shoot yourself. It can be done, but it would be an awkward hand position. What about the gun? You saw it in situ. Did it look like it was dropped from a suicidal hand?”

  Decker regarded the crime scene. “It was almost buried in dead foliage . . . like it sank under. I have to think about it. There have been so many disturbances at the scene from animals that I haven’t a clue what was the original position of the gun. Any estimated time of death?”

  “I obviously can’t use the liver. Whatever is left over is frozen. Normally it takes a while for the entire body to drop to these kinds of low temperatures, but because she’s in bits and pieces, everything would be sped up.” She stood up. “Judging by the torso and the amount of fresh flesh . . . maybe last night to early morning.”

  “Thanks. That’s a start.”

  “Can we start gathering up the remains? It’s going to take time to transport the body parts down the hill and into the van.”

  “Yeah, sure, go ahead.” Decker turned to McAdams, who was taking photographs on his iPad. “Yo, Harvard.”

  The kid looked up. “You haven’t called me that in a while.” A smile. “Perhaps the moniker means you want my professional help.”

  Decker smiled back. “This is the plan. I’m going to stay up here with Forensics. I’ll need a couple of people to canvass the area—maybe someone saw or heard something last night.”

  “I can do that.”

  “I’ve got Karen and Kevin on it. I have another assignment for you that’ll be equally time-consuming. So you tell me if you want in.”

  “Of course, I want in. We’ve got a genuine crime.” A pause. “This isn’t suicide, right?”

  “Nothing’s been ruled out yet. But to me, it looks staged to look like a suicide—the gun, the nude body in the woods with the clothes around.”

  “Elijah Wolf.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So maybe we should take a second look at his death.”

  “We will, but only after we’ve taken a first look at Katrina’s death. We’ve only seen her once. I’d like another ID. Do you have a decent shot of her face on your iPad?”

  “I got plenty of head shots . . . no pun intended.”

  “I need you to take the best ones you have. Go to Kneed Loft and get her identified by two sources who knew her better than we did. I’d suggest Ferraga and Rosser since we’ve talked to them recently.”

  “The head isn’t attached to a body. It’s really gross.”

  “We’re going to put it back on the neck and put a scarf around it so we don’t make people sick. And while you’re at Kneed Loft, find out where Rosser and Ferraga were last night.”

  “What about Dean Zhou?” McAdams said. “She was eager to get her hands on Elijah Wolf’s papers.”

  “Right. Get her alibi. Belfort also had students—Batra and Weissberg and Mallon. Talk to them as well.”

  “We know where Mallon was.”

  “After three A.M. we know where she was. Between ten and three, she said she was at Pascal Library. Go see if you can get people to place her at the library during the entire time she said she was there. We have someone sneaking into her room around midnight. Maybe it was Mallon slipping back to her room to change bloody clothing.”

  McAdams nodded. “And if no one can vouch for her?”

  “Then she’s a suspect. We need to find out about Belfort: her relationship to her students and colleagues. Her personal relationships. Did she have a boyfriend, girlfriend, or was she having trouble with anyone specific?”

  “What about Theo Rosser? He hated her.”

  “He didn’t say anything against her. It was more like she hated him. That’s why he’s on the suspect list. I also want to know if she was in debt. Was she doing something dishonest? Did she have any bad habits, and lastly, is there an ex somewhere?”

  “We’re treating this as a murder and not a suicide.”

  “It’s a very, very suspicious death. I’ll be here at least a couple of hours, so you’ve got some time. Come back to Katrina’s house at around three-thirty and we’ll go through it with a fine-tooth comb. If you get hung up with something, leave a message on my phone. I don’t have reception here, but I’ll pick the message up when I’m back in civilization.”

  “Got it.”

  “I’m hoping you’re still planning to leave tomorrow, Tyler. Unfortunately for everyone, this throws a big wrench in my time schedule. I may not be able to drive you up because I might not get to Eli’s parents until Thursday.”

  “What about Gold?”

  “Oh, right. You can take the papers up to him when you go back. I just won’t be able to come with you.”

  “Or we could both see Gold on Thursday.”

  “The way things are going, Harvard, that’s a big if. You really need to get back to your former life.” When McAdams didn’t answer, Decker said, “Am I talking to deaf ears?”

  “What?” McAdams quipped.

  “Very funny.”

  “I’ll be fine. Just make sure I don’t get shot again.”

  “That is not going to happen.”

  “Then I’m a happy camper. I’ll see you at Belfort’s house around . . . three-thirty?”

  “Sounds good. By then, the light will be fading and we won’t be able to do too much out here anyway.” McAdams hesitated. Decker said, “What is it?”

  “You really suspect Mallon Euler of this?”

  “I have no opinions yet.”

  “If you really do suspect her, I’ll show her the face and see how she reacts.”

  “Let’s hold off. Her room was ransacked and she seemed pretty shaken. If she was involved with this mess, we’ll show her the postmortem photos at a more opportune time for us. If she wasn’t involved, there’s no sense giving her nightmares that’ll last a lifetime.”

  AS SOON AS Rosser saw the photos, he turned pale and his hands started shaking. “It looks like a grotesque version of Katrina Belfort.”

  The man was ashen. Beads of sweat had congregated on his brow. He wiped his face with a tissue. He wore a dark green sweater and brown corduroy pants. Scuffed penny loafers sat on his feet. He tried to talk but words caught in his gullet.

  McAdams said, “Do you need some water?”

  “No . . . thank you.” Rosser was still trembling. “How did this happen?”

  McAdams wasn’t sure if Rosser meant what was the method of death or what were the sociologic circumstances that led up to the death. In either case, the question was probably rhetorical and didn’t require an answer. He pulled up a chair and sat down. “How well did you know her?”

  “She was a colleague.” He shook his head, his eyes faraway. “We didn’t socialize outside of the department, if that’s what you’re asking. Whatever spare time I have, I spend with my wife.” He wiped his face again. “God, this is awful.” He regarded McAdams. “Was it suicide like Elijah?”

  When unsure how to reply, McAdams answered the question with a question. “What makes you think it’s suicide?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”

  “Was Dr. Belfort close to Eli?”

  “Not that I know of. She had been on Eli’s thesis committee, but she excused herself due to other commitments. Aldo Ferraga took her place. But I was his primary adviser.”

  Questioning a person was harder than McAdams had thought. He was used to jumping off Decker’s train of thought. “Who else was on Eli’s committee?”

  “There were three of us: Aldo Ferraga, Lennaeus Tolvard, and myself.”

  “Lennaeus Tolvard?” McAdams hoped he sounded genuinely surprised.

  “He’s in the physics department. It isn’t a must obviously, but it’s looked favorably upon when you round up an outside professor for your committee. I guess after Katrina resigned from Eli’s committee, he took it upon himself to recruit Tolvard.”

  “Tolvard.” McAdams paused. “I’ve heard the name before.” Rosser said nothing and McAdams didn’t push
it. Until he had a definite direction, he should stick to what Decker told him to do. “Who were Katrina’s students? We’ll need to talk to them.”

  “I know she’s the primary adviser for Mallon Euler. I sent Mallon to her because I was just too busy. And I was trying to help Katrina build up her research lab and I thought Mallon was a good choice.”

  “Did you send her anyone else?”

  “Not personally, no. I believe she had three students in her lab: Mallon, of course. I think Ari Weissberg was also one of her students, although I don’t think he was happy being there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Her lab was just getting started. If you want to get into a top-tier program, it’s better to be in a lab where the professor is tenured. Not that there was anything wrong with Katrina. She was extremely bright. Just . . . untested, I want to say.”

  “You said three students. Who’s the third student?”

  “Oh yes. Damodar Batra. He was her first student. They seemed to get along very well . . . maybe too well.”

  McAdams perked up. “Meaning?”

  “He had been seen going in and out of her house. During daylight hours, mind you, but it is unprofessional to hold meetings with your students at your residence.”

  “I see,” McAdams said. “Do you think professional turned to personal?”

  “Nothing to indicate yes or no for that one.”

  “Speaking of personal relationships, did Professor Belfort have a boyfriend?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Who were her friends?”

  “I don’t know anything about her social life outside the college.”

  “But you knew that Damodar Batra came over to her house.”

  “It’s a small department in a small college. Things get around. But truly, I don’t know about her social life. At the few departmental parties we’ve had, she had always come alone.”

  McAdams thought a moment. “How long has Dr. Belfort been with the college?”

  “Two years. We had a search committee for candidates. It does the interviews, but all tenured faculty votes for final confirmation.”