Chapter 29 Chapter Twenty Nine

Gallimore called at 9:20.With the coming of the weekend race, the media's inquiry into the cause of Wayne Gamble's death has become more and more hysterical.Right now Gallimore has no reason to leave the circuit. His tone of voice was particularly hasty, and he didn't allow me to mention that the identity of the unknown corpse in the garbage dump had been confirmed, or briefly talk about the identification process. Slidell called around 10 and I updated him on the latest developments in the case.He promised to go to Maddie Padgett as soon as he checked the documents and computers found in Wayne Gamble's trailer.

At 11:15 Williams called.I was gluing together pieces of skull in the autopsy room, and in the bowl of sand next to my elbow was Wayne Gamble's partially reconstructed skull. Panting, Williams said, "When we were about to leave the Forensic Bureau just now, Wenger drove from his mother's house to the nature reserve on Stephens Road. Do you know?" "On both sides of the reserve are Mountain Island Lake and Lake Norman, right?" "Exactly. Stephens Road cuts off Beatty's Ford Road and winds through a residential area of ​​development and ends in a thick wood."

Another voice rang through the microphone. "Hold on." I suddenly felt suffocated, as if Williams had put the receiver on his chest.He came back later to pick up the microphone. "Sorry. Wenger pulled over and went into the woods. Agents found him about 50 yards north of Stephens Road. He was on his knees, as if praying." When I heard this, my heart beat suddenly accelerated. "Agents told me about the situation. They said there was a depression where Wenger knelt. I ordered them to arrest Wenger immediately and bring a body search dog to the scene." I squeeze the receiver tighter.I know what's coming.

"The dog went into this depression and suddenly became abnormal." "What's the situation over there now?" "Crime Scene Investigation Unit officers are on the scene." "I'll go as well." "I wish you could say that." The sun was already setting when all the bones were dug out.One skeleton pressed on top of the other, arms entwined, and the two victims died hugging each other. The pit was not deep, and the digging and filling process was hasty.In line with the routine.Wenger, or whoever buried the two bodies, made the common-sense error of not leaving a mark. He did not pile the soil on the pit higher than the surrounding flat ground, but just stepped on it as level as the surrounding ground.Over time, the compacted soil slowly subsided, eventually exposing the burial site.

It was sweltering heat and high humidity throughout the afternoon.There was a dead silence in the woods.The trees, the birds and the insects were all silent, there was no sound. The body search dogs are still there.It's called Clara.Clara's handler walks him through our dig site every once in a while.It sniffed around with its nose, then lay down on the ground with its tongue stretched out.The sun shone brightly on its fur. I marked out a working area and drew a few curtains around it to cover it.Soon Slidell also rushed over.He watched in silence as I directed the CSI technicians to slowly remove the dirt from the bones with their trowels.In this hot and unbearable working environment, they work lazily without any interest.

When I asked Slidell why he was here, he said his superiors believed the deaths of Wayne Gamble and Cindy Gamble were connected.Tell him to send Wayne Gamble's computer to the Computer Analysis Center immediately, and send himself to the scene.From now on, he has no other tasks, the only thing to do is to keep an eye on this case. We erected scaffolds, cordoned off the scene, but it was unnecessary.In the heat and in such a remote location, no one would come here to gawk at us doing the routine work of getting up close and personal with skeletons. The two bodies we presumed to be Cindy Gamble and Kyle Lovett have been exhumed and placed in what appear to be compassionate flat body bags.

I sat in a patrol car parked on the side of Stephens Road, sipping bottled mineral water, the radio crackling, and my mind spinning as usual.I came to the field to do my job, to perform the duties of a specialist.But I think I'm in trouble. I heard the names Gamble and Lovett are really only less than a week away?I feel in a trance that it has been a long time, and there is a feeling of deja vu.I used to be hopeful.Now with the final result.Two dead bodies. I try to stop my brain from thinking.I don’t want to repeat in my mind the muddy corpse that remains after the layers of mud have been peeled off, I don’t want to recall the tragic state of the corpse when it was dug out of the pit, I don’t want to see the small round hole in the center of the occipital bone on the back of the corpse .

As soon as I saw the remains, I recognized the earrings—a pair of small silver hoops, with some dainty model racing cars hanging from one side. I saw a small oval face and short, urchin-like blonde hair. Get rid of this image. You didn't kill her, I said silently to Kyle Lovett in my mind, you probably tried to save her life. I oversaw the exhumation process and performed preliminary biometrics on the two skeletons.Then put Slidell in charge of the scene. I watched him come all the way out of the woods, talk to Williams, then turn around and walk in my direction. Slidell stretched his trouser legs and squatted beside the car, clutching the handle of the open door with one hand, his face purple, his hair and the armpits of his clothes soaked with sweat.

"It's not the result we hoped for." Slidell's voice was a little hoarse. I didn't speak. Slidell pulled a handkerchief from his hip pocket. His palm left a saddle-shaped sweat stain on the door handle. "Did you find anything about those two corpses just now?" He asked. "Women's earrings. Zippers. Some musty rags." "Do you have any shoes?" "No." Slidell shook his head. "Look, is this the first crime scene?" I asked. "Hard to say. The killers forced them to take off their shoes. Their bodies may have been brought here from somewhere else."

"Did the metal detector detect anything?" "Nothing detected." He knew I was asking about bullets or casings or something. Behind Slidell I saw two officers carrying a stretcher.They carried the two body bags on a stretcher to a gurney in the morgue and fastened them with black leather straps. I turned to look behind me and saw Slidell watching my face. "What do you need, another bottle of water?" "No need." I swallowed, "Did Wenger do it?" "This idiot keeps muttering sorry. Over and over. Like confessing to me." "why?"

"I don't know what's going on in this idiot's head either. But trust me, we'll make him tell everything he knows." I felt hot all over in the car, like hot syrup on my skin.I got out of the car and brushed up my long hair, letting the breeze blow my neck.Not a breath of wind. I watched as the mortuary officer slammed the back door of the car and locked it. I felt a sob quietly welling up in my chest.I tried to hold back. I caught a glimpse of Williams walking towards me.If he says anything nasty to me again I'll tear his mouth out, I promise myself.do as promised. "Almost there?" Williams asked Slidell. "Ok." "Where is Wenger?" "Under interrogation." For a while the three of us stood there silently, feeling a little awkward in our hearts. The two men obviously had mood swings, and they didn't know what to do or what to say for a while.And I don't want to help them at all. Slidell didn't look me in the eye and said to Williams, "I'll see you in town, and we'll be tough on that bastard." On the drive home, my eye sockets felt hot and my chest heaved. don't cry.You dare to cry and try. For some reason, I really didn't cry. Took a bubble bath, changed my clothes and it did wonders to my body in no time. But I still feel depressed. Nor did Slidell's visit lift my spirits one iota.Maybe it has something to do with his behavior style.It seems that he came to the door this time to inform me about the interrogation of Grady Wenger. "This idiot is not cooperative at all." "What do you mean by that?" "He refused to confess, his eyes were kept closed, only his lips moved, as if he was praying." "Did he mention the pit where the bodies were buried?" "Are you listening to me?" "You guys still have some other interrogation methods!" "Yeah. How did I forget to use the rubber hose!" "Where's the psychologist?" "We reminded Mr Wenger that the death penalty applies in this state and now we are asking him to think about it." The two skeletons appeared before his eyes again.I felt a wave of resentment and sadness.Suppress such emotions quickly. "What now?" I asked. "I'm going to try harder and see if I can get some more words from Lynn Nolan. This time I'll go directly to her house." "why?" "I wanted to know a little more about the guy Lovett was talking to at Double Glass." "You think Nolan is hiding something?" "It's hard to say, I'll go to her place first to find out." "Did Williams tell you that the FBI took all the files on the Gamble and Lovett cases?" "No." "As a matter of fact he has admitted it himself." "Really?" I told Slidell how surprised I was to discover Wenger's testimony in 1998 and last Monday were worded exactly the same. "Randall just called to make sure that Wenger's wording was correct twice. Wenger must have had someone look at the original file beforehand." "Those arrogant idiots." Slidell's jaw muscles bulged and then relaxed again, "it doesn't matter, that son of a bitch has committed a crime and will definitely go to jail. The problem now is that there are other Who?" "Where does Nolan live?" I asked. "In an old house. In Kannapolis." Apparently Slidell never made it home, and he reeked enough to overwhelm a horse.At this point I don't want to ride with him at all. "Are you going to leave now?" "Originally I wanted to have a couple of beers or watch a movie first." The hands of the clock pointed to 9:20. I was sleepy as hell. "Wait a minute." I hurried into the study and picked up my purse. The journey is not as far as I imagined, but the lethality of body odor is far beyond my imagination. Arriving in Kannapolis, I was desperate for another hot shower. Nolan lived in a rudimentary mock-colonial apartment that seemed to have been built in minutes.The unit she lives in shares a reinforced concrete staircase with three other units. Slidell and I crawled to her door and rang the bell. Nolan opened the door almost at the same time.She wears very little, and mostly black, sheer clothing. "Forgot your key, little fool?" Upon seeing us for the first time, Nolan's facial expression undergoes a series of changes. In a split second she was first confused, then recognized us, and finally had fear in her eyes. "What are you doing here?" She quickly hid behind the door, looking around vigilantly. "We came at the wrong time, Ms. Nolan?" "It's really not the time." Nolan glanced past us and turned to the stairs behind us. "I just can't figure out a few details." Slidell looked like the detective Columbo. "It's a bit late today, can't we talk about it tomorrow?" The woman was extremely nervous, "I'm going to the city tomorrow, or wherever you want me to go." Downstairs in the parking lot, a car slammed its door shut. The expression on Nolan's face became more and more terrified. There was a series of footsteps on the stairs. "Don't come up!" Nolan yelled, "Run away!" It's too late. A man poked his head out from the landing. At first I wasn't sure who it was. I recognized it later. The man froze for a moment, turned around abruptly, and ran down the stairs with heavy steps. Slidell strode after him. I stared helplessly at what was happening in front of me, with a dazed expression on my face.