Angela nodded. “I appreciate your coming,” she said.
Angela and David led the way. Only Nikki remained upstairs. Robertson took the flashlight from Morris and poked his head into the hole.
“I’ll be damned!” he said. “It’s the quack.”
Robertson faced the Wilsons. “Sorry this has happened to you folks,” he said. “But I recognize the victim despite the fact that he looks a little worse for wear. His name is Dr. Dennis Hodges. In fact, this was his house, as you probably are aware.”
Angela’s eyes met David’s and she stifled a shiver. Gooseflesh had appeared on the back of her neck.
“What we have to do is knock the rest of this wall down so we can remove the body,” Robertson continued. “Do you folks have any problem with that?”
David said that they didn’t.
“What about calling the medical examiner?” Angela asked. Through her interest in forensics, she knew it was protocol to call the medical examiner on any suspicious death. This one certainly qualified.
Robertson regarded Angela for a few moments trying to think of something to say. He didn’t like anyone telling him how to do his job, especially a woman. The only problem was that Angela was right. And now that he’d been reminded he couldn’t ignore it.
“Where’s the phone?” Robertson said.
“In the kitchen,” Angela said.
Nikki had to be pried from the phone. She’d been back and forth between Caroline and Arni with the exciting news about finding a body in their basement.
Once the medical examiner had been called, Robertson and Morris set to work removing the cinder block wall.
David brought down an extension cord and a floor lamp to help them see what they were doing. The added light also gave them all a better look at the body. Although it was generally well preserved, there was some skeletonization of the lower half of the face. Some of the jawbones and most of the teeth were garishly exposed. The upper part of the face was surprisingly intact. The eyes were hideously open. In the center of the forehead at the hairline was a caved-in area covered with a green mold.
“That pile of stuff in the corner looks like empty cement bags,” Robertson said. He was using the beam of the flashlight as a pointer. “And there’s the trowel. Hell, he’s got everything in there with him. Maybe it was a suicide.”
David and Angela looked at each other with the same thought: Robertson was either the world’s worst detective or a devotee of crude humor.
“I wonder what those papers are?” Robertson said, directing the light at a number of scattered sheets of paper in the depths of the makeshift tomb.
“Looks like copy machine paper,” David said.
“Well, look at that,” Robertson said as he directed the flashlight at a tool that was partially concealed under the body. It resembled a flat crowbar.
“What is it?” David asked.
“That’s a pry bar,” Robertson said. “It’s an all-purpose tool, used mostly for demolition.”
Nikki called down the stairs to say that the medical examiner had arrived. Angela went up to meet him.
Dr. Tracy Cornish was a thin man of medium height with wire-rimmed spectacles. He carried a large, old-fashioned black leather doctor’s bag.
Angela introduced herself and explained that she was a pathologist at Bartlet Community Hospital. She asked Dr. Cornish if he’d had formal forensic training. He admitted he hadn’t, and he explained that he filled in as a district medical examiner to supplement his practice. “But I’ve been doing it for quite a number of years,” Dr. Cornish added.
“I was only asking because I have an interest in forensics myself,” Angela said. She hadn’t meant to embarrass the man.
Angela led Dr. Cornish down to the tomb. He stood and stared at the scene for a few minutes. “Interesting,” he said finally. “The body is in a particularly good state of preservation. How long has he been missing?”
“About eight months,” Robertson said.
“Shows what a cool, dry place will do,” Dr. Cornish said. “This tomb has been like a root cellar. It’s even dry after all this rain.”
“Why is there some skeletonization around the jaws?” David asked.