Page 58 of Vanish From Sight

He rose and looked back at the branch.

“What is it?”

“I’m thinking.” He pointed to her foot. “She was walked out here. The grazes could indicate that.”

“So she was conscious?”

“Conscious, maybe. At least for a while. Perhaps she came to and tried to make a run for it while whoever was setting this up… or…”

“You think she could have done this to herself?” Callie gazed down. “But what about the laceration on the back of the head?”

“I don’t know, Callie. Again, it’s just a theory. We have to explore all possibilities. Maybe the first attempt failed. The rope came away from the branch and she landed hard hitting the back of her head.”

“But why would she take her life?”

He looked at her. “Could be any number of reasons. Guilt maybe? And, if so, did she play a hand in Katherine’s death? Or was she targeted? We need to speak with Rector Hawthorne again.”

As he was speaking, his train of thought was interrupted by singing. He glanced past Callie. She turned and the two of them watched as the coroner of the region came sauntering into view. His love of metal music was obvious from the faded black T-shirt emblazoned with Slayer under his brown suit jacket. It looked as if it had been fished out of a thrift store bargain bin. Oscar Westborough had shoulder-length curly black hair, dark jeans and was sporting a pair of red Doc Martens.

Noah’s brow furrowed, he was a stark contrast to the serious and somber atmosphere. He arrived wearing earphones, bopping his head from side to side, cigarette in the corner of his mouth with a very devil-may-care attitude.

“Thank God it’s not the summer, right? Mosquitos love to eat me more than my lady does,” he said, grinning. “Oscar Westborough, but you can call me Ozzy.”

“I wonder why,” Noah muttered.

Ozzy dropped to a crouch, humming to whatever tune was playing in his ear. He took out his cigarette and blew smoke. “Well, she’s dead. That’s for sure.”

Noah rolled his eyes.

What was this, amateur hour?

He took a tablet out of his backpack and began tapping. “Well, we better get her back to the hospital. I expect Dr. Adelaide Chambers will be just rearing to get her grubby hands on this one.”

“Laura Summers.”

“What’s that?”

“That’s her name,” Noah said.

“Well, you would know. I just examine the bodies, pronounce death, you know, usual run-of-the-mill stuff.”

“How long you been a coroner?” Noah asked.

Ozzy took one last drag on his cigarette and dropped the butt. “A couple of years.”

Noah looked at Callie. It was hard to hide his disdain for the kid. “There are four coroners in this region, and they sent you?”

“Three actually. One quit two weeks ago, realized he didn’t have the stomach for it. Five years.” He laughed. “You’d think he would have figured that out by now.”

“And the other two?”

“Oh, well, you’d be hard pressed to reach them, they like to play hard to get,” he said, cracking a joke to which Noah didn’t smile.

Ozzy picked up on it almost immediately, especially after Noah reached down and picked up the cigarette butt.

Ozzy coughed, clearing his throat. “Anyway, we should get this moving.”

Noah placed the cigarette butt in Ozzy’s top jacket pocket, patted it to make it clear that’s where it belonged, not at a crime scene, then Noah walked past him. “You do that.”