Page 4 of X-Ray in the Xanth (Lovely Lethal Gardens Rewind #3)

Nan winced. “I presume that was fatal.”

“Pretty close,” Elizabeth replied, with a nod. “Don’t know his age yet, but there could be extenuating circumstances. I also have to see whether these injuries were pre- or postmortem.”

“Right, that would change things entirely,” Doreen muttered. Then she sighed. “Even if postmortem, it won’t get anybody off the hook.”

“No, it won’t,” Elizabeth agreed, looking at Doreen. “So, I’m glad you’re on the case. This person needs justice.”

“And how long has he been here?” Doreen muttered, almost to herself.

Elizabeth shook her head. “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

Doreen continued to stare at the broken spine.

Elizabeth asked, “What are you thinking?”

Doreen grimaced and tilted her head. “From the looks of it, and I could be wrong, this appears to be a very tall individual, like six and a half feet at a guess.”

“I can confirm that, once we measure the femur,” the coroner shared, pointing out the bone. “But, yes, that’s close enough for now. What difference does that make?”

“I’m just considering the weight, the dead weight, I mean. If this man was as badly broken as this, how does someone carry him here and then bury him? And why here? Why no animal damage, at least nothing obvious yet?” Turning to look around, she added, “It’s not a very deep grave.”

“It’s a good four feet,” Elizabeth noted. Then she turned to face the two policemen. “Wasn’t some work being done in this area?”

“Yes,” Arnold stated. “a fair bit of work was being done here, with all the topsoil graded off. I suspect that a memorial park will be placed here.”

“Not necessarily,” Doreen replied, “because this looks to be cleared for a massive development.” She looked around the site. “This body was probably buried a good six feet under at the time of digging this grave.”

The coroner nodded, looking around too. “That could be, but…”

“I know,” Doreen muttered, “that’s not the issue.

The real issue is who this man is and whether we can get any DNA off him.

Will he match any of our missing people or cold cases, and who or what caused his death?

These bodily injuries look like the result of a car crash,” she guessed, “or something heavy falling on him, or him falling and landing on something equally heavy.”

The coroner smiled at her. “And I would agree with any of those in theory,” she noted, “but I still need to take the bones back to my table and analyze them.”

Doreen hesitated before asking, “And is this something that you do?… Or is this something that a specialist is brought in for?”

“I can do it,” Elizabeth stated. “If I find that I’m past my own skill level, then we’ll bring somebody in.”

“I’m not trying to step on toes or anything,” Doreen added.

“Nope, but a specialist is a specialist. In some things, I’m not a specialist,” Elizabeth stated, with a smile.

“And apparently, neither am I,” Doreen admitted, with a chuckle.

“Yes, you are,” Nan argued. “You’ve done wonders on all these cold cases.”

“You’ve also done wonders getting into trouble,” Arnold pointed out, with an eye roll. “You might want to keep that in mind.”

“So, what are you saying, Arnold? That I’m a specialist in finding trouble?” Doreen cried out.

“Sure. And I think Mack would agree with that assessment.”

She glared at him, but, from behind her, Mack declared, “And that’s exactly what my assessment would be.”

She turned, looked at him, and beamed. “There you are.”

“Yeah, it’s funny,” he pointed out, with a knowing look in her direction, “how some of us do have to attend to other issues.” He looked over at Arnold and Darren. “If you’re done here, the captain wants you back. We’ve got a triple-car pileup on Highway 97.”

The two men’s eyes widened, and they hurried off, taking their shovels with them. Mack snagged one of the shovels as they went by, then turned to Elizabeth and smiled. “Hey, Elizabeth.”

“Hey, Mack,” she replied, with a beaming smile. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? I just heard you’re engaged to our resident sleuth here.”

He smiled, walked over to Doreen, and, putting an arm around her waist, he tucked her up in a hug. “That I am, and, even with my best of intentions, I keep trying to get her to stay out of trouble, but—”

“It doesn’t happen,” Elizabeth finished his sentence for him and nodded. “I get it. She’s got an incredibly good eye for this work though.”

“I know,” he agreed, “which is also why the captain keeps letting her in on the cases.” He turned and glared at her.

She smiled. “Love you too, sweetie.”

He chuckled. “We’ll talk about that when you give me a date.”

“I already told you, fourth quarter.”

Nan looked at her and asked, “Fourth quarter of what?”

“Fourth quarter of this year, but, if people keep bugging me, maybe it’ll be next year. Take it or leave it.”

Elizabeth howled. “She’ll keep you on your toes.”

“She already does,” Mack said, with a groan. “Now, what have you got for me?” he asked, turning to the coroner.

Elizabeth smirked. “Why don’t you ask your girlfriend?”

He stared at her for a moment, then turned to Doreen. “Technically fiancée,… but seriously?”

Doreen shrugged. “I’m just getting a few bits and pieces of info for myself,” she muttered. “I’m not stepping on toes.”

“You’re stepping on as many toes as you think you can step on,” Mack declared.

“Okay, okay, okay,” she muttered. “We’ve got a male.” She looked down at the bones. “And my guess, not hers, just me talking. I’ll say middle-aged, somewhere between midthirties and midfifties.”

Elizabeth raised one eyebrow. “We’ve got a crush-type injury, but it definitely reeks of foul play just because of the burial,” she noted with a shrug, “and I really want to know what that X-ray has to do with anything.”

“Maybe the X-ray of his injuries,” Mack suggested to Elizabeth.

“I haven’t had a chance to look at it,” she noted, “but it is possible. Although why someone would have them with him out here is another thing.”

“What I don’t know,” Doreen added, “is how long this poor man has been here. And, of course, he didn’t get here on his own.”

“No, but from what’s left around here,” Elizabeth pointed out, “you won’t get a whole lot of information.”

“Right,” Doreen muttered. “I keep hoping that we’ll end up with some clear-cut case, but that never happens.”

Elizabeth laughed. “For this one, definitely not. But you were accurate to a certain extent on the general age of the decedent. I just can’t confirm anything yet,” she shared, turning to look at Doreen, “until I get the bones back on my table.”

“Right.” Doreen nodded.

Elizabeth hesitated before speaking. “Every once in a while, I do let people into my autopsy room.”

Doreen was thrilled, grinning, a gleam in her eye.

Beside her, Mack groaned. “Are you sure you want to do that, Doreen?”

Doreen shrugged. “Hey, it’ll be fun. It’s not as if anything is gruesome or upsetting on this one.”

Elizabeth nodded. “We’ll just be looking at bones, after all.”

“Yeah, we’re just looking at bones,” Doreen repeated, as she stared down at the dismally small number of them. “Hard to think of a life being completely stripped down to just this.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Elizabeth agreed. “But we’ll find out what happened to him, and then his family can rest easy.” She smiled at Doreen. “At least, I presume that’s your goal.”

“Absolutely, that’s always my goal.”

“It’s our goal,” Mack stated, with a sigh. “Let’s not forget that the police are on the case too.”

“Nobody’s forgotten anything,” Nan piped up. “I think all they want is to know that Doreen is on it as well, you know, to confirm it gets solved.”

Mack’s shoulders slumped, and he let out an audible groan as he looked over at Doreen, who walked up, slipped her fingers into his, and whispered, “I’m happy to work with you.”

His lips twitched. “Now, if that meant you were sitting at a desk, doing online research, I would be happy with that too. However, you have this penchant for going off on these tangents of yours, then chaos breaks loose—very, very quickly.”