She shuddered.

Violet enlarged twelve-year-old Chris’s school photo on her phone. He looked eager and ready to take on the world. She had briefly seen that happiness when his brother had met them on the mountain. She had a hard time thinking of him as a scared child; he was the most fearless person she’d ever met. He was always calm, almost eerily so. When she and her mother had been worried and shaken, Chris had been a rock.

Or was that just how he looked on the outside?

“Another day, another autopsy,” Nora mumbled under her breath.

Actually she was simply getting summaries from Dr. Rutledge today, but Henry had still declined to accompany her. He’d pointed out that they could read the emailed summaries instead of going in person, but Nora liked talking to people face-to-face. It gave her a chance to get immediate answers to her questions and pick their brains, possibly stimulating something they hadn’t included in the summary, instead of waiting for an email reply. There was plenty about this case to keep Henry working the phone and computer, so she’d hit the Starbucks drive-through and driven to the medical examiner’s.

Dr. Rutledge walked her back to his office from the lobby. “What I found on Francisco Green fits exactly with what Dr. Trask saw happen. He was shot in the head. The damage is what I expected from the type of round that was recovered from the site.”

“It could have been Dr. Trask on your table,” Nora pointed out. “She said that if she hadn’t moved at the right time, the bullet might have hit her.”

“So perhaps she was the target, not the ranger?” He shook his head. “I don’t know how I would have handled that. I’d have had to bring in someone from one of our satellite offices to do the autopsy. Everyone has been very fond of her since she worked here for a couple of weeks on a visitation. I was thrilled when she applied for the new opening. She’s a good fit personality-wise and is very thorough.”

“What about the body found in the other cabin?” Nora asked.

“Hispanic male in his late twenties,” recited Dr. Rutledge from memory. “Five foot ten, one hundred sixty pounds. Healthy. No tattoos. His only scars were on his hands and lower arms. Either he got in a lot of fights or he did some sort of manual labor that banged up his skin. He has an old break in his left foot, but outside of that there aren’t any strong identifiers.” He sat at his desk and pulled up his preliminary report. “No lab results back yet, of course. The angles indicate he was shot once in the face and then again once he fell. I believe that corresponds to the locations of the rounds found at the scene.”

Nora thought back to the photos from the man’s crime scene. He’d been dressed for the outdoors in a thick coat, hat, and boots. All his clothing had appeared well worn but ill-fitting to her. As if he’d collected it from friends or the bargain bin at Goodwill. “Do you still have his effects?”

“Yes, they haven’t been picked up yet. I know there was no wallet, no jewelry, and no cell phone.”

“I’d like to look over them when we’re done.” No cell phone? No cell service on that part of the mountain. But had someone removed a cell phone or had he simply never had one?

“Do the shots appear to be from the same gun that killed the older man?” she asked, feeling the need to needle the medical examiner a tiny bit.

Dr. Rutledge’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously? Did you just ask me that?”

“Sorry, it slipped out.”

“Rookies ask me shit like that,” he muttered. “Not you.” He took a closer look at her. “You’re screwing with me, aren’t you?”

She grinned at him. “How about . . . do the entry and exit wounds seem similar in size to the wounds on the other man?”

He smiled. “That’s better. And yes, they are similar in size and damage.”

She appreciated his opinion. That was all he could offer on wounds like that and it wasn’t something she could take to a district attorney. Forensics on the rounds could determine if they had come from the same weapon—but they hadn’t found the rounds from the old man’s death. All Dr. Rutledge’s suggestions could do was guide her instinct and investigation, and most of her information suggested the same person had shot the Hispanic man as had shot the burned man from Gianna Trask’s cabin.

“What about time of death? Who died first?”

Dr. Rutledge’s expression shifted into lecture mode, and she held up a hand. “I don’t need to hear the details behind your results right now. Give me the big picture.”

“You take all the fun out of it, but I can’t tell who died first between your burn victim and the Hispanic victim. With the crazy temperatures and the fact the burn victim was moved from where he was originally killed, there are too many factors going on.”

“Shit. So it’s possible that the Hispanic man could have killed Frisco Green and our burn victim.”

“That is a possibility. But you still have someone walking around who killed the Hispanic victim.”

“You’ve fingerprinted the bodies?”

“Yes. And sent them over.”

“Anything else I should know about our mystery bodies?”

“You will read my reports, right?” His gaze bored into her.

“Of course. I just like getting the highlights first.” And I have Henry for reading reports.

“Not that I can think of.”

She excused herself and left the office. In her car she called Henry. “Have comparisons been done on the fingerprints from the John Does and the break-in at Gianna Trask’s place?”