Angel of Death Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Teaser chapter

  Death Stare

  In the corner of the room stood an oak sleigh bed, and in the middle of the bed were the remains of Mr. Oakes. His limbs were at odd angles, like gnarled branches of trees, the legs contracted so tight his knees made steeples beneath the cotton sheet. She could see the tip of his tongue protruding. It was a strange color, a dark gray, extending beyond his lips—a shriveled turtle’s head of a tongue peeking from the edge of his mouth.

  But that wasn’t the horror of it. When her mind finally registered the picture, she wished, in that instant, that she’d listened to Sheriff Jacobs. Because she was looking down at the face that was no longer there. A mask, like that from a horror show, replaced the face she had known.

  Skin, no longer smooth like her teacher had worn in life, had now withered to the bone. Blood seeped down his teeth like painted lashes. But the worst was his eyes. The lids of his eyes had rolled back like window shades, revealing two dark holes.

  The eye sockets were empty.

  OTHER BOOKS YOU MAY ENJOY

  SPEAK

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the United States of America by Viking,

  a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2006

  This Sleuth edition published by Speak Books,

  an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2008

  Copyright © Alane Ferguson, 2007

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE VIKING/SLEUTH EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Ferguson, Alane.

  The angel of death : a forensic mystery / Alane Ferguson.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Seventeen-year-old high school senior Cameryn Mahoney uses skills learned as

  assistant to her coroner father to try to unravel the mystery of a local teacher’s gruesome

  death, while also awaiting a possible reunion with her long-missing mother.

  [1. Forensic sciences—Fiction. 2. Coroners—Fiction. 3. Murder—Fiction.

  4. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 5. Single-parent families—Fiction.

  6. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.

  PZ7.F3547An 2006 [Fic]—dc22 2005033647

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For George Nicholson — agent, friend, and guide.

  VIKING

  Published by Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in 2006 by Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © Alane Ferguson, 2006

  All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE

  ISBN 0-670-06055-0 (hardcover)

  Printed in the U.S.A. Set in Bookman ITC light Book design by Jim Hoover

  For George Nicholson-agent, friend, and guide.

  Chapter One

  “DO YOU KNOW how many laws we’re breaking?” Cameryn Mahoney demanded.

  Deputy Justin Crowley shrugged nonchalantly. He was driving his Blazer with one hand draped lazily over the wheel while the other brushed back his too-long dark hair from his eyes. “Well, if I had to guess, I’d say at least six,” he answered slowly. A smile curled at the edge of his lips, making a kind of comma in his cheek as he added, “Maybe more.”

  “Six laws. And this doesn’t worry you?”

  Another shrug, only this time his shoulders barely moved. “Not particularly.”

  “Why does this not worry you?”

  “Because there’s a dead body on the side of the road, which can’t stay there. That’s a fact. The sheriff and the coroner are out of town, which is also a fact. That leaves the two of us—Silverton’s trusty deputy and its extremely capable assistant to the coroner”—he nodded in her direction—“to work the scene. In other words, it’s just you and me. And we’re doing it.”

  “This is crazy. You’re crazy.”

  “Just doing my job.”

  Trees whizzed past as Justin downshifted around a hairpin turn on the Million Dollar Highway, a narrow two-lane road that ran like an umbilical cord from tiny Silverton all the way to Durango. To Cameryn’s right, Colorado’s San Juan Mountains towered above her in a granite block, while to her left the mountains fell away in a thousand-foot sheer drop, a yawning mouth of a valley bristling with Engleman spruce beside streams with fluted ice as thin as parchment. According to Justin, there was a body on this road that Cameryn was supposed to process, without tools or a gurney or even a pair of latex gloves. Messing up at the beginning of a case could mean disaster if it ever went to court. They shouldn’t even think of processing a scene alone. It was insanity.

  “You’re chewing your fingernails again,” Justin pointed out. He glanced at her for the briefest second, and in the relative dimness of the car’s interior his eyes looked more green than blue, the color of a lake reflecting evergreens. “What are you so nervous about? I thought you liked this stuff.”

&nbs
p; “I like being prepared and I—this—this is all wrong. We should radio the police in Durango or Montrose. Or something.”

  "Relax. You’ve been so uptight lately—did you know that?”

  “We were talking about the remains, Justin, not about me.”

  “All right, all right, back to the case. There’s something funky about the body. All I’m asking for is your quick, professional opinion and then . . . boom.” He hit the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. “You’re outta there.”

  The seat belt cut into her neck as she twisted to face him, protesting, “But I’m not a professional. How can I give a professional opinion when I’m still in high school?”

  “Ah, but you’ve got to admit you know more than I do,” Justin replied. “You’re a forensic guru. You’re so good that—guess what Sheriff Jacobs calls you when you’re not around! Come on, take a guess.”

  Cameryn closed her eyes and groaned. She knew what was coming. A quip, a sly remark about her working with the dead—she knew folks in Silverton whispered about her all the time, under their breaths, their words falling like snowflakes only to melt beneath her resolve. It didn’t take much time with the living to remind Cameryn why she wanted to be a forensic pathologist. The dead didn’t tell stories, except about themselves.

  Although Justin seemed to register her groan, there was no stopping him this morning. “Jacobs calls you the Angel of Death.” The deputy grinned as though he’d just given her the highest compliment. “What do you think about that?”

  She replied with her standard answer, the one she always gave, her Pavlovian response. “I’m into the science of forensics, not death.”

  “Tell it to the sheriff. I’m not the one who gave you the name.” His eyebrows, dark half-moons, rose up his forehead as he smirked. "Angel.”

  Another hairpin turn, only this time a huge semi-truck roared up the mountainside, belching greasy smoke into the morning air and leaving a gassy trail behind.

  Like a vapor winding its way through the streets of Silverton, the idea that she loved death had dissipated throughout the tiny town of seven hundred citizens and had crept its way through the halls of Silverton High. It encompassed her friends, who squirmed at the fact that she’d seen the insides of a human body. It drifted over to her boss at the Grand Hotel, who made Cameryn soak her hands in bleach water before setting the tables, something he never asked the other servers to do. Her own grandmother, whom she called “Mammaw” after the Irish way, clucked whenever Cameryn read forensic books, convinced that the mere study of those books would somehow condemn her soul to hell. But her father, the real coroner of Silverton, encouraged her. “You’ve got a talent, Cammie,” he’d say. “You see things. What you have is a gift.”

  The blinker’s staccato clicking broke into her thoughts as Justin pulled onto a dirt overlook. He pointed expansively across the highway. “It’s over there,” he said, “behind that big boulder.”

  “You keep calling the body an ‘it.’ Is the decedent a male or female?”

  “Hard to tell. Our little animal friends did quite a bit of chewing on it. That’s not what’s bothering me, though.” He turned the key, and the engine coughed and died. “I think the best thing will be for you to see for yourself.”

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

  “Come on,” he said. “Check it out.”

  Beyond the dirty windshield Cameryn saw a partial mound on the left side of the road, smaller than she’d expected, although the entire shape was impossible to discern from her angle. She got out of the Blazer and hurried behind the deputy as he crossed the highway. The lip of the road was narrow on the east side, the ground uneven, treacherous with rocks and roots. Beneath her, the faraway trees looked as though they were set in miniature. She slipped on a layer of faded leaves pooled at the trunk of a tree and made slick with melting frost, but Justin grabbed her elbow to steady her.

  “Careful,” he said.

  Panic whined inside her because she knew she shouldn’t be here. Maybe there was still time to call for help. . . .

  “It’s right there,” Justin said, gesturing with his free hand.

  Beyond the rock, rising like a half-shell, was a body, shadows dappling the surface of what looked to be the remains of a small person. The sickly sweet smell of decay filled her nostrils, but she ignored it as she moved closer, her heart drumming with nervous energy. Something was happening; it was as though a switch inside her had been thrown. Now the clinical side, the science part of her brain, pushed to the forefront, drowning out the objecting voices. Suddenly she wanted to see the body and examine it. There was a puzzle here, and it was possible she could put the pieces together to learn its secrets.

  “I knew you’d get into it,” Justin said.

  “Uh-huh. Shut up.”

  Another step closer and she stopped in her tracks. The shape solidified in front of her, the mound a back that ended in a question mark of a tail. Tufts of fur bristled at the top of its ears, but the snout looked bent, like the crook in a branch.

  “What is this?” she demanded, whirling around to face Justin. “You brought me out here to look at a German shepherd? You dragged me from work to look at roadkill ?”

  Rocking back on his heels, Justin returned her gaze. He was lanky, as tall as her father but much thinner. Hands in his back pockets, he said, “I never claimed the decedent was human.”

  “Oh, you are so hilarious,” Cameryn snapped. She was relieved, of course, but, she had to admit, disappointed, too. Somewhere along the line she’d psyched herself up to see a human body. In the mountains, dead animals were a dime a dozen. “Why did you bring me here?”

  Justin spoke as though he had all the time in the world. “I’ve discovered that in a small town, the deputy does all kinds of odd jobs. Dumping roadkill is one of them.”

  “Take me back, Deputy. I’m not a vet.” Annoyed, Cameryn turned to leave. Justin caught her arm.

  His voice became serious. “Just wait. The point is that when I saw the dog, right away I noticed there was something off about the body. I didn’t want to dispose of it until I got a second opinion.”

  She began to pull herself free, but his grasp was firm. Then he gave her arm a squeeze, trying, it seemed, to cajole her. “Come on,” he said, releasing her elbow. “You’re already here, so you might as well look. Tell me what you see.”

  It occurred to Cameryn that, since Justin was driving, she really had no other way back, which translated to the fact that she had no choice but to examine the dead animal.

  “Fine,” she said at last. “I’ll look. Then we go.”

  “Whatever you say. Angel.”

  “Punk.”

  Cameryn walked around the rock to get a better look at the carcass. Above her, the bare limbs of trees reached like scaffolding into the sky, creating a criss-cross pattern of shadow on the rock and the body beneath. The dog’s legs were already extended in rigor mortis, and its belly was distended. Fur stood in erratic tufts that reminded her of fish scales, and one ear was double-notched in a V as though it had been torn in a dogfight. A chunk of flesh was missing near its genitals. Wild animals had gnawed on the soft tissue, which was common in the mountains—nothing lasted in the outdoors, Cameryn knew. The tip of the German shepherd’s nose, as well as its eyes, were missing, and the end of its tongue was gone.

  “How long do you think it’s been dead?” he asked.

  “It’s hard to say. From the rigor I’d guess about thirty-six hours. Maybe more.”

  Justin squatted. His elbows drilled his thighs; his hands hung limply between his knees. “Here,” he said softly, pointing to the dog’s head. “This is the reason I brought you. Do you see it?”

  “You mean the eyes?” Crouching beside him, Cameryn studied the empty holes. “That could be from bird activity. Magpies are total scavengers.”

  “I thought of that. But look closer. It almost seems like they, I don’t know . . . exploded or something. Tell me if I
’m crazy.”