Free The End of the Line by Stephen Legault Page B

Can’t be certain.” The doctor pointed to the cavity where Deek Penner’s right eye would have been. “You can see bone shards here. Lots of them. Being frozen like this helps a little because the blood hasn’t carried the fragments too far from where they started out.”
    â€œWhat can we tell about the attacker by this?” asked Durrant.
    â€œHe would have been strong enough to wield a heavy object. The blunt side of an axe. Maybe a sledge. Could be lots of things around this camp, Durrant.”
    â€œWould he need to be exceptionally strong?”
    â€œI don’t think so,” replied the doctor. “Once our boy Deek was on the ground, it would have been a matter of lifting and letting the weapon fall. Like splitting cordwood.”
    Durrant breathed heavily. “Not exactly like splitting cordwood.”
    â€œNo, not exactly.”
    â€œNo indication that this was an axe blade ?”
    â€œNo. The wounds were made with a blunt object. This was a crushing blow, not a cutting blow.” Armatage pointed to the rents in the flesh of the man’s face. “You can see here the skin has been bruised where it was broken. Nothing here to suggest an axe.”
    Durrant looked at the doctor. “So just about any man in this camp could be responsible?”
    â€œBased on the nature of these wounds, I’d say yes.”
    â€œAnd what have you got there?” asked Durrant, his eyes fixed on the forceps.
    â€œWell, it looks like a fleck of metal of some kind. Rusted, so that when the weapon connected here,” the doctor pointed to the concave shape around Deek Penner’s right temple, “it flaked off.”
    â€œSo now all I have to do is find a sledge, pry bar, or hammer in this camp with a fleck missing from it and I’ve got my man.”
    The doctor smiled at him. “Are you suggesting that will be a problem, Sergeant?”
    Durrant took the lantern from its peg and held it near the cadaver. He stooped a little to examine the body more closely. “Is this consistent, Saul?” asked Durrant, pointing with his twisted right hand at the flecks of blood on Penner’s coat.
    Armatage bent and looked closely at the man’s heavy winter coat. There was a fine spray of blood around the collar and heavier spots of frozen blood on the chest and shoulders. “You know, Durrant, it’s hard for me to say. I’ve never examined a body this badly mutilated. I’ve looked at a few poor devils killed when their horses kicked them in the face, but this is something else all together different. And frankly, Durrant, we here in the Dominion are a little behind our cousins to the south when it comes to how we examine a cadaver for this sort of evidence.
    â€œSo I’m only surmising when I say this, but I’d guess that this spray of blood is consistent with the man having first been hit while standing up. If this man was upright up for the first blow, you’d expect a fair amount of blood to spray across his own shoulders, face, chest, even his arms, wouldn’t you? When he was on the ground, there would be some too, as well as across the snow all around him. But my guess is that it would spray out in a different direction.”
    â€œThe men who recovered the body would have tracked up that snow pretty good in the process,” grumbled Durrant. “Not much evidence left on the scene.”
    â€œNo, not on the scene,” said the doctor.
    Durrant looked at him. “But the killer?”
    â€œI believe you’ll be looking for someone with blood on his coat, Durrant. Maybe on his trousers and boots too, depending on where he stood.”
    â€œAnd from the first blow?”
    â€œI’d say, given the pattern of blood on our boy Deek, that the killer could not have hit him without getting a fair amount of blood on his own coat.”
    Durrant returned his gaze to Deek Penner’s corpse. “I guess