The body was only a few steps away from the sheriff. A
couple deputies were taping the area off for the crime scene unit to go over
once they arrived. It was still uncovered, so the discovery had to be pretty
fresh. One glance and I had to look away. The victim was bloated, so he’d been
out here a few days. It was also obvious he wasn’t whole. I glimpsed some
ragged tears on the swollen flesh. My bet was, the feral hogs in the area had
taken a few bites of the poor guy.
Thank goodness I didn’t need to breathe. From the way the
officers held their hands over their noses, the guy was pretty ripe. How
Grayson could stand there so stoic was beyond me. But then, Grayson has seen
some messed up stuff. As small as Fulton Falls and Ford County are, we still
have our share of murder, much of it the messy variety.
I steeled myself to take another look. It wasn’t morbid
curiosity. I needed to see the dead man’s face. I walked over and stared into
the upturned face.
He’d been a hog shifter. The snout and small tusks were a
giveaway. There had been five werehogs on the missing list. I inspected the
shape of his wide staring eyes, the color of his hair, the jaw structure.
Dan had come over with me. I told him, “I’m not sure because
of the shape he’s in, but this man may be one of Levi’s instructors. He looks
vaguely familiar, similar to the picture Levi gave me.”
Behind me, Grayson spoke up. “Charlie, you said you smelled
nitro coming from the body?”
A werehog deputy paused putting up the tape. “Pretty sure I
did, Sheriff, though the decomp is kind of overwhelming the scent. I’d lay odds
he was shot. Smelled like some Russian import stuff. Or low-grade domestic.”
“Shot with nitro?” I asked Dan.
“He must be referring to nitrocellulose. It’s the propellant
used in bullets.” Dan looked over the scene and shook his head, his face long
with dismay. “Man. What an ugly way to die.”
I saw what he was talking about. The body was at the end of
a trail of blood, which wove a path deeper into the woods. He’d been hurt
elsewhere and made his way only steps from the road. If I had to judge from the
amount of blood in his wake, he must have suffered awfully.
I looked around my surroundings again, suddenly spooked. Dan
noticed. “What is it?”
I licked my lips. “It kind of reminds me of where my body
ended up after I was killed.”
No release date set.
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