Dead Head: A Dakota Mystery

By M.K. Coker

It all comes to a head...

In a quiet roadside ditch in Eda County, South Dakota, prairie roses have sprung up along with constructions cones—and a fractured old skull.

Settling into her first year as elected sheriff, Karen Okerlund Mehaffey wants nothing more than a quiet little murder with no press, no mess, while she tackles the more difficult question of whether to purchase a new official vehicle or hire a new deputy.

Her detective-uncle, Marek Okerlund, has his own hands full with an unexpectedly recalcitrant daughter. School is almost out... but the last day comes sooner for some, as girls go missing, one by one.

As the old case and the new intertwine, with twists that turn frighteningly personal, Karen and Marek rush to unravel the skull's past to save the girls' future.

DEAD HEAD is a character-driven police procedural. Eighth in series. Word Count: 96,000. Occasional profanity. Minimal gore.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.K. Coker
• Release date: Apr 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463168424

M.K. Coker

M.K. Coker grew up on a river bluff in southeastern South Dakota. Part of the Dakota diaspora, the author has lived in half a dozen states, including New Mexico, but returns to the prairie at every opportunity.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

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Ditches were a bitch.

Sheriff Karen Okerlund Mehaffey’s life had taken a bad turn in a ditch a couple decades ago, and her first body had been found in one. She stayed out of them as much as possible. If it were up to her, she’d stay safely on the crumbling asphalt of the rural county road. But duty called. So she gritted her teeth and stepped forward, only to stop on the pitiful excuse for a shoulder to peer down at death instead of meeting it head on.

Cradled in the prickly grasp of a prairie rose at the bottom of the roadside ditch, the grinning skull gleamed a bright white in the sunny mid-May morning. The ever-present Dakota wind ruffled the delicate pink petals. Open-faced and innocent, a flower played peekaboo over a hollow eye socket filled with the rich, dark soil of the prairie.

Beyond the barbed wire fence, corn sprouts grew in regimented rows in a field in stark contrast to the wild disarray of grasses, thistles, and weeds in the ditch. In the Dakotas, ditches were often left to run riot as cover for brooding pheasants and weren’t baled for hay until that season had passed. Karen couldn’t shake the dead certainty in her gut that if she stepped into the ditch, her life would change.

In a very bad way.

Sheriff, you come? asked the man waiting for her, wringing his tea-colored hands.

Nearby, in an idling bulldozer, the operator looked far less anxious—and far more bored. Karen knew the younger man slightly: Jared Lepski, the son of an old classmate. The rest of the construction crew had apparently clocked off for the day. They’d been widening the turn onto the county road to accommodate the big recycling trucks that had recently started rumbling to and from the Twin Cities into the Eda County seat of Reunion. More than a few of those trucks had ended up in the ditch the past winter, which was why the county commissioners, tightfisted to a fault, had let loose the purse strings—and the bulldozers—as soon as winter was absolutely, positively dead.

Karen pulled out her cell phone and sent a couple of quick texts. Then, reluctantly, she headed down into the ditch, a thorn of a prairie rose catching on the leg of her tan uniform pants. With a curse, she escaped, but the rose captured a long thread.

Ditches. Were. A. Bitch.

She forced a smile at the man waiting for her. Good to see you, Dr. Ahmed.

Karen had no trouble with his surname, Sabanovic, given her past peacekeeping duties in Bosnia, but he was known universally as Dr. Ahmed. The former Bosnian civil engineer turned meatpacker turned Eda County Highway Superintendent pushed his clunky black glasses up his sliver of a nose, as if trying to focus on her rather than what lay at his feet. Though the glasses had been repaired with a new nosepiece, they were the same ones that he’d worn since she’d first met him in a freezing, run-down trailer at the meatpacking plant. After the plant had closed shop and fled the state, Dr. Ahmed, his daughter, and his grandson had taken refuge in Karen’s basement for a time.

How are Fata and Saban? she asked.

Dr. Ahmed gave her a fleeting smile. Fata, she is happy in own house. Saban, he is well in his studies. But his gold-green eyes were filled with anxiety. Is work to stop?

Karen wondered if the man would ever feel safe in his job. But why would he? He’d had so much taken from him over the years. Only temporarily, Dr. Ahmed. Your job is not affected. You will still be paid, no matter how long the delay.

His thin shoulders fell with his gaze, lighting on the skull. I thought... this gives bad memories... in the past memories.

Her own memories, mostly of helpless anger as word of the massacre at Srebrenica had filtered through the ranks, were nothing to his. He’d lost two sons and his wife, and he thought he’d lost his daughter, only to find out years later that she was in a refugee camp, along with a child conceived in violence.

It’s not the same. This... Karen waved toward the skull. Could be nothing more than an old family cemetery, maybe even older, like an Indian burial.

Hey, Sheriff, you gonna do something, or just jaw with the doc?

Looking over at the gum-snapping bulldozer operator, she held his gaze until he shrugged at her. I gotta eat, don’t I? It’s supper time, and I got a date with my girl.

Then why stay? she called back.

Jared pointed at the scoop or whatever it was called on his bulldozer. Loader? Maybe that was it. She’d played with basketballs, not bulldozers, as a kid. Walking over, she slapped at a mosquito, smearing a long line of blood down her arm. Ick. At least it wasn’t on her short-sleeve duty shirt.

Yep, she hated ditches. Mosquito-breeding quagmires. She started over when she heard the high-pitched whine of a motorcycle engine. Turning, ready to head off a gawker, she blinked as the motorcycle zipped between her aging Suburban and Dr. Ahmed’s even older Buick Saber. With a grin, Karen abandoned the bulldozer and headed up to greet the newcomers.

As the passenger, who looked a little white at the gills, removed the all-black helmet, Karen felt her grin widen. You make one hell of a motorcycle mama, Marek.

Her part-time detective and half-uncle batted his thick dark lashes at her—or perhaps they’d just fallen and flickered in relief that he was still alive—as the driver revved the engine in mimicry of a sultry, smoky laugh.

Cutting the ignition, the driver lifted another black helmet to reveal flame-red hair and witchy-green eyes. Don’t you just love putting the fear of God into a man?

Good while it lasts, Karen said to Nikki Forsgren Solberg. What happened to your Honda Civic?

Just fine—and boring. I swiped this baby from one of my summer students for a joy ride with my main squeeze. Revved it up just as your not-so-fearless detective got your text. Since I figured we’d get a free pass rushing to a crime scene, I let it rip. She paused. You can let go now, Marek.

Karen watched Marek get off the Harley Davidson and sway. She reached out to grab him, even though if he went down, his solid six-foot-nine frame would easily bring down her more lanky six-one with it. He steadied, though, and ran his hands down his sawdusted jeans. He must have been working on a carpentry job before hooking up with Nikki. I’ll hitch a ride back.

Nikki made a face. Scaredy cat. Tit for tat. She winked at Karen. He shouldn’t mind me taking him for a wild spin when he regularly takes me for one—and not on a bike.

What’ve we got? Marek’s broad Slavic cheekbones flushed below his pale-blue Scandinavian eyes. Karen’s once-estranged uncle had been a homicide cop in Albuquerque and seen the worst on offer, but he still held the East River fastidiousness against talking about certain intimate matters.

Tucking tongue firmly into cheek, Karen waved her hand toward the ditch.

Nikki whistled. A skull? For real? Or is it some Halloween leftover from last fall?

How Karen wished. Real, but probably just an old burial.

Before Karen could elaborate, another vehicle barreled down the county road like a heat-seeking mosquito and screeched to a stop a coat of paint’s width from the Sub. Unfortunate. She’d pay good money to have the Sub totaled. Fortunately, its days were numbered: five days, to be exact. The county commissioners had, after much gnashing of teeth over the county coffers, given her the go-ahead to purchase only one of two things on her must-have list: a night-shift deputy to complement her lone reserve deputy or a new vehicle.

After a fierce internal war with her conscience over the good of the county, she’d reluctantly put out a call for a deputy. Her compromise had been to run the opening for only two weeks. She’d gotten a smattering of inquiries the past week, but the long hours and measly pay had stopped those in a hurry. Well, one had been more persistent than the rest, but a quick background check showed he had been fired for using his position to squeeze money—and a few liters of blood—from a bookie.

So she was only too happy to say sayonara to the Sub.

The tall, spindly man who unfurled from the Dodge Ram extended cab pickup wore funereal black.

Karen winced. Did I pull you away from a funeral, Tish?

Norm Tisher, county coroner and local mortician, gave her a grave nod, his long face lengthening even further under his salt-and-pepper hair. Fancy Fay Rudibaugh.

Fancy Fay? Judge Rudibaugh, the only man Karen knew who carried the surname, did have a little-seen wife named Frances, who spent much of her time traveling. Was Fancy his wife’s nickname? Still, Karen thought she’d have heard about that. The judge’s wife died?

Tish’s somber face morphed to crinkle at the corners of his eyes. No, the judge’s wife’s prize miniature schnauzer did. Open casket. Flowers galore. Paid mourners. Full works.

That must have cost as much as a deputy. Or more. Since the judge practically lived in his chambers, apparently his wife wasn’t afraid to empty his coffers on pet coffins.

Did the judge show up for the funeral? Nikki asked as Marek pulled out crime scene tape from the Sub and headed down into the ditch.

Tish laughed. I don’t think even our renowned judge’s gravitas could withstand that farce. No, he sent his regrets with a big flower display shaped like a first-place ribbon. Frances seemed touched. She said it was so good of him to remember, as he had—Tish made quote marks with his long, thin fingers—‘very important work.’

The Rudibaughs did not have children, but whether that was by design, fate, or disinterest, Karen had no idea—and didn’t want to know.

Look, guys, this isn’t a community potluck! Jared yelled, poking his head out of the bulldozer cab once more. Either decide what to do with this freaky load, or I’m dumping it!

Dr. Ahmed rushed over. No, please, you cannot. I will lose job for sure.

Rolling his eyes, Jared took his hands away from the controls and made a show of raising them in the air.

Karen picked her way with Marek and Tish over the exposed earth, great gashes of dark soil that hadn’t seen the light of day in who knew how long. The pungent earthy scent mixed with the sweet scent of the roses.

When they reached the loader, all three of them stopped at once. So much for a stray skull. Partially buried in the dirt in the loader was a headless skeleton. But the freaky thing? Along the length of the bones—down to a knobby knee—swirled wild colors of pink, olive, orange, blue, gold, and red. Unless it had been a man in drag, they had a female skeleton wearing a dress Karen wouldn’t be caught dead in.

Polyester, apparently, was as out of fashion for worms as it was for fashionistas.

CHAPTER 2

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Marek Okerlund loved ditches.

Unlike the productive but regimented lines of corn beyond the fence, here in the margins, in defiance, the last of the prairie survived and thrived. Wild bursts of color appeared as the seasons changed, from the pinks of prairie roses to the yellow black-eyed Susans, purple thistles, and orange Indian paintbrush.

The in-your-face wildly floral dress, on the other hand, made him think of his ill-fated luck with roller coasters. He’d thrown up all over his Valeska High T-shirt and jeans on the Screamroller during the Senior Day at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City.

He closed his eyes in self-defense.

Karen put her hand on his arm. Marek, are you okay? Did you know her?

He kept his head down. No. Just... thinking.

Right. Her hand dropped. It’s the dress. It’s a killer. So much for the long dead. I’d been putting my money on an old burial. But that pattern had to have come out of the seventies. I think we’re looking at foul play here.

Could just be an illegal burial, Tish countered.

Karen perked up. Someone saving money by bypassing your ilk?

Sadly, the mortician shook his head. No need to resort to ditches. South Dakota doesn’t have any state-level prohibitions on burials on private land, and our local zoning laws don’t, either. But this is a public right-of-way. That would make it illegal... and stupid. But possible. Barely. I just want to cover all the bases. I’d let Dr. White determine cause of death, if he can. He nodded toward the skeleton. I’m just here to declare death. I think I can do that without much trouble.

Marek stared down at his scuffed Blunnies until the afterimage of the nausea-inducing swirls bled out from his retinas. The back of the skull has a big gouge. He’d seen that when he put up the crime scene tape. Couldn’t tell much more than that without touching it, as there’s a lot of dirt attached, but it looks like a violent end.

That led to a short silence.

But it could still be something like an accident. Karen shifted on her boots. Hit-and-run? That might make sense out here and why they’d ditch the body in the—haha—ditch. They panicked. Though, I don’t know why here... Karen did a 360 then nodded to the south. The Shaft is down that way. Maybe our girl was drunk, tried to hitch, and got run over?

That made Marek’s stomach roil again, but not from images conjured by Karen’s suggestion. He’d visited the shady bar only once. At eighteen.

Take it or dump it, your choice, but I’m done. Jared Lepski climbed down from the bulldozer. I’m not losing out on a hot date just for some cold dame. He threw the keys at Marek, who dropped them into the dirt. Jared hopped into his pickup and sped off before a hand-wringing Dr. Ahmed could stop him.

Great catch there, a dry voice said from behind.

The cavalry had arrived. Agent Dirk Larson from the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation in Sioux Falls bent and retrieved the keys with an easy, athletic scoop and throw. This time, Marek managed to hang on to the keys.

Like Karen, Larson had once been a college basketball star. With her job secure after the recount last fall, Marek thought she’d make a move on the former Chicago cop with dirty-blond hair, a battered, off-kilter nose, and bullet-gray eyes. Instead, they’d danced on the court, but nowhere else. Larson was divorced, the father of two children his ex had turned against him after leaving him with a hefty alimony and child support. Maybe Karen didn’t want to take that on. But it wasn’t like she had to marry the man—or perhaps that was the block. She wanted it, but he didn’t? Karen was a fairly traditional sort, and now that her husband was officially dead, after many years in a coma in the VA hospital, she was free to marry. Given how many of her constituents were also of a traditional bent, she might also feel marriage was her only option if she wanted to be reelected.

A whistle preceded the entrance of Larson’s young trainee, Jessica Bakke. They just don’t make dresses like they used to, you know? That’s pretty amazing. It looks like it just came off the rack. And... wow. Colorful. In a really head-spinning way. My mom has a dress from back when, but hers is all geometric shapes in lime green, orange, and black. It’s hidden away in the back of her closet. She takes it out sometimes to scare me with, saying she’s been saving it to wear it at my wedding. I just tell her that guarantees I’ll never get married, and she puts it back.

Enough dillydallying, Larson barked. Work.

Unlike when she’d first started working with Larson, Jessica just shrugged at her boss’s bulleted conversational style. Okay, but how do we do this? I mean, the burial site is already disturbed.

Marek looked back at the loader, concentrating on the bones so he wouldn’t get sick. Looks like we’ve got the entire skeleton.

Except the head, Jessica pointed out with lifted eyebrows, pulling at the old scar that ran along her cheekbone.

It rolled away into the roses back there. Marek pointed to the cordoned-off spot. Back of the skull is gouged.

Larson pursed his lips. Touched?

Marek lifted his own eyebrows. He thought they were beyond that. Observed.

"Not you in particular. Just checking. Larson nodded toward the loader. Treat like an archaeological dig. Careful, slow, sift."

Then we’ll need to lower this scoop thingy, Jessica said. Or my arms will be noodles.

Marek lifted the keys but got no takers. While he’d dreamed of operating heavy machinery as a kid, as an adult, he’d found the reality much less exciting. He’d worked a short stint in construction before landing a carpentry gig in Albuquerque. But Marek pulled up his big-boy pants and scrambled up into the cab.

Unfortunately, the cab was filled with high-tech controls, not with the knobs and levers that he’d once used. Obviously the county didn’t own this baby. They’d never put up with the pricey newfangled bells and whistles when the old tried-and-true worked just fine. For once, he was on the same wavelength, even though his meager salary that had to be supplemented by carpentry work was a product of such tightwad tendencies.

As the others watched, Marek felt like he was back in school, facing his old nemesis: the blackboard. And failure. Finally, his gaze fastened onto what looked like a joystick. He turned the ignition. It fired up immediately. New wasn’t so bad. Step one completed. He let out a breath and reached for the joystick. It jerked in his hand, and a loud cry went up from outside the cab.

With resignation, Marek peered down through the windshield, expecting to see his onlookers deluged in bones, dirt, and swirling colors—and his job down the toilet. Instead, the loader had dipped just enough downward to dislodge more dirt... and reveal another skeleton.

Smaller, without polyester covering, it nestled into the side of the first, like a suckling babe. Motioning the others back, Marek gently moved the joystick until he got the hang of the directional controls. Then he lowered the loader just enough that it wouldn’t require him to squat or Jessica to jump.

Dr. Ahmed, still standing on the side of the road, took back the keys from Marek without a word, his face fixed with the unfathomable of horrors that Marek, even with all his losses—parents, wife, unborn son, and scores of homicide victims—couldn’t match.

What have we got here? Karen asked when Marek rejoined the crew. Are we going to have to dig up the entire ditch?

Marek surveyed the remains. Doubtful. Looks to me like these two were buried together.

Agree. Larson pulled a trowel out of a toolbox. Then he handed a sieve to Jessica and brushes to Karen and Marek. Let’s get started. Need the light.

As his wingspan reached the farthest, Marek found himself gently brushing dirt off the smaller skull. Somehow, the earthy smell of death and life, mixed in a delicate balance, took him back to his mother’s one and only rosebush. She’d been reading about English gardens—she’d always said she’d visit the haunts of Wordsworth and Coleridge one day, but an early death had robbed her of that—and wondered whether an English rose would thrive in the Dakotas.

His father had made a special trip to Gurney’s in Yankton to find one for her birthday, taking a five-year-old Marek along. While his father had disappeared into the bowels of the rambling nursery, the staff had given Marek free packets of seeds to plant in little Dixie cups filled with rich dirt. His fingernails had been so packed with dirt that his mother, exasperated when she’d cleaned him up before bedtime, had asked him if he’d been digging in it like a dog. Rather than reveal the secret waiting in the shed, he’d simply nodded. The next day, when his mother went grocery shopping, Marek and his father planted the bush just out back by the bench his mother often sat on during nice days, reading or grading papers.

Marek had painstakingly packed the dirt around the rosebush under his father’s guidance, and together, they’d presented Janina Marek Okerlund with her English rose after she’d returned from school on the big day. His stoic mother had hugged him so hard, he’d lost his breath. That was about as long as the rosebush had lasted. Unfortunately, Marek, eager to please, had watered the bush too much over the ensuing week—and killed it. It was his first lesson that too much of a good thing could be bad. He and his father had made another trek, another rosebush, which hadn’t lasted much longer, but this time, the blame went to the rabbits.

Now, as Marek moved slowly down the skeletal remains, brushing away dirt, he felt a strong reluctance to uncover the pelvic bone. He moved back up to the jaw. Despite the lack of blood or gore, the unearthing seemed a violation. Unlike the larger skeleton, this one had either worn no clothes, or, more likely, had worn natural fibers.

A child, Karen murmured as she turned her brush from the feet of the larger to the smaller.

Not necessarily. Larson dumped dirt into the sieve where Jessica, despite initial hopes, had come up empty of anything but pebbles. Put the larger about five-ten. Smaller is curled up more. Hard to say.

Male or female? Jessica asked.

Can’t make that call, her boss shot back.

Jessica wrinkled her nose. Killjoy.

Marek stilled as his gentle prodding dislodged a clod over the lower jaw.

Looking over, Karen gritted her teeth. Dammit.

The others stopped to peer over at the jaw. It was broken. Teeth askew, some missing. Add that to the gouged skull in the ditch, and Marek’s heart sank.

Too much of a bad thing was never good.

CHAPTER 3

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Digging her filthy fingers into the small of her back, Karen eyed the falling sun. Its intense glowing orange perfectly matched the dizzying floral swirls on the sleeveless, knee-skimming dress that now lay exposed in all its glory. It was almost obscene, the contrast between the glaring vitality of the artificial covering and the picked-over bones.

But at least this was a quiet death, a quiet scene, with only a few pickups slowing to gawk. The road on the next section line over was more heavily traveled. Until recently, this one was little used by trucks, as it went straight to Reunion, which wasn’t exactly a hotspot destination. The new electronics recycling center, though, had added a steady convoy of trucks from Minnesota bearing the flotsam and jetsam of modern life.

Are we done playing in the dirt? she asked Larson, just as his trowel clanged against something metal.

No. He didn’t bother to glance up. Wimp.

Says the man who staked his claim to the easy middle. Karen worked out more kinks in her back that would turn into screaming muscles by the morrow. What have you got there?

Brush, he ordered, putting out his hand.

She slapped her brush in. Yes, Doctor.

He’d been in the Dakotas long enough to have picked up the nose-huff that masqueraded as a laugh. But all amusement vanished as he uncovered a corroded metal... something... like a chisel, but much larger and heavier than the ones she’d seen in Marek’s toolbox.

The chisel lay between the two skeletons, neither hand holding it. Or both. Who knew what had shifted over time and the ravages of decay?

Damn ditches. Jinxed again. That chisel’s got to be a weapon. So much for a hit-and-run. Karen shielded her eyes. "And I really wanted to bring in Old Man Martin on accessory to manslaughter." Not that she could make it stick, but she’d take some satisfaction in trying.

Who is Martin? Jessica prompted.

Karen pointed to the long, one-story building on the horizon. Owner of The Shaft. Martin has operated his bar outside city limits for decades, just skirting the law. Almost got it shut down once—not legally but financially due to debt—but he came up with the money just before the foreclosure. Pissed off my dad, big time. Her father had said more destruction came out of that bar than on the interstates, measured in ruined lives.

Jessica began sifting again. Why is it called The Shaft, or do I want to know?

Good question. I’m not actually sure. But there’s a quarry out here. Still in operation.

Larson paused in his work to peruse the gently rolling landscape. A mine shaft? What’s the pay dirt? Manure?

Tombstones, Marek put in.

Made of what, prairie grass?

A native Dakotan, Jessica got it. Sioux quartzite.

Which also made up the courthouse, the foundations to Karen’s and Marek’s bungalows, and the tombstones for a number of their kin.

That pinkish stuff at your quaint falls? Larson asked.

That would be the falls in Sioux Falls. During Karen’s childhood, the falls had been a trashy place filled with broken bottles, beer cans, and trash. The city had transformed the eyesore into a showpiece for the city. The native stone came in various colors, from pale pink to deep rose to purple. "Our falls, you mean? You live there now."

I don’t think he does. Jessica energetically sifted the last bit of dirt. Live, that is. Not in that crappy studio he calls a home. He works. He plays ball. That’s all.

Karen grinned. Sounds like life to me.

A match made in—

Watch your work, Larson snapped at his underling.

Though Karen’s relationship with Larson wasn’t yet a match made in anything, Karen still felt the sting of that abrupt cutoff.

Jessica wrinkled her nose. It’s just dirt. Why should I... Oh. It’s a ring.

Karen let out a breath along with her annoyance. Evidence first. That was so totally, absolutely Larson. Not a rejection of Karen or their relationship, such as it was. She leaned over to study the thin, oddly shaped ring that sported a tiny stone of dubious natural origin. Where was it?

Just under the right hand of the smaller skeleton, Larson said. Pay attention. Always.

Yes, sir. Jessica sounded chagrined. Sorry.

Tell the victim, not me, he returned, though without heat. May be the only way to identify.

The sun had set by the time they loaded the skeletons for transport to the medical examiner in Sioux Falls. She and Marek would head there in the morning, but they’d agreed to call it a night. No one had stopped to ask what was going on, and none of the media had called, not even the local low-power-FM amateur, Nails Nelson. If she had to have a homicide, Karen was glad that this one, at least, would be a low-pressure, take-your-time kind.

If she was lucky, the two unknowns had killed each other—and someone had buried them rather than come forward. Yeah, she could go for that. Let them be a pair of... what? Romeo and Juliet in drag? Maybe Small killed Large after Large broke Small’s jaw... then Small died, either of injuries or a self-inflicted wound.

A bad end, but it sounded good to her—at least as a solution to the case. The two unfortunate people who’d ended in the ditch, though, had her complete sympathy.

Ditches were a bitch.

CHAPTER 4

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Laid out in what Marek assumed were anatomically correct positions, the two skeletons sitting on a bright-blue tarp no longer gave him the willies. That could be credited to a good night’s sleep—with thankfully no nightmares other than getting his hyperactive daughter to bed. She was hyped for a slumber party the next weekend and wouldn’t stop talking about it. He’d never thought that, after a long year of silence following her mother’s death, his daughter’s chatter would ever make him want to pull his hair out.

These skeletons, on the other hand, had no hint of hair or anything they could use for ID. Just bones laid out under a blast of cold air from the AC unit. A cold case, indeed.

You bring me such interesting cases. Dr. Oscar M. White flashed a smile with gleaming teeth, a stark contrast against his dark skin. It’s been quite some time since I had to connect the neck bone to the head bone. But ‘Ezekiel connected dem dry bones.’

Karen, who tended to stay as far away from the body as possible during an autopsy, was practically on top of the table. Are they male, female, or both?

The pathologist moved to the side of the table with the larger skeleton. You’ll note that the pelvic bone is more robust than that of the smaller, which would tend toward a male.

Karen glanced up at Marek. A man in drag?

That would be an interesting twist. And given the times and the place, it could