Mad Dog and Englishman: A Mad Dog & Englishman Mystery #1 (Mad Dog & Englishman Series) Read Online Free Page B

on cleaning this cadaver up and figure out who or what it was.”
    The sheriff hadn’t gotten over the shock enough to think about pictures and he certainly didn’t want any. He wouldn’t need them to remember, and he didn’t want to look again. But Doc Jones was right. If anyone was charged, if this went to trial, there would have to be pictures.
    “Could it be Peter Simms? I hear he didn’t show for church this morning. I can’t think of anything much short of this that would keep him from delivering a sermon.”
    Doc waved at the flies again. “I don’t know. Body’s about the right size but it’s so mutilated and covered with dried blood…. Course, in a place like Buffalo Springs, it seems pretty likely if you’ve got a spare corpse and a missing person, they’re going to turn out to be one and the same. Go get your camera. Soon as we finish I’m going to need help getting it into a body bag and over to Klausen’s.”
    “OK.”.
    “Get a shovel or a dust pan or something too,” Doc shouted at the sheriff’s back. “Damned if I want to pick up all those entrails by hand.”
    ***
     
    The sheriff paced back and forth across the antique white octagonal tiles that covered the floor of the mortician’s lab in the back of Klausen’s Funeral Home. He was trying just to listen to what Doc was saying and ignore the wet, sucking noises that resulted whenever Doc probed at the ruin that had once been human. The sheriff had a notebook and a pencil to take down any pertinent facts Doc might mention. There was a dark mark in one corner of the exposed page where he’d started to write something, only to break the lead because of the force with which he’d tried to write it. He thought about excusing himself to look for a pencil sharpener, but there was a ball point in his pocket. Doc had brought in a little portable cassette recorder and the sheriff didn’t think he’d ever forget one second of this day anyway. Besides, once he got out of the back room at Klausen’s, it would be hard to get him back in except as a customer.
    “It’s Peter Simms all right,” Doc was saying, sponging the last of the dried blood off the corpse’s face. “Funny, he’s been mutilated so much, but the killer hardly touched his face at all. Kind of like he didn’t want us to have a problem making an identification.”
    “You got a cause of death yet, Doc?”
    Jones laughed, a sound with just a touch of hysteria to it. “Take your pick,” he said, stepping away from the stainless steel tray and waving at the bloody remains with its contrastingly pale, cherubic features. “Off hand, I’d say he bled out—cardiac arrest as a result of loss of blood. There’s any number of these wounds that would have killed him eventually. I mean, Jesus, he’s had half his fingers cut off, his guts split open and spilled all over the place, his nuts hacked off, and slashes made all over his body—most of those minor, really, though some of them go clean to the bone—and he’s been scalped. If the Reverend was lucky, the killer got to a major artery real quick and he was dead before the worst of this happened. Or he had a heart attack and died of fright. But he could have survived quite awhile, through most of this, and my guess is whoever did it would have wanted him to be as aware as possible, else why bother. I’ll be able to tell you better after I open him up.”
    The sheriff wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. Simms’ face was as peaceful as might be expected after the mortician was through. He was even smiling, a knowing smile that seemed to indicate he’d recognized the joke after all and was enjoying the discomfort of those who had yet to fathom it.
    “
Risus sardonicus
,” Doc explained. “Death’s grin. Some of the facial muscles contract during rigor mortis. It’s a natural phenomena but I can never help thinking they’re laughing at me.
    “You don’t look so good, Sheriff. You’ve got what you need from me