The Taint Read Online Free

as they drove toward the hospital.
    Joyce Callan hung up the phone and turned to Jon.
    “He just arrived home—he said he’d be right over.” She looked toward where Earl sat, head in his hands. “I’m sure,” she said very softly, “she was killed instantly.”
    Jon nodded. “What about the driver? How’s he doing?”
    “It’s very odd; he hasn’t said a word.”
    “Got a name?”
    “Wendall Tyler, according to his driver’s license. From San Diego.”
    “A little out of his way, up here. She wasn’t dressed for camping . . .”
    The phone rang and he turned away as Joyce reached to answer it.
    He sent Earl home for the night and went into the tiny reception-waiting area.
    He opened the dead woman’s purse and emptied the contents out on the coffee table, checking for zippered pockets and finding none. A wallet, a checkbook, hairbrush, matches but no cigarettes, a small perfume atomizer and a pot of lip gloss. No keys.
    The wallet was good quality leather. A twenty, three ones, seventy-nine cents in change, along with two small safety pins. The license and credit cards were issued to Louisa Ann Tyler. The photograph only vaguely resembled the battered face of the woman now lying, covered by a sheet, in a back treatment room.
    A few pictures as well; a young Louisa in the black sweater of a graduating senior; with a young man, both dressed for a prom, and with the same young man, obviously Wendall, in a wedding picture: a glowing bride Louisa. He removed the wedding picture from the plastic pocket, looking for a date.
    Written in a corner: June 20, 1978. At last! He could almost feel the exuberance in the words.
    “Sheriff,” Joyce Callan stood in the doorway. “Dr. Adams is here . . . with the body.”
    “Jonathan,” Nathan looked up from the examination when Jon entered. “Good to see you. Unfortunate business, this.”
    “Sorry to have to call you out again.” Jon stood on the opposite side of the table. In the bright fluorescent lights the woman’s wounds looked worse.
    “Comes with the territory.” He leaned over to peer into sightless eyes. “Where’d you find her?”
    “In a tree.”
    “Ah. Well, that explains most of these scratches then. She’s really marked up.” Nathan pulled the sheet back over the body. “I’ll do the post-mortem later this morning, but I’d hazard a guess. Broken neck, fractured skull.”
    “Instantaneous?”
    “Very likely.” Nathan walked to the sink and began washing his hands. “What is her relation to our first patient?”
    “Wife. How is he doing?”
    “Not very well, I’m afraid.”
    “Can I talk to him?”
    Nathan shook his head. “Not tonight.”
    “Poor Earl.” Jon leaned back against a counter.
    “Pardon?”
    “Earl’s feeling responsible—he didn’t find the woman. He assumed the man was alone in the car. And, he told me the driver was just shaken.”
    “Well, actually, other than a few bumps and bruises, Mr. Tyler is in good physical shape.”
    “Then what?”
    Nathan turned to face him, drying his hands. “It’s hard to say. He’s not in clinical shock—no drop in blood pressure, no change in pulse or respiration. But he hasn’t spoken and he appears to be oblivious to his surroundings. Just stares. And . . . he does not respond to painful stimuli.” He hesitated. “He’s almost catatonic.”
    They walked out into the dimly lit parking area and stood for a moment, facing each other.
    “Rachel is home.”
    Jon nodded. “How is she?”
    “All grown up. Remarkably like her mother. I thought maybe you’d have come by . . . said hello, welcome home.”
    “I’m on duty.” He hooked his thumbs in his belt and narrowed his eyes, searching Nathan’s face for signs of disapproval.
    “Later, then. I know she’ll be glad to see you.” Nathan turned toward his truck. “Good night.”
    Jon watched him pull out and start off down the road before moving slowly toward the Bronco.
    On the way back to town he pulled into the