Amerikan Eagle

“Homicide, without a doubt. Here”—Saunders pointed to the neck and jaw with a pencil—“and here, there are bruises that indicate to me your John Doe was forcibly grabbed from behind. He had his neck snapped. By someone taller and stronger than he. Left-handed, I have no doubt. To be fair, in his frail and malnourished state, a teenage boy could have probably killed him. There you have it. One older European male, neck snapped, and dropped right in your lap.”

“There was a tattoo on his wrist. A bunch of numbers. Did you see any other tattoos?”

“Not a one,” Saunders said. “But it’s intriguing, isn’t it?” He lifted up the left arm. “Six digits in a row. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Any guess what it can mean?”

“Who knows? Mother or girlfriend’s birth date. A safe combination or a bank account number. Like I said, intriguing. In the meantime, I’ll write up a preliminary report and have it sent over this afternoon. I won’t officially put down the cause of death—I want to wait for blood work—but you can be sure it was murder.”

Despite his earlier frustration, Sam was pleased. Saunders could be a pain in the ass with his lecturing style, but he knew his job. “Appreciate the work, Doc.”

“Let me know how this one turns out before it appears in the newspapers. Half-starved European with a broken neck dropped off in our fair city. Before you go, would you care for a bit of advice from someone who’s been on the job longer than he should have been?”

“Depends on the advice, I guess.”

Saunders slowly tucked the sheet back into place, as tenderly as if preparing the dead man for a long nap. “This is an unusual case, and unusual cases tend to have something sinister attached to them. Be careful, Sam. So many think that the story ends here, with a dead man on a slab. More often than not, this is where the story begins.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Back at his desk at the police station, Sam typed up another memo, in triplicate, while Mrs. Walton sat glumly nearby, working at her own typewriter.

TO: City Marshal Harold Hanson

FROM: Inspector Sam Miller

An autopsy performed by Rockingham County Medical Examiner DR. WILLIAM SAUNDERS has determined the cause of death for the unidentified male found last night by the B&M railroad tracks to be a HOMICIDE. According to DR. SAUNDERS, his autopsy results have not yet been finalized, although he is confident in his finding of HOMICIDE. No progress has yet been made on the victim’s identification, although the investigation continues.

It was time to notify the state. In New Hampshire, the state’s attorney general was brought in for all homicide cases, and for the first time in his career—feeling just a bit nervous, despite the giddiness of having a murder case before him—Sam picked up the phone, got an operator, and placed the call to Concord.

A bored-sounding woman on the other end of the line informed him that all available assistant attorney generals were at court, with the state police, or otherwise engaged. She promised a return phone call later today or perhaps tomorrow. Depending.

Sam hung up the phone, feeling oddly satisfied. Fine. He would continue the investigation on his own, which suited him perfectly. Next to his typewriter was a manila envelope with the return address of the Portsmouth Herald. Opening the envelope, he slid out a handful of black-and-white photographs of his John Doe, sprawled on that bare stretch of mud. How in hell did he get there? Dropped? Thrown? From where? And why?

He picked up the phone again and dialed a four-digit number from memory. In seconds, he was talking to Pat Lowengard, the station manager in town for the Boston & Maine railroad.

“Sam, how are you today?” Pat’s voice was smooth and professional, as though it belonged over a station’s PA system.

“Fine, Pat, fine. Looking for a bit of information.”

“Absolutely. What do you need?”

Sam picked up his fountain pen. Pat and the cops had a long and cooperative relationship. The department and its officers got a break on ticket prices to Boston and New York, and the railroad station got a break from automobiles parked illegally on side streets.

“What trains did you have come by two nights ago?” Sam asked.

“Can you narrow it down a bit?”

“Yeah. Hold on.” He looked at his notes. “Anytime before six P.M.”

“Just a sec. Let me check that day’s schedule.”

Sam leaned back in his chair until Pat came on the line again. “Got two in the afternoon. One at two-fifteen P.M., the other at five forty-five P.M.”