Lake of Sorrows

5. Multiple abrasions on the upper extremities and hands (defense wounds).

6. Peat particles present in trachea and in both lungs.

7. Multiple small contusions on the calves, ankles, and heels.

From there, Dr. Friel embarked on a more detailed description of each wound. Ward read quickly through the details, then skipped over the internal examination to the final page, for the summary of the findings:

From the anatomic findings and pertinent history, primary cause of death is ascribed to drowning. However, from the character and number of lacerations, contusions, and defensive wounds, inflicted trauma is clearly the result of a homicidal assault.

Drowning. Strange that despite all the other injuries, he had ended up asphyxiating at the bottom of a bog hole. The defensive wounds said the man hadn’t gone willingly to his death. Cuts on his hands and forearms were evidence that he’d been conscious while being attacked with a knife. There had been a fierce fight.

Ward tried to put himself in the dead man’s place, to reconstruct the events in logical sequence. He opened the evidence box and removed the leather cord. Someone surprises the victim. He naturally tries to escape, so the attacker takes hold of this cord, twists and pulls him backward, to hold him, probably with the left hand. That’s one reason the ligature mark on the neck would be slightly off center. The attacker tries to reach around and slash the victim’s throat with the knife, but he’s still struggling, and the attacker doesn’t get a good strike; the wound is only superficial.

In the struggle, the victim twists around and falls. His head strikes something hard, giving him that curved laceration, and he’s knocked unconscious. He might even appear to be dead. At this point the attacker drags him across the bog and throws him down the bog hole. But the victim isn’t dead; he’s only unconscious. He regains consciousness in the hole, and struggles even then, sinking in the sloughy darkness, trying to dig his way out, until finally he sinks and the attacker fills in the bog hole with spoil.

Ward felt exhausted, just thinking about the scenario. But what were the weaknesses? There were always weaknesses. It was all a bit too much to believe—the garrote, the knife, the drowning. Unnecessary overkill. But had it been planned that way, or had it just happened? Unwilling victims had a way of upsetting people’s carefully drawn plans.

And there was still the puzzle of the missing clothing. If the victim had been fully dressed when he was attacked, why would the killer bother to strip the body? If you were simply trying to make identification difficult, why not take all the effects—the watch, the leather necklace? Dr. Gavin said that the bodies thought to be sacrificial victims were usually found naked.

There was another problem as well. The scenario he had just imagined assumed only one attacker, and there might have been more. A conspiracy? Stranger things had happened. In the famous Missing Postman case, several upstanding citizens had been involved in covering up an accidental death, transporting the body and concealing it down a well.

Now that they knew how the man had died, they would have to wait and see if he turned out to be this Brazil fellow. Once again, thinking the name, Ward felt unsettled. Ever since Teresa Brazil had sat here in his office yesterday morning, he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he should know that name, but he couldn’t place it. Nothing recent—it was something old, unfinished.