The Viper

Derlick explained that the lower left star showed the location of Lerman’s apartment, and the 4:25 p.m. notation next to it was the time Lerman departed. The star halfway up the red route line was a gas station where he stopped for sixteen minutes. Of the two stars close together at the top end of the line, the first indicated the location where the private road to Slade’s lodge left the public road, and the second indicated the lodge itself.

“That star at the turnoff to Slade’s place,” said Derlick, “is where Lerman made the phone call to his daughter at 6:46 p.m. The next star, in front of the lodge, is the last spot from which Lerman’s phone transmitted location data.”

Stryker put her finger on the final star and turned to the jury. “For Lenny, that was the end of the line—in more ways than one.”

7

STRYKER’S NEXT WITNESS—KYRA BARSTOW—STARTLED Gurney.

Barstow was the forensic supervisor on the Harrow Hill case. She was director of the local college’s forensic sciences program and provided services to the local police department from time to time. Evidently Rexton enjoyed a similar arrangement.

She looked just as Gurney remembered—tall, athletically slim, with a quick intelligence behind striking gray eyes. Working with her had been a pleasure.

Stryker approached the witness box. “Ms. Barstow, please describe your involvement in the Lerman case.”

“I received a call from Detective Derlick approximately fifteen minutes after his arrival at the scene. I was at the opposite end of the county, and it took me a little over an hour to get there. When I arrived, Detective Derlick was finishing his interview with the hunter who found the body.”

Stryker nodded. “Detective Derlick just led us along Lerman’s route from Calliope Springs to Ziko Slade’s lodge. Can you lead us from that spot to the grave in the woods?”

“We found contact DNA from Lerman on the layer of pine needles in front of the lodge, plus traces of his blood,” said Barstow. “The residual pressure deformation of the pine needles indicated that he’d either fallen there or been knocked down.”

Stryker adopted at earnest frown. “But his body was found a hundred yards away in the woods. Can you tell us how it got there?”

“It’s likely that Lerman was dragged, facedown. There was a trail of blood, bits of skin, clothing fibers.”

“Fibers from the camo outfit the body was found in?”

“No. Fibers from the clothing he was wearing when he arrived at the lodge. We found a jacket, shirt, and pants with Lerman’s DNA buried near the grave.”

“Did the clothing switch take place before his head . . .” Stryker hesitated. “Before it was removed?”

“Yes. There were only a few drops of blood on the original clothing, on the back of the shirt collar, consistent with Lerman having received a blow to the back of the head prior to being dragged to the grave. That’s where his clothing would have been switched. We also determined, in cooperation with the ME, that he was still alive at the time of his beheading.”

“How do you know that?”

“The amount of blood in the grave indicated that his heart was still beating when the axe severed the arteries in his neck.”

Stryker grimaced. “So Lenny Lerman was dragged through the woods, dragged into a waiting grave, and then . . . ?”

“Beheaded. Then his fingers were removed with a small pruning clipper. There was very little bleeding from the stumps—meaning the removals occurred postmortem.”

Stifled sounds of revulsion came from several jury members. Stryker lowered her head and closed her eyes for a moment, as if sharing their distress. When she looked up, she turned to the jury box.

“This is the point when I have to show you photos of the crime scene. They’re not easy to look at. But you need to see them.”

She fetched several foam-core boards, leaned them against the prosecution table, and placed the top one on the easel. The color image on the board was of the back of a headless body in camo pants and jacket lying in a roughed-out hollow in the ground. The soil around the truncated neck was stained a brownish black. At the ends of the extended arms fingerless hands lay palms-down on the brown earth. Raw gouges were visible on the backs of the hands and on an exposed calf where the pants leg was torn. After pausing to let the jury’s horror build, Stryker asked Barstow about the gouges.

“The large ones were made by the teeth of coyotes. The small lacerations suggest vultures. In another week there would have been nothing left. Perhaps some bones the coyotes hadn’t carried off.”

Stryker put the next photo on the easel—a full-size image of an axe and a pruning clipper. She asked Barstow if they were the implements used to kill and mutilate Lenny Lerman.

Barstow confirmed this, stating that though the tools had been washed after the murder, presumably by the perpetrator, traces of Lerman’s blood remained at the point where the axe head joined the handle and at the pivot bolt in the center of the clipper.