Wages of Sin Read Free Page B

was cut away and the corpse’s pubic hair was singed.
    Dr. Bayardo showed Mancias two X rays, one of the victim’s hands, the other of the victim’s chest and head. Dr. Bayardo had pulled out of a paper bag what appeared to be two hands. The left hand was better preserved than the right, which consisted of only two metacarpal bones.
    Davenport noted that the hands, too, had been soaked in accelerant. They looked like barbecued pig’s knuckles.
    The detectives and coroner saw that the left hand perfectly matched the amputated forearm. There was an extra saw cut, as if someone had started to saw in one spot and then changed his mind and moved to another spot.
    On the chest and head X ray, there were six small white dots. The white dots were bird shot from a shotgun. A BB pellet located in the head area was removed and collected.
    The victim was murdered by shotgun blast to the forehead, perhaps just to the right of the forehead, Bayardo determined.
    The body measured sixty-eight inches tall, 160 pounds. Its age was less than twenty-six years and closer to early twenties. “The color of the head hair on the deceased was possibly brown, based on the color of the hair on the body’s legs,” he said.
    Dr. Bayardo studied the victim’s legs. There appeared to be eight abrasions on the knee. The abrasions were actually burn marks. The second toe on the right foot was longer than the big toe.
    He cut open the body from the neck to the pubis. An undigested French fry was found in the stomach. No smoke was found in the lungs. More than likely, the victim was dead before he was burned.
    The lungs were partially shrunken and coagulated from the heat of the fire. The myocardium of the heart was also partially coagulated, as was the esophagus, also from the heat of the fire.
    Death, said Dr. Bayardo, probably happened the night before. Rigor mortis was slight. There was, perhaps, a couple of days of facial hair growth.
    Dr. Bayardo moved back to the face and examined the jaw and teeth. One molar had been removed from the right lower jaw. There was a filling in the same area. All of the wisdom teeth were missing. “The upper lateral teeth were crowded,” he added.
    He noted a bit of white plastic substance on the upper lip. It measured three by one inches. Tracy Hill collected that substance for analysis. She also collected the hacksaw blade. She did not collect the French fry.
     
     
    Hill left for the crime lab. Mancias went back to the office to meet with Detective Sawa. They had to sort through the missing persons reports, which were filing in after the media and disc jockeys had blared the story throughout several counties.
    Sheriff Terry Keel had been quoted in the morning’s Austin American-Statesman newspaper as saying the murder was “a typical gangland-style slaying” and that the victim had been placed in a manner designed to attract attention.
     
     
    Friday, January 13, Mancias and Sawa spent the morning again tracking down missing persons leads. While Mancias returned to Pace Bend that afternoon, Sawa continued going through missing person after missing person report.
    One person was too tall. One had motorcycle gang tattoos decorating his body. Another had a scar. Sawa’s victim had clean, smooth skin marred only by fire. One was too dark. Another was in Florida. Another was in Malaysia. Sawa eliminated them all as possible murder victims.
    Sawa received a call from Tracy Hill and joined her at the crime lab. Inside the bloodstained sleeping bag that had been found near the body, Hill had discovered “Hatton 9153” written on the care-and-use tag.
    The handwriting looked frighteningly familiar to Sawa. It resembled that of a TCSO employee who had once worked the same patrol shift as Sawa, whose handwritten reports Sawa had often seen. It resembled the handwriting of Deputy Bill Hatton. Hatton now worked at the Del Valle county jail, just as Pace Bend camper Chuck Register did.
    Sergeant Gage was called. It was