The deceased was male and Caucasian. His age appeared to be between 25 and 40—quite a range, but a wild animal had gotten to his face and throat, making a more exact guess impossible. Wyatt looked around for blood splatter on the walls or floor.
There was nothing.
Wyatt moved in for a closer look, kneeling next to the body.
Dressed in a flannel shirt, down-filled coat and lined denim jeans, John Doe wore the same outfit as three quarters of the state of Wyoming. What made him interesting were the accessories—his hiking boots were high-quality and retailed for over 700 dollars per pair. Wyatt knew that fact as he had a pair himself. The treads were worn, and the tops were scarred with scuff marks. John Doe also wore a top-of-the-line smartwatch. The screen was blank.
But there was no visible sign of trauma. No blackened bullet hole to the chest. No knife wound to the side, crusted over with blood. It was almost as if this man had wandered into the abandoned schoolhouse and died.
No, Wyatt thought, correcting his thinking, there was no almost about it.
Cardiac arrest? Perhaps.
Wyatt began to question the scenario before him. Perhaps John Doe—a wealthy tourist, no doubt—had lost his way while hiking in the mountainous terrain. Maybe he’d sought shelter from the frigid temperatures in the old schoolhouse. But in the mountains, it wouldn’t have been enough.
The lack of snow was deceptive. The last few nights the temperature had dropped into the low twenties, maybe even high teens. Either way, it was cold enough for someone to die from exposure. It happened all the time, so much so that it was hardly news anymore.
Then again, there were other things that Wyatt would’ve expected to see and didn’t. He touched the flagstone floor. It was smooth, cold and inexplicably spotless. Wyatt inspected the corpse’s hands. The fingernails were clean and smooth. It meant that John Doe had hardly struggled in the wild to survive.
No footprints.
No injuries.
No clues.
He pulled a wallet from the man’s back pocket and checked for ID. There was an Illinois driver’s license in the name of Axl Baker. Conflicting feelings of trepidation and adrenaline dropped into Wyatt’s gut. It was the same feeling he had at the beginning of every new case. And even though the scene felt familiar, this time it was different. This time, Wyatt would have nothing more to do with the dead guy on the floor.
Because Wyatt Thornton had left the FBI for a good reason. And nothing, not even an unexplained death, could force him back to work.
The radio in Sheriff Carl Haak’s truck crackled a moment before the 911 dispatcher’s voice came through. “You there, Sheriff?” she asked.
Carl looked at the clock on the dashboard. It wasn’t even 7:00 in the morning yet. He lifted the radio’s handset and pressed the talk button. He continued driving as he said, “Go ahead, Rose.”
“A call came in. A body’s been found in the old schoolhouse.”
Carl’s shoulders pinched together with tension and he eased the truck to the side of the road. He only had a couple of weeks left until retirement and looking into another death was not how he wanted to spend his time. Pushing his cowboy hat, emblazoned with a sheriff’s tin star on the band, back on his head, he asked, “A body? Whose?”
“A man by the name of Axl Baker. All the way from Chicago, Illinois.”
“What happened?”
“Don’t know, but the guy who found him didn’t think that it was foul play, if that’s what worries you.”
“What guy?”
“The one who bought the Hampton place a few years back,” said Rose. “Wyatt Thornton.”
The Hampton family hadn’t owned the sprawling piece of land for decades and still Carl knew exactly what property Rose meant. In fact, he passed it every day as he drove to work. “Not foul play? How does Mr. Thornton know?”
“He said there was no sign of injury and that Axl Baker probably died of exposure.”
Rose’s voice was wistful, and Carl knew why. Ever since Wyatt Thornton had moved to the area several years ago, he’d mostly kept to himself. That didn’t mean that his rare appearances in town didn’t cause a commotion—amongst the local women, at least. She continued, “He was so sweet on the phone. As nice as he is handsome. He almost reminds me of a movie star.”
“What would your husband think of you being sweet on Mr. Thornton?”
“Wyatt,” she corrected. “He told me to call him Wyatt, and by the way, Carl, it doesn’t do any harm to look. You know, I’m not dead yet.”
Carl ignored Rose’s comment. Pressing down on the radio’s handset, he asked, “How’d he know it was a natural death? Is he a doctor or something?”
The radio was filled with static, as if Rose was no longer on the other end of the call. The silence stretched. In reality, Carl knew next to nothing about Wyatt Thornton. When the other man first arrived in Pleasant Pines, Sheriff Haak thought about digging into his past.
Yet, Thornton didn’t drink, fight, drive too fast or even listen to his music too loud. In short, he was a model citizen. The job of sheriff was a busy one, more important cases arose and Carl never did get around to investigating Thornton.
Now, he wondered if that decision, made long ago, had been for the best.
Finally, Rose answered. “Honestly,” she said, “I don’t know. He just seemed positive, that’s all.” Another pause. “He’s waiting at the old schoolhouse.”
Pressing the talk button, Carl said, “Find out what you can about the victim.”
“Sure thing, Carl.”
Turning on his lights and siren, Carl swung the truck around on the empty road and dropped his foot on the accelerator. Fifteen minutes later, he was at the turnoff for the old schoolhouse. It was just a wide spot in a dilapidated barbwire fence with low scrub on what used to be a well-worn path.
The ground was covered with frost, and his truck’s undercarriage passed well above any dead bushes or brambles. In the distance stood the one-room building. As he got closer, he saw Thornton and his dog standing by the door.
“Just two weeks,” he mumbled to himself. Then Carl would be moving to South Carolina, where it was warm all the time and there was a beach two blocks from his tiny condominium. He put the truck in Park and killed the engine. The lights went dim and the siren fell silent.
Stepping into the cold, he shrugged on his jacket. The smell of death permeated the air.
“Morning, Mr. Thornton,” he said.
Thornton stepped forward, offering his hand. “Call me Wyatt.”
They shook, then the sheriff turned to business. “Well, Wyatt, can you tell me what happened?”
Wyatt gave a succinct rundown of his typical morning walk that today, ended with the dog finding the body. He concluded with, “There’s no signs of trauma, so I don’t think it’s murder.”
Carl hefted up his jeans by the belt loops. “How can you know that?”
“Experience,” said the other man.
Carl waited for a moment for more information. None was offered. “You a doctor, or something?” he asked, repeating his original assumption.
Wyatt