CHAPTER 41

DR. WAYNE BEVAN, THE Elko County medical examiner, was finishing a report when Bree and Sampson were led into his office by his secretary. The two explained that they were looking into the death of Ryan Malcomb.

“You reporters?” said Bevan, a tall, lean man in jeans and cowboy boots. “The last bunch left a week ago.”

“We’re just going over the details,” Bree said.

“Insurance company?”

“Something like that,” Sampson said. “We were told you had a match on Malcomb’s dental records.”

Bevan nodded, scooted his chair over to a cabinet, and pulled out a thick file. “DNA was a match, but it never hurts to get corroboration.” He opened the file, turned over several documents, and came up with a photograph of a corpse. Its skull was fractured in multiple places and splintered in others.

The medical examiner said, “Because of the height he fell from, the airbag did nothing. He took the steering wheel just above the maxilla. Snapped his neck. He died instantly.”

“His teeth are almost all gone,” Sampson said. “How did you make the match?”

Bevan got out a photo that showed the teeth he’d found in the mouth during the autopsy.

Bree pointed to a tooth with metal sticking out where the root should have been. “Are those implants?”

“Two of them,” he said. “Lateral incisors. Malcomb’s dental records show he didn’t have adult lateral incisors. He had the implants in his twenties.”

“Do you have copies of those records?” Sampson asked.

“I’ll get copies made for you,” he said.

Bree said, “Could we get copies of your autopsy report as well? And the tox screens?”

“All in the public record,” the medical examiner said. “Tox screen too. He had a load of booze and a little fentanyl in him, I can tell you that. You want the DNA report also?”

“Yes, sir,” Bree said. “Just so we’ve dotted our i’s and crossed our t’s.”

Twenty minutes later, they returned to the Cherokee.

“What now?” Sampson asked.

“We go to Salmon, start tracking Sean Malcomb Wallace there.”

“But you heard the man—the dental records support the DNA report,” Sampson said. “I mean, what are the chances that Sean Malcomb Wallace had the same missing teeth and implants as his brother?”

“I don’t know,” Bree said, throwing up her hands in frustration. “But I didn’t come all the way out here just to give up on day one. You know I was air force military police before I joined Metro.”

“I did know that.”

“They taught us that when in doubt, dig deeper than you think is reasonable.”

Sampson sighed and started the Jeep. “Salmon it is.”

They got on I-80 heading east, then took U.S. 93 north toward Idaho. As John drove, Bree reviewed the medical examiner’s reports on the autopsy, the DNA test, and the tox screen. Death was attributed to massive blunt-force trauma.

The DNA report was conclusive on Malcomb’s identity. And the tox screen showed that at the time of the accident, the tech entrepreneur had had a blood alcohol level that was twice the legal limit and more than a trace of fentanyl in his system.

“There’s something off about this tox screen, though,” Bree said as they neared the Idaho border and night began to fall.

“What?”

“I don’t know exactly,” she said. “I just have a feeling I’m missing something.” She got out her phone and called Alex. The connection was weak and crackly, and the call went straight to voice mail. “This is Bree. We’re heading to Idaho. Love you.” Bree looked at the reports in her lap and almost put them aside. But something clicked in her mind.

She studied the tox screen one more time. “There it isn’t,” Bree said.

“What’s that?” Sampson said, glancing over at her.

“Malcomb had muscular dystrophy,” she said, tapping on the report. “I read a profile of him from a couple of years ago and he said he used drugs to delay the progression of the disease and control some of the symptoms. The treatment is almost always steroids, like prednisone.”

“No steroids in the tox screen?”

“No test done yet. Has to be specially ordered.”

“But they think it’s an open-and-shut case and it’s unnecessary.”

“Yeah,” she said, feeling even more frustrated.