Beasts of the Field: The Examiner

Episode IV

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← In Episode III: The Canvas, Judith and Tim teamed up to interview locals living near the crime scene.

While Beasts of the Field can be read as a standalone story, you may appreciate the characters and their interactions more if you are familiar with Judith’s first adventure, Down in the Holler, in which she investigated a cold case in rural Kentucky. Click here to read Down in the Holler.

According to the available data on canine emotions, dogs had approximately the same emotional capacity as a two-year-old child.

Judith’s experience of two-year-old children was limited to her sister Constance’s boys, and, though she firmly believed that her nephews were objectively superior to other children, she recalled that two years of age had been a time of screaming meltdowns for the children and overstimulated, bloodshot eyes for their mother. Yet the enormous gray dog that hopped out of Judith’s car in a tangle of shaggy limbs was pleasant and generally calm. He even seemed to smile at her.

He'd be a great dog for someone. She’d had no luck yet figuring out who that someone would be, but someday she’d find a home for this creature.

Judith was still unused to walking an animal on a leash, and the dog, suddenly abandoning his dignity, began to tug at the end of the rope, straining for the door of the McFerrin County Sheriff’s Office and pulling with such strength that Judith had to jog to keep up with him.

 Wrangling the giant dog and the jingling door, Judith stumbled inside. The animal’s nails clicked and slid on the vinyl floor, and he let out an excited bark.

Tim looked up from his desk with a snarky grin that Judith resented, though at the same time, for some reason, the cool autumn morning seemed suddenly several degrees warmer. “Who’s walking who?”

“I’m still experimenting with different leash styles,” Judith said as she tugged the dog into a seated position and extricated her leg from where it had somehow gotten tangled in the leash. “I’m trying to find one that optimizes for a marginal human to canine weight difference.”

“You mean for a dog that’s bigger than you are.”

“Nearly bigger. As I said, I have a marginal advantage in size.”

Tim raised his eyebrows. “I thought you weren’t keeping him.”

“I’m not. It’s research. For whoever adopts him.” Judith cast a quick glance around the room, where two additional people sat at their desks. She had not mentally prepared herself for a conversation with a human other than Tim, but, in response to advice from Constance and her own efforts at self-improvement, she was working on being more aware of her surroundings and less rude. Though what some people called rude, she preferred to think of as focused or goal-oriented.

Tim’s office assistant, Cathy, raised her eyebrows over her rectangular glasses, and her no-nonsense, Appalachian grandma softness turned prickly. Without a word of greeting, she returned her gaze to her computer screen.

At another desk sat a short, fleshy man who turned around in his seat with a wide smile. “Hello there, big fella.” Standing up, he advanced with his hand out.

After a brief hesitation, Judith concluded that the man was talking to the dog rather than her and decided not to attempt to shake his hand.

Within moments the man had the massive dog leaning against his leg and wagging its tail with fervor.

“Judith, this is Owen Duffy.” Tim, his face lined and tired, turned back to his computer. “My deputy.”

“Oh, sorry.” Duffy gave Judith’s hand an enthusiastic shake. “I got excited ’bout your dog. Nice to meet you.”

“Are you interested in adopting him?”

“Huh?”

“I’m trying to find him a home.”

“Oh – uh, no. Thanks, though. I mean, I’d love to, really. He’s a sweet boy – yes, you are; you’re a good, good boy, aren’t you? – but my wife would kill me. We got twins at home and a dog and a coupl’a cats already. Don’t got any more room. Or energy.”

Judith turned back to Tim. “I brought food and a bowl for him. I shouldn’t be gone long, but just in case.”

“This isn’t a doggy day care,” Cathy said.

“It’s okay, Cathy,” Tim said without looking away from his screen. “I told her she could bring him by just for a little bit.”

Cathy grunted and turned back to her work.

“Have you heard anything new about the case?” Judith said.

“The case?” Tim pulled his gaze from his computer, his eyes blank for a moment as though his mind was finding its way out of a labyrinth and back to the fluorescent-bright office.

“Samantha Scott’s case.”

“Oh. Not much new. Just more of the same. Still don’t know how she died. Police found the rideshare driver, but he seems like a dead end. Dropped her off at a diner downtown, didn’t see her meet anybody, and headed right back to Lexington. No arrest record, nothing sketchy in his history. As far as I’ve heard, they haven’t found any evidence in his cell records to suggest he did anything other than go home after dropping her off.”

“Then why do you seem perturbed?”

“‘Perturbed’?” A flicker of a smile slipped back into Tim’s expression. “Sounds very professorial of me.”

“The word seemed fitting.”

“Yeah, well.” With a low sigh, Tim leaned back in his chair and swiveled once more toward his computer. “I’ve got a backlog of paperwork a mile deep, and we’ve had so many incidents lately that I haven’t had a spare minute to get caught up on it all.”

“Incidents?”

“It’s like somebody dumped crazy sauce in the water line,” Duffy called over his shoulder from across the room.

“A couple rival groups of small-time drug dealers have been going after each other the past couple weeks,” Tim said.

Judith’s attention sharpened. “McFerrin has gangs?”

“I’m not gonna dignify them with that name. More like low-life criminal cliques. They’re troublemakers who never grew up, and each group is mad at the other for selling Oxy and fentanyl and God knows what else on the wrong side of their imaginary line.”

“They’ve been killing each other?” A faint hum, like a radio too quiet to hear, buzzed in Judith’s mind, but before she could tune her attention to it, it faded into the ether. Closing her eyes, she reached out again for the sensation, but it was gone.

“Nobody’s died yet. A couple – You okay?”

Judith popped her eyes open. “Fine.”

“You getting something?” Tim said. “Or sensing something, or whatever you call it?”

“No. You were saying?”

“What was I saying? Oh, no fatalities yet. A couple people have wound up in the hospital with stab wounds, burns, or relatively minor bullet wounds.” Tim sipped his coffee from a mug emblazoned with I MAY BE A SHERIFF, BUT I CAN’T FIX STUPID PEOPLE. “But it’s been almost constant, and we’re scrambling now. I just hope they take a day off and give us a chance to get caught up on the reports. What were you going to be looking into today? Don’t think you mentioned it.”

Judith adjusted her bag on her shoulder and took a step toward the door. “The county medical examiner.”

Tim choked on his coffee, spilling a splash of it onto his shirt and pants. “Excuse me, you’re doing what?”

“I set up a meeting with the county medical examiner. At first I planned on talking to the coroner, but I learned that it was actually the medical examiner who inspected Samantha’s body. I wasn’t aware of the difference between a medical examiner and a coroner, or how the referral system between the two works, so it’s been a productive week for me in terms of research.”

“We used to have just the coroner,” Duffy piped up. “The medical examiner’s pretty new. Moved here from Lexington, I think. It was Lexington, right, Tim? Sorry, I mean, ‘sheriff’.”

Tim cleared his throat. “Yeah, it was - it was Lexington.” Taking a breath, he leaned forward in his chair. “Judith, you’re a psychic detective, not a law enforcement officer.”

“Technically, I’m a software engineer. My freelance work as a psychic detective is secondary.”

“You’re not supposed to be disrupting the investigation.”

“I’m not disrupting anything. This will be on the medical examiner’s lunch break. I asked if she would meet me to answer some questions because I’m doing research into forensic autopsies, which, technically, I am.”

Tim dropped his face into his hand. “Lord, have mercy.”

“I only want to know about the process by which she determined the time of death and how she knows the body wasn’t moved.”

“That’s what the internet is for, Judith. You can look up the methods that medical examiners use instead of pestering them on their lunch breaks.”

“I want to know how she did it, specifically.”

“Are you saying you think she’s incompetent?” Tim said. “Or lying?”

“Do you think she’s lying?”

“Just because her findings reflect poorly on me and my search team doesn’t mean I’m going to hound her to try to prove that she didn’t do her job properly.”

“I won’t be hounding anyone,” Judith said, reaching for the door. “Just asking questions.”

Tim groaned. “Okay, ask your questions. I can’t stop you from having a casual conversation.”

As Judith stepped outside, Tim called after her, “Just don’t do anything that will add to my paperwork.”

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The medical examiner was distractingly beautiful.

Dr. Heather Tierney, MD, was taller than Judith, with a sleek ponytail and a long, lithe figure that somehow made her teal scrubs look chic even amid the red vinyl booths and dark wood-paneled walls of Ma’s Diner, one of McFerrin’s handful of restaurants. Dr. Tierney ordered a green salad with chicken. Judith didn’t believe salads should be considered a main dish, but when Dr. Tierney’s crisp salad arrived at the table, Judith had the nagging wish that she’d ordered something more aesthetic and impressive than the limp burger that sat in front of her.

“You said in your email that you were interested in specific details of forensic autopsies,” Dr. Tierney said, taking a prim bite of her salad. “I assume you reached out to me because you’ve already exhausted the resources available online, as it would be a waste of both our time to spend an hour going over the basics you could have learned from a ten-minute internet search.”

Judith chewed a bite of her tasteless burger as fast as she could, but it seemed an age before she could finally swallow and respond. “Hypothetically, if a corpse was exposed to the elements for ten to fourteen days after death, how accurate would your estimated time of death be, and how would you go about ascertaining it?”

Dr. Tierney raised her manicured eyebrows. “The internet could tell you that estimating the physiologic time of death is as much an art as a science.”

“Then if a body is stiff, cold, discolored, beginning to putrefy –” Mud-caked hair, empty eye sockets, red-tinged skin, bloat. Judith’s stomach churned, and she turned her eyes away from the food on her plate. “If the eyes have deteriorated –”

“If we’re still discussing a hypothetical corpse exposed to the elements for an extended period of time, “Dr. Tierney said, her lips tightening, “then the eyes likely would have been consumed by fauna. One also has to consider the extent of insect involvement in the decomposition of the corpse.”

A surge of acidic vomit spurted into Judith’s throat, but she swallowed it. “With what percentage of accuracy could you estimate the time of death?”

“In a case such as what you’ve outlined, I could narrow down the time of death to within a 24- to 72-hour window.”

“In my research,” Judith said, emphasizing the word research for the sake of her pride, “I learned that the pooling of blood can indicate whether or not a body was moved after death.”

“Is that intended to be a question?”

Judith’s face grew warmer. In Dr. Tierney’s pragmatic tone and scientific vocabulary, Judith might have found a kindred spirit, but everything about this woman was better, more. Dr. Tierney was taller, had a more advanced degree, had better hair, was above Judith at every turn. Judith could do her hair and makeup sufficiently to make herself passable, but this woman didn’t stop at passable. She aimed for beauty and succeeded. She aimed at everything and succeeded, it seemed. With a noisy swallow, Judith dragged her thoughts back to the stomach-turning question at hand. “How long does that process take before everything…solidifies?”

“Approximately eight hours, though certain environmental variables could speed up or slow down that process. Again, this is information that is freely available online.”

“So after eight hours, someone could move a dead body without causing any visible signs that would show up on an autopsy?”

“Moving a corpse could potentially cause post-mortem damage to the body, which, of course, would be discovered during an autopsy.”

“Samantha Scott,” Judith said, squeezing her hands together in her lap, “the girl who was found in the field outside town last week. Did you examine her body?”

“Of course I did. I’m the county medical examiner.”

“Had her blood pooled in only one place, or is it possible she could have been moved after death?” Words tumbled out of Judith’s mouth, as though her mind wanted to shove them into the open before the stress caused her brain to short circuit. “Did she have any post-mortem damage?”

“I am not at liberty to discuss any ongoing cases.” Dr. Tierney stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, I have work to finish.”

“Your email said you were available for a full hour.”

“I was available for an hour to discuss forensic autopsies with someone who claimed to be a student. This is not that conversation.”

“Samantha Scott’s case has been in the news. It was merely an example.”

“Have a nice day.” Dr. Tierney laid down a crisp bill on the table, straightened her fleece jacket, and strode out the door into the cool autumn afternoon.

The smattering of other diners in the small building cast curious, side-eyed glances at Dr. Tierney’s retreating back and Judith’s reddening face. Judith took a breath and closed her eyes.

Wading through a thick fog of frustration, embarrassment, inadequacy, and a strange, latent jealousy, Judith reached out, trying to tune her senses to Dr. Tierney, to who she was, really, beneath the wrinkle-free scrubs and the smooth hair and the manicured nails.

Slowing her breathing, Judith forced herself to wait, to be open. Much as she might wish to, she couldn’t shove psychic readings into her brain; to her chagrin, they had to come in their own time.

Finally, a stirring at the edge of her awareness.

A little white pill, a thrumming in her veins, invincible, inexhaustible. Stress weight slipping away, evaporating, leaving behind a buzzing shakiness that she could hide, she could hide, it was fine.

It was fine. Rumors, just rumors. She could just leave again if the dark strip at the far edge of the horizon started to loom up like a storm. No blowup, no repercussions, nothing but a bit of quickly-forgotten gossip. She could leave again.

Prickling unease, slathered with a layer of shiny wax. House, insurance, student loans, eating out, new clothes – she had to look the part of a competent doctor, didn’t she? She couldn’t let this backwards county get to her, couldn’t let herself go. Everything, more and more expensive every day…

Judith’s eyes opened wide, her skin tingling. Sliding a few bills and some change under the salt and pepper shakers, enough to cover her meal and precisely a 20% tip, Judith pulled on her jacket and rushed out the door after Dr. Tierney.

The medical examiner, face tilted down toward her phone, sat in a pristine white car as sleek as her ponytail and far cleaner than the dust-coated trucks scattered around the gravel parking lot.

Striding up, Judith tapped on the window.

Dr. Tierney started. Frowning at Judith, she rolled down her window a few inches. “What now?”

“You used to work in Lexington. Why did you move here?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Why would you move from a fancy job as a medical examiner in Lexington to come poke at dead bodies down here in the middle of nowhere?”

“I wanted someplace quiet, and to be closer to family. And I’ll have you know that I do not ‘poke at dead bodies’. I am a medical doctor –”

“The Ritalin helped with that, right?” Judith squeezed her fingernails into her palm, hoping she had gotten the name of the drug correct. It would ruin the effect a bit if she accidentally dropped the name of an antifungal medication.

Dr. Tierney recovered quickly, but in the fleeting silent moment after Judith’s words dropped into the air, her face paled and her jaw went slack. “You – I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It helped you get through medical school, didn’t it? And residency, or whatever it is that doctors do after medical school. You’ve never been able to stop, have you?”

Dr. Tierney’s pale face turned a thunderous, blotchy red, and, without even stopping to roll up her window, she threw her car into reverse. Judith stumbled back from the squealing tires.

Kicking up loose gravel, Dr. Tierney swung her car through the row of dented trucks and rusty sedans, then peeled onto the main street.

Her breath coming hard, heart thudding, ears throbbing, Judith pulled out her phone and crossed the parking lot in hurried strides. As the phone rang, she paced in a line back and forth beside her little silver car.

“Hey,” came Tim’s voice on the other end. “You coming back to get Rover already?”

“His name isn’t Rover, it’s Orwell,” Judith said. “Yes, I’m coming back. And also, the medical examiner is lying.”

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Thank you so much for taking time to read Beasts of the Field! Check back Saturday, November 2nd for Episode V!

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