Page 26 of Ransom
"I can spell collarbone, Ranger." He hit the word like he was reaching for something to put between us.
"Just making sure."
"Mm."
The slacks came off easier than the shirt. They carried mud and gravel embedded in the fabric at the seat and along the backs of the legs, and I stopped and examined it.
The skin on the back and thighs was scraped down to the meat in long horizontal stripes that ran from the shoulders to the heels. Some of the stripes had asphalt ground into them. Some had stones. One had a piece of glass.
"Drag marks," I said. "Top to bottom. He went a long way. Somebody had him roped at the ankles and pulled him behind a vehicle. Write that down."
The pen moved. Slower this time.
"Whoever did this took their time," Ransom said. He didn't look up from the page. "I've done it the fast way. Hour, hour and a half, you can clean a man off the road and have a beer with your friends by sundown."
I stopped cutting.
"This wasn't the fast way," he said. "Whoever did this wanted him to feel every yard."
"You speaking professionally?"
"I'm helping you with your case file, Ranger." He clicked the pen. "What's next?"
I lifted the right ankle. The skin was scored deep all the way around in a band about an inch wide.
"Ligature mark, ankle. About an inch. Goes all the way around. Tore the skin where the rope bit. This wasn't restraint. This was the attachment point."
"The what?"
"The place they tied the rope to drag him." I didn't look up. "Write attachment point. I'll know what I meant."
I went to the head and tilted it gently. The wound was at the base of the skull, where the bone met the spine. Small, neat, no soot, no stippling.
"Gunshot wound, base of the skull. Nine millimeter or thereabouts. No exit." I waited for the pen to catch up.
"Bullet's still in there. No powder burns. Coward didn't even have the guts to stand over the man he shot execution style."
The pen wrote.
I set the head back down and stayed there a second with my fingers in the dead man's hair. "There's almost no blood from this wound. None on the shirt, none in the hair, none on the skin around it. If his heart had been pumping when somebody put this bullet in him, this whole table would be a mess. It isn't."
I let that sit a moment.
"He was already dead when they shot him."
The pen stopped. "What's the point of shooting a dead man?"
I looked over. Ransom held the pen above the page and looked at me, not at the notebook. Between us was a corpse with its slacks gone and its skin in stripes. "Why would you do it?"
His eyes dropped to the body and went cold. "To send a message. That's the only reason to draw out a kill like this. Question is, to who?"
"To you."
His eyes snapped back to mine.
"Or to your people, at least," I clarified, walking around the body. "So, who out there has a bone to pick with Pae Saco Ranch? One worth killing for?" I looked back down at the body. "In my experience, there's only two things you kill for. First one's money. Easy one. Clean. All you've got to do in that case is follow the money. If that's the case, we'll need to pull bank records, but I got a feeling if I do, I'll see cash deposits matching withdrawals from Pae Saco's account. Will I?"
He glared at me. "Do I look like a fucking accountant to you?"
