Excerpt: Five Points of Death

Detective Alonsa Matthews stepped out of the car as a dark haired man walked toward her. She smiled as he held out a cup of black coffee to her. "Thanks Evan," she said.

Detective Evan Richardson grinned back at her. "I need you at the top of your game for this one," he said.

"What have we got?" Alonsa asked as they walked toward the house.

Evan flipped opened his notepad as they slipped under the yellow tape. "The… uh… victim's name was Thomas Van Hought," he said. "Building inspector for the city. Lived alone. Didn't report to work yesterday. Co-worker came to check on him when he didn't answer the phone."

Alonsa stepped through the front door. "Whoa… how long has he been dead?" she asked. The smell of decomposition was strong in the house.

It appeared to be a nice house. Everything was neat and clean. The colors focused on earth tones and comfortable furniture. For a moment Alonsa felt uncomfortable. There was something familiar about this place though she couldn't put her finger on it.

The body of Mr. Van Hought was in the living room. He was lying in the middle of the room on his back, his eyes closed. There was something odd about the way he was laying. The medical examiner was kneeling beside him.

"What have we got Jackie?" she asked.

The dark skinned woman looked up from the examination of the body. Jacquline Wagoner had a puzzled expression on her face. "You mean other than a dead man?" she asked. She shook her head and turned back to the body. "Honestly, I'm not sure what we have here."

"What do you mean?" Alonsa asked squatting down on the other side of the body.

Jacquiline slowly lifted the man's right arm. "No rigor and every bone in his body has been crushed.

"Whoa…." Alonsa said surprised. It explained why the body looked odd. Van Hought looked limp in a way that could only be described as a deflated balloon. He appeared to be middle aged with dark graying hair. Slightly over weight perhaps but nothing out of the ordinary. "Ever see anything like this before?" she asked.

Jackie nodded. "Yes… in jumpers," the medical examiner replied.

"So he jumped and somebody brought him home?" Alonsa asked.

Jackie shook her head. "The body hasn't been moved Alonsa," she replied.

"The house was locked from the inside with no sign of forced entry," Evan said from behind her. "No sign of a fight of any kind."

"No defensive wounds either," Jackie said.

"Okay, this is odd," Alonsa said. "Any other way this could have happened?"

"I've seen things like this in bodies that have been dug out of collaped buildings," Jackie said. "But there is no external bruising anywhere on the body pre or post mortem."

Alonsa got to her feet then turned to Evan. "Guess it's time to interview friends, family, co-workers…the usual," she said. "Maybe we can figure out how this happened."

"When you do, let me know," Jackie said. "I could write a medical paper on this."

Alonsa smiled faintly as she walked out of the room. Forensics was currently going over the house with a fine tooth comb. Hopefully they would soon have some answers. This was already proving to be a very odd case. Cause of death was easy. But how it happened was a mystery.