I swing by LaDonna’s Diner for a coffee-to-go, and I’ve nearly reached the station, when my phone vibrates against my hip. A glance at the display tells me it’s Nelson Woodburn, the wildlife biologist with the Columbus Zoo. I fumble with my Bluetooth and catch the call on the third ring. “Mr. Woodburn?”

“Yes, hello, Chief Burkholder. I understand you’ve got a mystery on your hands down there in Painters Mill.”

“The more we learn about the remains, the more questions that arise.”

“Well, I’ve never met a mystery I didn’t enjoy, and I must admit with regard to this one my curiosity has bested me.” He has a soft, scholarly-sounding voice with a hint of Kentucky. “Doctor Harris e-mailed me the images of the teeth marks in some of the large bones. I downloaded them immediately and set to work enlarging and trying to identify them.”

“I appreciate your getting to this case so quickly.” I have a whole new appreciation for science nerds. “Any luck identifying the tooth marks?”

He pauses with a smidgen too much drama. “I believe so, which I did mainly by ruling out the usual suspects, the domestic dog and the Canis latrans thamnos, a subspecies of coyote present in this part of Ohio.” Another dramatic pause. “I looked at the dental formula of these mammals and I was quickly able to rule them out.”

“So, if it wasn’t a coyote or dog, what kind of animal was it?” In the back of my mind, I’m terrified he’s going to tell me human, which would undoubtedly add another layer of creepiness to an already creepy case.

“Interestingly, I just finished writing a paper on livestock and animal predation identification. I believe those marks were made by one or more Sus scrofa domesticus,” he tells me. “Or the common domestic swine.”

“Pigs?”

“That’s correct.”

“Feral?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have the answer to that. I can, however, tell you that there are very few feral hogs in this part of Ohio, if any. If this death occurred twenty or thirty years ago, chances are extremely low that feral hogs were involved.”

I’m still trying to make sense of the information in terms of cause and manner of death, but it refuses to settle in my brain. “Doctor Harris, the coroner, believes that the hands and feet of the victim were chewed off. Is that kind of injury common to this type of attack?”

“In the course of my research, I learned that most often feral hogs aren’t even looked at as predators with regard to livestock. But they are omnivores, and they will predate young or injured livestock. Typically when feeding in the wild, unlike other predators such as cougars or even bears, they leave nothing behind.”

“So they would consume even bones?”