"Cause is pretty clear," replied another ranger, an overweight fellow who had the arms and general appearance of a white, hairless bear-and who, in fact, the other rangers called Bear.
"She never stood a chance," mumbled a third man.
"We figure it's that missing woman, Sarah Langley. She was hiking alone. Paid no attention to the warnings against hiking alone up in here," urged Bear.
"Just the same, I'll have a look." Jessica went to the body and pulled back the blanket. She gasped at the horrid sight of flesh that had been literally boiled from the bones. The woman had no features, the skin having sloughed away. She was so badly burned, in fact, there seemed no way she could have come so far in her state. This strange fact stood out along with something equally strange about the nude body that immediately hit her. The victim's ankles and feet, while scalded, were not in nearly as bad shape as the rest of her body. This struck her instantly as odd.
"Anyone remove her shoes? Were her clothes burned off her?"
"Maybe, can't tell. No evidence she had any clothes on, but superheated water like what she got into burns clothing into nothing," replied Fronval. "I've seen it happen."
"She didn't have no shoes on," said another ranger. "I mean when we found her."
Jessica looked again at the body, trying to make out any sign of clothing clinging to it, but there was nothing but the clothlike blotches and peels of skin remaining, whole portions moving in the invisible wind current coming off the ground.
"Well?" asked Fronval. "What's your diagnosis, Doctor?"
"Yeah, how'd she manage to get so far from the pool that killed her?" asked the pilot, equally confused.
She had to have had help, Jessica thought but kept her counsel.
"Animals musta' got at her," said Bear with a shrug. "Maybe a coyote or some grizzly come along and drug her here. There're signs she was drugged here."
Jessica and Fronval looked at the evidence the heavyset young man pointed to. Yes, the body had been dragged, but she doubted it was drugged, and Fronval was shaking his head, too. He near whispered to her, "If there were any bear tracks, they've been obliterated by last night's snow and destroyed by my overanxious men, but I don't think a bear got at her."
"Why not?"
"No bear marks on her."
"Gashes, you mean."
"Bear'll tear its meat into strips. Even a coyote'd leave marks where he clamped down on her, if he could even manage to drag her dead weight this far up from the springs. So, we got ourselves a bit of a Devil's Triangle mystery here, huh? What do you think, Doctor?" urged Fronval.
Jessica looked up from the corpse, the worst thing she'd seen in her young career as an M.E. student, the skin seared to molten, peeling sheets; sheaths of her skin had curled up, other portions of skin were missing, lost along the trail, revealing scorched, dehydrated veins, normally blue, turned to a white, milky hue, the blood boiled away.
With third- and fourth-degree scald burns over ninety percent of her body, she could not have survived long enough to have taken ten steps, much less arrive at this destination on her own power. There were second- and third-degree burns over the remaining ten percent of her. All her facial features and hair had been dramatically boiled away. All the soft tissues, such as the eyes, scalded into oblivion. Dental records were a necessity for a one hundred percent ID on the woman, for even if she had once had a birthmark, it, too, was gone. "If she were burned to this degree in the doorway of the best burn center in the country-" she began.
"That'd be Salt Lake City," supplied Fronval.
"— she still would have died…"
"But?" asked Fronval, sensing there was more.
"But the condition in which we find her, and so far from the hot springs-where is it?"
"Closest one is a quarter mile that way." Fronval pointed with an unlit pipe, and he next supplied the name of the hot springs that had apparently killed Sarah Langley, who, from what Jessica could tell, was a young woman in her mid- to late twenties who obviously enjoyed nature and taking her nature alone in the woods. Fronval said, "She was hiking along Firehole River. She'd been seen by a couple of fishermen up that way, least that's what Brian, here, learned before we began the manhunt for her."
Jessica looked up to see which one was Brian, guessing it to be Bear. He only shook his head, suppressed eye contact, and said in response, "I figured she fell in, 'cause look, her ankles and feet didn't get it near so bad. She must've fallen in and clawed her way back outta the pool, and her feet were the only things working right. They got her away from the pool, and a large, predatory animal must've done the rest."
"We can get the body over to Mammoth Hospital. They got a long history of hot springs deaths there. They'll know what to do, all the paperwork, getting the body to her family, all that," suggested Fronval.
Jessica nodded to Fronval. "Are they equipped with a sheriff and a jail there, Mr. Fronval?"
Fronval's eyes widened. "You suspect there's more here than meets the eye, Doctor?"
"I do."
"Murder? Foul play?"
"I do."
"Can you prove it?" he asked.
"Take me to the hot springs where she allegedly fell in."
Bear defended, saying, "They don't always fall in. Sometimes some people jump in, confusing one pool with another, thinking it a safe sauna, you know."
"Bear's right 'bout that," said a third ranger.
Fronval agreed, saying, "Some pools are safe to swim and bask in while the one right beside it is hot enough to kill anything that dares touch it."
"So, she coulda decided to take a swim or bathe," Bear said with a shrug.
"That same place has claimed lives before. It's a tricky area on the trail," agreed Fronval, "and there're three pools there. You slip and fall in, you could be killed. We figure, well, Bear here figured, she fell into Ojo."
"Ojo?" she asked.
"Ojo Caliente."
"Spanish for hot springs," added the young pilot.
"Lower Geyser Basin," added the third ranger, whose nameplate said Fred Wingate.
"That's where that Lewis kid, six years old, fell in when he was fishing with his father back in '58. But he lived for two days afterward," supplied Bear.
Fronval supplied the rest, saying, "Yeah, the boy had third-degree burns over his entire body except for the head and neck. Died in Salt Lake. Wasn't anything could be done. Lost too much body fluids to the heat. Ojo's one of the hottest of the springs; fluctuates between a hundred ninety-eight and two-oh-two."
"But she went in headfirst-her ankles and feet weren't in the water as long as the rest of her," Jessica said. "And there's a large contusion on the left side of her head where she sustained a blow."
"Coulda happened in the fall," suggested Bear.
The other men stood nodding, imagining the possible scenarios suggested first by Fronval, next by Dr. Coran, and then by Bear.
"I'll need to examine the spot where she fell in and supposedly dragged herself out of this Ojo springs. See if her clothing is there…"
"That could take days. You know how big Ojo is?" asked Bear.
"But if she fell from the trail as you theorize," replied Jessica, "then the search is considerably narrowed down, isn't it, Mr. Fronval?"
"Sure is," said Fronval. "I'll take you back that way on my four-wheeler. We'll have a look around while Bear and the others get the body over to Mammoth."
Jessica knew that the chopper was equipped to take on such cargo.
"I want to go with you, Sam," said Bear. "I'm the one found her. Feel I ought to carry through."
"No need, Bear. You go on to Mammoth with the body. Get things hopping there. Notify the family she's been located, and Fred.. Fred, you get back to the station. We've left it unmanned long enough."