“I haven’t messed with him,” Brandon said. “Wanted to wait for you. But it’s pretty obvious we won’t be matching that face with any missing person reports.”
Walt neared the haphazardly installed police tape.
“There’s a set of tire tracks, so tread lightly,” Brandon said.
“I see ’em.”
Walt dodged the tire treads, and kneeled. “It’s a truck. A pickup maybe.” He studied the lay of the grass. “Three… no, four… kids and an adult approached the body. That is, if you came in from over there.” He pointed.
“I did.”
Walt parted some grass and used a stick to lift some of the matted weeds.
“The predators were a family of fox and a dog the size of a Labrador. The dog was running. Might have been after the fox, not our John Doe.”
The body appeared to have been tossed into a tangle of twigs and weeds that ran along the base of the scree field, which was piled four feet high in places and stretched out sixty yards or more.
Instead of eyes, two blood-black holes stared up. A piece of the nose was missing. He’d been a big man-six-four or -five, two-seventy. Fit. Wide shoulders. Huge thighs in what had to be custom-tailored jeans.
Walt declined to move the body until he had some decent photos.
As if on cue, Fiona’s Subaru pulled up. She climbed out, waved at Walt, and went around back to collect her gear.
He remembered her saying that their moment together wouldn’t interfere with their professional work, but there was something wrong about her not answering any of his calls or e-mails and now showing up all sunny and bright. In fact he resented it, and had Brandon not been there, he would have rushed over to her and demanded some answers. It was then he realized he was going to be the one to have a hard time keeping this professional.
As Walt stood there, his mind reeling, Brandon had the good sense to direct her around the side of the roped-off area and to help her over the security tape.
She looked tired but determined to appear otherwise.
“Hi, there!” she said, as if they were neighbors running into each other in the supermarket.
“Uhhh,” Walt said.
“Good God!” She staggered back as she spotted the body among the sticks and debris. She glanced sharply at Walt, back to the body, over at Brandon. Back to the body. She looked afraid and confused and as if she might be sick. “Dear God.” She took another step back, kneeled, and retched.
When she looked up, she had tears in her eyes.
He took one quick step toward her, wanting to comfort her, but caught himself like a runner coming off the blocks before the gun.
“You okay? Should have warned you. Sorry about that. You don’t have to do this,” he said.
Brandon looked at him like he was crazy. Walt never excused anyone from a crime scene, especially not the photographer.
“Someone’s got to take the pictures,” Brandon said, speaking what he was thinking. Brandon lacked the social filter that came on standard model human beings. He tended to say whatever entered his head.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I can do it.”
“You don’t look okay,” Walt said.
“You get used to it,” Brandon said, trying for sympathetic but sounding brutish.
Her tears hit Walt the hardest. He’d forgotten how horribly a dead body could impact the uninitiated.
She busied herself, keeping her attention on the contents of her camera bag as she switched lenses and checked filters. Her hands shook to where she dropped a lens. She scrambled to recover it, blowing onto and fogging its glass and inspecting it, but all with the exaggerated movements of someone who knew she was being watched.
Walt heard a car door shut and, turning in that direction, felt the hair rise on the nape of his neck as a silhouette of a massive figure stood on the pavement’s edge. Behind the man, a sheriff’s cruiser had joined the breakdown lane and now the commanding silhouette made sense, and Walt raised a hand toward Sergeant Lou Boldt. He experienced both exhilaration and dread. The teacher had walked in on his unfinished science project.
Torn between wanting to comfort Fiona and welcoming the sergeant, Walt moved toward the highway. Boldt came down the embankment. He was broad-shouldered, somewhere in his late forties, his graying, close-cropped haircut a throwback to the 1950s. His head appeared oversized, a condition emphasized by his short neck. A pair of reading glasses hung around that neck, bouncing off a red tie and crisp white shirt, framed by a brown sport coat, threadbare at the sleeves. As he drew closer to Walt, a warmth filled his pale gray eyes. He reminded Walt of a husky or wolf. They shook hands vigorously, like long-lost friends, Boldt towering over Walt. His voice was deep but surprisingly gentle for such a big man.
“I hope I’m not intruding.”
Walt thought how much more impressive the man was in person, compared to a chat window on a computer monitor.
“Not at all,” Walt said. Both men knew he was lying.
“Never been one to sit around a motel room.”
“I know the feeling.”
“You mind?” he asked, nodding toward the crime scene.
Walt waved him forward and glanced at Fiona, wondering how she was doing. Wondering if she’d give him some look, some sign that she was indeed the same woman who’d freely-hungrily-shared herself with him only a few days before. But she maintained her professional demeanor, her head in her gear-or maybe she was still too overcome by the sight of the body to look up.
Boldt accepted introductions and then went silent, almost reverent, as he approached the body. He didn’t comment on the amateur job of the tape barrier. He didn’t make small talk with Fiona or Brandon. Instead, he looked left and right, studied the ground as Walt had done, took in the tangle of branches and brambles that partly concealed the body.
“Don’t let me get in the way,” he finally said to Walt.
“Happy to have you,” Walt lied, wishing he’d had a few minutes more alone with the body before Boldt had arrived.
Boldt stepped closer, moving slowly and deliberately. “I hate outdoor scenes,” he said. “Give me a nice small apartment any time.”
“A lot of variables,” Walt said.
“Far too many.”
The man’s precaution impressed Walt. The tentativeness of each step. The scrutiny of his surroundings.
Brandon caught Walt’s eye and raised an eyebrow, also impressed.
“Coyotes?” Boldt asked.
“A family of fox and a good-sized dog,” Walt answered.
“Did that hawk have a role in it?” Boldt asked.
He’d caught Walt by surprise, a situation that brought a flush to his face. Boldt pointed out a matted mess of reddish feathers and blood-stained down ten yards south, at the edge of the tangle of avalanche debris.
“Red-tail,” Walt said, identifying it immediately. “Looks fresh. You’re right.”
He instructed Brandon to bag the dead bird, and Brandon looked anything but thrilled.
“You think he was thrown in there?” Walt asked.
“Kind of looks it,” Boldt said. “Are those tire tracks from a pickup truck?”
“We’ll need to pull a tape to confirm it, but I’d say so.”
“He’s a big boy,” Boldt said. “Hell of a throw from that distance.”
“Got that right.”
“Odd place to dump a body if that’s what we’re looking at,” Boldt said, one eye cast toward the highway. “All the open country you’ve got around here, and a person chooses the side of the highway.”
“He could have been hiking. Could have come down the side of the mountain. But there are no real trails along this stretch. And if he’d been bushwhacking, his socks, where they’re exposed, would be covered in cheat grass and be carrying good old Idaho dust. The socks are way too clean. He’s a mess-don’t get me wrong. But he wasn’t hiking.”
“I like the way you think,” Boldt said.
A guy like Boldt would never see the accident first. He would look for foul play, invent it from a dozen different scenarios and then slowly and willingly backtrack to settle on accidental death or natural causes, but only much later.