“Jack deer?” She caught a flash of something dark and gleaming near the water. A deer? She aimed her flashlight toward the thicket it might be hiding in.
“Poaching. At night. If you shine a light into a deer’s eyes you can freeze it long enough to shoot.”
The gleam looked funny, familiar but out of place. She moved the beam of light to the right. And saw a hand, barely distinguishable from the snow it rested on. The dark gleam, that was hair. That was someone’s long, dark—
“Russ,” she said.
“What?”
“Russ,” she repeated. She pointed, part of her amazed at how steadily she was holding the flashlight. “Down there.”
“Oh my God!” he said. He scrambled down the slope, falling and sliding and catching at trees. “Oh Jesus, oh God, oh Jesus, no.” He yanked a bush almost out of the ground, stopping his headlong descent before he plunged into the water. Clare held her light tightly. She wasn’t sure if she could move it at this point. Russ squatted in the snow and bent over the . . . her mind tried to slide over the word “body.”
“Oh no. Oh, Jesus, oh no.” He hunkered down for a moment. She could see him backlit by the glow of his flashlight, shaking his head over and over. Then he straightened, wiped his face. Turned toward her. “It’s a girl. She’s dead.”
CHAPTER 4
Clare pressed her gloved fist against her mouth. Her flashlight never wavered. Russ pointed his light up at her, making her eyes sting and blink. “Clare? Are you okay?”
She nodded. She couldn’t see him, but she could feel him looking at her, realized he might not see the small movement.
“Yes. I’m okay,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”
“Can you make it back up the trail to the car and call for help? I’m going to have to secure the area now, see if I can find anything before—before they get here to take her out.”
“Turn on the radio and ask for Harlene?”
“Yeah. Tell her we’ve found a body off the trail, about a quarter mile upstream from Payson’s Park. Can you do that?” She nodded again. “Good girl,” he said.
Clare couldn’t stop herself from looking at that hand once more, so pale and still it might have been carved out of snow. Snow on snow, the old hymn went. Snow on snow. She could make out some kind of sleeve, disappearing into the tangled brush. Whoever it was must be half in the water. Did she jump? Had she changed her mind and tried to crawl out? Clare blinked the blurriness out of her eyes and filled her lungs with sharp, dry air. She headed up the trail, jogging as quickly as she could in the snow. The trees crowded in against the path. She slipped and slid, trying to keep her footing and not break her pace. There was an explosion of snow from her left. She yelped and almost dropped her flashlight. A doe leaped into the beam of light and vanished again in another shower of snow. Clare staggered, her heart about to hammer its way out of her chest.
She made it to the cruiser finally, her knees aching from several falls, sweaty and hot under her borrowed parka. She slid into the car and flicked on the radio, and when she heard the dispatcher’s hail she keyed the mike and said exactly what Russ had told her. Harlene put her on hold for what seemed like an eternity.
“Okay, Reverend, I’ve got an ambulance on the way and I’ve notified Doctor Dvorak. He’ll be waiting at the county morgue. Officer Flynn is headed out to lend a hand, and the state troopers are sending a technician along with a crime scene van. Can you sit tight and lead them to the chief when they get there?”
Clare keyed the mike again. “Yes, I’ll be here.”
“Are you okay, Reverend?”
“Yeah, Harlene. Thanks for asking. I’ll be fine.”
“Good girl. Dispatch out.”
Clare stripped off her gloves and blew on her fingers. She could remember the time when she would have torn into anyone who called her a girl. At thirty-five she was finally mellowing. Had Russ seen a woman down there in the snow and ice? Or was it really a girl? She yanked her coat around her, her exercise-induced heat seeping away in the chill of the car. As cold and as still as the grave.
Clare leaned her cheek against the rigid vinyl of the car seat. She shut her eyes very tightly, trying to put the sight of that white hand, that dark hair somewhere she could bear it. Did something drive that woman out here to end her own life? Something inside her so dark and cold that the moonless night and the icy water seemed preferable? Merciful God. That was the start of the collect she would pray tomorrow, looking at the comfortable, satisfied faces of her congregation. Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace . . . Give us Grace . . . she felt hot tears behind her eyelids. Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins . . .
She was exhausted, numb and sleepy when the squad car and ambulance pulled into the lot. The flare of red lights against her closed eyes jerked her into alertness and prodded her out of the car before her mind had caught up with her body. She shuffled through the snow, waving to a uniformed man who must have been Officer Flynn levering himself from his squad car. Next to the car, two paramedics in bulky snowsuits jumped from the ambulance. Clare slogged over to the officer.
“Ma’am,” Flynn greeted her. “I’m awful sorry you had to see something like this.” She echoed the sentiment silently. The doors to the ambulance clanged open. The EMTs hauled a rescue pallet off the van bed.
“If you follow me, I can take you to the chief,” she said. Her voice seemed unnaturally loud in the still, cold air. Flynn opened the trunk of his car and hefted a canvas bag over his shoulder. As they began their slippery processional, he fished into the bag and retrieved a self-starting flare. He yanked the tab and the clearing lit up with a harsh chemical glare. Flynn stuck the flare butt-end into the snow beside the trail.
The EMTs balanced the pallet between them, picking their way through snow as they pushed on toward the water. Every few yards Flynn lit another flare. The trail resembled a nightmare version of a garden walkway illuminated by torches for the benefit of evening strollers. Clare kept her eyes on the tracks as they walked, tire marks crisscrossing at the edges of the trail, two sets of boot prints leading downward, small, deep holes left by deer hooves, and blurry disturbances where she had fallen in her headlong rush to get back to the cruiser.
“There,” she said, pointing down the steep slope where a single flashlight beam appeared and disappeared through the pines.
“Chief?” yelled Officer Flynn. Clare pointed her flashlight toward the water.
“Yeah!”
She shifted her light toward his voice and nailed him straight on with the light. Russ threw his hand in front of his face. “I’ll come up! Don’t anybody climb down until we’ve gotten some photographs of the tracks.”
Flynn pulled the tab on another flare. The trail sprang into high relief. The trees cast hard, dark shadows downslope, concealing and revealing glimpses of Russ’s brown parka as he clambered back up the hill. Clare could hear him grunting with effort. By the time he reached them, he was breathing hard.
“Are you all right?” she asked, peering up into his face.
He leaned against a birch tree, panting. “Been up and down this damn stretch of ground about six times already,” he said. “Jesus, I’m getting too old for this kind of thing. Sorry, Clare.” He sketched a wave to the two paramedics. “Guys, you can retrieve the body just as soon as the state crime lab gets here.”