“The thing is-Coroner-you’re only seventeen. I’m not so sure you should be working a case like this alone.”
“I’m not alone,” Cameryn countered. “Justin’s with me.”
“I meant without your father. I know he thinks you hung the moon, but what you’re about to do is official business. From now on, it all counts.”
Through tight lips she said, “The coroner told me to start. So I’m going to start.”
Jacobs peered over his glasses, his eyes tiny, squinting. “Since you’re all hell-fired sure you want to go on, you might want to hear what Barry has to say before you start processing the scene. Give us a recap, Barry,” Jacobs commanded.
Barry wore a baker’s apron beneath an open parka. His red hair, as coarse as wire, had been pulled into a hairnet that hung at the base of his neck like an old-fashioned snood. There were grease stains on his apron, score-marks. His jeans were dirty.
“Well,” Barry said, sounding nervous. “Like I said, I was walking home when I ducked in the alley for a smoke. High Noon doesn’t like me to light up-”
Jacobs cut him off with a wave of his hand. “What did you see in the alley?”
“Well, I, uh, I looked down and I thought I saw something strange. I was thinking, What the heck is that, way down by the snow wall? So I got curious. I walked closer and there it was. At first I figured it was a mannequin, like maybe it was tossed off from the parade. When I got closer I saw the gun…” His voice broke. He stopped for a moment before going on. “I said, ‘Hey, kid, are you okay?’ Then I saw the hole in the head and the blood. That’s when I knew.”
“What did you do then?” prompted Jacobs.
“I called 911. The lady told me I had to stay until you guys arrived. She said I wasn’t supposed to touch anything. I didn’t. I gotta tell you, I’m creeped out by this whole thing.” He took a deep drag from the cigarette, and his shaking made the glowing ember dance. “It’s freakin’ weird. I kept walking around the body thinkin’ what a waste it was, killing yourself like that.”
The sheriff’s eyes were sharp. “So, Cameryn, how does this change the scene?”
“Well, for one thing the area around the body has been compromised,” Cameryn answered. “I’ll need to get a shot of Barry’s shoes.”
The sheriff looked at her with grudging respect. “That’s right. But the most important thing is the pictures of the gun. Photograph different angles of the vic holding the revolver-take as many as you can, from every which way. Remember to use the scale.”
“I’ll make sure it’s done right,” Justin said.
“I’ll make sure it’s done right,” Cameryn corrected.
Jacobs made a note on his pad and said, “Start taking your pictures, Cammie. So, Barry,” Jacobs said, turning his attention to the cook, “did you see anyone else in this alleyway?”
“No,” Barry replied. “Nobody comes in ’cause there’s no way out. It’s blocked off…”
As Jacobs’s pen scratched against paper, Justin made a motion for Cameryn to follow him. Moments later the two of them approached the body. At thirty feet, the blue looked all too familiar and she felt, once again, a flutter of panic. To distract herself she asked, “What kind of gun did the decedent use?”
“A.22.”
“That’s a pretty small caliber.”
“Powerful enough. She’s dead. You know, not that long ago, girls used to swallow pills while guys shot themselves in the head. Now a female is almost as likely as a male to blow her own brains out. It’s a weird kind of equality.”
“Either way,” Cameryn said, “dead is dead. But you’re not sure it’s a girl.”
“I’m pretty sure. The victim is lying facedown and in that parka, it’s kind of hard to tell.” Fifteen feet away from the body they stopped. Holding her camera to her eye, Cameryn began to shoot pictures of the scene, the alley, and the churned footprints covered in a patina of snow. Now that she was close, she could see the color of the hair, a strawberry blonde reminiscent of Mariah’s shade. The lights had thrown her off, lighting it up to the color of gold, but she could now see the strands of red woven in. Her mind jumped to the shiny blue fabric, the same color she’d chased down Greene Street.
Slumped next to the body’s right side was the backpack. When Cameryn saw that, the wind was knocked out of her as though a giant, invisible fist had hit her hard in the chest. The color of hair, the make of the coat, the white slash of sneakers, all were points on a road map that led this body straight to Hannah. There was no doubt about it; this was Mariah, minus her braid.
Justin hesitated. “Maybe we should wait for your dad.”
“No,” she said, shaking herself. “I’ve got it.”
Snowflakes were stuck to the red-gold hair, unmelted, since Mariah’s exterior had already cooled. With rote movements, Cameryn snapped picture after picture: of the decedent’s feet, her legs, the rip in her blue jeans, and pictures of the backpack, the gun. After Justin had placed the dental scale next to Mariah’s hand, Cameryn took close-ups of the right index finger curled in the revolver’s trigger, the palm gently cupping the wooden handle. Clearly, this was a suicide. What a tragic thing to do. It was then that Cameryn noticed Mariah’s fingernails. They were bitten down to the quick. Just like mine, she thought. I’ve felt overwhelmed, too. But you can’t take it back, because death is forever.
Edging nearer, Justin said, “Be sure to get a close-up of her wound. Take a lot of those. That’ll be evidentiary.”
“I know, Justin.”
“Just trying to help.”
Cameryn focused on the bullet hole. It was small, a bull’s-eye on Mariah’s right temple, ringed with black. Blood had snaked down the side of her face like a single finger of red. It would have been different, she knew, if Mariah had used a more powerful gun. She’d seen pictures of the damage a.44 left behind. Maintain, she told herself. The backpack hunched to one side as if it, too, were dead.
“Now do you think it’s a girl?”
“Yeah,” Cameryn said. Working in, she placed the scale against the side of the girl’s head. Mariah had obviously been agitated in the car before Cameryn had given chase. Is that what had done it? Had Cameryn’s running after this girl pushed her over the edge? Another thought chilled her: Mariah had been carrying a gun. If Cameryn had chased her down this blocked-off alleyway, things might have turned out differently.
She moved the scale to the other side of the body and took another series of shots.
“You think she’s a runaway?” Justin asked.
“Maybe.”
“I’ll interview everyone in town, see if I can get a lead on this vic. Somebody must have seen this kid.”
As the camera clicked and flashed, thoughts tumbled through Cameryn, spinning like pinwheels, so quick she couldn’t follow their trajectory. Her mother, she was certain, had no tie to Mariah other than picking her up from a gas station’s bathroom-one of Hannah’s lost girls. And yet in her mind’s eye she could visualize the sheriff interrogating Hannah, could hear her father’s accusations, “Do you see, Cammie? Hannah’s crazy. I don’t want you to have anything to do with her anymore. Death follows that woman.” And Hannah, already fragile, might begin to crack. Cameryn had already sensed fissures running beneath. The accusations, the whispers-what if that kind of questioning sent her mother to her own desperate act of self-destruction? Why open a Pandora’s box? Wait. Just wait.
“You ever see this person before?”
It took a moment for her to register that Sheriff Jacobs was now standing next to her. For a moment Cameryn imagined Mariah’s spirit hovering overhead, watching her tell the lie. “No,” she answered. It was only a partial untruth. She didn’t know Mariah’s last name or where she was from. She really didn’t know this girl at all.
“I want to roll her,” Jacobs announced.