Part 15 (1/2)
Johnny shook his head violently. ”No. I couldn'tI touched her and she was all cold and stiff. I just couldn't.”
Kate got to her feet. ”Show us.”
The reason Kate and the trooper hadn't seen the body on the way up was because it was lying in a bend of the creek where a small brook had cut a smaller backwater into the bank, leaving a crescent-shaped sliver of beach and a prime fis.h.i.+ng hole. They must have pa.s.sed Johnny on the way, the rush of the creek and the noise of the kicker drowning out his pa.s.sage.
They grounded the skiff and climbed out. ”I spotted the hole on our way up on Wednesday,” Johnny said, in dry clothes, wet hair tousled from a hasty finger-combing. ”There were fish jumping everywhere.”
”Oh there were, were there?” his father said with a determined attempt at flippancy. ”And didn't think to share 'em with your old man, I suppose?”
Johnny gave a ghost of a smile. ”Guess I forgot.”
His father snorted.
The repartee, if not easy, eased the tension among the four of them, and made it easier for Johnny to point to the dark shape lying half in, half out of the water. ”I didn't see her at first, II must have walked right by her. See, you can get to the beach across that fallen tree.” He swallowed hard. ”Then the hook got caught, and I walked the pole around the beach trying to free it up, andwell, that's when I saw her.”
”Did you touch anything?” Jack said.
”Of course not!” Johnny retained enough spirit to be indignant at the very suggestion of such a thing. ”You always tell me you're not supposed to touch anything, that the crime scene is as important to the investigation as the corpse, and sometimes even more.”
”So I do.” By way of apology, Jack removed his Mariners cap (signed personally by Ken Griffey, Jr.) for the sole purpose of putting it on Johnny's head and tugging it down over his eyes. ”Daa-ad.” Johnny's protest was halfhearted. He resettled the cap so he could see, and then turned his back to stare determinedly creekward as the others went to look.
The bank had been cut away by the eroding force of rus.h.i.+ng water, and the resulting strip of land was mostly gravel at this point. Sand would have been better for tracks. The gravel was churned up, but that could have been as much by spring runoff and fis.h.i.+ng bears as by any human pa.s.sage. Cotton-wood and alder and some currant bushes grew right out to the edge of the overhanging bank, and one spruce tree had had the roots washed out from beneath it and had fallen over, bridging the brook.
Branches had been broken from the top-facing surface of the fallen tree and the bark had worn away, but that could as easily be from exposure to weather as from traffic. The traffic didn't necessarily have to be human, either, as witness the porcupine chewing peacefully on an alder branch, who rattled his quills at the trooper in his own demonstration of civil disobedience and trundled off unhurriedly.
The body was lying facedown, head toward the brook, feet toward the creek, limbs sprawled out, blond hair darkened by the water spread out around her head in a swirling halo. Jack pointed, and Kate and Jim nodded. They could all see the darker patch on the left side of the back of her head.
”Let's get her out,” Jim said, his voice curt.
Rigor was well established and the body flopped over like a starfish. The skin of the face was dark with lividity. The eyes, mercifully, were closed.
The trooper hunkered down on his knees and with one hand investigated the back of her head. ”One blow. Her skull feels like mush back here.”
”Probably didn't know what hit her,” Jack said.
”No,” the trooper agreed, his even tone belied by the fury in his eyes.
Kate stared down at the youthful face, and said to Jack, ”Was Auntie Joy at fish camp last night?”
He looked at her with a good deal of understanding, and something else, something she was too caught up in her own concerns to notice or to interpret. ”Yes.”
”All night? You're sure?”
”Yes.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ”My son the venture capitalist was whupping our a.s.ses at Monopoly until midnight. We're sleeping outside. I would have woken up if anyone had left the cabin during the night.”
”All right,” she said, unable to repress the wave of relief that swept over her, and immediately ashamed of it. To Jim she said, ”This is Dani Meany.”
Jim jerked erect. ”Cal Meany's daughter?”
She nodded. If Dani Meany's murder was connected to Cal Meany's, as seemed likely, if they had been killed by the same person, which seemed even more likely, and if Auntie Joy had an unshakable alibi for the previous night, which Jack had just provided her, then Auntie Joy was in the clear.
The trooper read her mind. ”She's still got to tell me where she went with Meany the night of the Fourth, Kate.”
Her eyes met his in complete understanding. ”She will,'' she said firmly. If I have to pry it out of her with a crowbar, she thought.
The trooper rose to his feet and thumbed up the brim of his hat. He stood staring down at the body with a brooding look on his face, and said out loud what they were all thinking. ”It's gotta be connected.” He raised his head. ”Let's look around for a weapon.”
”Could be anything,” Kate objected.
”Handy,” Jack pointed out. ”If the killer just used a rock or something he grabbed up, we can't prove premeditation.
”I could give a s.h.i.+t about degrees here, I want the p.r.i.c.k that would bash a teenage girl over the head and leave her. Jim said, and started casting about for a blunt instrument.
In the end Kate found it, a smooth, three-foot length or driftwood caught in the snarl of dead root at the opposite end of the fallen spruce. Balancing on the spruce's trunk, she very carefully knelt, one knee at a time, clutched a branch whose needles had rusted, and leaned down. The wound to her head throbbed painfully with the sudden rush of blood, but it was worth it when her groping hand grabbed the length of wood. She brought it back up and looked at the dark patch on the thick end that caught her eye. Could just be mud from the bottom of the brook, but she didn't think so.
She rose just as carefully to her feet, and stepped quickly down the trunk to the expanse of gravel. Mutely, she held the makes.h.i.+ft club out to Jim. He held it in his fingertips and scrutinized it carefully. The same thing that had caught Kate's attention caught his as well, a smudge of something at the thick end. ”Could just be mud,” he said, echoing her thought for the second time that day.
”Could be. But look.” She stood facing the downed spruce. ”Suppose the victim is about to step on the trunk to cross the brook to the bank. Suppose the killer is right behind her, and s.n.a.t.c.hes up the driftwood.”
”Pow, he brings it down on the victim's head” Jim said.
”Right-handed, then,” Jack said. ”And then, when the victim falls face forward into the creekdoesn't matter if she's unconscious or dead, because if she's unconscious she'll drown pretty shortlythen the killer climbs up on the trunk, crosses to the bank, tosses his club in the water, he thinks to float away or at least to be washed clean, and goes on his merry way.” He took the club from Jim and examined it. ”Just dumb luck it fell wrong side down for the killer and right side up for us.”
”And cold water always delays rigor,” Jim added, ”so the time of death is confused.”
”If he knew that,” Kate said.
”If he cared,” Jack said. He took a deep breath, and raised his voice. ”Johnny?”
Johnny turned reluctantly. ”Yeah, Dad?”
”Need you to take a look.”
The color, only just returned to the boy's face, washed out again.
”Jack,” Kate said.
The trooper, sensing something off, said nothing.
”Come on,” Jack said, beckoning.
Johnny came with laggard steps, his eyes on the ground. He stopped just out of his father's reach.
”Come on, kid,” Jack said, his voice gentling. ”Just take a look. Is she the girl you saw the night of the Fourth?”
”What?” Kate said.
Unwilling, irresolute, Johnny looked anyway. He didn't gasp or stumble backwards, but Kate got the feeling it was only because of pride. His voice was thin and shaky. ”How come her face is so dark?”