Alone in the Wild (Rockton #5)(14)

April is right. Saying I can’t have kids should be no different than saying I’m deaf in one ear or my pancreas doesn’t produce insulin. It’s a medical issue, beyond my control.

I’ve heard people admit that being unable to have kids makes them feel less like a woman. That’s not me at all. I just feel … I feel as if an opportunity has been snatched from me, this thing I wasn’t sure I wanted, but I would like to have had the option. I don’t, and that stings, and it’s stung more in the past few hours than I ever imagined it could.

I let Jen handle the burping while I talk to April about the baby’s mother. I might not be able to burp the baby properly, but here’s something I can do for her. I am a detective, and if her mother holds any clues to tell me where this baby belongs, I’m getting them from her.



* * *



We’ve put Jen in charge of the baby. I cannot believe I’m saying that. I’m definitely not comfortable with it, but we don’t have a lot of options. Dalton and I need to be with April for the autopsy, and Anders has a town to manage.

Also, whatever my issues with Jen, I wouldn’t leave the baby with her if I didn’t have to admit she could be trusted, at least in something this important.

Once the baby is out of the exam area, we bring in her mother’s body and put it on the same table. I undress her and fold her clothing into paper bags that I write on with a marker. Dalton takes notes as I dictate my initial observations while April waits.

I take pictures, too. We have a digital camera and a laptop for me to download the photographs, blow them up, analyze them … Crime solving in Rockton might make me feel like I’m working in Sherlock Holmes’s time, but I do have access to some modern tech. We generate a base level of solar power for food storage and the restaurant kitchens, and I can tap into that, but I don’t use it more than necessary, especially in winter, when the sun is at a premium.

When I undressed the woman in that clearing, I’d made observations that I need to follow up on before April begins her autopsy. So I tell her what I noticed. She listens and frowns and then nods and checks.

“Your observations are correct,” she says when she finishes. “This woman is not the infant’s mother.”

“Fuck,” Dalton exhales.

“Seconded,” I murmur.

When I’d first removed the dead woman’s shirt, what caught my attention was her breasts. I might not know much about babies, but I’ve worked alongside breastfeeding mothers, and I understand the basic physiological changes that go along with breastfeeding. This woman … well, she looks like I’d expect of a middle-aged woman with a D-cup bosom. In short, her breasts are not buoyed by mother’s milk. That could mean she was unable to breastfeed, which is why I hadn’t mentioned my suspicion to Dalton. It threw a huge monkey wrench into this scenario, and I wanted to be sure. Now I am.

“This woman has never given birth,” April says.

“She could have a child without breastfeeding,” I explain to Dalton. “But April is talking about her pubic bones. During pregnancy, they separate. The ligaments tear, which you’d see in a recent birth. There’s none of that. Long-term, that heals, but it leaves pitting, which I learned from that forensic anthropology text you got me. That’s why April believes this woman has never had a child.”

“So she isn’t the baby’s mother,” Dalton says. “I don’t even know where to go with that.”

“I do,” I say. “Because I’ve been considering it since I got a good look at her. Unfortunately, that path goes in a million directions.”

“I believe a million is overstating the matter,” April says.

“It’s rhetorical hyperbole,” I say. Before she can argue, I continue. “The woman could be related to the baby. She could be a caretaker. She could have stolen it. Of course, if she’d been caught stealing it, whoever shot her should have taken the baby back. If she’s a relative or caretaker, I’d expect the parents to be combing the woods looking for her, and we didn’t hear anything.”

“Does it matter how this woman obtained the child?” April asks, and her tone makes it sound like an accusation but I’m learning not to jump on the defensive.

“It does,” I say. “Because if she knows the baby, then her body may provide clues to the baby’s home. If she doesn’t know her…”

I don’t finish. This woman is my only link to the baby’s origins. If she has no relationship to the child—if they aren’t from the same family or settlement—then I wouldn’t even know where to begin. It’s like dropping a naked baby on a church doorstep. I need something to work with, and this woman is all I have right now.

I will find my clues here. Pretend I really am living in the nineteenth century and channel my inner Sherlock Holmes to tease out the threads leading to a connection that will, ultimately, take this woman and—I hope—the baby home. For that, my best clues might be contained in the literal threads that surround her: the woman’s clothing. I force myself to set that aside for now and focus on what her body tells us instead.

This woman was not born in the wilderness. There are fillings in her teeth and the dents of old ear piercings. She also has a mark that may be a belly button piercing.

I take photos of the ritual scarring and tattooing. Both seem unfinished, and the scars are old. She hasn’t been a hostile in a while. My mind automatically seizes on this and wants to start extrapolating potential information on the nature of hostiles. But that’s not what this is about. File it for later. Focus on the clues for this woman as an individual, not as a general exemplar.