Alone in the Wild (Rockton #5)(8)

She’s a settler, not a hostile. In my experience so far, it’s been easy to tell the difference. A settler looks like someone who stepped from a magazine article on the Klondike Gold Rush. Sometimes it’s the classic version, circa 1898, complete with shabby clothing and beards to their belly buttons. Other times, they resemble modern miners, people who choose to spend part of their year here because there is indeed gold in these hills and streams.

Hostiles look as if they stepped from an entirely different magazine article, one about a newly discovered tribe. At least, that’s the first impression. On closer inspection, it’s more like they’ve compiled the most cringeworthy and stereotypical “savage” cosplay outfit imaginable. Filed teeth. Primitive tattoos. Ritual scarring. Painted faces. Tattered clothing. Zero sanitation.

This woman might be in need of a long shower, a good haircut, and a visit to the dentist, but she isn’t a hostile. Her clothing is well crafted. Her hair is gathered into a rough braid. And she has only a smear of dirt on her face, otherwise as clean as I’d be if we spent a week in this winter-frozen forest, with no easy access to bathing.

She lies on her side, legs drawn up as if she’d gone fetal to protect the baby. Blood soaks the snow around her head and legs, hidden under a cleansing fresh layer. I can’t estimate quantity of blood loss by quantity of red snow. I mentally add that to my research list, also known as “the list of things I never thought I’d have to know because I’m a homicide cop, damn it.”

That’s not a complaint. Just a wry admission that my job down south had been very limited, with experts for everything beyond my immediate scope. Up here, I’m not just a homicide detective. Not just a general detective. Not even detective plus basic law enforcement. I am all that … and a crime-scene tech, ballistics expert, forensic anthropologist, arson investigator, cold-case expert, even assistant coroner. If it touches on any area of crime solving, it’s mine.

Down south, I’d been known as a keener, using my vacation time to attend conferences for areas of crime-scene investigation usually handled by experts. I’d been proud of my extracurricular expertise. Then I came to Rockton, and it was like studying French for two semesters and taking a job in northern Quebec.

Finding the woman’s wounds is tricky. Her chest is clean, and there hadn’t been any blood on the baby or her blanket. I clear snow from the woman’s legs, but she’s wearing light tan trousers, and they’re only splattered with dark spots that might or might not be blood.

“I’m going to roll her over,” I say. “How’s the baby?”

“Sound asleep.”

I glance up sharply at that, and he says, “I can feel her heartbeat, Casey. She’s only sleeping. Keep going.”

I ease the woman onto her stomach. I still don’t see any sign that bullets or blades pierced her thick parka. I peel the coat off … and there’s still no blood. Her shirt is tan, light enough that I would notice blood. I don’t.

As I ease back, I see a smear of blood on her neck. My gaze moves up to her hat. It’s reminiscent of a Russian ushanka, with a tanned-hide exterior, fur lining, and ear flaps. I untie the straps. When I try to pull it off, it resists. I have to peel it from the back and her hair sticks to it. Wet hair that froze solid. I run a strand through my fingertips and see red. A blow to the base of the skull.

I shine my flashlight to see her hair is plastered over an ugly cut. I palpate the spot. Her skull doesn’t feel dented or damaged. A scalp wound bleeds a lot, and that’s what soaked the ground around her head.

I look at the imprint her body has left. When I picture the body lying not in snow but on pavement, I envision a blood pool radiating from thigh level.

Checking her legs more carefully, I find what I’m looking for: a dark patch on her inner thigh. I picture her position again and see her lying on her side, legs pulled up but parted.

I finger the dark patch and find a hole the size of a bullet. Shot in the leg. Did she fall then? Or run a little more? Not far before the bullet lodged in the femoral artery. She dropped, lying on her side, cradling the baby as blood ran into the snow.

Hit in the head. Then shot?

I check the scalp again, thinking it might be a bullet graze. No, it’s a tear, as if from a tool. Yes, she was indeed hit in the head and then shot.

I’m contemplating this puzzle when the baby fusses. That slams home the reminder that this dead body is not simply a puzzle. It’s the child’s mother. Her dead mother.

As cops, we catch a lot of flak for what seems like dispassionate disinterest in the human aspect of our work. That’s unfair and untrue. We learn to distance ourselves so we can view a corpse as a mystery. Otherwise, we remember that we’re looking at a life snuffed out, and we get stuck there.

I take a moment to think about this woman, because that helps, too. Place her in context. Mother of an infant. Baby wrapped under her jacket when she’s attacked. Her killer leaving them both to die. I can’t tell if she bled out or died of hypothermia. Either way, she’d been abandoned by a killer heartless enough to let an infant die a slow and horrible death.

I carefully remove the dead woman’s shirt. Two shirts, actually. Layering for the weather. She’s naked under that. No bra, obviously—brassieres are hardly a priority out here. That does make me stop to consider. Something seems wrong, but I’m no expert on this, and I won’t jump to any conclusion, won’t even suggest the possibility I see. There’s also something else that pulls my attention away from that.