At First Light(Dr. Evan Wilding #1)(6)

“Got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, did you?”

“Maybe.” Patrick frowned, a deep crease in his weather-worn face, and shook off his mood. “God, it’s cold. Should have worn my thermals.” He nodded toward the crime-scene techs. “At least we ain’t those poor bastards in the water.”

Three techs waded through the knee-high shallows—one scooping a net to sieve for evidence while two others pushed poles into the mud to erect a tarp over the corpse, protecting it against the prying eyes of riverside strollers or passing fishermen.

And news helicopters. This was the kind of body the media loved.

Patrick aimed his cup back toward the path that led down from the road. “Bastard covered his tracks.”

Addie followed his gaze toward where the mud had been raked over, presumably by the killer. Outside of the scoured section and the area taped off by the patrol cop and now used by the rest of the crime-scene crew, the muddy path that led down from the road was filled with footprints. The techs had roped it off in the hopes they’d get something from it, but she wasn’t holding her breath. Kayakers, fishermen, day hikers—despite the pollution, they all used this area. At night, other sorts came out.

“No car,” Patrick said. “If our guy drove down here to score something, how’d he get here?”

“Maybe he picked up his killer and they came here together for whatever business they had in mind.”

“Or the killer picked him up. You think our victim walked down to the river on his own?”

“He looks like he weighs a couple hundred pounds. A big man for someone to carry or drag.”

“Maybe the dogs’ll be able to tell us.” Patrick tipped back his head and got the final dregs of his coffee before crumpling the empty cup. “Whaddaya make of all those sticks?”

Long wooden slats had been pressed horizontally into the mud and arranged around the head of the corpse like the rays of the sun. The killer—or someone—had carved each stick with a sharp instrument, etching tiny lines that looked like letters in an unknown alphabet.

She said as much, about the writing, and Patrick nodded. “That why you called your friend?”

“That, and the posing of the body.”

Patrick stuck a cigarette in his mouth but didn’t light it. He’d given up smoking three months earlier but said he still liked the feel of the cig in his mouth. “So is the little guy coming or what?”

“It took them a while to find the professor. He should be here any minute.”

One of the techs screamed and leapt out of the water.

“Get it away!” she shrieked, barreling up the hill toward them.

An immense brown-and-black snake slithered out of the water after her. Thick of body and several feet in length, the reptile coiled up against the dead man’s spine. It raised its head and regarded everyone with unblinking eyes.

“Mary Mother of God,” Patrick said.

“Shit,” threw in Wao. “That’s a water moccasin.”

“Kill it!” someone shouted.

But Addie yanked off her gloves, snatched up one of the poles meant for the tarp, and hurried down to the water. Sensing her approach, the snake moved to wriggle under the corpse, but she pressed the end of the pole gently against the reptile, holding it in place. With her other hand, she grabbed the snake near the middle of its body, pulled it away from the corpse, and tossed it into the water.

“Northern water snake,” she said to the tech as she walked by. “It might have bitten you, but it’s not poisonous.”

The tech was bent over as if she might lose her breakfast.

“Not here,” Addie warned.

“It’s barely forty degrees,” Wao said. “The hell is a snake doing here?”

“Snakes brumate,” Addie said. “A form of hibernation. But they’re not in a deep sleep. Likely either we or the killer disturbed its den.”

“It’s a bad sign,” Patrick said.

“It’s a water snake,” Addie snapped.

“Serpents mean treachery, you know. I’m telling you, there’s something bad about this case.”

She couldn’t tell if he was kidding. “Bad for the victim, you mean.”

“Bad for all of us.”

She laughed, loudly enough that some of the techs turned to see what was so amusing. “So now we’re going to solve crimes using signs and augurs?”

“That’s your friend’s job. But still . . .” He gave her a look filled with admiration. “I had no idea you were a snake handler.”

“Four older brothers.” She shrugged. “Learning about reptiles was a form of survival.” Not to mention staying calm around bats, mice, spiders, and scorpions. She’d learned to remain chill around pretty much every kind of beastie. Except rats. Show her so much as a picture of a rat and she’d go find a nice bed to hide under.

Unless that’s where the rats hid, too.

The tech straightened and approached, her gold-and-green Kente cloth headband bright in the morning’s gloom. Her brown skin held a grayish cast.

“Poisonous or not,” she said, “I am not going back in the water unless you get me a boat. But I found this at the same time that bit of nasty showed up. It was near the victim’s feet.”