“I think you might need to wait until she feels better,” he says. “She’s not making much sense.”
“What’s she saying?”
His gaze darts to the woman. “It seems to be some kind of nightmare.”
“Even if what she’s saying is obviously confused, I might be able to get something useful from her.”
“Okay, well, she says she was attacked by a man in the forest. A man who…”
“Go on,” I say.
“She’s saying it was some kind of wild man.”
“There are settlers in the forest, and the occasional miner wanders through. They can seem a little … wild.”
Diana snorts. “You should see the former sheriff.”
I nod. “As much as they might want to stay clean, they can’t live up to the standards of people with twenty-four-hour access to hot showers and razors and Laundromats. Then there are some who don’t care to try. Consider it human repellent. Most people out there are very private. You need to be, to live that life.”
“Understood, but…” He takes a deep breath. “She says it was a man with long matted hair and a beard, and mud on his face. Only the mud…”
He says something to her, and she shakes her head and then speaks in rapid Danish.
“I asked if his face might have just been dirty,” Jay says. “She says no, the mud was put on intentionally, in whirls, like a pattern. He also had scars across his forehead—parallel lines that looked intentional, too.”
“Well, we do get all kinds up here,” Diana says.
“He was dressed in hides.”
“Most people out there are,” I say. “They don’t have anything else.”
“No online shopping,” Diana quips. “Even in Rockton, we don’t get much selection. Make sure whatever you brought lasts as long as possible or you’ll end up in this.” She plucks at her T-shirt and shudders.
Because this is police business, I should ask Diana to leave, but she’s doing a fine job of keeping Jay from pursuing questions I don’t want to answer.
“Just tell me what she’s saying,” I say. “Don’t filter it. Don’t try to figure out what she actually means. That’s my job.”
“Sorry.”
“That’s fine. It’s frustrating for me not being able to speak to a witness directly, so the best thing you can do is give me unedited translations. Can she describe the man more? Coloring? Age? Size?”
He asks, and Sophie hurries on with a stream of Danish that perks up my hopes, only to have Jay shake his head. “She says she was so focused on what he looked like—the strangeness of it—that she didn’t really notice anything more.”
“Hmm. Well, we do have an artist in town.”
“Comic-book artist,” Diana mutters.
“We have an artist,” I repeat, firmer. “I can bring her if that would help.”
Jay speaks to Sophie. She pauses, her gaze slanting my way, and then she rushes on and Jay shakes his head again.
“She can tell you all about the mud and scars, and she seems to think that should be enough, but…”
“It would be if she was talking about a man who attacked her in downtown Vancouver.”
“Exactly. Sorry.”
“Ask whether there were others with her. Are they hurt? Are they still out there?”