I nod. “We thought Sophie lost her shoes. She was probably never wearing them. Surprised at night, like Maryanne’s group. Bodies left in what they were wearing. The rest of the goods taken.”
I turn to the tent and stare at it. What’s bothering me …
“Shit,” I say.
“Yeah. One tent.”
I turn to him and arch a brow. “When did you figure that out?”
Dalton shrugs. “At the other site. Just waiting on you.”
That wasn’t a test. He hasn’t done that since our earliest days. Instead, he was being respectful and trusting my process. It’s like when I’d been a newly minted detective. On my first crime scene, I’d been poking around, rattling off observations, until my partner handed me a notebook and pen, and said, “Write it down. Time-stamp it if that helps.”
He’d understood that I wanted to prove I deserved my detective shield, but my machine-gun observation patter disrupted his own musings. If I needed to show that I’d noticed clues before he did, the time stamp would do that. I got the hint and mentally stored up my observations until he would inevitably turn to me with “Whatcha got, kid?” and I could show him.
Dalton has identified the problem that niggled at me earlier, back-burnered while I concentrated on other observations.
There’s only one tent. Only signs of one tent. I check all the nearby trees, and I inspect the ground, and there’s nothing to suggest another shelter occupied this clearing.
“How about the other site?” I say. “I only recall evidence of a single tent there, too. Did I miss something?”
He considers and then shakes his head. “I didn’t think to look closer, but I only recall rope marks for one.”
I walk to the ruined tent and consider it. Open the flap and peer inside. It’s definitely a two-person tent.
When I say that, I add, “Unless the four of them liked getting real cuddly, and if they did, no judgment.”
Dalton chuckles.
“However,” I continue, “whatever their living arrangements at home, they aren’t going to be squeezing four people into a two-person tent after a long day of hiking. Even the two-person one doesn’t leave much stretching room.”
“Yeah.”
“What we’re seeing, then, isn’t two couples who like a lot of together time, but the opposite. Two couples who’ve had quite enough together time, thank you very much.”
He glances over and then shakes his head. “Shit. Of course. Two tents. Two campsites. They wanted a break from each other.”
“Could have been a fight. Could have just been a privacy issue. They’d been traveling together for days, and they didn’t particularly want to ‘keep it quiet’ for another night. I believe we know the feeling.”
“Hell, yeah.”
“That’s a theory, then. They separated for the night to get some private time. But there are no signs of attack at the other camp, and Sophie clearly was attacked.” I rub my temples. “No point speculating when I can—hopefully—ask her for more details tomorrow. For now…”
I look at the remains of the two victims. “Do we transport them back to Rockton? Or bury them? I’m not sure we’ll get anything from them in an autopsy, but I hate to lose a chance. If we bring these bodies back, though, and anyone sees them, no ‘it was scavengers’ explanation is going to keep people from freaking out.”
“Mobile autopsy. Cover the remains. Bring April out.”
I nod, and we set to work.
TEN
The autopsy is hard. Holy shit, is it hard.
The day I arrived in Rockton, Dalton and Anders brought in a corpse from the woods, one who was missing his lower legs. This, though? This is the most disturbing crime scene I’ve ever come across, and dealing with it is not even the worst part of my day. The worst is having to show it to my sister.
I commit an unforgivable sin here. The sin of misunderstanding April and her neurological condition. I have grown up with a sister who is coldly competent, and in my head, I have substituted “unfeeling” for “emotionally detached.”
Even knowing her condition and researching the hell out of it, I cannot move the monolith in my head that is “my sister, April.” When April looked askance at my own displays of emotion, I saw judgment instead of confusion. So I expected I would warn her about the crime scene, and she’d brush off my concerns and snap that she’s a doctor and suggest that I lacked the fortitude to handle such things.