* * *
We’re leading Storm through the forest as she pulls a makeshift stretcher with the three bodies roped onto it. While she can smell death, she seems to accept that she is performing a necessary task.
We left Cherise and Owen once I got all the pertinent information from them. While the cop in me says they tampered with a crime scene, the realist acknowledges that, given the state of the other crime scene—and the bodies—I’m grateful for their interference.
They found the corpses on a chilly morning, when the scavengers had yet to do more than nibble. The fire had still been smoldering, suggesting th
e family died during the night, which gives me a rough time of death. By wrapping the corpses and placing them in a sealed cave, Cherise and Owen provided me with three relatively intact bodies.
They earned their pay on this one. As for the crime scene, I’m not sure there’s much point in visiting it. Cherise and Owen already stripped it of goods. As callous as that seems, the alternative would be animals ripping it apart or other settlers hauling off the usable items. Cherise described what they found, and that’ll be enough.
As for what happened to this family and what it portends …
“No,” Dalton says as we reach the ATV and dirt bike.
“No…”
“No to what you’re thinking.”
“And tell me, O Psychic One, what am I thinking?”
“That this is our fault.” He pauses as he unhooks the ropes from Storm’s harness. “Nah, you aren’t thinking that. You’re thinking it’s your fault. Ours—Rockton’s—but mostly yours.”
“Isn’t it?” I watch as he hooks the stretcher up behind his ATV. “Everyone says we riled up the hostiles, and we can bristle at that, but we kinda did. And the reason we riled them up? Because I started getting curious. Wanting to know more about them. Wanting to solve a mystery I was not hired to solve.”
“Stop taking all the damned credit. If they got riled up, it’s because of what Cherise said. We killed their leader … who’d been about to kill us. Are you saying I should have let them kill me to avoid this mess?”
“Of course not. Yes, that was unavoidable, but it’s the fallout that’s the real problem.”
“So when we found Maryanne after that, we should have ignored her? Better yet, tied her up and delivered her back to them?”
I sigh and check the bindings on the bodies.
“I’m exaggerating,” he continues, “but I’m also making a point you can’t argue. We didn’t have a choice. Not if we’re human. And, when you stop fretting about it, you’ll do the math and realize this might not have shit to do with us. It’s been a year. You think they’ve been stewing all this time and suddenly decided to start slaughtering tourists and settlers?”
“Something set them off recently, and that wouldn’t be us.”
“Exactly.” He tightens the strap. “Now, unfortunately, you have three more murders to solve.”
* * *
At the clinic, I help unwrap the bodies and find fatal wounds in all three—one slit throat and two chest stabs. There are more wounds, too. Brutal ones. With the other bodies, we’d ascribed damage to predation, but I’m no longer sure we didn’t jump to a false conclusion there. Yes, serious predation had occurred, but it could have been nonfatal injuries that the scavengers had used as entry points to feeding.
Without this new information, we’d have reassured Sophie that her companions died quickly. Now I’m not so sure.
On these bodies I see frenzied rage of exactly the sort others have described in hostile attacks. I also see a family. I’m not sure what their story was. Cherise only knew they’d come up from Whitehorse to trap two summers ago and decided to stay.
I wondered what their son thought of that. He looks about sixteen. Had he happily embarked on this great adventure? Or resented his parents for pulling him away from a normal life? What had he thought of Missy? A bit of fun, sex between a couple of hormonal teens? Or had he seen in her the possibility of a partner?
And this is why April makes me leave the autopsy. I cannot afford those melancholy thoughts, and yet in my state of exhaustion, they seep in like ghosts. I’m sad and frustrated and overwhelmed.
My brain and my soul need a break, and so, once I’ve done my preliminary examination of the bodies, Anders volunteers to assist in my place, and before I can more than squeak a protest, I’m outside, with Dalton’s hand between my shoulder-blades, steering me into town.
“Am I being sentenced to an afternoon nap?” I ask.
“Would you sleep? Or make notes?” He doesn’t even wait for an answer. “I’ve got a couple hours of work. By then, April will be done, and you’ll have her report, which we can go over at dinner.”
I smile. “You might be the only person I know who’d suggest reading an autopsy report as dinner entertainment.”