Prologue

From the little stand of trees and shrubs between the river and the Greenpath, he gazed across the narrow river toward the municipal golf course. The moonlight, flickering behind the rushing clouds, outlined the rolling mound of a hazard beyond the silhouettes of the naked, gnarled black cottonwoods, mountain alders, and river birches on the far bank. The river ran fast, tossing invisible spray over the rocks that broke the shallow surface near the bank. Dead leaves scratched across the gravel and brushed at his feet on a frigid February night.

He looked to his left and his right on the Greenpath, then across the river to the modest swell of the fairway near the fourteenth hole. No one. He turned and scanned the parking lot adjoining the three-story corporate building in the small industrial park. There were no cars in the lot, no lights on in the building.

Reaching down and gently touching the artery in her neck, he felt a faint pulse. He kneeled beside her body and placed his ear next to her mouth and nose. He felt a slight breath, warm in the frozen night.

He began to undress her. She wore no jacket or coat. He looked at her clothing, all of it tight fitting—the dark tee shirt with some indecipherable writing on it, the jeans that seemed too narrow to slide over her ankles. Even the socks seemed too small.

Sweat forming on his upper lip, he strained to bend her arms so he could remove her shirt. He felt a slight release as it ripped when he pulled it over her shoulders.

Carefully he raised her shoulder and reached behind her back to unhook her dark bra, but he found no clasp there. He grasped the bra in the front, his trembling knuckles grazing her small, cold breasts as he lifted it and pulled it up toward her chin. It caught on her jaw, then on her nose, but finally it was over her shoulders. He disentangled it from her arms, the elbows stiff in the cold. He folded it and placed it next to her on the sandy gravel.

He stared at her breasts, the nipples dark smudges in the dim moonlight. His trembling finger touched a nipple, hard in the cold. He pulled his finger back. He held his hand in front of his face, the five fingers spread. Then he lowered his hand gently until each finger touched the soft breast, pressing it delicately, feeling it yield only slightly. With an unsteady hand, he slowly traced the delicate arc of her breast, from her sternum, downward, then beneath its gentle curve.

Suddenly, horrified, he jerked his hand away from her body. For many months he had dreamed of her, but now he was choking on guilt, shame, and despair.

He unbuttoned her jeans, tugged at the zipper to lower it, and tried in vain to pull the denim over her hips, first one, and then the other. He pulled at the jeans from her knees, but the fabric was so tight against her skin that he could not gather enough in his fist to secure a grip. He placed a palm in the hollow above her hip to keep her from sliding across the gravelly dirt. With his other hand he pulled hard on the denim. Finally, the fabric moved, and he managed to release her hips. He looked up as he heard the growl of a passing motorcycle, its rider oblivious to the scene in the patch of trees and shrubs not ten yards from the Greenpath.

He reached down to remove her thong. He could not look away from the narrow, straight line of black hair that led down to her vagina. As he folded her jeans and thong and placed them next to her shirt and bra, he began to weep.

He crouched beside her and tried to lift her in his arms. Feeling the soles of his shoes sink into the sand and gravel, he studied the uneven, sloping surface, with its river rocks, tree roots, and stumps half-hidden beneath the tall brown grasses. He did not trust himself to carry her safely to the river. He lowered her carefully to the dirt and then stood straight and walked around to her head.

He grasped her arms, above the elbows, surprised by their thinness, and lifted her trunk. Now only her heels touched the ground. He smelled coconut in her jet-black hair, thick and straight. He gazed at her breasts and her sex, indistinct in the flickering shadow his body cast in the dim moonlight.

His hands gripping her slender arms, he walked backward, slowly and haltingly, hunched over, her hair pressed against his chest, down the bank toward the river. Struggling with unsteady steps, he continued backward into the water, dragging her silent body. His feet tingled as the water rose over the tops of his sneakers. The water rose higher and higher on his jeans, over his knees, until it reached his crotch and he gasped.

Her ankles and legs and buttocks now slid beneath the surface, and he felt her body shudder. He thought he heard her moan from the sudden chill. Although the water was warmer than the freezing air, it felt ten times colder.

He walked backward, deeper into the river, the water covering her trunk. Now he was sure he heard moans of pain through the gurgle of the rushing water.

His left foot slid off a large river rock covered in a slick film and he lost his balance. Instinctively, he released her arms, watched them rise slightly in the cold night air, then fall, slapping the surface as he tumbled backward into the river. The river enveloped him, the frigid water stabbing at his face and his neck. As the water penetrated his heavy coat, then his flannel shirt, he turned over onto his stomach and struggled to right himself, his hands grasping for something secure on the riverbed. The icy water rose inside his sleeves.

Finally, his churning legs touched the riverbed, and he could extend his head, his arms, his trunk into the freezing air. The water had soaked through his clothing. He gasped for breath, shivering. He scanned the rippling surface, panicking because he had lost her in the black river.

Then she appeared, fifteen feet away, half-floating on her back, with only her knees and breasts breaking the surface of the dark water. She was caught up on some rocks, her head invisible beneath the surface.

He fought to maintain his footing, his sodden clothing weighing him down like anchors as he trudged over to her. He lifted her head out of the water, bending down to listen for a breath. But the lapping of the water against his chest and over her body was too loud. He placed one hand on her forehead, the other on her chin, and pushed her head beneath the surface. The weight of his jacket started to pull him over, but he pushed back with all his might against the flow, trying to maintain his footing.

He held her head beneath the surface for another long moment, feeling his tears against his frozen cheeks, hearing his teeth chattering in the night. “I am so sorry,” he whispered as his body convulsed in the freezing river.

He grasped her arms, above the elbows, and walked backward toward the shore. His body shaking, numb from the water, he slowly pulled her from the river. Her breasts and her sex glistened in the faint moonlight. Pulled down by his wet clothing, he slowly made his way over the rough surface of the river bank, back toward where he had left her clothes. Exhausted, he carefully let her trunk sink until she was reclining on the ground. He was breathing heavily.

He lifted her again by the arms, and as his hands felt the sand on the back of her arms, he began to weep again for what he had done. He dragged the body farther until, finally, sheltered by the gnarled cottonwoods and the shrubs, he laid her softly on the scrub brush and gravel, next to where he had placed her clothing. Once again he tried to hear her breathe, tried to feel a pulse, but this time he was certain she was dead.

He struggled to shake off his own coat, heavy with river water. He started to dress her, but he struggled to get her thong, her jeans, her bra, her tee shirt, and her socks onto her wet, sandy body, rigid in the cold. He pulled and tugged at her clothing. It was necessary to cover her naked flesh. He worked in the faint silver moonlight that dodged the swift clouds down at the river on a frigid February night.

Chapter 1

I eased my Honda into the lot at the Prairie Title Company, one of a few dozen companies in the East Rawlings Industrial Park, nestled next to the Greenpath and the Rawlings River, a few hundred yards upstream from the university. I parked between my partner Ryan’s blue Mitsubishi and the old green minivan that Harold Breen, our Medical Examiner, has been driving since forever. A couple spots over sat the ’68 Beetle, hand-painted black and white to look like a Holstein, that Robin, our Evidence Tech, drove.

The icy air hit me as I got out of my car. Up ahead, yellow crime-scene tape was wrapped around a bunch of trees, cordoning off an area a good thirty yards wide between the Greenpath and the river. I glanced over my shoulder at a bank of windows on the river side of the two-story Prairie Title offices. They were all dark except for one on the second floor. I checked my watch: 7:38 am. I hate it when I’m on the job before the cube dwellers. This time of year, a good rule of thumb is, if it’s not light out, you started your day too early or you stayed too late.

Ryan wore his long charcoal wool coat, open, over a blue suit, with a white buttoned-down shirt and red striped tie. With his close-cropped hair, blue eyes with gold flecks, and a perpetual smile that showed off forty or fifty unblemished white teeth, he was just too damned good-looking and too well-dressed for our little city located quite close to the exact geographic center of nowhere in Montana. Ryan was also a no-kidding-around Mormon who was extremely married to an equally serious Mormon who, in their three years of wedded bliss, had already popped out forty percent of their five-kid quota.

I’m fifteen years older than Ryan, and I possess not a single one of his virtues. I routinely fail at almost everything I try in life, including my persistent attempts to dislike him. The best I can muster is to officially disapprove of him.

I am what they call a recovering alcoholic. It’s a truly stupid phrase, and I despise it. I still have enough brain cells to understand why you don’t want to call yourself a recovered alcoholic. After all, what’s the point of tempting God or Fate or the Boss of All Shit That Happens? You tell him you know you’re not going to drink anymore, he’ll make time in his busy schedule to stomp your sorry soul once more—and then hand you a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

You know that old saying, If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans? From where I sit, that’s no compliment. It’s one thing to be omniscient and therefore know that, for most people, things are going to turn to shit. But then to laugh about it? Guy in the next cubicle acts like that, everyone calls him an asshole.

So I’m a recovering alcoholic, which means I’ll know I’m done drinking when they pump me full of formaldehyde. I go to AA almost every day, and most days I stay sober. Drinking cost me my family. Losing my ex-husband, Bruce, was inevitable anyway and probably goes in the Good Riddance column. Not being able to help keep my son, Tommy, out of some serious trouble because I was busy puking, pissing myself, passing out, and frequenting motels that charge by the hour—that one brings me to my knees quite often. But I know I’ll get over that regret—as soon as I get that formaldehyde.

Ryan was talking with Harold Breen. At forty-eight, Harold is a little older than me. He’s about five-seven, three-hundred and fifty pounds, and he walks by pushing the left side of his body forward a little, then his right, then his left. Finally, he builds up a rhythm and his body just keeps moving until he needs to slow it down and stop. He huffs and puffs when he walks, like a steam engine hauling too many cars up a steep incline. He dresses head-to-toe in polyester, shiny with wear, the more hideous the pattern and putrid the color, the merrier. He’s got Velcro on his Hush Puppies, stubble in the folds of his chins, sweat on his shiny scalp, even out here—in Montana, in February, before the sun rises and the temp hits double digits. If I was a guy who eats like I used to drink, I’d look just like Harold. Because he is just about the kindest man in the world, I love him completely and expect to do so until I die or he does, whichever comes first.

The third party near the yellow tape was Robin, our Evidence Tech. To compensate for the indignity of being tall and slender, with good bones, smooth skin, faint freckles, and the kind of blond hair that recalls the early Beach Boys, Robin was on an endless quest to reject traditional ideas of feminine beauty. This week, her hair sported pink and aqua highlights, there was a new turquoise stone on the end of her silver eyebrow loop, and a second diamond stud had appeared in her left nostril. She was the only other female I worked with routinely and, against all odds, the only person in the whole department who cursed more than I did. Her eyes lit up and she got a big grin when she discussed a fan-fucking-tastic semen stain on a vic’s skirt or a motherfucker of an orange pube she just yanked from some dead guy’s crotch. Although I admired her skills and enthusiasm for the job, we didn’t socialize.

Ryan, Harold, and Robin were standing just outside the crime-scene tape that formed the perimeter of this little patch of gnarly trees, scrubby shrubs, and wild grasses. The river takes all kinds of weird curves down here, but the Greenpath was laid out a little straighter, presumably so bikers had a better chance of seeing and therefore not flattening any of the hundreds of doddering old bats out for a walk with Snowball. When the Greenpath was paved about twenty years ago, the city left the little patches of trees and brush as they were between the pavement and the river. And that’s apparently where our vic was resting, presumably in peace.

I walked over to the three of them, buttoning up my coat against the icy breeze. It was always a few degrees cooler here on the river than it is among the buildings downtown, which could be pleasant in our six- or seven-week summer but wasn’t that wonderful when the sun hadn’t appeared yet in the middle of a typically ferocious February. My feet crunched the patches of frost as I walked carefully over the uneven ground littered with exposed roots, brittle sagebrush, and river rocks the size of grapefruits.

I turned and looked back at the parking lot. Even though I didn’t know anything except that there was a croaker in the area, my instinct was this was probably a drop site, not the murder scene. It was a little too exposed for killing someone. With the Greenpath and the company buildings within sight, it would be smarter to kill the vic in the comfort of your own home, then take him for a ride. If you knew what you were doing, you could carry a body from your car to the cottonwoods in less than thirty seconds, then be back on the road in another ten.

“Good morning, gang,” I said to my three colleagues.

Ryan gave me a good smile. Harold and Robin muttered something about morning. We all had our hands shoved in our pockets and were bobbing up and down on our toes.

Ryan said, “Female, eighteen to twenty-five. Three stab wounds in her abdomen. Some green slimy stuff from the river stuck to her body, and sand all over her back, her buttocks, and the backs of her legs. All underneath her clothing.”

“Two sets of tracks on the ground, like heel prints,” Robin said. “Like she was dragged down to the river and then back up to where she is now.”

“She was stabbed and dunked?” I said.

Harold pulled his hands out of his pockets and shook them. He blew on one fist, then the other. “What it looks like. Can’t tell what order. Robin might be able to figure it out by looking at the holes in her tee shirt.”

“Yeah,” Robin said. “I took a quick look at the shirt. The holes in the fabric don’t exactly line up with the wounds.”

“Come again?” I said. Did I mention it was early? And really cold?

“Follow me,” Robin said.

I lifted the tape so Robin could duck under it and lead me to the body, which was underneath a tent that had been set up earlier to protect the crime scene from shit falling onto it. The common-approach path had already been laid out with our new metal stepping-stone plates. We started using them a few months ago. Robin had put out the plates on a path she hoped didn’t have any forensic evidence. Everyone who entered the scene had to walk on the plates. It was a pain in the ass, but worth it: we didn’t waste as much time looking for a murderer wearing the shoes on Ryan’s feet.

The vic was fifteen yards in. A young girl. Black hair, pretty. Asian or something. The copper skin on her arms and face was a mottled gray, the arms covered with goose bumps. She was wearing just a tee shirt, jeans, and socks. Looking at her, I felt a shiver run through my body.

Robin bent down, still standing on a metal plate. “She had her shirt on when she was stabbed.” She pointed to the three identical slices through her shirt in an area maybe three inches square, stomach-high but a little to the left. “If you look close at the area, you can see the ridges on her skin through the cloth.”

“Yeah.” I crouched. “I see it.”

“The holes in the shirt don’t line up with the wounds. Same pattern, but they’re about an inch off.”

“As in the killer took her shirt off and then put it on again.”

Robin nodded, then stood up straight. It took me a little more effort to stand up. We walked back on the metal plates, out to the tape, and over to Ryan and Harold.

Ryan said, “For some reason the killer took the girl’s clothes off, dunked her, getting the slimy green stuff on her, then brought her back on shore, laid her down on the sand, and dressed her.”

Harold said, “I might be able to help you with the sequence when I put her on the table.”

“When did she die?” I said.

“Rigor is just starting,” Harold said, bobbing up and down on his toes. “I’d say ten pm to two am.”

I looked at Ryan. “She didn’t have a coat or anything?”

He shook his head. “I’ll get some uniforms to do a grid search, but I didn’t see anything when I did a quick once-over in the area here.” He was pointing to the area inside the tape.

“You see it as a dump job?”

Robin said, “Looks like it. No blood under her or in the area.”

“You got a purse or something?”

“Nothing yet. No ID. A twenty and three ones in cash folded in her pocket,” Robin said. “A bandanna in her back left pocket.”

“No keys, no phone?”

“Not that I’m seeing.” She pointed her chin toward the river. “Maybe they’re in there. Wanna roll up your pants?”

“Sounds like fun,” I said. “Lemme see what we’ve got first. Who discovered the body?”

“A jogger,” Ryan said, “about an hour ago. He saw her from the Greenpath.”

“The jogger legit?”

Ryan nodded. “He stuck around for me to get here. I interviewed him.” He patted his chest pocket, where he keeps his notebook. “I let him go a few minutes ago. He was all dressed up in spandex gear, complete with those shoes that look like feet. I got his contact information. He’s a lawyer downtown.”

“Okay,” I said.

Ryan said, “Want to get the dive team to look for a phone?”

I shook my head. “There won’t be anything in the river. He killed her somewhere else, dropped her here. All he’s left here is the stuff he wanted us to find. If there’s a phone, it’s at his place or he tossed it somewhere else.”

“Any thoughts on why he wanted her to be found here?”

“No idea.” I shook my head. “There’s a bunch of other places he could’ve dumped her if he didn’t want us to find her. So he thought it through, a least a little bit.” I paused. “Why don’t we wait and see what Robin and Harold figure out. We’ll probably be able to ID her easily enough from a Missing Persons, and we’ll get her phone records. The only thing we’ll miss out on from not having a phone is her speed dials and her pissed-off birds.”

I looked over at Harold, who was gazing across the river at nothing in particular. “You okay?” I said.

He shook his head. “Hate it when I see a kid like this get killed. Young girl, I look at her and see my daughter.”

We stood there a moment, and I squeezed his arm gently through his puffy coat. “Okay, Harold, anything you need from us before we head back?”

“No, the scene is secure.” He gestured to the tent. There was one officer there, and two protecting the perimeter. “The wagon will be here in a couple of minutes. I’ll get together with Robin when we get the girl back to the station. We’ll talk to you later this morning.”

“Thanks, Harold.” I turned to Ryan. “Think it might be time to figure out who this girl was.”

He nodded. “See you back at headquarters.” He started walking toward his car.

I pulled my coat tighter against my body and walked back toward the tape. I ducked under it and followed the steel plates to the tent. I looked down at the girl’s body. “What happened to you?” I said softly.

“Did you say something to me, Detective?”

I looked up, startled, at the uniform on duty, a woman whose name tag said Brown.

“No, I just … No, I didn’t say anything.” I turned and headed back on the steel plates.

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