Ridley Pearson - In Harm's Way

Walt checked the clock. He was scheduled to pick up the Seattle detective, Boldt, at the airport.

“Okay, tell him I’m on my way,” Walt said. “And have someone meet that flight and get the sergeant settled, will you, please?”

“No problem.”

Typically, news of any death ran a feeling of dread through him as he always thought first of his late brother. But that wasn’t the case. He was instead unusually grateful to be called away from his desk, to be rid of the monotony. On the way out the door, he took one last look at his desk phone. Longing.

“And call Kenshaw,” he added, trying to make it sound like an afterthought. He appreciated the excuse to contact her. “Tell her to bring her gear and meet us. Same with the coroner. And Barge Levy. And you’d better check with Meridian to test their availability.” The state crime lab would be involved if there was a determination of foul play.

On his way to the Jeep Cherokee, he identified a lightness to his step, and tried to suppress it.

Several cars and trucks lined the breakdown lanes on both sides of State Highway 75. Fiona’s Subaru was not among them.

Parked on the shoulder behind Brandon’s cruiser were two pickup trucks, one with six Boy Scouts in the truck bed, all armed with pokers and Day-Glo garbage bags. He felt bad that they’d discovered the body, and urged Brandon to release them and get them “the hell away from here.”

Brandon had cobbled together a police tape barrier using a real estate sign, a lug wrench, and a broken ski pole as fence posts. Walt spotted the body at the epicenter of the confined area.

He ordered Beatrice to stay in the Jeep. She smeared her nose against the glass, drawing Chinese characters, desperate to join him.

The lower third of the thousand-foot mountain, a scree field of broken red rock, terminated thirty yards from the highway, where it joined a field of brown, sun-baked weeds and buffalo grass. The open eyes of the dead body, had there been any, would have looked up at the red of the rock, the full saturation of the evergreens, and an impossibly blue sky that was the hallmark of high mountain living.

“Some kind of face-lift,” Walt said, approaching the body. It had been severely preyed upon.

“I haven’t messed with him,” Brandon said. “Wanted to wait for you. But it’s pretty obvious we won’t be matching that face with any missing person reports.”

Walt neared the haphazardly installed police tape.

“There’s a set of tire tracks, so tread lightly,” Brandon said.

“I see ’em.”

Walt dodged the tire treads, and kneeled. “It’s a truck. A pickup maybe.” He studied the lay of the grass. “Three… no, four… kids and an adult approached the body. That is, if you came in from over there.” He pointed.

“I did.”

Walt parted some grass and used a stick to lift some of the matted weeds.

“The predators were a family of fox and a dog the size of a Labrador. The dog was running. Might have been after the fox, not our John Doe.”

The body appeared to have been tossed into a tangle of twigs and weeds that ran along the base of the scree field, which was piled four feet high in places and stretched out sixty yards or more.

Instead of eyes, two blood-black holes stared up. A piece of the nose was missing. He’d been a big man-six-four or -five, two-seventy. Fit. Wide shoulders. Huge thighs in what had to be custom-tailored jeans.

Walt declined to move the body until he had some decent photos.

As if on cue, Fiona’s Subaru pulled up. She climbed out, waved at Walt, and went around back to collect her gear.

He remembered her saying that their moment together wouldn’t interfere with their professional work, but there was something wrong about her not answering any of his calls or e-mails and now showing up all sunny and bright. In fact he resented it, and had Brandon not been there, he would have rushed over to her and demanded some answers. It was then he realized he was going to be the one to have a hard time keeping this professional.

As Walt stood there, his mind reeling, Brandon had the good sense to direct her around the side of the roped-off area and to help her over the security tape.

She looked tired but determined to appear otherwise.

“Hi, there!” she said, as if they were neighbors running into each other in the supermarket.

“Uhhh,” Walt said.

“Good God!” She staggered back as she spotted the body among the sticks and debris. She glanced sharply at Walt, back to the body, over at Brandon. Back to the body. She looked afraid and confused and as if she might be sick. “Dear God.” She took another step back, kneeled, and retched.

When she looked up, she had tears in her eyes.

He took one quick step toward her, wanting to comfort her, but caught himself like a runner coming off the blocks before the gun.

“You okay? Should have warned you. Sorry about that. You don’t have to do this,” he said.

Brandon looked at him like he was crazy. Walt never excused anyone from a crime scene, especially not the photographer.

“Someone’s got to take the pictures,” Brandon said, speaking what he was thinking. Brandon lacked the social filter that came on standard model human beings. He tended to say whatever entered his head.

“I’m okay,” she said. “I can do it.”

“You don’t look okay,” Walt said.

“You get used to it,” Brandon said, trying for sympathetic but sounding brutish.

Her tears hit Walt the hardest. He’d forgotten how horribly a dead body could impact the uninitiated.

She busied herself, keeping her attention on the contents of her camera bag as she switched lenses and checked filters. Her hands shook to where she dropped a lens. She scrambled to recover it, blowing onto and fogging its glass and inspecting it, but all with the exaggerated movements of someone who knew she was being watched.

Walt heard a car door shut and, turning in that direction, felt the hair rise on the nape of his neck as a silhouette of a massive figure stood on the pavement’s edge. Behind the man, a sheriff’s cruiser had joined the breakdown lane and now the commanding silhouette made sense, and Walt raised a hand toward Sergeant Lou Boldt. He experienced both exhilaration and dread. The teacher had walked in on his unfinished science project.

Torn between wanting to comfort Fiona and welcoming the sergeant, Walt moved toward the highway. Boldt came down the embankment. He was broad-shouldered, somewhere in his late forties, his graying, close-cropped haircut a throwback to the 1950s. His head appeared oversized, a condition emphasized by his short neck. A pair of reading glasses hung around that neck, bouncing off a red tie and crisp white shirt, framed by a brown sport coat, threadbare at the sleeves. As he drew closer to Walt, a warmth filled his pale gray eyes. He reminded Walt of a husky or wolf. They shook hands vigorously, like long-lost friends, Boldt towering over Walt. His voice was deep but surprisingly gentle for such a big man.

“I hope I’m not intruding.”

Walt thought how much more impressive the man was in person, compared to a chat window on a computer monitor.

“Not at all,” Walt said. Both men knew he was lying.

“Never been one to sit around a motel room.”

“I know the feeling.”

“You mind?” he asked, nodding toward the crime scene.

Walt waved him forward and glanced at Fiona, wondering how she was doing. Wondering if she’d give him some look, some sign that she was indeed the same woman who’d freely-hungrily-shared herself with him only a few days before. But she maintained her professional demeanor, her head in her gear-or maybe she was still too overcome by the sight of the body to look up.