Ridley Pearson - In Harm's Way

Boldt accepted introductions and then went silent, almost reverent, as he approached the body. He didn’t comment on the amateur job of the tape barrier. He didn’t make small talk with Fiona or Brandon. Instead, he looked left and right, studied the ground as Walt had done, took in the tangle of branches and brambles that partly concealed the body.

“Don’t let me get in the way,” he finally said to Walt.

“Happy to have you,” Walt lied, wishing he’d had a few minutes more alone with the body before Boldt had arrived.

Boldt stepped closer, moving slowly and deliberately. “I hate outdoor scenes,” he said. “Give me a nice small apartment any time.”

“A lot of variables,” Walt said.

“Far too many.”

The man’s precaution impressed Walt. The tentativeness of each step. The scrutiny of his surroundings.

Brandon caught Walt’s eye and raised an eyebrow, also impressed.

“Coyotes?” Boldt asked.

“A family of fox and a good-sized dog,” Walt answered.

“Did that hawk have a role in it?” Boldt asked.

He’d caught Walt by surprise, a situation that brought a flush to his face. Boldt pointed out a matted mess of reddish feathers and blood-stained down ten yards south, at the edge of the tangle of avalanche debris.

“Red-tail,” Walt said, identifying it immediately. “Looks fresh. You’re right.”

He instructed Brandon to bag the dead bird, and Brandon looked anything but thrilled.

“You think he was thrown in there?” Walt asked.

“Kind of looks it,” Boldt said. “Are those tire tracks from a pickup truck?”

“We’ll need to pull a tape to confirm it, but I’d say so.”

“He’s a big boy,” Boldt said. “Hell of a throw from that distance.”

“Got that right.”

“Odd place to dump a body if that’s what we’re looking at,” Boldt said, one eye cast toward the highway. “All the open country you’ve got around here, and a person chooses the side of the highway.”

“He could have been hiking. Could have come down the side of the mountain. But there are no real trails along this stretch. And if he’d been bushwhacking, his socks, where they’re exposed, would be covered in cheat grass and be carrying good old Idaho dust. The socks are way too clean. He’s a mess-don’t get me wrong. But he wasn’t hiking.”

“I like the way you think,” Boldt said.

A guy like Boldt would never see the accident first. He would look for foul play, invent it from a dozen different scenarios and then slowly and willingly backtrack to settle on accidental death or natural causes, but only much later.

“Maybe…” Walt said, “someone did him in the vehicle, panicked, and dumped him here. More an act of passion.”

“Works for me.” He didn’t sound at all convinced, and Walt wondered why he’d thrown that out there. Better to keep his lips zipped around Boldt.

As Boldt moved to his right, dropped to a knee, and then stood back up, Walt’s resentment over the intrusion gave way to admiration. It was like watching a big-league hitter at batting practice.

“Listen,” Boldt said, “do what it is you do. Don’t let me interfere.”

“We would normally wait for Fiona-Ms. Kenshaw-to give us the go-ahead,” Walt replied. “When she’s through with him in this position, we’d roll him and look for ID and go inch by inch for evidence.”

“I’m making you uncomfortable,” Boldt said.

“Dead bodies make me uncomfortable, not visiting detectives.”

Fiona relaxed the camera. “I’m done until I can get closer.”

“Gloves?” Walt asked Boldt, producing a pair of surgical gloves and offering them to his guest. But Boldt waved him off and, reaching into the pocket of his sport coat, withdrew a pair.

“I’m going to play up the significance of the tire tracks and try to work them into the story, so for now, Fiona, give me whatever you can of the tracks, and stay well clear of them if possible. Brandon, you’ll help me roll the body. We’ll go after it from the other side. Fiona, make sure to get close-ups of the sticks and all this stuff around him.”

“What’s all this rock and debris from? Landslide?” Boldt asked.

“Snow slides,” Walt explained. “Each winter we see slides all along here. A number of deer and elk are found as it melts each spring.”

“Lovely.”

“The slides shove all the year’s deadfall, the smaller live trees, you name it, down ahead of them. Rock, scree, and everything else piles up here at the bottom.”

“Looks like a bomb hit,” Boldt said.

“Pretty close to that.”

Boldt processed what he’d been told, filing it away. You could see the guy thinking. Over his entire career, Walt had investigated a dozen suspicious or criminal deaths. Boldt probably handled that many per month in a bad month, and had been doing so for a quarter century.

Brandon established a route up through the detritus and led the way for Fiona, who climbed tentatively. Walt could tell by the way she moved that she still wasn’t herself. She should have taken his offer to walk away from this one; he could have faked his way through some pictures.

“You noticed the red-tail,” Walt said. “The hawk,” he clarified. “Anything else I’ve missed?”

Fiona was down on one knee taking pictures, partially obscured by the upended branches. Head down, she was either adjusting a setting on the camera, or struggling for composure.

“Could it be an accidental death?” Boldt asked. “This location?”

“Absolutely.”

“But the boots and clothes don’t look exactly right,” Boldt said, searching for what Walt had been getting at.

“They’d stop me from making too hasty a ruling, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It is.” For the first time in several minutes, Boldt stepped closer to the pile of bramble and sticks. “I might bag his head and hands and feet,” Boldt allowed, clearly reluctant to say anything. “Paper bags. Prior to rolling him. Moving a person that size… moving him out of there is going to be an adventure. Bound to shake a few leaves off the tree.”

“Tommy!” Walt called out.

“Paper bags,” Brandon said. “Got it.”

“Back of my Cherokee if you don’t have them. Left side. In the backpack.”

“I’m on it.”

Fiona met eyes with Walt through the tangle of twigs, still looking slightly pale and definitely disoriented. He wished there were something he could do for her. He wanted to dismiss her and allow her to get away from looking close-up through a lens at the man with the missing eyes. Her own eyes were distant and unfocused; he wasn’t sure she even saw him.

“Maybe that’s enough,” he said to her. “We can take it from here.”

She shook her head. “I’m good,” she said.

“A big guy like this doesn’t go down easy,” Boldt said.

“No.”

“The head wound, right at the scalp line? There’s not enough blood.”

“Postmortem? Maybe occurred when they tossed him.”

“They is the operative word. A guy that size, it would take two.”

“Might have been robbery,” said Brandon, returning with the paper bags and tape. “Check out the tan line on his left wrist.”

“Yes, I saw that, too,” Boldt said. “Not just a missing watch, but a big watch-a very big watch.”

“A TAG Heuer maybe. Something like that. You tell him about the break-ins?” Brandon asked.

Walt dressed down his deputy with a single look. He had no intention of running down every active case.

“He’s referring to a pair of B-and-E’s in the area. Made to look like bears. Probably some itinerants. We get a lot of that in summers, more so this year because of the economy.”