Dana Stabenow - Whisper to the Blood

It was futile and he knew it. Ruthe's Arctic Cat was brand new that winter, a green Jaguar Zl, with an 1100 4-stroke engine, the ACT Diamond Direct Drive, twin spar chassis, and slide-action rear suspension. She could hit a hundred miles an hour without breaking a sweat. It had cost a cool ten large, and the first time he'd seen it Johnny had been struck dumb with envy, completely forgetting that he was the proud owner of his very own pickup truck. Trucks didn't count in the winter, not out in the Bush.

He, too, was driving an Arctic Cat, Kate's spare, but it was practically an antique, being all of seven, almost eight years old. It wheezed long before it got to a hundred, and even though the speedometer was broken Johnny knew because he'd tried to keep up with Ruthe before and failed just as abjectly. It was a lot farther to the isolated little trailer than it had looked from the top of the pass, which gave him a perspective on how big the valley was. Now that they were down in the middle of it, he could see it was more of a high plateau, mostly flat, or so it seemed filled up with snow. "What do you think?" he yelled at Van. "Five miles wide?"

"More!" she yelled back. "And at least twelve miles long!"

"Probably more like fifteen!"

With the sun behind the mountains not only was the light fading but the temperature was dropping, too. He hunched down behind the windshield and was grateful for Van's warm weight at his back.

Ruthe had stopped on a little rise a hundred yards short of the cabin, and was waiting for them when they pulled up. "Took your time," she said smugly.

"Yeah, yeah," Johnny said.

Her grin flashed. She stood up on her machine, leaning a knee on the seat, and yelled, "Hello, the trailer!"

They waited. There was no response.

It was a peaceful enough scene, smoke wisping up through the chimney, a path shoveled to a woodpile, a rusty oil tank on a cross-bar stand at one end of the trailer, a large metal put-together shed big enough to house a snow machine and a standing toolbox. There was an orange wind sock on a pole stuck in the snow some distance away. It hung limp in the still air, and blowing snow had long since filled in the tracks of any skis an airplane might have left behind.

It seemed somehow forlorn to Johnny, as if the trailer and its accessories had been plunked down here and forgotten. "I thought there'd be a drill rig," he said.

Ruthe shook her head. "They moved it into storage for the winter."

"It's beautiful," Van said, "but it sure would get lonely if you were out here for very long."

Ruthe tried again. "Hello, the trailer! Don't shoot, we're friend-lies, and we're coming down to say hi! Put the coffee on!"

When there was no answer to her second hail, Ruthe led the way to the little group of buildings, still perched with one knee on the seat, one foot on a running board, nose up, almost sniffing the air.

They pulled up in front of the door of the trailer. Ruthe shut off her engine and tried again. "Hello, the trailer! Wake up in there, you got company!"

Still, nothing. "I don't like this," Van said, her voice very soft.

"Probably out walking a trapline," Ruthe said, dismounting. She saw Van looking at her and laughed. "It's packed down here, girl, you can get off and walk around safely."

Van put out one foot gingerly to feel the snow, and then got off with more confidence. Johnny followed, standing uncertainly for a moment, and then he went to the door and knocked. "Hello? Is anybody in there?"

No answer. Ruthe clicked her tongue against her teeth and brushed by him to grab the knob and pull the door open.

The smell hit them first. It was strong enough to stop Johnny in his tracks, and behind him Van actually backed up a step. Ruthe froze in place for one long second, and then with a set face climbed the two steps into the room.

There was a brief pause, and then they heard her say, "For crissake! What the hell were you doing out here?"

Johnny steeled himself and followed her inside, Van at his shoulder.

The door opened into the office area of the trailer. There was a desk, a four-drawer filing cabinet, a whiteboard, and a map of the Park on a scale so large it covered one wall floor to ceiling and corner to corner, including the two windows in that wall that showed up as light rectangles through the map. Flyers, brochures, and statistical handouts, all sporting the GHRI cheery sunrise logo, were piled all over the room.

The desk was large and metal and gray. Across it lay the body of Mac Devlin, his chest a torn mass of flesh and blood and bone, his square, red face gaping at the ceiling in astonishment. He was starting to bloat.

Behind Johnny, Van made a sound and the warm of her at his shoulder vanished, followed by quick footsteps going down the stairs and the crunch of her knees on the snow. He heard her retch. He wasn't far off it himself.

Ruthe surveyed the scene, her face grim. "How long ago, do you reckon?"

Johnny swallowed hard and steeled himself to step forward and grasp Mac's hand. It was cold. He tried to move it. It wouldn't. "Rigor has set in," he said.

"What does that mean?"

Oddly, he seemed to have adapted to the smell, and was able to speak more easily. "Rigor mortis starts setting in about three hours after death. It takes about twelve hours to reach maximum stiffness, depending on conditions." He looked around and saw a small Monitor stove, probably fueled by the tank outside. "It's warm in here." He tried to move Mac's hand again, and succeeded in shifting it just a little. "I'd say he's been here longer than three hours but less than twelve." He looked at Ruthe. "It'll go off again in about seventy-two hours. If someone trained is there to observe it, they can get a good idea of time of death." He took a deep, shaky breath. "For now, we need to get out of here."

"What? Why?"

"It's a crime scene, Ruthe. We shouldn't be in here, and we need to leave now and go get Jim." He walked out of the trailer. Van was on her feet, washing her face with a handful of snow. "Are you okay?"

She nodded and tried to smile with stiff lips. "I'm okay. Was that… was that Mac Devlin? The MacMiner guy?"

"Yeah, it was."

"What happened? What are you doing?"

He had bent over to look in the snow around the stairs. There was hardly any light left to the day and he couldn't see anything. "It looks like he was shot from a long way away, in the back, with a rifle, but a lot of times a killer can't resist taking a closer look. It's how we catch them."

"'We'?"

"It's how my dad used to, anyway." He straightened. "You learned a lot from him."

"Yeah." He shrugged, trying to be casual. It wasn't easy, with the memory of Mac's gruesome remains fifteen feet away. "It was interesting." He swallowed. "Well, you know. When it wasn't gross."

"He's dressed like he just walked in the door," Ruthe said from the doorway. Something clicked and a light came on over the doorway. "Parka, snow pants, boots, and all."

"I think maybe he was shot in the act of stepping inside," Johnny said, standing straight and looking up at Ruthe. He pointed two fingers at her. "He'd probably already opened the door, and was standing on the threshold." She turned around, standing in the open doorway and looking at Johnny over her shoulder. "The bullet hit him and the impact spun him around-" Ruthe's hands flew up and she staggered two steps forward, turning to face him. "-and then he fell on the desk."

Ruthe looked over her shoulder again, at Mac's corpse this time, and came back to the door and frowned at him. "But the door was closed when we got here."

Johnny frowned, too. "The killer could have closed it if he came up to take a look. Or maybe Mac could have pulled it shut when he fell." Johnny gestured at his feet. "I can't see anything other than our tracks, Ruthe, but that doesn't mean Jim won't be able to. You should close the door. And lock it, if you can."