Heather Gudenkauf - Not A Sound

I stroke Stitch’s head and wait for help, knowing that it could arrive in a matter of minutes or not for up to an hour. There are only three ways to get to our remote location: by boat, by four-wheeler or by foot. I focus my attention on Stitch’s ears; if they start to twitch I know he hears something. My bet is help will come via the river and a Department of Natural Resources officer with a boat. Up until now I have never been afraid around the dead and now I’m terrified.

I can’t believe Gwen is dead and I can’t help but think of my own accident, which I’m not convinced was an accident, after all. What if Gwen’s murder and my attempted murder are connected? Crazy, I know. But Gwen and I both treated patients who were abused by very bad, very dangerous people. Is it such a stretch to think they would come after the nurses who were trying to gather the forensic evidence to put them in jail for a very long time?

Stitch raises his head and looks at me with worry. I must have whimpered or spoken out loud. I do that sometimes without even knowing it. “It’s okay,” I tell him. My throat is sore and I figure I must have been shouting while I was talking to the 9-1-1 dispatcher. What if the person on the other end of the line couldn’t understand me? What if they don’t know where to send help and no one is coming?

I’m just about ready to call 9-1-1 again when Stitch scrambles to his feet and faces north and up the river. “Two if by sea,” I say, holding on to Stitch’s collar so he won’t run off.

Sure enough, a heavyset man of about sixty, steering a small boat with the Iowa DNR logo emblazoned across its side motors toward us. Stitch looks up at me for reassurance, and I gently pat his back. The boat slows and the DNR officer says something, but he’s too far away and I can’t read his lips.

“I can’t hear you,” I say, and the officer’s mouth widens in a way that tells me he’s shouting.

“No, I’m deaf,” I say, cupping my ear. “I can’t hear you. Come closer.” He looks at me suspiciously, hand on his sidearm. I can’t say that I blame him. I’m sure I sounded like a maniac on the 9-1-1 call. The dispatcher most likely added “approach subject with caution” when passing on the details.

“I can read lips,” I say. “I just need to see your face.”

He drives the boat up to the shore and with some difficulty climbs over the side and joins us beneath the birch. “Is he friendly?” the officer asks, glancing nervously down at Stitch.

“Very,” I assure him. I turn to Stitch and palm upward, bring my hand toward my shoulder. Immediately, he sits down. I reach into my pocket and pull out a dog treat and Stitch snags it with his long pink tongue. “Good boy.” That trick took three weeks to master.

The officer takes another cautious step forward. “I’m DNR Officer Wagner. Are you okay?” His lips stretch wide with each word. He’s overenunciating. I’m used to this when people first find out about my hearing loss.

“I’m fine,” I say with more confidence than I feel. “She’s over there.” I point to the maple tree. “Just over the ridge, in the water.”

“Stay here,” he orders. I pretend I don’t understand him and follow him up the incline, both of us grabbing onto low-hanging branches to avoid slipping on the slick decaying leaves that litter the ground. When we reach the crest my eyes immediately go to where Gwen’s body sways with the gentle current. Officer Wagner’s head swivels from left to right, searching. When his spine goes rigid I know he finally sees her. He gropes into his pocket and pulls out a cell phone and presses it to his ear.

I bend at the waist, again light-headed. I was an ER nurse for eighteen-odd years. I’ve seen people come in with injuries beyond comprehension. I’ve seen dead bodies before, have had people die from catastrophic injuries in my care. But always at the hospital, in a sterile, antiseptic setting.

I force myself to stand upright and take a deep breath. I feel useless. If there was a chance Gwen was still breathing I could have given her CPR, but it’s clear that she’s dead. Gwen is a bit younger than I am, and she’s fit—has the slim physique of a serious runner. Was she running or hiking the trails and then waylaid by a predator who dragged her off the path, raped and then killed her, finally tossing her into the river like trash?

From our vantage point, I can’t see any obvious injuries. No bullet holes, no gaping wounds, no scavengers have discovered her. She can’t have been in the river long. I think of the waves that knocked Stitch off my paddleboard and sent me to my knees just before I found Gwen’s body. I wish I saw what the boat looked like. I wish I had more information to offer the police. I wonder if her husband, Marty, has missed her yet. Or worse, could he have been the one to do this? I don’t know him well, but I met him several times. Gwen never mentioned having any problems in their marriage and he seemed like a nice man. And then there is their daughter, Lane. She will be devastated when she learns that her mother is never coming back home.

I swallow back my tears, pull my eyes from the body and scan the earth around me. Muddy footprints everywhere. I think I can discern three different shoe treads. Most likely my own and the DNR officer’s, and possibly the killer’s. There are also the imprints of Stitch’s large paws zigzagging the ground chronicling his agitation. Off in the brush is a discarded glass beer bottle. It could have belonged to one of the ever-growing number of weekend warriors who have discovered this length of river due to the opening of Five Mines Outfitters, located right next door to my house. The outfitter offers an array of outdoor services including canoe, kayak, paddleboard and in the winter, snowshoe and ice skate rentals.

Below us Stitch waits, wiggling impatiently while somehow remaining in a seated position. I gesture for him to settle and stay and he complies. Officer Wagner tugs on my sleeve and nods toward the woods below us. Emerging from the trees is a small troupe of four-wheelers. Unable to contain himself, Stitch leaps to his feet and begins to spin around in excitement.

Five of the six people on the ATVs are law enforcement officers, including Jake. The lone civilian I recognize as my new neighbor, the proprietor of Five Mines Outfitters. We’ve never officially met, but I hate him anyway. The day he opened his business he brought a steady stream of unwanted strangers into my backyard, disrupting my solitude. The four-wheelers most likely belong to my neighbor and the Mathias Police Department commandeered them and asked him to lead the way through the woods so they could get to the scene as quickly as possible. Jake and the four other officers slide from their ATVs and begin to move toward us, leaving my neighbor behind.

Stitch knows Jake so he greets him with an enthusiastic wag of his bottle brush tail and attaches himself to Jake’s side. When the officers reach the bottom of the bluff, Jake says something to the group and they remain below as he and Stitch make the short climb to where Officer Wagner and I wait.

Jake still has the same boyish good looks that he did thirty years ago. Seeing him in his detective’s uniform of a suit and tie makes me smile at the incongruity of how I remember him as a kid. He was a constant at our house, preferring ours to his own. His father was volatile, unpredictable, mean. Daily, he’d show up with his mussed sandy-brown hair, smelling of fresh cut grass and bubble gum, dressed in grubby jeans, scuffed tennis shoes and a purple-and-gold Minnesota Vikings T-shirt in search of my brother.

Jake’s normally cheerful face is now set in rigid seriousness and he’s oblivious to the mud that has caked his dress shoes and splattered onto his suit pants. He’s not even out of breath when he reaches us, a testament to the great physical shape he’s in. Instead of first asking where the victim is, he eyes me up and down. He winces at the sight of my bloodstained shirt, extends the index finger of both his hands and brings them toward each other, the right hand twisting one way and the left hand the other, making the ASL sign for hurt.