Michele Hauf - Storm Warning

He almost hated to share the case with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, but Marjorie had already put in a call to them. Someone from the BCA would arrive soon. Standard procedure when a homicide occurred within city limits.

“Cash.” Alex Larson, who had just graduated from the police academy and headed north from the Twin Cities to find work, with hopes of eventually getting placed on search and rescue, nodded as Jason walked nearer. The tall, gangly man was twenty-four and had an eye for safety and a curiosity for all things female. Unfortunately, most of the women in Frost Falls were over forty. Not many of the younger ones stuck around after high school. Smart move in a dying town. The Red Band iron mine had closed four years ago. That closure had sent the migrant workers—and far too many locals—packing in search of a reliable paycheck.

Alex was the only officer Jason needed in the little town of Frost Falls, population 627.

Though, from the looks of things, the population was now 626.

A middle-aged woman, wearing a black goose-down coat that fell to her knees and bright red cap, scarf and mittens, stood beside Alex. Elaine Hester was a forensic pathologist with the St. Louis County medical examiner’s office. She traveled the seven-hundred-square-mile area so often she joked about selling her property in Duluth and getting herself an RV. She gestured toward the snowy ditch that yet sported the dried brown heads of fall’s bushy cattails. The forthcoming blizzard would clip that punky crop down to nothing.

“What have you got, Elaine?” Jason asked, even though his dispatcher, Marjorie, had already told him about the body.

Jason led the team toward the ditch and saw the sprawled female body dressed in jeans and a sweater—no coat, gloves or hat—long black hair, lying facedown. The snow might have initially melted due to her body heat, so she was sunk in to her ears, and as death had forfeited her natural heat, the warmed slush had iced up around her and now crusted in the fibers of her red sweater.

“Female, mid-to late-twenties. Time of death could be last evening,” Elaine reported in her usual detached manner. She held a camera and had likely already snapped a few shots. “Didn’t want to move the body for closer inspection until you arrived, Cash. You call in the BCA?”

“On their way. We can continue processing the crime scene. The BCA will help, if necessary. Last night, eh?”

“I suspect she was dumped here around midnightish.”

Jason met Alex’s gaze, above which the officer’s brow quirked. They both tended to share a silent snicker at Elaine’s frequent use of ish tacked to the end of words when she couldn’t be exact.

“How do you know she was—” Jason drew his gaze from the body and up the slight ditch incline to the gravel road. The marks from a body sliding over the snow were obvious. “Right. Dumped.”

Jason studied the ground, noting the footprints, which were obviously from Elaine’s and Alex’s boots, as they’d remained only on this side of the body. They hadn’t contaminated the crime scene. That was Elaine’s forte: meticulous forensics.

Jason walked a wide circle around the victim’s head and up the ditch to the road. As he did so, Elaine snapped away, documenting every detail of the scene with photographs. Though they were still within city limits, this was not a main road. Rather, it was one of four that left the town and either dead-ended or led deeper north into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a million-plus-acre natural reserve within the Superior National Forest that hugged the Canadian border. The only people who used this road were two families who both lived about ten miles out of Frost Falls. The gravel road showed no deep tracks in the mix of snow, ice and pebble, like if a vehicle were to take off quickly after disposing of evidence. But there were boot prints where the gravel segued into dead grass long packed down by snow.

Jason bent and decided they were a woman’s boot prints for the narrowness.

“Marjorie said a woman called in the sighting?” Jason asked Alex.

“Yes, sir,” Alex offered. “Call came from Susan Olson, who works at The Moose in the, er—ahem—back.” If Alex hadn’t been wearing a face mask, Jason felt sure he’d see him blush. The back of The Moose offered a low-class strip show on Saturday nights—basically, Susan and a few corny Halloween costumes that had fit her better back in high school. “Miss Olson was driving out to her aunt’s place to check in on her when she saw something glint in the ditch.”

Jason shuffled down into the ditch, avoiding Elaine as she stepped around the woman’s head. “Evidence?” he asked Alex.

“Just the body and the clothing on it. No phone or glasses or personal items that may have fallen out from a pocket. I’ll bag the hands and head soon as Elaine gives me the go-ahead. Any tracks up there?”

“They’re from the caller, I’m sure. But take pictures of the tracks, will you, Elaine? We’ll have to see if Susan’s fashion lends to size-eight Sorels, if my guess is correct.”

“Of course. Nice thing about snow—it holds a good impression of boot tracks. I hope it’s Ryan Bay with the BCA.”

Jason cast her a look that didn’t disguise his dislike for the guy for reasons he couldn’t quite place. He’d only met him twice, but there was something about him.

Elaine noticed his crimped smirk and shrugged. “Guy’s a looker. And he’s easygoing. I can do what I need to do without him wanting to take charge.”

“A looker, eh?”

There it was. She’d nailed his dislike in a word. A looker. What the hell did that mean? Wasn’t as if handsome held any weight in this small town. Least not when a man was in the market to hook up. Again, no eligible women as far as a man’s eye could see.

“You’re still the sexiest police chief in St. Louis County, Cash.” Elaine adjusted the lens on her camera. “But if you won’t let me fix you up with my niece...”

The niece. She mentioned her every time they had occasion to work together. Blind dates gave Jason the creeps. His brother Joe had once gone on one. That woman had literally stalked him for weeks following. Yikes.

“Didn’t you mention she was shortish?” Jason asked with a wink to Alex.

“Short girls need love, too, Jason.” The five-foot-two-inch woman laughed. “Don’t worry. I know she’s not your type.”

Jason squatted before the body, thinking that if Elaine actually did know his type—What was he thinking? Of course, she did. Along with everyone else in the county. The gossip in these parts spread as if it had its own high-speed internet service.

Focusing on the body, with a gloved hand he lifted the long black hair that had been covering the woman’s face. Her skin was pale and blue. Her lips purple. Closed eyelids harbored frost on the lashes. No visible signs of struggle or blood. She was young. Pretty. He’d not seen her in Frost Falls before. And he had a good mental collection of all the faces in town. A visitor? She could have been murdered anywhere. The assailant may have driven from another town to place her here.

In the distance, the flash of headlights alerted all three at the same time.

“BCA,” Elaine said. “We’ll review the evidence with them and then bag the body.”

“You’ll transport the body to Duluth?” Jason asked.

“Yes,” she said. “You going to follow me in for the autopsy?”

“You going to process it this morning?” Duluth was about an hour’s drive to the east.

Elaine shook her head. “Probably not. But I will get to it after lunch. If you can meet me around oneish, that would work.”

“Will do.”

The white SUV bearing the BCA logo on the side door pulled up twenty feet from Alex’s patrol car and idled. Looked like the driver was talking on the phone. Jason squinted. Couldn’t make out who the driver was. A looker, eh? Why did that weird comment bother him?