The Wild Dead

  Truth be told, investigators often cultivated that particular story. It was part of the aura. Made investigators seem even weirder than they were. Like outsiders. Enid wasn’t sure it helped.

  “Oh, investigators are like anyone else,” she said.

  “Have you all earned a banner yet?” Juni asked, in that eager, wide-eyed way people did whenever the subject came up.

  Enid tried to hide her smile. Couldn’t. She grinned just thinking about it. “Our kid’s due any day now.”

  “Oh.” Juni sighed with longing. “And you’re stuck way out here!”

  “Part of the job,” she said, shrugging.

  “You know that no one would fault you if you let this one be, if you handed it off to someone else. Finding out who did this to that girl . . . it’s impossible, isn’t it?”

  “I have to try,” Enid said simply. “Teeg and I will give it a couple more days, then I’ll get back to my household. It’ll be fine.” She kept telling herself that. Kept telling herself that Olive, Sam, and Berol would understand if she wasn’t there. They would. “If you don’t mind talking about Bridge House just a little more—you decided it was easier to start over, rather than keep on with the old household?”

  “I imagine it seems silly now. But it seemed important at the time. To move past it all, to change the name . . . to just change.”

  Enid suspected that the Estuary’s refusal to put together its own committee might have had something to do with it. Medics came through a bit more often, but they didn’t have authority to award banners. Estuary folk had to appeal up to regional for banners, and regional sent someone around these parts only once or twice a year, to check on quotas and update records. Not much of a chance to ask for banners, to appeal decisions. Regional would delegate a lot of that work to a local committee—if there was one. Easy to overlook when there wasn’t.

  The back door opened, and Jess stomped in, a look of panic tightening his features. “What’s this? What’s wrong?” He was breathing hard, like he’d run from somewhere.

  Enid said calmly, “You mean besides obvious recent events?”

  “Jess, what is it?” Juni asked.

  “Tom said one of the investigators had taken you inside, was questioning you.” He glared at Enid. “You don’t think she had anything to do with it, do you? She can’t have anything to do with it.”

  “We were just talking,” Enid said.

  “It’s nothing,” Juni added. “Kellan was falling apart out on the marsh, and I was just helping. Really, she’s talking to everyone. Aren’t you?”

  Enid nodded. “Yes, it was just a few questions.”

  A knock at the front door made them turn, and Teeg’s voice called, “Enid! Mart’s on the way, might want to get out here.”

  Out front, two people were trudging over the bridge, toward Bonavista. Enid shaded her eyes: the skinny one was Tom. The other was larger, his steps deliberate—Mart.

  Teeg was still keeping watch at the front steps. Kellan sat hunched over his mug of water, but he seemed calmer. The pair might not have said a word to each other while Enid was inside talking with Juni.

  “You ready to go back home, Kellan?” Enid asked.

  He said, “I’m sorry, Enid. I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I really didn’t. We’re not in trouble, are we?”

  “Not at all,” she said. “Just . . . if you think of anything else, anything that might help us find out what happened to Ella—you’ll let me know, yeah?”

  He nodded sullenly. As much as Enid hoped he would think of something, remember some critical detail after he’d rested and the fear and adrenaline had drained from his system, she didn’t think he would. Likely he wanted to forget all this.

  Enid waved as Mart approached the house, and he raised a hand back. Tom trotted ahead.

  “Thanks again, Tom,” Enid said. “Ought to put you on regular messenger duty.”

  The kid grinned. “I’m earning all kinds of favors!”

  “Tom, don’t be obnoxious,” Juni said, but she was smiling, and her son laughed. His duty discharged, he disappeared around the corner of the house.

  “What’ve you gone and done, Kellan?” Mart asked tiredly, stepping forward to put a hand on Kellan’s shoulder.

  Kellan’s face sunk in a frown. “I got scared. I’m sorry.”

  “He was looking for something in the mud. A knife Ella might have had with her,” Enid added. “You know what he was talking about?”

  “Everybody has knives with them,” Mart said.

  Yeah, that was the problem. Teeg gave Enid a questioning look, and she moved her head in the briefest of shakes. She’d have to explain it later.

  “You need to keep better care of your people, Mart,” Jess said. He and Juni were looking on from the cottage doorway. He might have meant to sound good-natured, but his glare wasn’t, and Mart bristled.

  “Kellan hasn’t done anything wrong,” Mart said. “Nothing’s got hurt.”

  “He’s wasted the investigators’ time.”

  Mart flashed a worried glance at Enid, who grew annoyed at Mart and Jess, using her in their argument.

  “You said I wasn’t in trouble.” Kellan’s eyes were round again, the panic returning.

  “You’re not,” Enid said. “No one’s wasted my time. I’ve got plenty of time.” But she didn’t; she was counting every minute, felt like.

  “Kellan’s always on the flats looking for things, he doesn’t need looking after,” Mart insisted.

  Jess wasn’t finished. “I think you all need to decide if you’re really part of this community or not.”

  Mart laughed. “What community? We don’t even have a committee! You never care about us until you need a body burned.”

  “We wouldn’t be finding dead bodies on the marsh if not for—”

  “Hey—”

  “Quiet,” Enid said.

  Neatly, both she and Teeg stepped between the two antagonists and glared them down. Their anger wilted, and they turned away from each other; folk usually did. Meanwhile, Kellan had curled up on the steps, arms wrapped around his head as if trying to shut out the noise. Or maybe the whole world.

  Enid said, “Juni, thanks for your help. And Mart, thanks for coming. We’ll let you know if we need anything else, yeah?”

  Mart nodded. “The pyre’s ready for the girl. We can hold it anytime.”

  “Thanks,” Enid said, nodding.

  Kellan leaned into Mart, let the man guide him away.

  Enid turned on Jess. “So why don’t you all have a committee?”

  “What? Well . . . I guess . . . we’ve never needed one.”

  “Yeah? Maybe think about that for a minute. Teeg, want to take a walk?”

  She marched off, down the road in the direction opposite the bridge, just to get some space. Teeg hurried alongside.

  “So,” he said. “Kellan’s looking for a knife.”

  “I’m not sure even Kellan knows exactly what he’s doing. Ella could have lost it anywhere. She might not even have had it with her when she died.”

  Teeg stared. “Or it was used to kill her.”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” she said dryly.

  “Do you think Kellan might have done it?”

  “He doesn’t seem the type.” Thoughtfully, she shook her head. The idea was worth considering, however much she hated to admit it. “I don’t think he’d be able to keep something that big a secret. He’d have lost it before now.”

  “You sure about that? He could be losing it now because he’s trying to keep a secret that big.”

  They stopped on the road before they got too far from Bonavista. The main house was well in sight, but out of earshot. Enid did wonder what kind of rumors would start, when folk saw the two investigators off by themselves, having a meeting. Deciding the fate of them all.

  Teeg regarded her, downright eager.

  “Why? What did you find out?” she asked.

  “Kellan said a few more things,
about how he’s always causing trouble, how the others are always having to look after him. Kellan seems to do this kind of thing a lot, goes off alone, rants about things no one understands. You saw Mart when he got here, like this isn’t the first time he’s had to come fetch Kellan.”

  “Yeah,” Enid agreed. “I think he might have some kind of undiagnosed anxiety disorder.”

  Teeg nodded. “It seems to be why he ended up at Last House. No one else wanted to deal with him.”

  “Like he’s a ruined house and not a person,” Enid said, frowning. “Last House folk knew Ella pretty well, I gather.”

  “Yeah, they knew her, so who better to have access to her? To have that kind of opportunity?”

  “But why? If it really was one of them, why would Kellan be out there looking for the knife? Wouldn’t one of them still have it? To hide it, if nothing else?”

  “They probably didn’t think they needed to hide it, until the body turned up. With a couple of investigators on hand, no less. If we weren’t here, there’d have been no trouble at all. But now they have to cover their tracks.” It was an easy answer, and Teeg seemed keen to follow that line of thinking. “Out of them all, don’t you think Kellan’s the most likely to hurt someone, even by accident?”

  “I’m not sure that follows,” Enid said. “He’s nervous, not murderous. On the other hand, with that ax, Erik looked like he might kill us. If he met Ella up near that house by chance, was startled enough, or angry enough . . .” She shrugged, leaving the implication hanging.

  “Everyone around here’s got an ax or machete or knife. We have to narrow it down. But Kellan—what if he did do it, and he’s hiding behind his reputation of not being all there—”

  “That’s an awful lot of very good acting for someone who seems so broken up over things.”

  “We’ll just keep an eye on him, yeah?” Teeg paced on the road, a few steps back and forth, looking back at the settlement like he couldn’t wait to dive back into it. “What’s that thing you say? Put enough pressure on folk by just hanging around and asking questions, and they’ll confess everything.”

  Enid got a sick feeling in her stomach. It would be so easy to accuse Kellan. He was the one who wandered away from everyone else, he was the one looking for the knife—and then what?

  Say he did do it—what then?

  “What’s the consequence?” Enid said.

  “This sounds like a test question.”

  “You’re not in training anymore. This is one investigator to another, talking it out. Say we find who did it, find the evidence, and get a clear-cut confession. Then what?”

  Teeg thought a moment, looking out to the hazy coast, squinting. “Exile,” he said. “For the worst crime there is, that’s the worst thing I can think of.”

  Sending them into the wild. Barring them from households, from trade. From any care at all, and leaving them to fend for themselves. For someone like Kellan, that might well be a death sentence. Enid didn’t like to think of it.

  “Though technically,” Teeg added, “if Ella isn’t part of the Coast Road, do we actually have the authority to do anything about holding her killer accountable?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “If someone from the Coast Road did it.”

  “Ah,” Teeg said, his tone uncertain. “But do you think we’re obligated? If one of them came into a settlement like this looking for help, would we have to give it?”

  “It would be the kind thing to do, wouldn’t it?”

  “But we’re not obligated. They don’t follow our rules.”

  “We all came from the same place a hundred years ago. Keep that in mind.”

  She glanced up at the sun; it was well past noon now. They still had a lot to do, taking care of the body, following a few more trails of information. She gestured back toward Bonavista.

  “Let’s get back, take care of Ella’s body,” Enid said. “Take one more look at that wound.” Before they destroyed the only real evidence they had.

  The two walked back to Bonavista, went around to the work house in back where they stored the body. It was the middle of the day, and everyone had gone inside, taken a break from work and the sun. The place seemed quiet; even the bugs and seagulls seemed to be resting, and the river’s water ran muted.

  Enid drew back the cloth, once again confronted by the young face, the tangled hair, and tugged at the collar of the repaired tunic to expose the bloodless wound. It was a gash, maybe six inches long, its edges clean except for where the skin was peeling back, rotting. The flesh underneath was black, oozing. They’d definitely need to burn her this afternoon.

  “It could have been anything that did that,” Teeg said, frustrated. “Chopped with an ax, slashed down with a knife. Looks like the blow came from someone about her size, maybe a little taller, striking downward.”

  “She might have been cringing when it happened too. You see someone with a blade coming at you, you try to block—” She shook her head. The Haven archives had books on forensics. She’d read as much as she could, but it was never enough. Some of it was irrelevant—Coast Road investigators didn’t have the right tools to do what investigators had done, pre-Fall. Hard not to feel like she was covering old ground, and doing it blindfolded. “Used to be they could tell exactly what made a wound like this. Use microscopes and match the exact blade to the exact cut.”

  “That’d sure make this easier. So—do you think it was a knife or an ax?”

  “Bone’s scored but not broken. I’d think an ax would have cracked bone, just from the force of it.” Enid sat back, sighed. “Let’s not make that call. Not yet.”

  Chapter Eleven • the estuary

  ///////////////////////////////////////

  Pyre

  In the old days—the pre-Fall days—cities had refrigeration. Morgues and lockers where investigators could store bodies indefinitely. In books Enid had seen pictures of these places, so formal and clean, complicated yet organized. If investigators found a piece of evidence later, they could go back to the body and see if it matched up. Barring that, they had photographs. In either case they didn’t have to remember—they could look again.

  Enid, however, had to take notes. Pages and pages of notes, hoping she recorded every vital detail, guessing which scrap of information might be important later. In this case, she sketched the wound, measured it, noted every detail, uncertain any of it would be of help.

  At the time of the Fall, folk had had to make choices about what to save. Medicine, but not forensics. Windmills and solar collectors, but not photography. Someday, maybe they’d have enough resources and incentive to pick up some of those lost skills again—and a library full of books waited in the cellar archives at Haven whenever they were ready.

  But right now, a body was rotting in the heat, and they could keep the flies and scavengers off it only for so long. Gulls had already started perching on the outbuildings, testing the perimeter.

  The body had told them everything it was likely to.

  Enid thought she would have to order a couple of people to help her and Teeg carry the body up the hill, a trek of a couple of miles. But Jess and others at Bonavista volunteered. Enid was grateful. Again, they used the canvas for a makeshift stretcher, one of them at each corner.

  A small, impromptu procession formed behind them. Juni, a couple of the folk from Pine Grove and other households. Enid assumed they followed out of curiosity. Or maybe she ought to give them more credit, and they came because even an unknown stranger, left dead on the marsh, deserved a little respect when being put to rest. No one from Semperfi appeared, and no one was out working at the ruined house. The quiet around the place made it seem abandoned.

  Way up the hill, maybe a hundred yards out from the edge of the ravine and just beyond Last House, was a clearing—no trees, no sodden marsh, just a stretch of dirt and rock where a fire could be set without putting any buildings in danger. A low bier of driftwood and deadfall marked the center of the clearing, a lonely, sa
d mound; knowing its purpose might have made it seem that way. The wood stored under a nearby lean-to looked the same but didn’t seem to hold so much somber meaning.

  The other folk of Last House, Neeve and Kellan, were there with a lantern and torch to light the pyre, with buckets of water and mud nearby to quench it later. The procession hung back, watching from a distance.

  Witnesses. A farewell like this should always have witnesses, Enid believed.

  Together, Enid and Teeg worked to arrange Ella’s body among the branches. Enid spent a long last moment studying the girl, her clothes, her hair. Imprinting her mind with the sight, wishing that maybe at last some crucial detail would jump out and explain everything. Who Ella really was, why she had ended up like this.

  “Enid?” Teeg prompted.

  “Yeah. All right.”

  Neeve lingered over the body for just a moment before lighting the kindling. As the flames rose, she stood back, head bowed, eyes shut. Quietly and respectfully, as if Ella were one of their own, the folk of Last House watched the fire rise up and engulf her.

  There was a chance, a small chance, that whoever inflicted that wound was present. To watch the pyre burn, fascinated to see the final result of the death they’d caused. Enid kept a lookout, not really sure what she was searching for. One of the detectives from before the Fall would probably spot something odd right off.

  The folk who’d gathered were quiet, somber. No one behaved at all unexpectedly. The vague expectation that one of them would fling themself on the ground and confess out of sheer oppressive guilt wasn’t very realistic.

  Enid cast her gaze farther out. The young man she’d seen by the river—if he was interested in Ella, interested in the body, he should be here, watching. Or maybe she’d scared him off, and he’d never come back.

  Enid had so many questions for him. So she searched, just in case.

  The sun shone down on the sparse trees, not leaving many shadows, at the edge of the wood. But against one of those trees, Enid spotted an anomaly. A shape leaning against a trunk, a figure in hiding. She let her gaze pass over as if she hadn’t observed it, and went back to watching the pyre, which was now fully engulfed, whitish ash floating away with the smoke. Enid glanced back and saw that the figure was still there. A young man with the start of a rough beard.