As a van from a local church pulled over to let her pass, she hit the gas and sped through the outskirts of town, her Jeep whipping along a road that skimmed the edge of Boxer Bluff, which offered a view of the Grizzly River and the falls for which the town had been named.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Alvarez click off her phone, letting the edge rest against her chin for a second as if she were lost in thought. “Anything?”
“A crime scene unit is on the way, might beat us there. O’Halleran’s kid Eli was out riding the fence line with his father, as I said. They weren’t side by side and the boy saw the victim first. His horse spooked or something and he took off. O’Halleran was riding to the spot where the commotion occurred, spied the woman, and pulled her from the stream, tried to revive her, but she was dead, the body nearly frozen.”
“ID?”
“None. But she was dressed. Only mark on her is a missing ring finger. Left hand.”
“What? Missing? You mean, like a birth defect? Or?”
“Severed. Recently.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t sound like she was just out walking, fell and hit her head, and drowned.”
Pescoli glared through the windshield where her wipers were doing battle with snow that had been falling for hours. “I’m amazed O’Halleran and his kid were out in this.”
“Ranchers. Just about as crazy as cops, I guess.”
Pescoli harrumphed. “They can’t let the weather beat them, either.” She turned onto the county road that cut through snowy fields where drifts piled against the fences and icicles hung from the few mailboxes that guarded long lanes leading to farmhouses surrounded by barns and outbuildings.
The O’Halleran place was no different. The big, square two-story farmhouse set upon a small rise far off the road was barely visible through the falling snow. A county-issued Jeep with its lights flashing was parked near the garage.
As Pescoli slowed at the end of the drive, they were met by a deputy for the department. Pete Watershed was tall and good-looking, something he’d never quite forgotten. She didn’t like him much. That whole lady-killer attitude rankled her, and his jokes, sometimes with a misogynist twist or teetering on bigotry, put her off. Not that she was a prude, but she could do without the slightly sexual remarks. Watershed tended to push it. If he weren’t a good cop, dedicated and all business when on duty, she would have been in his face more than she already was.
“What have we got?” she asked, the wind rushing in when she rolled down the window.
“DB found in the creek out back,” he said, pointing to the area behind the house. “You can drive down there. Just follow the tracks. I’ll come with.” Leaving his partner in the other vehicle, he climbed into the back seat and pointed out the makeshift road. “This is the lane O’Halleran uses for his tractor and hay baler and other equipment,” Watershed explained.
She drove through a series of paddocks where the gates had been left open and followed the tire tracks that wound their way onto a huge field where the pristine blanket of snow had been broken into a thick trail of tire tracks running along one fence.
“This butts up to government land,” Watershed explained. “O’Halleran and his kid were out checking for holes in the fence.” As the Jeep powered through six to eight inches of snow, he went on to tell the same story Alvarez had relayed earlier, finishing with, “So once the kid spooked and took off for the house on his horse, O’Halleran investigated and found the woman, obviously dead. Still, he pulled her from the water and checked for a pulse, listened to her lungs, but she’d been in there awhile, her body half frozen. You’ll see.”
“And the missing finger?” Alvarez asked.
“Ring finger, left hand. Not found. So far. Sliced off pretty cleanly at the first knuckle. Don’t know if it was pre- or postmortem.”
“Lovely,” Alvarez said. “A finger fetish?”
“Just a freak,” Pescoli said as they reached the end of the field near a meandering brook bordered by stands of trees. Officers were already on the job, a tarp laid out across which a partially clothed body of a woman lay. Her skin was blue, her hair wet, the finger missing, but Pescoli noted there were earrings visible in her earlobes. “O’Halleran didn’t see anything out of the ordinary?”
Watershed shook his head. “Nope. And no tracks have been found around the area. Don’t know if she was killed here, or brought here and the body dumped. Could have come from the federal land. There’s an access road about a mile west.”
Pescoli asked, “What about the neighbors?”
“Haven’t talked to them yet.”
“Let’s do it,” Pescoli said, scanning the area. “She had to get here somehow.” Squinting through the falling snow, she added, “Not much chance of finding any trace.” The frigid weather was working against them, but then it always did.
“You don’t know what we’ll find.” Alvarez was always more optimistic than she, a woman who believed that with today’s technology, anything was possible.
At the edge of the trees, parked helter-skelter, were a rescue vehicle from the fire department, another department-issued Jeep, a crime scene van and a banged-up pickup with two dogs locked in the cab, their noses pressed to the window. Officers dressed in heavy outerwear were already scouring the creek bed and surrounding area. Crime scene tape stretched from one sapling to the next, roping off the area that was to be searched.
Pescoli parked the Jeep close to the rescue van. “O’Halleran here?”
“Yeah, out talking to Cabral,” Watershed said as Pescoli cut the engine.
She noticed the rancher standing near another deputy, Rosetta Cabral, new to the force, all of twenty-four years old. Just a girl in Pescoli’s opinion, though she was a college graduate, divorced, and a single mother of a two-year-old. Cabral was blessed with the same gung ho fire as Blackwater and was currently engaging Trace O’Halleran in conversation.
“The kid?” Pescoli asked.
“In the Jeep with Beaumont.” Watershed nodded toward the other Pinewood County vehicle. “Came back down here with his mom after he ran back to the house. She’s a doctor, you know. Drove like mad down here in that truck,” he said, hitching his chin toward the beat-up Chevy. “Brought the kid with her ’cause she wasn’t sure what was going on. She thought that maybe she could save the Jane Doe, but nah, it was . . . too late.”
They climbed out and trudged between the vehicles to the tarp where a woman, maybe thirty or thirty-five, lay stretched onto a tarp, another sheet of plastic tented so that the body was protected and couldn’t be viewed from the vehicle where the O’Halleran boy was keeping warm.
“We got statements from everyone?” Pescoli asked, and Watershed nodded.
Mikhail Slatkin, a forensic scientist, was kneeling on the edge of the tarp, examining the body as they waited for someone from the coroner’s office to arrive. Over six feet and rawboned, the son of Russian immigrants, he was one of the best forensic scientists Pescoli had ever worked with.
“What happened to her?” she asked, studying the victim.
She’d been short, around five-two, Pescoli guessed, with long brownish hair on the curly side that was stiff and riddled with tiny ice crystals. The woman’s face was heart-shaped, with a straight little nose and blue eyes that were fixed, seeming to stare blindly upward. Neatly plucked eyebrows and thin cheeks lay above cold, blue lips. She was wearing a dress, gray and fitted, earrings that looked like diamond studs, and fingers and toes that were polished a matching cranberry hue. Unbroken fingernails, neatly manicured, suggested there had been no struggle. Well, except for the ring finger of her left hand, most of which was missing.
What’s up with that? The killer’s trophy? Or an accident that had sent her running here? Pescoli regarded the wooded foothills where snow was covering the ground, boulders and snags protruding from the thick white blanket, the nearly frozen stream softly gurgling as it wound between the trees.
Slat
kin glanced up, his blue eyes finding her gaze. “Don’t know yet. Maybe drowned. Or could be head trauma. Got a few bruises.” He frowned thoughtfully, eyeing the woman’s slim throat. “Possible strangulation.” His thick eyebrows drew together over his cold-reddened face. “Won’t know until the autopsy.”
Nodding, Pescoli stared down at the dead woman and wondered what had happened to her. How had she ended up in this creek? Had she made it under her own power, or had someone left her here? And why here? She glanced around the stretch of ranch land where field met forest. Why had this place been chosen as either the killing ground or dumping spot? Eyeing the creek, she saw that it was deep enough for a body to submerge, despite the encroaching ice. Where was the woman’s coat or jacket? Her shoes? Her purse and, especially, her finger?
What kind of whacked-up freak would cut off the finger?
Of course, Pescoli reminded herself, we don’t know one hundred percent that the woman has been murdered.
The missing finger certainly suggested that something violent had gone down, maybe even some kind of accident. She had learned over the years not to make quick assumptions, though oftentimes her gut instinct proved right. Until all the facts were in, however, she wouldn’t make a final decision.
Once more, she looked at the left hand where a finger had been severed, the bone and flesh visible. Her stomach turned a bit and she drew her eyes away for a second, nausea building.
She’d never been queasy at a crime scene, except years before . . . Oh, God. Another roll of her guts, and saliva gathered in her mouth. For the love of—
At that moment, she knew she was going to be sick. She turned away, took a few steps from the creek, and just managed to get behind a fir tree before she upchucked into the snow. She hadn’t thrown up at a crime scene since . . . she was pregnant with Bianca. Morning sickness. Perfect.
“Hey!” Alvarez said. “You okay?”
Pescoli heaved once more, then straightened, a sour taste in her mouth. “Fine,” she lied, running her tongue over her teeth.
“Jesus, Pescoli! Look what you’re doing to the crime scene,” Watershed admonished. “It’s not like you haven’t seen a dead body before.”
She didn’t dignify his remark with an answer. To Alvarez, she said, “I’ll talk to O’Halleran. You take the boy. See what he has to say. Maybe he saw something he doesn’t realize might help.”
Alvarez was already on her way to the idling car where an officer was staying with Eli O’Halleran, and Pescoli walked over to where Trace O’Halleran was deep in conversation with Cabral.
Nurse Amy Blanchette was dead tired. Thankfully, her shift was nearly over. In five minutes, come hell or high water, or even a damn plague, she was “outta here.” Northern General Hospital wasn’t her idea of a dream place to work, but since Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic didn’t seem to be calling, she’d stick it out and collect her paycheck, at least until she could figure out if she was going to stay in Montana near her parents, who lived in Hamilton, or venture out into the much bigger world. God, she’d love to get out of the miserable weather and try somewhere a little warmer, or exotic, or at least, somewhere that had a little more mystique. A place by the ocean, maybe.
LA sounded good. Or maybe San Antonio or somewhere in Florida. Anywhere she didn’t have to wake up to piles of snow and freezing temperatures would be nice. Better still, a hospital where she didn’t work with her damn ex-fiancé, who’d decided to bail six months into the engagement. Thankfully, she’d only lost her heart, not her life savings on a wedding. But even though she tried desperately to work opposing hours, she ran into Dr. Dylan Stone—yes, he sounded like he was one of those fake doctors on an old soap opera—too often. The fact that he was dating a handful of her coworkers made her working environment all the more caustic. By summer, she swore, she’d have that job elsewhere.
She had a few more minutes of her ten-hour workday to get through. A few nurses and orderlies on her shift were starting to leave while the nurses for the next ten hours were arriving. The hub was a little chaotic with the switch. Nurses who were leaving exchanged patient information, a few jokes, and a little bit of gossip with the nurses coming on duty. Worse yet, the flu had not only infected several patients on the wing, but the staff as well, devastating some of the teams. Her floor in particular was short-handed and the staff was forced to depend upon recruits from other areas of the hospital, sometimes working for the first time with newbies. Just today, Amy had shared her area of the wing with a couple orderlies, two doctors, and a nurse she’d previously never met.
But it was about over.
“One more patient,” she reminded herself as she responded to the call light for room 212. The patient, Reina Gehrig, was a real pain in the butt. Amy wasn’t one bit sorry that she would be able to pawn the older woman off on Mona Vickers, the nurse scheduled to take over Amy’s patients. Mrs. Gehrig in particular, seemed to believe she was the only patient in the entire hospital.
Most definitely a pain in the backside.
Forcing a smile, Amy slipped into the room where Reina Gehrig was propped in her hospital bed, television tuned to a game show, her head swiveling expectantly as the door opened.
“How’re you doing?” Amy asked, turning off the call light.
“Oh, not so good, I’m afraid,” the small woman said. She was a frail thing with a lined, narrow face and a halo of thin white curls that didn’t quite hide the pink of her scalp.
She’s lonely, Amy thought and felt a little ashamed for thinking badly of her.
Barely a hundred pounds, with hazel eyes that snapped behind the folds of her eyelids and thick glasses, Reina said solemnly, “I think there’s something wrong.”
“Well, that won’t do.” Amy gave the woman a smile. “Tell me, how do you feel? Rate your pain.” She indicated the chart that hung on the wall that showed caricatures of faces in varying expressions of discomfort.
“ ’Bout an eight, maybe a nine, I’d say,” the patient said. “And it doesn’t just hurt in my leg, but all over.” Frowning a little, she added, “I think I might be coming down with something. The flu’s going around this year, you know. And my neighbor Elsa, she caught it. Nasty stuff.”
“Hmm. Well, we can’t have that,” Amy said. “Let me check your vitals again.”
The patient’s chin suddenly thrust out. “I need to see Doctor Lambert.”
“She didn’t do your surgery.” Amy checked Mrs. Gehrig’s temperature, blood pressure, and pulse again, noting that everything was in the normal range, right where it should be. “Dr. Bellingham says you can go home tomorrow.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I’d feel a lot better if Dr. Lambert had a look at me.” Mrs. Gehrig was nodding in her bed as if agreeing with herself. Her thin hands, with veins visible, plucked at the edge of the sheet covering her.
“I’ll let her know,” Amy promised, “and mark it on your char—”
“Room two-o-six STAT!” Polly, another floor nurse, poked her head into the room as she passed the open doorway just as Amy heard the Code Blue announcement from the speakers in the hallway.
“What?” Mrs. Gehrig was confused.
Amy was already reversing toward the door. “I’ll be back.”
“No, please—” Mrs. Gehrig’s face folded on itself in disappointment. “Wait! Where are you going? I need—” The rest of her request was cut off as Amy rushed toward the room a few doors down.
“Mr. Donnerly’s coding!” Polly called to her as they entered 206.
Already, the room was bustling with staff members. The patient had recently had heart surgery and had been improving enough to be released from ICU to his private room. One nurse was handling his chest compressions while another had a bag valve mask in place over the patient’s mouth and nose. A doctor was giving orders as the defibrillator cart was rolled quickly inside and another locking cart with narrow drawers for medications followed. Amy stood at the ready should she be required to administer the epineph
rine or whatever other drug the doc ordered.
“How long?” the doctor asked.
“Coded under two minutes ago,” a floor nurse who had been attending Benson Donnerly said as the rest of the team continued working.
“Pulse?” the doctor asked and another nurse pressed against the patient’s neck, checking the patient’s carotid artery.
“No pulse.”
“Code Blue!” another page called over the loudspeaker, adding to the tension.
We’re here already, Amy thought, refusing to be distracted in case she was needed.
“Code Blue! Room two-twenty!”
“What?” The doctor turned his head.
“Has to be wrong,” Polly said, surprised.
“Double-check,” he said, nodding at Amy, who quickly slipped out of the room and caught up to two nurses headed rapidly down the hallway.
“Let’s go,” Reba, a tall RN with a single braid falling down her back said to Amy. She was hurrying, the braid swinging side to side as she tried to keep up with Brad King, a male nurse with a trimmed beard and long, athletic stride.
Avoiding an orderly heading in the opposite direction, Amy hurried to fall into step with Reba. “Wait,” she said, trying and failing to keep up. “The patient who’s coding is in two-o-six.” She hooked her thumb in the direction of Mr. Donnerly’s room.
“Yesterday’s news,” Brad said over his shoulder as he broke into a jog and Reba followed suit. “We’ve got another patient coding.”
Two cardiac arrests on the same floor at the same time? It happened, of course, but very infrequently. “But—Hold up.” Amy was processing what the senior nurse had said. “Two-twenty?” she repeated, hoping she’d misunderstood. “Isn’t that the sheriff’s room?”
“That’s right,” Brad confirmed as he pushed open the door of the room where the patient lay unmoving, his chest no longer rising and falling, his pallor weak, his eyes closed.
Oh, no.
His heart monitor was visible from the doorway and the green line moving across the screen remained level, not so much as bumping the slightest as a piercing sound that should have been softly beeping was a steady, ominous warning.