Northwest: Deep Freeze Part 2

"Off the top? White female, mid-twenties to thirties, I'd guess, but don't quote me until the M.E. releases her to the lab and there's a full autopsy. She'd been stuffed into that log over there." With her pen, Merline pointed to the hollowed-out cedar. "We're missing a few bones, probably because an animal or two dragged off parts of her corpse, but we're still looking. Already found an ulna and tarsal that were missing at first. Maybe we'll get lucky with the rest."

"Maybe," Carter said without much enthusiasm as he surveyed the forest floor and the craggy hillside that dropped steeply toward the Columbia River. The terrain was rugged, the forest dense, the river wide and wild as it carved a wide trench between the states of Oregon and Washington. Even tamed by a series of dams, it raged westward, whitecaps visible through the trees. If a body were ever dumped in the Columbia, there wasn't a whole lot of chance of it ever being recovered.

He heard the whine of an engine struggling up the hillside and glimpsed the M.E.'s van through the trees. Not far behind was another rig, one belonging to one of the a.s.sistant District Attorneys.

Merline wasn't finished. She said, "Here's what I think is really odd. Check out her teeth." Jacobosky knelt and pointed with the end of her pen. "See the incisors and molars? That isn't a natural rot...I think they've been filed."

Carter felt a whisper of dread touch the base of his spine. Who would file someone's teeth? And why? "To keep the body from being identified?" he asked.

"Maybe, but why not just pull the teeth or break them? Why go to all the trouble of filing them to tiny points?" She rocked back on her heels and tapped her pen to her lips as she studied the skull. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Maybe our guy is a dentist with a sick sense of humor."

"The sick part is right."

"Any ID?" he asked, but a.s.sumed the answer.

"Nothing yet." She shook her head and flipped over a page of her clipboard. "No clothes or personal effects, either. But we'll keep looking, under the snow, through the ice and into the soil. If there's evidence, we'll locate it." She squinted up at Carter as gray clouds scudded overhead.

"What's this?" Carter bent down and studied the skull with its grotesque teeth and gaping eye sockets. He indicated her hair. There was something clinging to the strands that were visible. A pinkish substance that he didn't think was flesh. It reminded him of eraser residue.

"Don't know. Yet. But some kind of manmade substance. We'll have the lab check it out."

"Good." He straightened and noticed BJ talking with one of the photographers as Luke Messenger, the M.E. arrived. Tall and rangy, with curly red hair and freckles, he made his way to the crime scene and frowned at the body.

"Only a partial?" he asked Jacobosky.

"So far." He knelt beside the bones as Amanda Pratt, the a.s.sistant D.A. lucky enough to be a.s.signed this frigid job, picked her way down the hillside. She was bundled in layers of down and wool and smelled of cigarette smoke.

"G.o.d, this is miserable weather," she said, her pert nose wrinkling at the partial body. "Jesus, would you look at that? Found in a hollowed-out log?"

"So Charley says."

"You can't believe a word out of his mouth," she said flatly, but eyed the scene.

"Maybe this time he's telling the truth."

Her eyes flashed behind thin, plastic-rimmed gla.s.ses. "Yeah, right. And I'm the friggin' queen of England. No, make that Spain. England's too d.a.m.ned cold. Jesus, we've got ourselves a regular party up here." She scanned the vehicles. "Is Charley still around?"

"In one of the pickups-over there." Jacobosky hitched her chin toward a white truck idling near the end of the road. Montinello was at the wheel. Charley Perry was huddled in the pa.s.senger seat. "He's not too happy about being kept up here," Jacobosky added. "Making a whole lotta noise about wanting to get home and warm up."

"Don't blame him. I'll talk to him."

"Good," Amanda said. "Be sure to have your bulls.h.i.t meter with you."

Carter laughed, took another long look at the grid that was the crime scene, then said to the Medical Examiner, "Let me know what you find out."

"Soon as we sort it all out," Messenger replied. He was still crouched over the remains. Didn't bother looking up. "You'll be the first to know."

"Thanks." Carter headed up the hillside and found Charley as cranky as ever. He was cradling a cup of coffee someone had brought up, but he glared through the pa.s.senger window at Carter as if he held the sheriff personally responsible for ruining his day. Carter tapped on the gla.s.s, and Charley reluctantly lowered the window.

"Are you arrestin' me?" he demanded, short, silvery beard covering a strong, jutted chin. Angry eyes peered from behind thick gla.s.ses.

"No."

"Then have one of your boys take me home. I done my duty, didn't I? No need to treat me like some kind of d.a.m.ned prisoner." He spat a long stream of tobacco juice through the window to land on the snowy dirt and gravel. Fortunately for Charley, this area wasn't considered part of the crime scene.

"I just want to ask you some questions."

"I been answerin' 'em all mornin'!"

Carter smiled. "Just a few more, then I'll have Deputy Montinello take you home."

"Great," Charley muttered, folding his arms over a thin chest. He cooperated, if reluctantly, and was right; he didn't have any more information. He told Carter that he'd been out hunting, lost his dog, and found her down in the gully near the hollow log. He'd lifted the log and a skull had rolled out, nearly scaring him to death. "...and that's all I know," he added petulantly. "I half-ran home and called your office. And don't you give me no grief 'bout huntin' with Tanzy. I needed a trackin' dog to get me back home," he said, as if he realized he could be in trouble for hunting with a dog. Hurriedly he added, "Two of your men hauled me back up here a few hours back and I'm still freezin' my b.u.t.t off."

"We all are, Charley," Carter said, and slapped the door of the department's truck. "Take him back home," he said to Lanny Montinello before looking at Charley's grizzled face again. "If you think of anything else, you'll call, right?"

"'Course," Charley said, though he didn't meet Carter's eyes and the sheriff suspected that the loner was stretching the truth. They'd never gotten along, not since Carter had debunked Charley's Bigfoot story and had once threatened to call the game warden about Charley poaching deer. No, Charley Perry wasn't likely to call again, not if he had to speak to the sheriff. Carter glanced at Montinello and said, "Take him home." The interview was over.

"Will do." Montinello slid the pickup into gear, and Carter slapped the door a couple of times as Charley rolled up the window. Within seconds the truck disappeared around a stand of old growth that was as dense as it was tall. The firs loomed high, seeming to sc.r.a.pe the steel-colored bellies of the clouds just as the first drops of icy rain began to fall.

Carter shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his parka and looked down the hillside to the crime scene crawling with investigators. The unknown woman's partial skeleton was stretched out on the plastic sheet. Amanda Pratt was standing a few yards off, smoking a cigarette and hashing it out with Luke Messenger. In the midst of it all was the corpse, with her filed teeth and bits of pink gunk in her hair.

Who was she and what the h.e.l.l was she doing up in this isolated part of no-d.a.m.ned-where?

CHAPTER 2.

Click!

The French doors opened.

A gust of wind, cold as all of winter, swept inside the darkened house. Near-dead embers in the fireplace glowed a brighter red. The old dog lying on the rug near Jenna's chair lifted his head and let out a low, warning growl.

"Shh!" the intruder hissed.

Jenna's eyes narrowed as she squinted at the silhouette easing into the large great room. As dark as it was, she recognized her oldest daughter slinking toward the stairs. Just as she'd expected. Great. One more teenager sneaking home in the middle of the night.

"Hush, Critter!" Ca.s.sie whispered angrily, her voice sharp as she tiptoed to the stairs.

Jenna snapped on a nearby lamp.

Instantly the log house was illuminated. Ca.s.sie froze at the first step. "d.a.m.n," she muttered, her shoulders sagging as she slowly turned and faced her mother.

"You are so grounded," Jenna said from her favorite leather chair.

Instantly, Ca.s.sie was on the offensive. "What're you doing up?"

"Waiting for you." Jenna unfolded herself from the chair and met her daughter's sullen expression. Ca.s.sie, who so many people said was a carbon-copy of Jenna as a younger woman. Ca.s.sie was taller by an inch, but her high cheekbones, dark lashes and brows, and pointed chin were nearly identical to Jenna's. "Where were you?"

"Out." She tossed her streaked hair over her shoulder.

"I know that. You were supposed to be in bed. As a matter of fact, I remember you saying something like 'Night, Mom' around eleven."

Jenna was rewarded with an exaggerated roll of Ca.s.sie's green eyes. "So who were you with? No, forget that-I figure you were with Josh."

Ca.s.sie didn't offer any information, but in Jenna's estimation, Josh Sykes was a foregone conclusion. Ever since Ca.s.sie had started dating the nineteen-year-old, she'd become secretive, sullen, and mutinous.

"So where did you go? Precisely."

Ca.s.sie folded her arms over her chest and leaned a shoulder against the yellowed log wall. Her makeup was smeared, her hair mussed, her clothes rumpled. Jenna didn't have to guess what her daughter had been doing, and it scared her to death. "We were just out driving around," Ca.s.sie said.

"At three in the morning?"

"Yeah." Ca.s.sie lifted a shoulder and yawned.

"It's freezing outside."

"So?"

"Look, Ca.s.sie, don't start with the att.i.tude. I'm not in the mood."

"I don't see why you care."

"Don't you?" Jenna was standing now, advancing on her rebellious daughter, getting her first whiff of cigarette smoke and maybe something else. "Let's just start with I love you and I don't want to see you mess up your life."

"Like you did?" Ca.s.sie arched one brow cattily. "When you got pregnant with me?"

The barb hit its intended mark, but Jenna ignored it. "That was a little different. I was almost twenty-two. An adult. On my own. And we're not talking about me. You're the one who's been lying and sneaking out."

"I can take care of myself."

"You're sixteen, for crying out loud." And a woman. Ca.s.sie's figure was already enviable by Hollywood standards.

"I was just out with friends."

"'Driving around.'"

"Yeah."

"Right." Jenna wasn't buying it for a minute. "Haven't you heard the old axiom that 'nothing good happens after midnight?'"

Ca.s.sie just glared at her.

"Look, this isn't getting us anywhere now, so go on up to bed and we'll talk in the morning."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Sure there is. We'll start with sneaking out and cruise right into the pitfalls of teen pregnancy and STDs. And that's just for starters."

"I can't wait," Ca.s.sie said, reminding Jenna of herself at the same age. "You just don't like Josh."

"I don't like that he seems to have some kind of control over you, that you'd do anything to be with him. That he talks you into lying to me."

"I don't-"

"Ah-ah. If I were you, Ca.s.sie, I'd quit while you're ahead, or at least while you're not too far behind."

But Ca.s.sie's temper had sparked and she was suddenly defiant. "You don't like any of my friends," she accused, "not since we moved up here, so it's your fault. I never wanted to come."

That much was true. Both of her daughters had had fits about her decision to leave L.A. behind and seek out some kind of peace and normalcy in this quiet little town perched on the rocky sh.o.r.es of the Columbia River in Oregon. Jenna had heard the complaints for a year and a half. "That's old news. We're here, Ca.s.sie, and we're all going to make the best of it."

"I'm trying."

"With Josh."

"Yeah. With Josh." Rebellion flashed in Ca.s.sie's eyes.

"To punish me."

"No," Ca.s.sie said slowly, her jaw setting. "Believe it or not, this isn't about you, for once. Okay? If I wanted to 'punish' you, I'd go back to California and live with Dad."

"Is that what you want?" Jenna felt as if she'd been sucker-punched, but she didn't show any emotion, didn't want to let Ca.s.sie know that she'd hit a very strong and painful nerve.

"I just want someone to trust me, okay?"

"Trust is earned, Ca.s.sie," she said, and inwardly cringed as she realized she was echoing words she'd heard from her own mother years before.

Jenna bit her tongue rather than start in on that one. "We'll talk about it tomorrow." She snapped off the lamp and heard Ca.s.sie's footsteps trudge up the stairs. I'm turning into my mother, she thought, and refused to let her mind wander too far in that frightening direction. "Come on, Critter," she said to the dog as she relocked the door and started up the flight of stairs to the second story. Her bedroom was halfway up the stairs, just off the landing, the girls' another half a flight higher. "Let's go to bed." The old dog padded behind, his gait slowed by arthritis. Jenna waited for him at the landing and heard Ca.s.sie's door shut with a quiet thud. "We're finally all safe and sound." And you have to get up in two and a half hours. Inwardly groaning at the thought, she turned the final set of stairs, but from the corner of her eye, through the landing's stained-gla.s.s window, she caught a glimpse of something.

Movement?

Her own pale reflection?

Critter growled softly, and Jenna's muscles went rigid. "Shh," she said, but squinted through the colored gla.s.s, searching the distorted image of the yard and outbuildings of her ranch-"the compound," as Ca.s.sie referred to it. Security lamps glowed an eerie blue, casting pools of light on the barn, stable, and sheds. The old windmill creaked, its blades turning slowly as it stood, a wooden skeleton, near the lane. The main gate gaped open, the result of the lock freezing and snow piling up around the gateposts. The lane leading to the gate was empty-no rumble of a car or truck engine cutting through the night.

Still, the forested hills and craggy banks of the river were dark and shrouded, the cloudy night a perfect cover...

For whom?

Don't be silly.