LITMIR.BIZ

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me. I’ll follow along.”

      “Watch Lily’s hooves,” he says, flicking the reins over the rump of the bay mare. “She’s still young and a bit frisky.” After a short walk Ruth points to the side of the road.

      “Here?” I say.

      “That’s right,” she says. I climb into the ditch.

      “If we’re finished here,” says Samuel, “we need to get our groceries home. If you need us, our farm is just the other side of Johnson’s fruit stand.”

      “Thanks for your help,” I say. “Drive safely.” He flicks the reins and they clip-clop away.

      I find two beer cans in the ditch but they’ve been there a while. Deep in the weeds, a glint of light guides my hand to a tiny two inch long jackknife. I brush away the dust and examine it. Two delicate, and nearly illegible letters, are engraved into the silver-plate… E.B, B.E, or a combination thereof. It may or may not be significant. I put it in my pocket and climb back on the shoulder of the road. Above the ditch I notice where a car has skidded away the gravel.

      I motion Mike over and show him. “I think the attack started in earnest here,” I say, “but there’s no way to determine if the girl was on foot or if she’d been a passenger in the car.” I hand him the shoe and hang onto the knife as we walk back to the crime scene.

      “There should be a purse somewhere, says Mike. “My wife doesn’t go anywhere without a purse.”

      “Good point,” I say.

      “If we don’t find it it’s got to be in somebody’s car,” says Frack.

      “You’re probably right.”

      A vehicle pulls into the dirt road. “Here’s the team,” says Mike, walking over to meet the coroner’s van.

      Frack stands at my shoulder and fires up a cigarette. He’s the first man who’s blipped my radar screen since my fiancé was killed during a storm three years ago. It’s taken me a long time to think about moving on. Frack carries with him the scent of leather and smoke and a touch of woody aftershave. Warmth radiates through my limbs…and elsewhere. I step off a few paces and concentrate on the crime scene.

      I was five years on the force before Frack signed on. He has a few years on me, but I have seniority on the job. He has extensive experience with fire arms and I concede he’s a superior shot. I’ve only fired my service revolver twice in the line of duty, once when a rabid raccoon got in the mayor’s chicken coop and once to dispatch a wounded buck that was critically injured on the highway. I’ve never shot at a human being, nor had to, nor wanted to.

      The forensic team gears up in white coats and rubber gloves. Frack kills his cigarette and we walk over to where Paula Dennison, M. E., is settled on her haunches beside the body.

      “Hi Paula.”

      “Hi Robely. Frank.” (By the way, it’s pronounced Rowblee, like row, row, row your boat.)

      “What can you tell us at first glance?” I ask.

      “She’s dead.”

      “Come on, Paula. I already figured that part out.”

      She moves the girl’s limbs. Mike walks over and joins us.

      “You’re blocking my light,” says Paula. We retreat a few steps.

      “Rigor has come and gone. She’s been here since sometime last night.” She takes her pen light and examines the girl’s eyes. “There’s petechial hemorrhages in the whites. That’s about all I can tell you with any accuracy until I complete the postmortem.”

      “So, she’s been suffocated or strangled,” says Mike.

      “That’s a good bet. I expect to find a broken hyoid bone,” says Paula. “Any idea who she is?”

      “Nope, not a clue,” says Mike.

      “I doubt anyone’s missed her yet.”

      “Where’s the sheriff?” asks Frack? “I thought he’d be here by now.”

      “Early was admitted to the hospital about an hour ago.”

      “What happened?”

      “It’s his gall bladder again. This time it comes out. He was in so much pain they took him away on a stretcher. With the sheriff out of commission, that makes you senior officer, Mike. If you need assistance you can always call the State Police.”

      The crime photographer circles the body and shoots the scene from every angle using a flash in the shade cast by the trees.

      “I’m guessing she’s a high school girl or recent graduate I tell Mike. “You want me to go through the yearbooks when we get back to the station?”

      “Good idea,” he says. He turns to Paula. “How soon before we get the autopsy results?”

      “Tomorrow I’m turkey-shooting with my husband, so I’m putting this young lady on ice until Monday. As soon as I have postmortem results I’ll call. If you find out who she is, leave a message on my machine. Now get out of my hair so I can do my job.”

      That’s what I like about Paula. You never have to wonder what she’s thinking.

      CHAPTER 3

      Madison Buckley pedals her bike through a golden autumn landscape toward the Seabright farm, the leaves on the trees so bright they’re hurtful to the eye. Once the last mellow day of September is torn from the calendar, the year begins its sharp decline, the sun withering around the edges like a fading sunflower.

      It’s hunting season, the woods and windbreaks echoing with rifle fire. Trophy bucks are strapped across fenders and hoods as hunters drive home with their bounty. Wild turkeys dance in the meadows and hundreds of miles of feed corn dry in the fields.

      Madison is small and pretty, with strawberry blonde hair and cinnamon brown eyes. She’s the kind of girl you see on feed store calendars, standing beside a wishing well with a basket of kittens on her arm. She’s lost weight since her family fell on hard times and finds herself reduced to wearing patched bib overalls and worn out shoes. A hobo bag swings from her shoulder and jingling from her wrist is a silver charm bracelet from Eddie who left her so he could “play the field.”

      Until Sterling reappears, Madison plans to keep her parents at bay. She can’t have them calling the house or driving out to the farm with a lot of questions. She flies across a narrow bridge and down the long driveway to the Seabright farmhouse.

      Mr. Seabright is vacuuming the inside of his restored 1953 Buick and the hired man, Harvey Fry, is puttering with the tractor. Madison waves and walks around the house to the kitchen door. Mrs. Seabright is packing a picnic basket for their last trip to Lake Winnebago before the snow flies.

      “Come in, dear,” calls Martha. Madison steps into the kitchen. “Where’s Sterling?”

      “Working on her math assignment. She needs my help with long division.”

      “If you and Sterling want to come to the lake this is last call. We’re out of here in thirty minutes.”

      “Will you be gone long?”

      “We’re just renting a cabin for the night.”

      “That’s nice,” says Madison, “but we have to study. She sent me to pick up her Social Studies book. If we don’t get off to a good start, we’ll be playing catch-up for the rest of the year.”

      “Be sure to tell her we want her home tomorrow in time for Mass. Four nights away from home is the limit, test or no test,” she says, putting a handful of checkered napkins in the basket, closing the lid and looking over at her daughter’s best friend. “Whatever happened to your face, dear?”

      “Oh that,” says Madison, touching her cheek. “Peterson’s

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