on the details.
“I can read lips,” I say. “I just need to see your face.”
He drives the boat up to the shore and with some difficulty climbs over the side and joins us beneath the birch. “Is he friendly?” the officer asks, glancing nervously down at Stitch.
“Very,” I assure him. I turn to Stitch and palm upward, bring my hand toward my shoulder. Immediately, he sits down. I reach into my pocket and pull out a dog treat and Stitch snags it with his long pink tongue. “Good boy.” That trick took three weeks to master.
The officer takes another cautious step forward. “I’m DNR Officer Wagner. Are you okay?” His lips stretch wide with each word. He’s overenunciating. I’m used to this when people first find out about my hearing loss.
“I’m fine,” I say with more confidence than I feel. “She’s over there.” I point to the maple tree. “Just over the ridge, in the water.”
“Stay here,” he orders. I pretend I don’t understand him and follow him up the incline, both of us grabbing onto low-hanging branches to avoid slipping on the slick decaying leaves that litter the ground. When we reach the crest my eyes immediately go to where Gwen’s body sways with the gentle current. Officer Wagner’s head swivels from left to right, searching. When his spine goes rigid I know he finally sees her. He gropes into his pocket and pulls out a cell phone and presses it to his ear.
I bend at the waist, again light-headed. I was an ER nurse for eighteen-odd years. I’ve seen people come in with injuries beyond comprehension. I’ve seen dead bodies before, have had people die from catastrophic injuries in my care. But always at the hospital, in a sterile, antiseptic setting.
I force myself to stand upright and take a deep breath. I feel useless. If there was a chance Gwen was still breathing I could have given her CPR, but it’s clear that she’s dead. Gwen is a bit younger than I am, and she’s fit—has the slim physique of a serious runner. Was she running or hiking the trails and then waylaid by a predator who dragged her off the path, raped and then killed her, finally tossing her into the river like trash?
From our vantage point, I can’t see any obvious injuries. No bullet holes, no gaping wounds, no scavengers have discovered her. She can’t have been in the river long. I think of the waves that knocked Stitch off my paddleboard and sent me to my knees just before I found Gwen’s body. I wish I saw what the boat looked like. I wish I had more information to offer the police. I wonder if her husband, Marty, has missed her yet. Or worse, could he have been the one to do this? I don’t know him well, but I met him several times. Gwen never mentioned having any problems in their marriage and he seemed like a nice man. And then there is their daughter, Lane. She will be devastated when she learns that her mother is never coming back home.
I swallow back my tears, pull my eyes from the body and scan the earth around me. Muddy footprints everywhere. I think I can discern three different shoe treads. Most likely my own and the DNR officer’s, and possibly the killer’s. There are also the imprints of Stitch’s large paws zigzagging the ground chronicling his agitation. Off in the brush is a discarded glass beer bottle. It could have belonged to one of the ever-growing number of weekend warriors who have discovered this length of river due to the opening of Five Mines Outfitters, located right next door to my house. The outfitter offers an array of outdoor services including canoe, kayak, paddleboard and in the winter, snowshoe and ice skate rentals.
Below us Stitch waits, wiggling impatiently while somehow remaining in a seated position. I gesture for him to settle and stay and he complies. Officer Wagner tugs on my sleeve and nods toward the woods below us. Emerging from the trees is a small troupe of four-wheelers. Unable to contain himself, Stitch leaps to his feet and begins to spin around in excitement.
Five of the six people on the ATVs are law enforcement officers, including Jake. The lone civilian I recognize as my new neighbor, the proprietor of Five Mines Outfitters. We’ve never officially met, but I hate him anyway. The day he opened his business he brought a steady stream of unwanted strangers into my backyard, disrupting my solitude. The four-wheelers most likely belong to my neighbor and the Mathias Police Department commandeered them and asked him to lead the way through the woods so they could get to the scene as quickly as possible. Jake and the four other officers slide from their ATVs and begin to move toward us, leaving my neighbor behind.
Stitch knows Jake so he greets him with an enthusiastic wag of his bottle brush tail and attaches himself to Jake’s side. When the officers reach the bottom of the bluff, Jake says something to the group and they remain below as he and Stitch make the short climb to where Officer Wagner and I wait.
Jake still has the same boyish good looks that he did thirty years ago. Seeing him in his detective’s uniform of a suit and tie makes me smile at the incongruity of how I remember him as a kid. He was a constant at our house, preferring ours to his own. His father was volatile, unpredictable, mean. Daily, he’d show up with his mussed sandy-brown hair, smelling of fresh cut grass and bubble gum, dressed in grubby jeans, scuffed tennis shoes and a purple-and-gold Minnesota Vikings T-shirt in search of my brother.
Jake’s normally cheerful face is now set in rigid seriousness and he’s oblivious to the mud that has caked his dress shoes and splattered onto his suit pants. He’s not even out of breath when he reaches us, a testament to the great physical shape he’s in. Instead of first asking where the victim is, he eyes me up and down. He winces at the sight of my bloodstained shirt, extends the index finger of both his hands and brings them toward each other, the right hand twisting one way and the left hand the other, making the ASL sign for hurt.
“I tripped,” I explain, holding up my hands. “It looks worse than it is.” He takes my hands in his and turns them over to examine my cut and scraped palms. His grasp is warm against my chilled fingers and I realize just how cold I am.
“Her name is Gwen Locke. I know her. We worked together. She’s been to my house,” I say. “I’ve been to hers.”
Jake looks surprised but doesn’t ask me if I’m sure of the woman’s identity. He releases my hands, and I immediately miss his warmth. He turns his attention to the DNR officer. Wagner points to the water, and a muscle in Jake’s jaw twitches and once again he becomes all business.
“Go back down by your paddleboard,” he signs. “We have to seal off this area. I’ll be right down to take your statement and Officer Snell will make sure you get home safely.” I nod, and Jake gives me a wisp of a smile as if to let me know that everything will be all right. I want to believe him.
Officer Snell, with his closely cropped hair and smattering of acne across his forehead, looks to be barely out of his teens. He’s waiting, pen and pad already in hand by the time I reach him. Cold has seeped through my pants, still damp from wading through the water and from my tumble to the ground and I begin to shiver.
“Just a few questions, ma’am,” Snell begins, but I quickly lose the thread and stop him.
“Maybe we should wait for Jake. Detective Schroeder,” I amend. “He knows sign.” Officer Snell nods his understanding and we stand around awkwardly until Jake makes his way down to us.
Jake knows how to talk to me. Not only does he know sign, he looks me right in the eye and keeps his sentences short. I answer out loud while Snell writes down my answers. He covers all the expected questions: name, address, phone number, age.
“You say you know her?” Jake signs.
I nod. “Her name is Gwen Locke. She’s a county sexual assault nurse and last I knew was a nurse at Queen of Peace and Mathias Regional.”
