Smith's Monthly #15 Page 12

  “We look around the grounds first some and then we stay the night,” Julia said. “Just as we planned.

  Without talking they did a quick walk around the outside of the building, again seeing nothing at all out of place. Trish had clearly locked up and just left in her car. Where she had gone from there was going to be the big question.

  They went back to the Jeep and unpacked their things, bringing them in and each claiming a guest room upstairs. Lott volunteered to cook an early dinner and Julia built a fire in the fireplace.

  By the time the lake was being sheltered in darkness, they had finished the two steaks and sliced potatoes in butter he had cooked them, eating mostly in silence at the dining table that looked out over the dark water.

  Finally Julia said what they had both been thinking. “Something’s happened to her.”

  Lott nodded. “But not here.”

  “I agree,” Julia said. “But where?”

  Lott had no idea. More than likely her car had gone off the road somewhere. It was going to take a pretty massive search to find her if that was the case. And after this long, if she had survived the initial wreck, Lott doubted they would find her alive.

  But he felt like he needed to do something, so he put his hand on Julia’s. “Let’s wash these dishes and get a couple of flashlights and go out and look around the lake a little and the shed down by the dock.”

  She nodded. They both knew her car wasn’t here, so any kind of search like that would be pointless, but better that they did it anyway.

  Fifteen minutes later they were both bundled up with down parkas and thick gloves. Not at all what two Las Vegas detectives looked like normally.

  Outside, the air bit at Lott’s face and surprised him that the temperature had plunged so quickly. No wonder the snow hadn’t melted yet.

  They first headed down the main path toward the dock. A lawn chair sat alone just above the dock. Clearly Trish had sat there alone at times, staring out into the water.

  Above the lake on the right, Lott could see the cut in the hillside where the road wound down from the top to the home.

  “We’ve got to find her,” Julia said, standing with her hand on the back of the chair.

  Lott said simply, “We will.”

  Seeing that single chair stabbed at Lott. He could only imagine what it was doing to Julia.

  They had moved past the chair and down toward the water when Julia stopped and pointed to something floating in the dark water out near the end of the wooden dock.

  Lott felt his stomach twist into a knot.

  He knew what that looked like. He had seen it far too many times over the years and he didn’t want to think about it now.

  Quickly, the two of them went out onto the dock just as a slight rain started to fall. Very light, very cold rain.

  Lott could feel it against his neck as he bent over the end of the dock and stared into the black water.

  A woman’s naked body floated face-down, rubbing against the dock like it was a hard-up lover. The bluish-white skin on her leg was streaked by the green moss growing on the wooden pilings and her long blonde hair seemed to appear and disappear in the water around her making it seem like she was getting closer one moment, then farther away the next.

  Lott glanced over at the shocked expression on Julia’s face, then got down on his hands and knees and leaned over the edge of the dock, trying to get a closer look without really wanting to.

  Beside him Julia did the same, her breath coming hard and fast as she struggled to control her emotions.

  “See the distinctive star pattern of moles on the left shoulder?” Julia asked. “Trish always called it her star on her shoulder and considered it good luck.”

  It clearly hadn’t been, but he said nothing.

  Lott stood, helped Julia back to her feet, and forced himself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly. The night around them suddenly seemed a lot darker, the rain suddenly harder than it had been just a few minutes before.

  A spotlight on the back of the main lodge of the building was aimed at the dock, but it wasn’t nearly strong enough to cut through the rain and illuminate much of the water. And the beams from their flashlights seemed to be sucked into nothingness.

  However, the light was enough for them to see Trish, a white, ghost-like figure floating against the blackness.

  “Damn it,” Julia said to herself, her voice swallowed by the tapping of the rain on the water. She turned and moved away from the edge of the dock a few paces, then came back.

  “Damn it all to hell.”

  Lott couldn’t have agreed more.

  Lott eased his arm around Julia and the two of them stood there, on the end of the wooden dock, saying nothing more.

  The cold rain pounded his head and the back of his neck as they stared out over the water, not looking down at what was floating near their feet.

  Lott knew they were both hoping something would happen.

  Anything but what they had found.

  Julia shuddered and hugged him with one arm.

  He hugged her back.

  There was little either of them could say.

  It was now time for the detective training to take over. Something had happened to Trish and they had to figure out what.

  Lott forced himself to move.

  He left Julia standing in the middle of the dock again stepped closer to the edge to study the body. He couldn’t think of that body as Trish, Julia’s friend. He had to think of it as just a body for the moment.

  The white body’s up and down rubbing against the footing of the dock was hypnotic and after a moment Lott made himself look away so he wouldn’t get dizzy.

  He was glad he couldn’t see Trish’s face. He had seen pictures of what she had looked like alive, and keeping that image in his mind was enough for the moment.

  He looked back at where Julia stood, staring out over the dark lake.

  He knew that soon they would have to get around to pulling Trish out of the water. Considering how she was floating, Trish must have been in the cold water for at least three days.

  Lott had no doubt that living image of her face was going to be forever replaced by a white, bloated one, with black, empty eyes. He had pulled far too many people out of swimming pools to not know that look.

  “What the hell happened?” Julia asked, her voice raspy, her head shaking back and forth in clear disbelief.

  “Maybe drowned while skinny-dipping,” Lott said, without looking back at the body. “Hit her head or got too far out in the cold water to make it back. An accident. Logical as anything else.”

  Julia nodded, her eyes clearing some. Lott could tell that the detective training was coming back to her as well.

  Lott turned and stared down at the floating body of one of Julia’s best friends.

  This was not the outcome he had hoped for, but one he had feared.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  May 14, 2015

  7 P.M.

  High Mountain Valley

  Near the Central Idaho Primitive Area

  Julia just couldn’t get her mind to accept that the white form floating there in the black water was her friend Trish. Yet she knew it was.

  Trish could not be gone. She had been a part of Julia’s life forever. Trish had always been this wild element that Julia loved to watch and talk to and laugh with.

  Now Julia would never hear Trish’s wonderful laugh again. How was that even possible?

  She stood there beside Lott in the rain, staring out at the black lake.

  She had to get her brain back.

  As a detective, she had seen a lot of death. Right now she needed to figure out what happened. She would mourn Trish when the time was right.

  “So you think it was an accident?” Julia asked, taking a deep breath of the cold night air to make herself try to think.

  “There doesn’t seem to be obvious marks on her body,” Lott said, “from what I can see in this light.”

  J
ulia was glad he didn’t shine his flashlight on Trish again.

  But then something bothered her about Trish’s body.

  Something didn’t look right.

  If she had been in the water and was floating, her body would be bloated, at least enough to make it float. Trish didn’t seem to be bloated at all. Maybe the cold water of the mountain lake had kept that effect down.

  Julia had seen enough three- and four-day-old-bodies pulled from the water to suit her for a lifetime. She had hated it worse when it was kids.

  Suddenly the way Trish was floating there just didn’t seem right.

  She took out her cell phone and took some pictures of how Trish was floating. Both down close and back a ways.

  Lott nodded and did the same on his phone, making sure he got Julia in the picture as well. They needed to document anything they did here.

  “Help me look at this,” Julia said to Lott after they finished with the pictures.

  Once again they both moved so they could see Trish’s body.

  The rain was easing some, so their flashlights were clear on her naked back.

  “See something wrong with this?” Julia said

  “Her arms seem to be tucked up under her chest,” Lott said. “That’s not the way a body floats.”

  He was right.

  She knew that.

  Floating bodies mostly float face down, arms out, not tucked under as Trish’s arms seemed to be.

  Suddenly both of their years of training as detectives seemed to kick in full force.

  “Help me turn Trish over,” Lott said, his voice soft, yet firm, “I need your help to turn her over.”

  Julia nodded and both of them got down on their hands and knees on the wet wood of the dock.

  Then together they slowly reached down and grabbed Trish, Lott on her left shoulder, Julia just below her left knee.

  “Pull up and roll her over,” Lott said. “On the count of three.”

  Julia only nodded.

  Julia took her grip on Trish’s cold, almost slimy-feeling leg. For an instant she was surprised. She had expected to feel the soft, almost pulpy flesh that she had felt with many bodies after days in water, but Trish’s flesh was almost hard and waxy.

  “One. Two. Three,” Lott said. “Pull up.”

  Like a canoe, not wanting to right itself, Trish fought them for a moment, then finally flipped over.

  Both of them let go at once, drawing back as if they had been shot at. Julia almost felt as if she had been.

  “What the hell?” Julia asked, staring at her friend’s body floating there.

  Lott just stared, shaking his head.

  In the dim light it was clearly Trish’s face, only drawn and almost mask-like. Not bloated at all.

  Trish was smiling slightly, her eyes closed, her face peaceful in the faint light as water washed over it. Far more peaceful than Julia had ever remembered Trish being in life.

  Trish’s hands were clasped across her stomach, almost as if she were asleep there in the water.

  “Not possible,” Lott said softly.

  He had his phone back out and taking pictures. Both down close and back.

  It took Julia a moment to pull her gaze away from Trish’s face, then she glanced at Trish’s neck, then down her body until Julia found what she was looking for.

  “She’s been embalmed,” Julia said, standing up and turning away.

  For the first time in a few minutes, she noticed the pounding rain, the cold mountain air, and the remoteness of the valley.

  “Embalmed?” Lott said softly. “What the hell is going on here?”

  Julia forced herself to take a deep breath and think.

  They were a good hundred-plus miles of winding mountain roads from the nearest funeral home. They hadn’t seen another car in the last seventy miles of road. Trish had no neighbors and no one was in this valley but the two of them.

  And the house was completely clear of any struggle or signs of something like this being done.

  “Embalmed,” Lott said, climbing to his feet. “It can’t be, but it is clear she is.”

  Julia turned around and stared at her friend’s white body, shaking her head in disbelief. Then she looked up at Lott.

  There was a haunted look in his eyes.

  “Someone embalmed her,” Julia said. “That means she was murdered.”

  “Looks that way,” Lott said. “But the real question is what is she doing in the lake?”

  “And why?” Julia said softly.

  “Exactly,” Lott said. “Why?”

  Part Three

  PLAYING THE HAND

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  May 14, 2015

  8 P.M.

  High Mountain Valley

  Near the Central Idaho Primitive Area

  They had come to find Julia’s friend Trish and they had done just that.

  And everyone had been worried she had been murdered by Willis Williams. Well, if she had, this was the first body of any of his victims that had ever been found.

  It didn’t seem like Williams to just leave a body floating in a mountain lake. That seemed far, far too careless for a serial killer flaunting his actions to three major police departments.

  But something was nagging at Lott and he couldn’t remember what.

  Lott kept trying to put pieces together, but none of this made any sense at all.

  They had come afraid they would find Trish missing. Lott wasn’t sure if this was worse.

  He stood on the short dock and stared at Trish’s white skin as her body floated face-up in the dark water. Light rain roughed the surface of the mountain lake, and a gentle wind formed waves that rocked Trish up and down against the wooden pier.

  Trish’s face had a gentle smile on it, her hands were folded below her chest, and her legs appeared and disappeared into the black of the water. She was nude, missing rings and all other jewelry.

  Julia stood beside him on the dock, her back to the body of one of her best friends. Lott had no doubt that Julia was managing to hold her emotions in check by sheer will and years of training as a detective.

  In all his years as a detective, Lott had never seen anything like this. There was no doubt it was going to be difficult to tell how long Trish had been dead, let alone how long she had been in the cold water.

  And the biggest puzzle was why, and how, she had ended up embalmed, floating in a small mountain lake in the primitive area of central Idaho, a hundred plus miles of dirt road away from the nearest funeral home.

  Lott stepped toward Julia and touched her arm lightly. “You can go back up to the house while I get her out of there.”

  Julia shook her head, still not looking at the body. “No, you’re going to need help.”

  Lott had to admit that she was right. He wasn’t young anymore, and moving bodies around was never an easy task even when he had been young. But they had to get Trish out of the water to at least attempt to preserve what evidence might be found on the body.

  Lott knew this was going to be rough on Julia, but they both knew they needed to do it.

  “Take pictures of this every step of the way,” Lott said.

  Julia nodded and got out her cell phone.

  Lott got down on his hands and knees and shoved Trish’s body along the dock toward the shore as Julia recorded each move.

  After he got Trish’s body close to the shore, he sent Julia to get a tarp or a quilt or something from the lodge. She moved off without a word.

  He stood there in the dark looking out at the lake, at the embalmed body, at the log home lit up behind him, at the road down the side of the hill.

  Nothing made sense. Nothing.

  Julia started back down the trail from the log home with a quilt in her arms, so he forced himself to move. He waded into the water, the coldness shocking him.

  His legs went numb almost instantly.

  Julia stretched a plastic sheet on the ground just above the water line and then put the quilt over that
. Then she took a couple quick photos of him standing in the water with Trish.

  Then Lott watched her as she took a deep breath and came into the water. She took Trish’s legs while Lott lifted Trish by the shoulders.

  The body seemed heavier than it should have, and the skin was hard to the touch.

  Somehow, they managed to get Trish’s body on the quilt in the dim light and rain, take more photos, then wrap Trish in the quilt.

  The plastic sheet that Julia had laid down first would make it easier for them to slide Trish along the ground. No way could they carry her.

  It took them three rest stops before they got Trish’s body stored in the maintenance shed. Lott was sweating about as hard as he could remember sweating and he was out of breath.

  Julia was panting as well.

  As hard as it was to do, both of them knew it was better to have the body stored than leave it in the water where it might sink and never be found again.

  After a few more pictures, Lott locked up the shed and rolled a large stump against the door so no wild animal could dig at it, then they turned and headed back up toward the lodge.

  Neither of them had said a word since the dock.

  All Lott could think about was how lucky they were that Trish didn’t smell like most bodies found floating. Some of the ones he had helped get out before had been in the water for so long that he had had to soak a rag in gasoline and cover his nose with it to even get near the rotting mess.

  But not Trish.

  No smell at all.

  He had no idea what that meant.

  They hung their coats up near the door to dry and then went upstairs to change into dry clothes.

  “Get your satellite phone,” Lott said to Julia as she climbed the stairs ahead of him. “And your gun.”

  She glanced back at him and then nodded.

  Lott made it back downstairs first, shivering even though he had on dry pants and socks and shoes and a thick shirt and a knit sweater. He started some hot water for tea and stoked the fire in the big stone fireplace.

  He laid his phone on the table beside his holstered gun.