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streaked in places with dirt and grass stains. If her hands had been tucked beneath her chin she could have been sleeping except for her yellow cotton shirt, stained dark red with dried blood.
Half of her face had been blown away. Gunshot. I walked around the body, as close as the cops would let me get. Her hands had been pulled behind her and tied with something that looked like jute roping. Her legs were tied at the ankles with that same coarse rope. I took her to be in her forties. Dark hairâwhat was left of itâthat looked to be neatly cut. Her nails were trimmed and painted a soft pink. The sandals on her feet were fairly new, though the heels were scuffed and worn equally, as if sheâd been dragged in them. An execution-style murder.
Iâd seen plenty of dead bodies while on the Ann Arbor newspaper, but it never got any easier. Just the facesâalways ugly in death, eyes staring off beyond everyone, involved elsewhere. I tucked my emotions down inside me and looked at what I could see of her face. A skewed blood trail, like a trail of tears, made its way down her cheek. Another trail led from the door to the body. Even I could tell she hadnât been killed where she lay. No blood spatter on the walls, nor on the floor around her. No tissue. No pool of blood beneath the body. The crooked blood trail down her face meant sheâd been leaning or sitting up when she was shot. A killing you might expect in Chicago or Detroit but not your average murder in the quiet countryside of Northern Michigan. Up here people got shot in the heat of an angry fight over a snow blower, or a man strangled his wife when she bad-mouthed his sainted mother, or meth buddies hallucinated and had an old-fashioned shoot-out. From time to time we had hunters shooting each other. Nobody got shot in the back of the head like this woman, their bodies werenât tied up, and most were left where they died.
This old house was obviously only the killerâs crypt of choice, not the scene of the murder.
I stood behind Dolly and made my notes. Woman in her forties. Slight build. Not enough blood under that half of head to have been killed here. No tissue in the blood that was there. No spatter up the wall beside her. No spatter across the floor.
She was dressed neatly, despite the bloody stains. A gold cross hung around her neck.
âEmily Kincaid.â Detective Brent, from the Michigan State Police post in Gaylord, pulled his single, dark eyebrow tighter over his nose as he turned, saw me, and called my name. He left his place beside the body. âI understand why Officer Wakowski wants to include you. Youâve been a help to us in the past. But stay out of the way as much as you can â¦â He waved a large hand at me, motioning me back from the body.
âAnything on who it is? Why the body was brought here?â I got my questions out as fast as I could.
âYou noticed she didnât die here.â
I nodded.
Brent gave a deep sigh. âAnyway, nothing on her. No ID. Sure not from around here. Looks Hispanic, or maybe Indian, or even Arab. Canât tell. Only thing is that gold cross around her neck. You see that? Wasnât robbery. Clothes in good order, far as I can see. Unless the M.E. finds something we arenât seeing, Iâd say it wasnât rape. But weâll wait on that one.
âThat gold cross might help,â Brent went on. âIâll send your paper a pictureâif we donât ID her right away. You could run it. Otherwise, until we get something more, just go with the usual.â
Weâd worked together a few times now. There was a grudging respect for me on his side, and a careful wariness on mine. He would shut me out of a story if he had to, when he didnât want something in the Northern Statesman. And I wasnât above running with something he wanted to sit on. He had his job and I had mine. We both knew that and liked each other in spite of
Matthew Woodring Stover; George Lucas