Entropy Read Free

prey in winter’s silken web. There was a dead bird lying underneath the overturned patio furniture. Nothing appeared to move - even the men and women who were carrying equipment onto the property; and the one journalist courageous enough to face the weather, trying eagerly to wrap his arms around a story with some substance. Not much happened here. Only one other time had something like this happened to this community. It wasn’t something anyone wanted to think about. The figures that stood around the crime scene resembled a morbid display from a grade school student’s diorama: prolonged hardship in a shoebox. Winter had only temporarily stopped the process of decay.
    I blew warm air onto my hands, started to stretch out a pair of latex gloves and sat down on a series of stone steps that led up to the front door of the house. The blank stone embraced the frigidity of the surroundings. Curved lines of vapor from my breath trailed over the peak of my right shoulder and disappeared into the bitter cusp of the approaching twilight. My solitude was broken by the trudging steps of a homicide detective in a large overcoat.
    â€œRemember, try to keep your hands behind you and not to touch anything until the scene has been documented, sketched and photographed. Once they mark the precise spot where the body was found, they’ll call on you to pull her out,” the lead detective instructed, snapping a pair of rubber-lined gloves over his large hands. The shape of his wedding band bulged against the tight fitting rubber.
    Daniel Mull was standing within close proximity to me; close enough, that I could have reached out and brushed the snowflakes from the shoulder of his dark jacket. Instead the delicate white powder would fall upon his shoulders, sit there introspectively for a few seconds before disappearing into the shallow grave of the material. He took a final drag from his cigarette and dropped the butt from his fingertips and buried it into the dirt and ice with the heel of his shoe. It sounded like bones in a meat grinder. For a few awkward moments he stood watching me with little pity, as if weighing up whether I had the mettle to do the task before me.
    â€œAre you sure that you can do this?” he asked, as he folded his arms across his broad chest. “It isn’t easy. And to be honest, it’s something that will always stick with you,” he added.
    â€œYes,” I said half-heartedly. I could see the disdain that he had for me in the way he held his body rigid, and the condescending tone of his voice. Maybe I was wrong, and it was merely indifference. He could have just been trying to stay warm. The detective was a hard man to read. “I’ve done this before,” I said.
    â€œI know. It was in the file. There aren’t more than a few certified divers in this area of the state, and our department doesn’t have one. We placed a call requesting help but no one else could get here because of the weather. The main roads leading here from the upper portion of the state have been closed. There was one other diver we were able to get a hold of in New Jersey, but he isn’t familiar with any police procedures. In some ways, you are. You took a few courses last year and it would take time to train someone else on what to look for. That’s why the decision was made to call you,” he said, and looked at me over the top rim of his glasses. “But if it’s all the same, I’d rather have had someone else who was properly qualified,” he said.
    â€œI’m fine. I wasn’t in the water that long in Providence,” I noted. “I don’t know how much help I can be though,” I said.
    â€œLet’s just be glad that the body wasn’t disposed of in the river. And if it was summer, no one might ever have found her until she washed up along the coastline.” He withdrew his pack of cigarettes and offered one to me. When I declined, he