Invasive Read Free

know about? Or are you just a boot fetishist?”
    â€œI hike. Those are hiking boots. Overkill, really, and whoever that corpse was, he didn’t get much use out of them. And his jeans are fashionably ripped, not worn from use. The vest is nice, too—an Obermeyer. Also not cheap. I’d say the vic is a young man. Under thirty, at least. Probably not under twenty.”
    â€œAgreed. Go on.”
    â€œThe owner found the body?”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œHe see anybody else here?”
    â€œNope.”
    She hmm s. “He complain about an ant problem?”
    â€œNo. But he did puke.”
    â€œI don’t blame him.” She pauses, considers. “It’s early for ants.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œAnts hibernate over the winter. Argentine ants, carpenter ants.”
    Hollis blows a bubble. “It’s spring, though.”
    â€œBut spring in upstate New York. Snow belt.” Something nags at her. “When did the owner find the body?”
    â€œThis evening.” He looks down at his watch. “ Yesterday evening. It’s already past midnight. Jesus.”
    â€œThe man was dead when the owner found him. The ants were dead, too?”
    â€œSo he says.”
    A thought occurs to her. Hannah heads off the meager porch at the front of the cabin and stoops by a small bundle of early greens growing up out of the limestone gravel. Little yellow flowers sit on top, withered and cold. She rubs her thumb across a burgeoning, uncurling leaf. Wet. Cold. Not icy. Not yet.
    Over her shoulder, she says, “Was there a frost the night before?” It would make sense. Last expected frost date around here is probably what? May 3?
    Hollis says he doesn’t know, and calls over to one of the unis. The officer walks over, says there was a cold snap, so maybe. Copper comes up behind her, towering over her. “Yellow rocket,” she says, indicating the plant. “One of the first blooming weeds of spring. You can eat it.”
    â€œYour parents teach you all this stuff?”
    â€œThey did.” She starts to stand—but then she sees it.
    â€œLook,” she says, pointing to the ground. A footprint. In a patchof shining mud next to the driveway, away from the stones. “Pointed toward the lake. Could match the Lowas on the victim’s feet.” Hollis snaps his fingers, tells one of the cops to get pictures and a preserved mold.
    The cop who comes over is the same one who tried to shove her off—the jowly, scruffy one. “Is this even a crime scene?”
    â€œJust get the damn print,” Hollis says.
    â€œYeah, yeah, sure, all right. Relax.”
    Together, Hannah and Copper head down a set of stairs—stairs that aren’t stairs so much as a collection of flagstones stuck haphazardly in the earth, leading down to a narrow dock jutting out over the lake.
    Hollis pokes around while Hannah stands and takes it all in. The moon is just a scythe hook over the dark lake—a bitten fingernail left on a blanket of stars. She tries to piece together what happened while Hollis walks out over the dock, his boots clunking on the wood as the whole thing bobs and plops against the surface. Eventually he returns, empty-handed. “Nothing.”
    She stares at a fixed point on the horizon as she tells the story: “Our victim comes to the cabin. Doesn’t settle in for long, because he’s still got his vest on, his boots, everything. But he feeds the pellet stove, starts to get warm.” A thought occurs to her. “Did you check the outhouse? Did someone use it?”
    â€œWe checked it, but nobody used it.”
    So she continues: “Somehow he dies. I know, that’s a big somehow, but it’s all we have. A health issue, maybe. Carbon monoxide poisoning. Or something more sinister than that? He dies there on the floor. And the ants come in—this is a rainy area this time of the year, and ants tend to come