The Best American Mystery Stories 2015 Read Free Page B

Mail lady didn’t know anything, so he sent her on her way.”
    “Okay.” I nodded, then I turned in a slow circle, scanning the crime scene.
    We were in Sugar Hill, the richest enclave in Valhalla. Homes here don’t have addresses, they have names. This one, Champlin Hall, was an honest-to-God nineteenth-century mansion. A sprawling brick Beaux Arts estate with ornate stonework, towering Gothic windows.
    Built by one of the old lumber barons, the estate had been updated over the years. The carriage house became a six-car garage, servants’ quarters now housed exchange students from the Sudan, Serbia, or Ontario, depending on which sports they specialized in.
    A half-dozen cars were parked in the circular drive, all of them dusted lightly by last night’s snowfall. No one had come or gone. The only fresh tire tracks were from the mail truck, my Jeep, and Van Duzen’s prowlie, still idling in the driveway, its exhaust rising white in the icy air.
    A pristine, snowy Saturday morning. The kind they put on magazine covers.
    Except our star attraction wasn’t breathing.
    Joni Cohen, Valhalla PD’s intern tech, was kneeling beside the girl, collecting her nonexistent vitals.
    Tall, gawky, and permanently perky, Joni’s a junior at Michigan State majoring in forensic anthropology. Her class schedule keeps her in constant transit between Valhalla and the capital down in Lansing. Somehow she pulls a 3.9 GPA and still does a first-rate job as a crime-scene tech.
    Ordinarily, Joni’s totally absorbed by her work. Whistles softly to herself amid the carnage of a five-car pileup. No tunes today, though. With Santa and his reindeer beaming over her shoulder, she couldn’t even fake “Jingle Bells.”
    “So?” I prompted.
    “First impression, it’s pretty much what it looks like,” Joni said, frowning down at the angel. “Hypothermia. There are no tracks but hers, no signs of violence. It looks like she took a shortcut across the lawn, headed for a car in the driveway. Maybe felt woozy, sat down to rest a minute? It was eighteen degrees last night and she wasn’t wearing a coat. She nodded out and . . . well. She froze to death.”
    “Are you all right?” Zina asked.
    “No,” Joni said flatly. “I know this girl. Not personally, but I’ve seen her around the Vale Junior College campus. A freshman, I think.”
    “Whoa, take a break, Joni,” I said. “The state police Forensics Unit will be here in a few minutes—”
    “No, I’m okay. Really,” she said, taking a ragged breath. “My uncle warned me if I did my internship in Vale County, sooner or later I’d be working on people I knew. At least this girl wasn’t mashed by a road grader. Let’s just—get on with it.”
    “Okay,” I said. “Time frame?”
    “Her body temp’s twenty-one degrees above ambient. I’d estimate she walked out here around eleven. Actual time of death was probably between one-thirty and three A.M. We may get tighter numbers after the autopsy. There’s no scent of alcohol. If she’d been drinking, it wasn’t much.”
    “Wasn’t legal either,” Zina said. “I found her purse in the snow beside the driveway. Her driver’s license says she’s Julie Novak. Seventeen. Poletown address, north of the river. But her student ID is from Valhalla High, not the college.”
    “Vale Junior College offers advanced courses for gifted kids,” Joni said.
    “I’m not sure how bright this girl was, considering,” Zina said. “Do you think her dress is odd?”
    “Odd?” I echoed, but she wasn’t asking me.
    “Definitely off,” Joni agreed. “It’s more like a prom dress than something you’d wear to a house party. She looks like . . .”
    “A snow angel,” I finished. “What are we now, the fashion police?”
    “Nope, we’re Major Crimes,” Zina conceded. “And a lot more went wrong for this girl than her taste in clothes. It was seriously freakin’ cold last night. What was she doing out here without a