Ice Cold (16 page)

Get the skis. Get down this mountain
.

She began to run, following the trail of Doug’s footprints. He had not been running. His stride continued as it had before, steady and even, his soles leaving deep impressions in the snow. At this point, he had not realized he was being followed. He was probably thinking only about the task ahead. About getting on his skis and starting his glide down the mountain. It would never occur to him that he was being followed.

Her chest ached and her throat burned from the cold air. Every step she took seemed deafeningly loud as her boots cracked through the icy glaze. Anyone nearby would think that an elephant was lumbering through. A wheezing, clumsy elephant.

At last she spotted the chain strung across the entrance to the private road. Almost there. She followed Doug’s boot prints the last few dozen yards, past the chain, past the
RESIDENTS ONLY
sign, and saw the Suburban, still tipped on its side in the ditch. One pair of cross-country skis was missing from the roof rack.

So Doug had made it this far. She saw the parallel tracks left by his skis as he’d glided away down the road.

She waded into the ditch, sinking thigh-deep in snow, and unlatched the second set of skis from the rack. Retrieving the ski shoes would take longer. They were inside the Suburban, and with the vehicle lying on its side, it was a struggle to lift the heavy door. When at last she managed to swing it open, she was out of breath and panting hard.

Suddenly she heard a distant rumble. She went still, listening through the pounding of her own heart, afraid that she’d only imagined it. No, there it was—the sound of an engine.

A snowplow was coming up the mountain.

He made it. Doug made it, and now we’re going to be saved
.

She gave a shout of joy and let the Suburban’s door slam shut. She could not yet see the plow, but the noise was louder, closer, and she was laughing and crying at the same time. Back to civilization, she thought. Back to hot showers and electric lights and telephones. Most important, back to hospitals.

Arlo was going to live.

She scrambled onto the road and stood waiting for her rescuers. Feeling the sun on her face, the joy coursing through her veins. Here is where it all turns out right, she thought. Here is where the nightmare ends.

Then, through the approaching rumble of the plow, she heard the soft crunch of weight settling onto snow. The sound came from just behind her. She sucked in a startled breath, and it rushed into her lungs like a cold wind. Only then did she see the shadow moving in to engulf hers.

The watcher in the woods. He’s here
.

J
ANE FOUND
D
ANIEL
B
ROPHY HUNCHED IN A BOOTH IN THE HOTEL’S
empty cocktail lounge. He did not look up at her, but kept his gaze on the table, clearly signaling that he wanted to be alone.

She sat down anyway. “We missed you at lunch,” she said. “Did you get something to eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I’m still waiting to hear back from Queenan. But I don’t think he has anything new to tell us today.”

He nodded, still not looking at her. Still giving off signals of
Go away. I don’t want to talk
. Even in the forgiving gloom of the lounge, he looked visibly older. Weary and beaten down.

“Daniel,” she said. “I’m not going to give up. And neither should you.”

“We’ve driven through five counties,” he said. “Talked on the air with six radio stations. Watched every minute of those surveillance videos.”

“There could be something we missed. Something we’ll spot if we watch them again.”

“She looked happy in those videos. Didn’t she?” He raised his head and she saw torment in his eyes. “She looked happy with that man.”

After a silence, Jane admitted: “Yeah. She did.”

The surveillance cameras had caught several glimpses of Maura and the blond man in the lobby. But the views had been fleeting, each time only a few seconds at the most, and then she’d slipped out of sight. It was like watching a ghost, viewing those images on the monitor. A phantom reliving her last moments on earth again and again.

“We don’t know what any of it means,” Jane said. “He could be an old acquaintance.”

“Someone who made her smile.”

“This was a medical conference. A bunch of pathologists who probably knew each other. Maybe he had nothing to do with why she went missing.”

“Or maybe Queenan’s right. And they’re holed up together in some hotel right now, having hot, crazy …” He stopped.

“At least it would mean she’s alive.”

“Yes. It would mean that.”

They both fell silent. It was only three
PM,
too early for cocktails. Except for a bartender stacking glasses behind the counter, they were the only ones in the gloomy lounge.

“If she did go off with another man,” said Jane quietly, “you can understand why it might happen.”

“I blame myself,” he said. “For not being that man. And I can’t help wondering …”

“What?”

“If she flew out here with plans to meet him.”

“Do you have any reason to think that?”

“Look at the way they smiled at each other. How comfortable they seemed.”

“They might be old friends.”
Or old lovers
was what she didn’t say. She didn’t need to; that thought must be tormenting him as well. “These are just theories, based on nothing,” she said. “All we have is the video of her going out to dinner with him. Meeting him in the lobby.”

“And smiling.” Pain darkened his eyes. “I couldn’t do that for her. I couldn’t give her what she needed.”

“What she needs now is for us not to give up hope. To keep looking for her. I’m not going to give up.”

“Tell me the truth.” He met her gaze. “You’ve been a homicide cop long enough to know. What do your instincts tell you?”

“Instincts can be wrong.”

“If she weren’t a friend, if this was just another missing persons case, what would you be thinking right now?”

She hesitated, and the only sound in the lounge was the clink of glassware as the bartender tidied up behind the counter, prepping for the upcoming cocktail hour.

“After this much time?” She shook her head. “I’d be forced to consider the worst.”

He didn’t seem surprised by her answer. By now he would have reached the same conclusion.

Her cell phone rang and they both froze. She glanced at the number. Queenan. As soon as she heard his voice on the line, she knew this was not a call that he wanted to be making. Nor a call that she wanted to receive.

“I’m sorry to have to break the news,” he said.

“What is it?”

“You should head over to Saint John’s Medical Center in Jackson. Dr. Draper will meet you there.”

“Dr. Draper? You mean the Sublette County Coroner?”

“Yes. Because that’s where it happened, in Sublette County.” There was a long and agonizing pause. “I’m afraid they found your friend.”

———

“I
THINK
it’s best that you not see her,” Dr. Draper said, somberly facing Maura’s three friends across the conference table. “You should remember her the way she was. I’m sure she would want it that way as well.”

St. John’s was built to serve the living, not the dead, and through the closed door of the conference room they could hear the sounds of a normal day in a hospital: ringing phones, the chime of an elevator, the far-off wails of an infant in the ER. The sounds reminded Jane that, in the aftermath of tragedy, life still went on.

“The vehicle was discovered only this morning, off a backcountry road,” said Draper. “We can’t be certain how long it was lying in that ravine. There was a lot of damage from the fire. And afterward, from animal …” He paused. “It’s a wilderness area.”

He didn’t need to elaborate. Jane knew what he was leaving out. In the natural world, creatures always lurked in Death’s shadow, waiting to feed with beaks and claws and sharp teeth. Even in Boston’s suburban parks, a corpse would attract dogs and raccoons, rats and turkey vultures. In the rugged mountains of western Wyoming, there would be an even larger host of scavengers waiting to feast, scavengers that could gnaw off a face and detach a hand and scatter limbs. Jane thought of Maura’s ivory skin and regal cheekbones, and she wondered what remained of those features.
No, I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to know what has become of her face
.

“If the remains were so badly damaged, how did you make the identification?” asked Gabriel. He, at least, was still thinking like an investigator, still able to focus on what needed to be asked.

“There was sufficient evidence at the crash site to make an ID.”

“Evidence?”

“When the vehicle went into the ravine, a number of items were ejected from it. Several suitcases and other personal belongings that survived the fire.” He reached for the large cardboard box that he’d brought into the room. The smell of scorched plastic escaped as he lifted the lid. Although the items inside were sealed in evidence bags, the stench of fire and smoke was potent enough to penetrate even a ziplock bag. He paused for a moment, staring into the box, as though suddenly wondering if it might be a mistake to share the contents. But it was too late now to close it, to deny them the proof that he had promised. He pulled out the first evidence bag and set it on the desk.

Through the clear plastic, they could see a leather luggage tag. Flipping it over, Draper revealed the name written in neat block letters.

MAURA ISLES, MD
.

“I take it that’s her correct address on the tag?” he asked.

Jane swallowed. “Yes,” she murmured. She did not dare glance at Daniel, who was sitting beside her. She didn’t want to see the devastation on his face.

“That was attached to one of the suitcases that was thrown from the vehicle,” said Draper. “You can examine the suitcase itself if you’d like. It’s in the custody of the Sublette County Sheriff’s Department, along with the larger items.” Reaching into the box, he pulled out other evidence bags and laid them on the table. There were two cell phones, one of them scorched. Another luggage tag, this one with the name Douglas Comley, MD. A man’s toilet case. A prescription bottle of lovastatin for a patient named Arlo Zielinski.

“The Suburban was rented by a Dr. Douglas Comley from San Diego,” said Draper. “He’d reserved it for ten days. We assume it was Dr. Comley who was behind the wheel when the vehicle went off the edge. The road makes a sharp curve there, and if it was nighttime, or snow was falling, visibility would have been poor. An icy road could have been a contributing factor as well.”

“Then you assume it was an accident,” said Gabriel.

Draper frowned. “As opposed to what?”

“There are always other possibilities to consider.”

The coroner sighed. “Given your line of work, Agent Dean, I suppose it’s natural that you’d be thinking of those other possibilities. But Sheriff Fahey concluded that this was an accident. I’ve already looked at the X-rays. The bodies have multiple fractures, which is what you’d expect. There are no bullet fragments, nothing to indicate anything other than what seems to have happened. The vehicle simply veered off a mountain road. It plunged fifty feet into a ravine, where it caught fire. I doubt any of the passengers survived the initial crash, so I think it’s safe to assume that your friend died on impact.”

“There was a snowstorm last Saturday, wasn’t there?” asked Gabriel.

“Yes. Why?”

“If there’s heavy snow on the vehicle, it might tell us when this happened.”

“I saw only a light dusting,” said Draper. “But then, the fire would have melted any snow cover.”

“Or the accident happened more recently.”

“But that still begs the question of where your friend has been for the last seven days. Time of death is going to be almost impossible to determine. I’m inclined to go by when the victims were last seen alive, which would make it Saturday.” He looked around the table at their troubled faces. “I realize this leaves many questions unanswered. But at least now you know what happened, and you can go home with a feeling of closure. You know her death was quick, and she probably didn’t suffer.” He sighed. “I’m so sorry it turned out this way.”

Draper rose to his feet, looking older and wearier than he had just half an hour earlier, when they’d first walked in. Even when the grief is not your own, merely being in its vicinity can drain the soul, and Draper had probably seen many lifetimes’ worth of it. “Let me walk you out.”

“May we view the remains?” asked Gabriel.

Draper frowned at him. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“But I think it needs to be done.”

Jane almost hoped that Draper would refuse, would spare her from the ordeal. She knew what Maura had looked like alive; once she viewed what Maura had become, there’d be no erasing that image, no turning back the clock on the horror. Looking at her husband, she wondered how he could stay so calm.

“Let me show you the X-rays,” said Draper. “Maybe that will be enough to convince you of my findings.”

Gabriel said to Brophy: “It’s better if you wait here.”

Daniel nodded and remained where he was, his head bowed, alone with his grief.

As Jane and Gabriel followed Draper to the elevator, she felt dread bubbling like acid in her stomach. I don’t want to see this, she thought. I don’t need to see this. But Gabriel kept striding ahead purposefully, and she was too proud not to follow him. When they stepped into the morgue, she was relieved to see that the autopsy table was empty, the cadavers safely stored out of sight.

Draper shuffled through a bundle of X-rays and clipped several films onto the viewing box. He flipped a switch, and skeletal images appeared against the glow.

“As you can see, there’s ample evidence of trauma,” said Draper. “Fractures of the skull, multiple ribs. Impaction of the left femur into the hip joint. Because of the fire, the limbs have contracted into a pugilistic posture.” His voice assumed the matter-of-fact drone of a professional conveying data to colleagues. As if, by the act of entering this room and seeing the cool gleam of stainless steel, he had stepped into the uniform of a coroner. “I e-mailed these images to our forensic pathologist in Colorado. He concluded that this is a female between thirty and forty-five. Her estimated height is five foot five or five foot six. And judging by the sacroiliac joint, she was nulliparous. She never gave birth.” He paused and looked at Jane. “Would that describe your friend?”

Numbly, Jane nodded. “Yes,” she whispered.

“And she’s had very good dental care. There’s a crown here on the lower right molar. Several fillings.” Again, he looked at Jane, as though she was the one with all the answers.

Jane stared at the jaw glowing on the light box.
How would I know?
She hadn’t studied Maura’s mouth, hadn’t counted her crowns and fillings. Maura was her colleague and her friend. Not a collection of teeth and bones.

“I’m sorry,” said Draper. “That was probably too much information for you to deal with. I just wanted you to feel confident about the identification.”

“Then there won’t be an autopsy,” said Jane softly.

Draper shook his head. “There’s no reason for one. The pathologist in Colorado is satisfied with the ID. We have her luggage tag, and the X-rays match a woman of her age and height. These injuries are consistent with what you’d find in an unrestrained passenger subjected to high-speed deceleration.”

It took a few seconds for Jane to register what he’d said. She blinked away tears and the X-ray hanging on the light box suddenly came back into focus. “An unrestrained passenger?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Are you saying she wasn’t wearing a seat belt?”

“That’s correct. None of the deceased was wearing a seat belt.”