The chief looked down at his mud-caked shoes with disgust. After five months on the job, he still hadn’t got the pesky weather thing down. First clear, then snowing, now pouring, almost always blowing. He opened a desk drawer, pulled out a whisk brush, and went to work on them. Brushing hard along the seams, he pondered the possibilities.

  Mrs. Elliott from Chicago said her son, Casey, worked on a fishing boat but didn’t know what kind. She said he worked with various environmental groups, but she didn’t know what he was investigating.

  He brushed his shoe harder.

  These groups targeted all sorts of resource extraction operations, he knew: fishing, oil, mining, timber. Their approaches varied. Some were collaborative. Some litigious. At least one had litigated to halt fishing operations to protect sea lions. Another had organized demonstrations against offshore oil drilling.

  He paused and looked at the map again.

  Was she confused about Casey working on a fishing boat? Perhaps it was an oil rig or a support vessel? And he’d have to call the fishery service to find out more about its charter of Arlo’s boat and crew.

  The phone rang.

  “I’ve got Marla on line two,” Chet said. The chief took the call.

  They exchanged some pleasantries before he asked her the question on his mind. “I’ve got a mother looking for her son and am wondering if you’ve had any new hires on your supply boats during the last three months. Especially any fellows in the mid-twenty range. His name might be Casey Elliot.”

  He put her on speakerphone.

  “I’m sorry to hear it, Chief.” Marla’s voice filled the office. “The hiring of crew is generally done by the captains. But I will check it out and get back to you.”

  “You don’t have to go back far in the hiring history. Just the last three months should do it.”

  “Glad to help.” Then she added. “Is there a problem?”

  “We don’t know yet. I’m hoping it’s just a hiccup in the kid’s life and that he’ll be calling home soon. And maybe his mom will call back and say it was all nothing, nothing at all.”

  “Yeah.” Marla sighed. “Nothing at all sounds good.”

  He hung up the phone and leaned back in the swivel chair, letting his eyes roam across the expansive map on his wall.

  “Damn,” was all he could manage. He reached for the bottom drawer in his desk and pulled out a lightweight foam basketball. Deftly launching it toward the hoop on the back of his office door, he watched it descend in its arc toward the basket.

  Swish.

  ****

  A bluetick coonhound lay on Maureen’s examination table. Tears rolled down a six-year-old boy’s cheeks. He wiped them away with his shirt sleeve and looked up at Maureen.

  “Is Blue gonna die?” Toby said.

  Maureen looked at the dog brought to her after being hit by a car. When she’d gotten the call, she’d rushed back from the Cape Kiska to meet them at the clinic. The mangled look of this loved and listless dog pressed down upon her heart like dirt in a shovel.

  Except for the rise and fall of his chest, the dog lay motionless on her exam table. His right rear leg was twisted in an ugly position. Maureen ran her fingers along his spotted neck. Blue lifted his head and looked to see the unfamiliar hand there. Then he dropped his head, seemingly too dazed to care. She gently prodded areas in the abdomen area. There was no response until she got to his right hip. Even her light touch caused it to spasm. The dog let out a yelp of pain.

  Toby’s eyes bulged. “Oh Blue!”

  At Maureen’s direction, Toby’s dad held the dog still while she administered a shot to numb the pained area. Then she squatted down so she could meet the boy face to face.

  “We’re going to take a look inside the area where it hurts and find out what’s going on. Okay, Toby?”

  She thought the boy was trying to look brave. His back straightened, but his lip quivered.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “We’re going to use an X-ray machine that takes pictures of his bones.”

  Directing Toby and his dad to step behind the screen, she gowned herself in a protective smock. Moving the ancient X-ray machine over the injured leg and hip, she struggled to get a good angle, all the while recalling the state-of-the-art equipment she’d seen in Anchorage.

  Several minutes later, with four X-rays in hand, she walked over to the wall behind her desk and flicked on the viewing screen. She clipped the X-rays to the lightbox and offered Toby a seat on top of her desk so he could see them up close.

  “It’s pretty serious, Toby. It’s what we call high-impact trauma, which is what happens when a dog gets hit by a car.”

  She pointed to the second picture. “This one shows it best. See these lines?”

  She looked at the youngster to be sure he was following along. He nodded.

  “There are three full breaks here.” She indicated the femur bone. “And”—she moved her hand to the last picture— “his right hip has multiple fractures and is broken near the socket.”

  Toby’s dad looked down at the floor.

  Maureen called CoCo over from her bed in the corner. With an awkward gait, the shepherd eagerly loped across the room. Sitting at attention at Maureen’s knee, her cocked head waited for a command. Maureen opened the lower desk drawer and grabbed a worn tennis ball. She tossed it at the far wall.

  CoCo leaped across the room, her long legs stretching only twice before her teeth grabbed it from the air. Within seconds the ball rested at Maureen’s feet. CoCo sat and waited.

  “How many legs does she have?”

  “Three,” said Toby.

  Maureen sat on the desk next to the boy.

  “I’m going to recommend amputation of Blue’s right hind leg. That means his injured leg will be removed. He’s young and strong and, like CoCo, should learn how to get around just fine. What do you think?” Maureen looked from son to father, wishing she could fix Blue herself.

  The boy did not hesitate. “Let’s do it, Dad. It’s the right thing.”

  His father nodded. “Okay. What’s next?” he asked, looking at Maureen.

  “Leave him with me tonight. Unfortunately, I don’t have the equipment here to do the surgery myself. But I’ll arrange for his transport to the animal hospital in Anchorage that supports this type of care.” She turned to the boy. “If all goes well, you’ll have him home in no time.”

  On the way out, the boy turned back toward Maureen. “How did CoCo lose her front leg?”

  “She used to be a police dog.” The shepherd’s tail wagged, knowing all eyes were on her. “She was hurt by a bad guy in the line of duty.”

  Maureen walked to CoCo’s side. “She was in pretty bad shape, and they planned to put her down.” She stroked the head of the shepherd, recalling she had first met the dog when police had been called to her home in Boston. “But I amputated her leg, just like they’re going to fix up Blue.”

  Toby smiled. “CoCo’s a hero,” he said, raising his hand to salute the dog.

  ****

  After they left, she knew she could no longer put off the chief’s request to call him.

  “Hello, Chief,” she said when connected to his office.

  He came to the point. He wanted her to examine the corpse heading to town in a fishing boat. But he wanted to hear whether she could do it without bias, knowing that Arlo was a potential suspect. In a small town where most everyone knows everyone, it was unavoidable. But the question had to be on the table.

  “Can you do it?” he asked.

  Chapter 10

  The Viking King arrived in town with its frozen corpse the next day. It was afternoon by the time the ambulance backed up to the clinic entrance to deliver the body. Maureen clutched her sweater tight against the wind and made her way out the walkway to the ambulance. Two EMTs hopped out.

  “Hey, Doc,” Jeff said with a wave as he headed to the rear of the vehicle. He’d also delivered One-Eye Ben.

  He swung open the two rear doors. With a practiced reach, the two workers pulled out the gurney. Its wheels dropped to the ground. On top of it lay a half-zipped body bag with a pair of bent legs extending beyond it as if escaping skyward.

  “Interesting, huh?” Jeff said.

  The chief’s cruiser swung into the parking lot next to the ambulance.

  Maureen turned to Jeff. “Can you guys bring the body downstairs? There’s a table I’ve got set up for him.”

  She headed to meet the chief, her hair flying across her face.

  He approached, his squinting eyes assessing her from beneath the rim of his hat.

  “You’re okay with this?”

  Still clutching the sweater to her neck, she nodded. “Yeah, I’m okay. It’s not like you have anything on Arlo other than a crab pot permit number. Right?”

  She stopped and looked at him. “I want to do this, Chief. If it becomes a problem, I’ll jump ship, or you can toss me overboard, whichever comes first.”

  They headed inside to the reception room and downstairs to the surgery area.

  The two ambulance workers had just finished moving the body bag with the pop-up legs onto the exam table when the chief and Maureen descended the stairs.

  “Is there anything more we can do?” Jeff asked.

  “No, we can take it from here,” she said.

  The EMTs left, carrying the gurney up the stairs as if it were weightless.

  Maureen poured two cups of coffee. She put cream and sugar in one cup. The other, she passed to the chief. “Black, right?”

  They walked over to the body bag. The knees and ankles of the corpse, bent from being frozen in a sitting position, extended beyond the bag toward the surgical lamp above it.

  Maureen sipped her coffee. “I’m not qualified to do a full autopsy, but there’s a lot of information to be gained here without cutting anyone open.”

  “Cause and time of death are all I’m asking for.”

  “It presents a challenge,” she said, passing him a pair of surgical gloves. “I like that.”

  He set his cup on the corner of the table and snapped on the gloves. “Is that why you’re interested in the Anchorage job…more of a challenge?”

  She turned to him. “How’d you know about that?”

  “It’s my job to know what’s going on in this town.”

  “Do others know?”

  “No, just me. The veterinary hospital called me to ask for a reference since you didn’t provide a local one. But it won’t take long before it gets out. There are no secrets in a small town.” He opened the body bag. “Does Arlo know?”

  She stood across from him as they both began to roll the edges of the bag away from the body. “I told him before he left on the charter.”

  The chief tugged on the stiff vinyl hood frozen to the victim’s head. “I figure that if you’re able to leave Arlo behind to carve out a new career, you’re not going to let feelings get in the way of examining this body.”

  “Ouch,” she said, shooting him a pained expression.

  He waved it off with a grin she’d begun to appreciate. Then he pushed down on the kid’s legs. They didn’t budge.

  “Seems to be frozen solid,” he said. “The crew told me they hauled the body out of the water the night before last and stowed it in the bait locker right away. So, it’s been in the freezer close to forty-eight hours.”

  “I see.”

  “The freezer wasn’t big enough to stretch him out.” He took a sip of his coffee. “They thought a sitting position would be more…respectful.”

  “Interesting.”

  Her gaze scanned the victim from head to toe. He wore an orange vinyl jacket with a hood that extended over his head. The jacket was opened so that a flannel shirt beneath it was visible. His hands lay folded on his lap.

  She tugged at the jacket to see if it moved or was frozen to the body. Frost fell from it at her touch. It was as pliable as a cardboard box.

  “You know, this body will not defrost for days,” she said. “That should give us some time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “Time to figure out what we’re doing. They didn’t train us in vet school using frozen cats and dogs.”

  The chief looked impatient. “We need answers now, Maureen. As it is, I’ll be getting an earful of crap from the state trooper office for filing paperwork a day late. I don’t much give a damn about that, but I suspect the message will be delivered in person by someone who’ll come for the body…perhaps tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” She began to flick crystals from the kid’s hands with a small brush. Flaps of frozen flesh stuck up around the wounds on the knuckles of his right hand like potato chip fragments. “It appears he may have been in a fight.”

  The chief pulled reading glasses from his shirt pocket and bent to look at the hand. “We’ve got to get this body defrosted ASAP.”

  She looked up in time to see him adjusting the thermostat.

  “No, don’t do that!” she cried out. “Increasing decomposition of the outer layers may cause it to get out of sync with the core’s decaying process.”

  His hand remained on the knob.

  She threw her hands up and walked to the closet. “What the heck, freezing the body already screwed things up.” She turned around holding a hair dryer.

  The chief adjusted the thermostat regulator to its highest setting before crossing back to her side. Maureen directed the hair dryer toward the frozen jacket.

  “What if we die of heat stroke?” she said. “What will our obits say? Oh, Michele will have fun writing that one up in the newspaper’s Police Log. Died defrosting dead body.”

  “But we’re not going to die for nothing.” He motioned for her to help him pry open the warmed jacket to inspect for abdominal wounds. None found.

  They were struggling to peel back the hood when deputies Chet and Michele came down the stairs.

  “Holy mackerel!” Chet said eyeing the trajectory of the legs while pulling a notebook from his chest pocket.

  Michele set her equipment bag on the bookshelf, grabbed the camera, and threw the strap over her head.

  “What?” she said, looking at the chief and Maureen. “Why are you two looking at me as if I was up to no good?”

  The chief told her to take a close-up of the hands. Michele bent near the body’s mid-section, where the hands still lay folded. Click, click, click. Then she straightened up and joined the other three looking at the corpse. “You know,” she said while chewing gum. “It’s effing hot in here.”

  The kid’s eyes were closed and sealed shut by heavily frosted eyelashes. Strands of his sandy brown hair and beard were frozen in brittle stick formations so that his face looked as if it poked from a thicket. Maureen waved the hair dryer over the thicket.

  “Do you see what I see, Chief?”

  “Looks pretty beat up.”

  Maureen used a small brush to dust away the remaining ice crystals from the kid’s eyes and cheeks.

  “There seems to be a cut below the right eye,” she said. “And another flesh wound on the left cheek.” Noting the smaller hematoma, she surmised it was a weaker punch. “But here’s the big one.” She pointed to his right jawline near the chin. “It probably broke his jaw and sent him flying.”

  The chief stepped back so Michele could move in to snap some close-ups. “The kid’s face is more beat-up on the right side,” he said, “making it likely a left-handed assailant was involved. But I doubt any of these wounds would have killed him.”

  Maureen aimed the hair dryer toward his mouth and tried to pry it open. When she pulled her finger back, an object flew out, hitting her on the chest and dropping to the floor.

  Chet leaned over and picked it up. He held it up for everyone to see. A cigarette butt.

  Maureen reached for the butt and rolled it between her thumb and forefinger. “Curious, it doesn’t seem waterlogged.” She dropped it in the dish.

  The chief pried loose a half-empty pack of cigarettes from the kid’s pocket. It was streaked brown with tobacco stains. Along with it were a cheap lighter and a ballpoint pen. He dropped them in a dish and continued to frisk the kid. Finding nothing else in the accessible pockets of his jacket and jeans, they worked together to tip the corpse on its side.

  Using the hair dryer, they were able to peel the hood back and examine the back of his head where they discovered a big gash. “That’s what killed him,” Maureen said.

  Michele circled around the table and took pictures of the four-inch crease in the skull.

  When they rolled the kid on his back again, Maureen stopped suddenly.

  “I saw it too,” the chief said. He reached for the cuff at the left wrist. Pushing it back as far as he could, they all looked down at the exposed wristwatch.

  Maureen took aim with the hairdryer and pulled the trigger.

  Soon the watch was pliable enough to remove from the wrist. She laid the stainless-steel watch in the chief’s palm.

  Gold hands on its black face had stopped at 1:35 a.m. And, according to the small window located on its face, it had stopped on October 6th.

  The chief pulled out his notepad and wrote down the date and time He looked up at Maureen, who met his gaze, both knowing it was the day after Arlo said he’d left Dutch to do the survey. It would have been easy to make it to the Mushroom during that time. Neither said a thing.

  Michele snapped a close-up of the watch face while doing a calculation in her head. “That’s eight days ago,” she said.

 

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