The Body in the Woods Read online

  CHAPTER 6

  TUESDAY

  YOU JUST HAVE TO LOOK

  Before the whistle sounded, Ruby had been moving down the path as silently as a cat.

  And like a cat, her attention was sidetracked by all the birds. Dark-eyed juncoes flitted around the forest floor, their white tail feathers flashing. A slightly larger hermit thrush regarded her from a nearby branch, its eyes ringed in white. Ruby’s ears picked out the distinctive twitter of a goldfinch from among the pips and trills of other birds. She lifted her head, her eyes following the sound, until she spotted it on a dead limb half broken from a trunk. It was wearing its drab winter plumage with only a ruff of yellow at its throat.

  A flash of color farther back caught her attention. Was it? Yes. A pileated woodpecker as big as a raven. Ruby admired its black body, the bold white stripes down the neck, and its flaming red crest. It was stabbing its beak over and over into a dead tree, looking, she knew, for carpenter ants.

  Thinking of the birder, she wondered if she herself would ever see a northern spotted owl. Her mom collected owl figurines the way Ruby collected bird sightings. Not only were northern spotted owls nocturnal, but they were also endangered. Just one of the thousands of species at risk of going extinct, thanks mostly to human beings ruining the world.

  Suddenly, a whistle broke the stillness. Not a bird’s, but something that came from a human throat, forced through a black plastic tube. Tweet! Tweet! Tweet! The pattern of three sharp notes was repeated. Someone was in trouble. Without hesitation, Ruby turned back and ran straight toward the sound.

  She found Alexis standing just off the trail, pointing at a figure dressed in dark colors lying on the forest floor. It was far too small to be Bobby. And when Ruby pulled off her backpack and fell to her knees beside it, she confirmed that it was a girl. A girl about her own age, with shoulder-length blond hair and green eye shadow painting the one lid she could see. There were no obvious signs of injury, just an ear that bore three piercings.

  “Are you all right?” When she was around other people, Ruby was always more comfortable if she could assume a role. This one was easy: First Responder. She leaned into the girl’s face, bracing one hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right?” A familiar smell teased Ruby’s nose.

  In her mind’s eye, she saw Jon at the lectern. Introduce yourself and your level of training. Tell the patient what you are doing and why. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Now she unzipped a small compartment and yanked on a pair of purple vinyl gloves as she said rapidly, “I am Ruby McClure with Portland Search and Rescue. I have first-aid training. May I help you?”

  Ruby waited for three seconds, counting in her head. One jelly bean, two jelly bean, three …

  The girl didn’t say anything. According to Jon, no response was implied consent. She reached for the girl’s wrist. Even through the vinyl glove, it felt cool. Her skin was mottled. Late-stage shock? Ruby reminded herself to ask about nausea and dizziness, confusion and weakness, to check for restlessness or dilated pupils. Rolling her fingers, she found the notch in the wrist and then held her breath. She waited for the pulse in whatever form it might take. Fast and shallow? Slow and irregular?

  But there was nothing. Nothing at all.

  Footsteps ran up behind her. “Who’s that?” Nick shouted. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “It’s a girl.” Ruby let the girl’s cool wrist slip from her grasp. She gently brushed the choppy blond hair back to check the carotid artery on the side of the neck. After a long moment in which she felt not even the tiniest flicker under her fingertips, Ruby sat back on her heels. “And she’s dead.”

  “Dead?” Nick’s voice cracked.

  “Call it in, Nick!” Alexis shouted, even though he was only a few feet away from her. It was like neither of them could stop shouting. “You’re the one with the radio.”

  Bending over the girl’s body again, Ruby heard the tearing sound of Velcro as Nick fumbled with the rat pack. A squawk, and then, “We found a girl,” Nick yelled, not using the proper protocol at all. “A girl on the path you sent us down. And she’s dead!”

  A calm voice repeated back his words, asked for the GPS coordinates, and then told them to stay where they were. Ruby heard more Velcro as Nick pulled out the GPS unit, more fumbling, more shouting. Alexis was crying now, big gulping sobs.

  But Ruby was too busy looking to pay much attention to all the noise.

  What she had at first taken to be a fold in the girl’s neck was really a dark red furrow ringing her throat. A ligature mark. The girl had been strangled. Not with bare hands, the way Jack the Ripper was said to have killed his victims, but instead with something narrow slipped around her neck. The Boston Strangler had often used his victim’s own stockings, but this girl was dressed in jeans and a hoodie, not a dress. Ruby leaned closer. Shallower scratches ran down both sides of the neck. She lifted the girl’s hand again. Two of the nails were broken past the quick.

  The girl had tried to save herself. Tried and failed.

  “It looks like she was murdered,” Ruby said.

  “Murdered?” Nick’s voice got even louder.

  “What do you mean, murdered?” Alexis demanded.

  “That’s a ligature mark.” Ruby pointed, but the other two didn’t come any closer. “And see those scratches on her neck? She tried to get it loose, but she failed.”

  Nick swore.

  Alexis stared. “How do you know all that?”

  “You just have to look,” Ruby said. She thought of the limpness of the girl’s arm when she had picked up her hand. “I don’t think she’s been dead long. Not more than an hour or two. Rigor mortis would have set in.”

  Alexis got the same look on her face that grown-ups sometimes got when Ruby talked about certain subjects.

  Nick spun in a circle. “If she hasn’t been dead long, doesn’t it mean that whoever did this could still be here? Watching us right now?”

  CHAPTER 7

  TUESDAY

  THE NEXT TO DIE

  MURDERED, Alexis thought. Ruby said the word so calmly, as if she were still talking about one of the birds she had been entranced by earlier.

  Alexis couldn’t stop staring at the dead girl’s face, visible now that Ruby had pushed back her hair. It was all she could focus on. The one eye she could see was nearly closed, and for that Alexis was thankful. She wouldn’t think about the thin rim of white on the edge. She wouldn’t think about how it felt like, at any moment, the girl might stir and sit up. Maybe not quite human, but still alive.

  She had never seen a dead body before. It was hard to believe this was real. It was like she had stepped into a TV show. Maybe one of those guys from CSI would show up soon, with sunglasses over his eyes and a gun on his hip, and take charge.

  How could a girl—a girl about her own age, with blond hair not that much different from her own—have been turned into a sprawling sack of flesh? That slack mouth would never move again, not even to moan in pain. Not to talk or taste or laugh.

  Someone sobbed, grating and harsh. It was only when Alexis sucked in a breath that she realized the sound had come from her.

  “What if this guy comes back?” Nick leaned down and snatched up a rock. He raised it above his shoulder, his head whipping from side to side. “He could kill us, too.” He was breathing in short, panicked gasps. Hearing him reinforced Alexis’s feeling that she had wakened in a nightmare.

  Ruby’s calm voice set Alexis more on edge than a scream. “Whoever killed this girl did it quickly, even neatly. I don’t see any blood. The ground isn’t torn up. There are no broken branches or signs of a struggle. But it takes only a few minutes to strangle someone, and after the first ninety seconds or so, the victim is unconscious.”

  “Is that supposed to make us feel better?” Nick demanded. “Because I don’t know about Alexis, but nothing you just said makes me feel better. I don’t want to be the next to die.”

  “You need to look at this logically,” Ru
by said in a calm voice. “There’s no way anyone could kill all three of us without it being noisy and messy, which is completely different from this killer’s modus operandi. That’s Latin for ‘method of operation,’ and it’s what the police look for in crimes. We’re more than likely safe. And, Nick, you should stop moving around and picking things up. You could be destroying evidence.”

  Evidence. Alexis hadn’t thought of that. Even though it bugged her to be lectured, she knew Ruby was right.

  “We should all stay right where we are and look for clues,” Ruby continued. “But don’t touch them.”

  “She looks about our age.” Alexis tried to imagine the girl alive, her face animated. “But I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen her before.”

  Nick had finally stilled, even though he hadn’t put down the rock. “I know all the girls at Wilson.” This didn’t surprise Alexis, not with the way Nick ogled any girl who walked by. “She doesn’t go there.”

  “And I don’t think she goes to Lincoln,” Ruby said. “But that still leaves a bunch of high schools in Portland, plus more in the suburbs.”

  “I wonder who she is,” Alexis said. “And who did this.”

  Her words made Nick look up and down the trail again.

  “And why?” Ruby leaned in to look at the girl’s neck again. “Why would someone do this? Sometimes why is the most important question of all.”

  “What kind of person just kills a girl and dumps her body in the woods?” Nick’s breathing had slowed down, but his voice was still too loud, edged with panic.

  Ruby pushed the girl’s hip experimentally. “It would be a lot for one person to carry up here.”

  Nick’s voice got higher. “You think two people did this?” His eyes widened, and his upper lip curled back in horror.

  Ruby looked interested. “Maybe. I hadn’t thought of that. Or she could have been out here hiking and someone attacked her.”

  “She’s not wearing boots, though,” Alexis pointed out.

  Ruby leaned closer to the soles of the girl’s shoes. Her legs were curled up so that they rested near her butt. They were dark blue Vans, not hiking boots. “The trail’s pretty well maintained. She could have just picked her way around the puddles. And she’s got some mud spatters on the backs of her jeans.” She squinted, then pointed. “There’s a footprint next to her!”

  From where she was standing, Alexis could see only a vague outline.

  “A million people hike here,” Nick said.

  “Yeah, but mostly they stay on the trail. And this is right next to her body.” Ruby leaned down, putting one hand on the girl’s thigh for balance. Alexis’s stomach did a slow roll. What was wrong with Ruby that she could treat this poor murdered girl as a convenient place to brace herself? “And this footprint looks fresh,” Ruby continued. “Why would there be one right next to the body of a dead girl if it didn’t have anything to do with her?”

  “I hear something,” Nick announced. Like animals at a forest pool scenting a predator, the three of them raised their heads.

  Footsteps. Coming fast. A fist closed around Alexis’s heart and squeezed. Nick hoisted his rock, but there was nothing nearby for Alexis to defend herself with. Feeling clumsy and slow, she shrugged her SAR backpack onto one arm. Unzipping one of the outside pockets, she managed to find her Leatherman multipurpose tool. The metal was cold and heavy in her hand. She flipped open the blade, which couldn’t be more than three inches long, wishing she had Nick’s rock. At least you could throw it. The only way you could use the knife was if the killer was already up close and personal. With, say, his hands around your neck.

  The footsteps were louder now. “He’s coming back,” Nick yelled. “He’s coming back for us.” Throwing down the rock, he turned and ran.

  CHAPTER 8

  TUESDAY

  IN THE END, YOU’RE JUST DEAD

  A harsh sound cut through the air. Alexis’s heart stuttered in her chest. Then she identified it as the crackle and squeal of a handheld radio. Which meant that it was probably the good guys coming for them. Not the killer.

  Jon burst through the trees, with Mitchell right behind him. “Are you guys okay?” Jon asked, while Mitchell braced his hands on his knees, gasping.

  “Yeah, but like Nick said on the radio, we found a girl,” Alexis said. “And she’s dead.” She wondered when it would ever feel real. Jon and Mitchell turned. While no one was looking at her, Alexis folded up her knife and put it away.

  “And there’s a footprint,” Ruby said, pointing. “Not one of the girl’s, but fresh.”

  Skirting the footprint, Jon hurried to Ruby’s side, kneeled, and put his fingers to the girl’s neck. He was still for a long moment and then shook his head. “You’re right. She’s dead.” He sat back on his heels. “The EMTs should be here any second, but they’re not going to have much to do.”

  “I don’t think she’s been dead very long,” Ruby said. “And there’s a ligature mark around her neck. She was strangled with something narrow.”

  Jon shot Ruby a sideways look.

  “We found her, but not Bobby.” Alexis’s eyes stung. It was all too much.

  With his hands still on his knees, Mitchell raised his head. His cheeks were blotched with red. “Team Bravo called it in thirty seconds after Nick reported the body. They found Bobby, and he’s okay.”

  Alexis tried to focus on this one piece of good news. She shifted her stance so that she was no longer looking directly at the dead girl. At the eye that would never again open.

  Jon turned to look at her and then swung his head from left to right. Alarm sharpened his voice. “Where’s Nick? I thought I told you guys to stick together!”

  “He heard you coming and ran away,” Ruby said. “He thought you were the killer.”

  “No I didn’t,” Nick said, jogging into the little clearing. “I figured it was you guys, but I thought I heard someone coming down the path the other way. I went up to check it out, but I didn’t find anyone.”

  Jon nodded. Alexis wondered if he was buying it.

  “I’m sorry you three have to see this,” he said. “It’s tough to deal with. Even when it’s not your first time.”

  A man and a woman in red jackets and with stethoscopes around their necks sprinted into the clearing. Paramedics. The woman carried a large bag, and the man had a collapsible stretcher on his back. When they saw the dead girl with Jon kneeling next to her, they ran over.

  “Don’t step on that footprint,” Ruby cried out. Just as the man did.

  Chris Nagle, the sheriff’s deputy, came up the trail a few minutes later. He was accompanied by a Portland cop. After they looked at the dead girl, the two men conferred for a minute and then Chris said, “Alexis, Nick, and—um—is it Ruby?” Ruby nodded, and he continued. “I want the three of you to come over here, but keep to the trail. Or if you’re off the trail, go back to it the same way you came in. We need to minimize the destruction of evidence.”

  “Too late for that,” Ruby said, as if the two EMTs weren’t right there. She pointed. “That guy stepped on a footprint that was right next to the body.”

  “That doesn’t mean there isn’t still more evidence,” Chris said patiently. After the three of them carefully made their way back to the men, stepping on rocks and tufts of grass, he said, “This is Officer Ostrom. He’s going to ask you some quick questions. We need to preserve the crime scene, so after that you’re going to go back down to the parking lot to talk to the homicide detective.” Ruby perked up, and even Nick looked interested. Alexis just wanted to get out of there and away from the dead girl as soon as possible.

  Officer Ostrom asked who had found the body, if they had seen anyone near it, if they had touched anything. If they knew the girl. Ruby and Nick did most of the talking, often speaking over each other. It was clear pretty early on that none of them knew anything.

  Jon led the way back down to the trailhead. Under the trees it had grown dark enough that he told them to put on thei
r headlamps. The temperature seemed to have dropped at least ten degrees. Alexis’s teeth were chattering. Three times they passed groups of cops carrying lights, cameras, and other equipment up the trail.

  Alexis kept her head down, watching her boots take one step and then another and another. It was nearly hypnotic, the darkness that enfolded them, the bobbing cones of light from their headlamps, the ground that changed subtly with each step but still stayed the same. She tried to focus on what was in front of her. Tried not to think about the girl’s eye and how this morning the girl must have put on that green eye shadow and how tonight she was dead. What was the point of doing anything at all if in the end you were just dead?

  “It was right there,” Ruby complained for the tenth time. “That footprint was probably important evidence.”

  “Well, it’s gone now,” Nick said, also for the tenth time. “That EMT guy trampled on it.”

  Alexis resisted the urge to kick both of them in the butt.

  “You guys really shouldn’t be talking about what you saw,” Jon said. “The detective is going to want to interview you separately. Talking about things can change your memories of what happened.”

  Once they reached the parking lot, they found the SAR van surrounded by police cars, many of them idling even though they were empty. Another cop got their names, addresses, and phone numbers, telling them they would be questioned soon by a detective and that they shouldn’t talk to each other until then. So they waited, alone but together.

  Alexis rubbed her hands up and down her crossed arms. She was trembling so hard she felt as if she might fall apart. Someone touched her elbow, and she jumped nearly a foot.

  “Are you Alexis?”

  It was a guy, but he wasn’t wearing a uniform. She nodded, feeling confused. He was too young to be a cop. Too young to be anything except in high school or maybe the first year of college. Nick had been joined by a girl with straight hair, and Ruby was listening to a middle-aged woman wearing a puffy down jacket with the hood pulled up.

  “Hi. I’m Bran Dawson.” He pushed his dark straight hair out of his eyes and then held out his hand. He was a few inches taller than Alexis. His hand was cool and slightly callused. “I’m with the Trauma Intervention Program.”