way. “You mean ‘we’,” I offered, to which he gave me a confused frown. “It’s actually ‘we educated folk’,” I continued. “Not ‘us’.”
“We, us, same difference,” Dr. Moody responded curtly, apparently not very pleased at having his grammar corrected. He cleared his throat and faced me squarely. “Do you have any leads, Chief?”
I nodded. I’d spent the morning talking to our only lead, a hunter from Missouri who’d been tracking musk ox, a beastly, if not primitive, creature that, admittedly, I’d never heard of until moving to Alaska. To me, it looked like something out of the latest Star Wars movie.
Anyway, the hunter had stumbled across the body and then he’d immediately called us. As ordered, he’d stayed long enough for us to locate him. After getting his initial statement and contact info, I’d sent him on his way. Later on, I’d met with him at his rented lodge outside of town, and ordered him to walk me through everything again. At the end of our conversation, it was pretty obvious he hadn’t seen anything and didn’t know anything. It had just been dumb luck that he’d stumbled on the body before bears or wolves had. Then again, Alaska was a big-ass place. Hard to stumble on anything out here, let alone the rare dead body…
Naturally, I’d asked him how often he hunted in Alaska. Once or twice a year, he’d answered. I’d asked him if he was here with someone. No, he was alone. I’d asked him how the hunting was, and he’d said, “No musk ox yet.”
“A lead that led nowhere,” I finished with a sigh before turning to more important topics. “Trace evidence?” I asked. It was the medical examiner’s duty, much like on the popular TV shows, to recover any trace evidence from the body—hair, carpet fibers, fluids—anything that might aid the investigation.
“None that I’ve identified,” Dr. Moody responded with an uninterested shrug.
I nodded. I’d already made a mental note to head back out to the woods and take another look. “Where’s the knife?” I asked.
“Sent to the SCDL in Anchorage,” Moody answered. The SCDL was otherwise known as the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory. “Should get there in the morning if Dusty doesn’t run into weather.” Dusty was our local bush pilot. “My resources are limited here, as you can imagine.”
The crime lab in Anchorage was as modern as any state’s, which was a relief because sometimes I felt like I’d inadvertently relocated myself to BFE. With such a small population that existed in Hope, it was no wonder that solving crimes was sometimes frustrating. But leave it to Anchorage, where I was sure they’d go over the blade with a fine-tooth comb, so to speak, using an array of tests to pull any evidence from the weapon.
“In the meantime, I have these for you.” Moody clicked his mouse, as he squinted at his monitor. He clicked again, then again, and a moment later, the printer behind me whirred to life. With a groan, he stood up from behind his desk, then slid behind me, being sure to bounce his enormous stomach into my butt, all the while smelling potently of aftershave. I took a step away from him.
A moment later, he handed me two full-color, close-up photographs of the knife, each photograph depicting one side of the weapon. The doctor next called in his young and very attractive secretary, and asked her to find me an envelope for the photos.
She smiled and said, “Yes, Dr. Moody.”
I suspected the not-so-virtuous doctor probably employed just about any reason to summon his attractive assistant.
While she was gone and while the doctor settled in behind his desk again, I studied the pictures. This was, after all, the first I’d seen of the actual blade. It was long, slightly curved, a sort of cross between a dagger and hunting knife. I recognized the sloppily-made antler handle. I had better knives in my kitchen drawer.
Moody said, “I’m no metallurgist, and the crime lab will confirm, but I’m certain the blade is nearly one hundred percent silver. The handle could be anything. Deer, elk, caribou.”
A moment later, Moody’s assistant appeared with an oversized envelope, which she handed to me. I slipped the pictures inside, figuring I’d study them later. Then I turned back to the doctor, who was busily thanking his assistant a little too profusely for a job a child, a dog or a circus monkey could have very easily handled.
“There’s more,” said Dr. Moody.
More is good in my business. More