Mitch cut the motor to swing around the dock. He was going to just run the prow up on shore this time to keep the dock free for the authorities. He saw Christine and Spike still huddled by Ginger's boat. At least she'd managed to keep Spike from pulling Ginger out.
"You've sure had a lot going on with Lisa Vaughn falling in the river," the sheriff was saying. "She's one of the women who found the body, you said. No offense, Mitch, but I'm not real thrilled about having to deal with a pack of lawyers."
"I'm sure they'll be savvy and helpful," Mitch assured him, but he hardly assured himself. He wouldn't complicate things right now--yet--by telling the sheriff that he and Lisa were covertly investigating her near drowning and hypothermia as attempted murder. If the sheriff knew, he could blow things wide open, and whoever had pushed her would go to ground, even more than he or she already had. If Ginger's death wasn't an accident, the person they were looking for could have succeeded with a drowning this time.
15
L
isa, Mitch, Vanessa, Spike and Christine stood on the shore while the coroner--a Talkeetna general practitioner, Dr. Sam Collister--the sheriff and two deputies retrieved Ginger's body from the water. Mitch and Christine kept Spike between them; Lisa stood between Mitch and Vanessa. Despite the fact it wasn't really dark, the authorities had two high-powered lights trained into the water, then on the body when they laid it on the dock. Their words floated over the water. "One leg was wrapped in the anchor chain," they heard the sheriff say. "It musta pulled her in or at least held her down somehow, or maybe her boat bumped in above her next to the dock and she couldn't resurface for air. She had only one useful hand, so it's possible. Doc, can you tell right away if she's got a head wound that might have knocked her out on the boat or dock? With the waves, the boat could have been shifting in and out, so she put the anchor in. Maybe she missed stepping in the boat."
Lisa saw Mitch had to hold Spike back from racing down the dock. "Give them some time," he told his friend. "I'm sure they'll let you have a minute with her."
"I don't want them cutting her up later, and I'm going to tell them that right now."
"Spike, listen to me," Mitch said, grabbing his friend's arms and facing him. "They have legal authority to order an autopsy. It's standard for something like this. And you want to know what happened."
"She's dead, that's what happened!"
Sheriff Moran stood and turned away from where the men knelt around Ginger's body on the tarp that Mitch realized was probably a body bag. "You just hold on there now, Mr. Jackson," the sheriff called out. He turned back to the huddled men. Like the others, Lisa strained to hear.
"Yes, concave trauma of the back of the skull," the doctor said. "But no clotted blood means she probably went in quickly after the injury. But that's all I can tell you without more time. Drowning deaths are complicated to assess. It's hard to tell whether the victim was dead or alive at the time of water entry. The lungs are going to fill with water even if drowning wasn't the cause, and with her floating faceup like that..." Finally, mercifully, his voice trailed off.
"If you can make it quick for the family and friends and for me, I'll owe you, Doc," the sheriff said. "I'll be watchdogging the festival this weekend, but this will have to take priority if it's suspicious in any way. Okay, Mr. Jackson," he called to Spike. "If you want to come out here a minute--but not touch the victim--that will be fine, an official ID by next of kin. Then I need to have a few words individually with you ladies who discovered the body while we tape off the cabin and check things out there."
Spike walked out onto the dock, quickly at first, then slowed. Mitch stood on the shore, watching. Lisa's heart went out to Spike. She knew how this felt, though she'd never had a body--bodies--to grieve over in her family tragedy. Sometimes that fact, even after all the years, made her think that somewhere, in her wildest dreams, her mother and sister were still alive.
The sheriff spoke to Lisa first, since she'd actually found the body. He sat on a