a lot of dead bodies in my time, but there was something about this one that stuck with me. It was the expression in his eyes that was echoed in the curve of his lips. Surprise.
Surprise? I thought to myself as I shook my head and frowned. How obvious could I be? Of course, he was surprised! No one expects to receive a silver dagger straight through the chest! The first thing anyone would feel is the shock of it. Jeez, Elodie.
I exhaled a pent-up breath as I recognized the truth in my thoughts. This case was going to be a big one. As it stood, it was the biggest case I’d come across in my three months here in Hope. That meant I needed to step up my game. Thinking a corpse looked surprised wasn’t going to win me any sleuth awards. If I were going to put this case to bed, first, I had to make sure I put myself to bed. It was true—I wasn’t getting enough sleep. I could read as much in the dark circles underneath my eyes. If my aristocratic mother were to see me now, she’d probably have an aneurysm right on the spot. That reminded me, I still hadn’t called her back.
I glanced at my cell phone on the coffee table in front of the snoring cat and noticed the green light was blinking—I had a voicemail. I was sure it was from my mom. During off-duty hours, she was the only one who called me. I didn’t bother listening to it because her messages were always the same…
Why wasn’t I meeting any eligible men when I was living in a place where men outnumbered women nine to one? Was I over Nick’s death yet? If not, I really should be. I was now thirty and my biological clock was ticking, so why wasn’t I considering my future more seriously? Why had I become a police officer anyway? Didn’t I remember that, once upon a time, I’d been prom queen and, therefore, could have been the enviable wife to any of the guys on the football team? Didn’t I remember that underneath my amorphous uniform, I still had a figure most women would die for? Wasn’t I aware that in looking just like my mother did at my age, I was beautiful?
“No wonder you’re the only one in my life, Gus,” I said as I glanced over at the now-twitching cat. “You don’t talk back.”
Chapter Three
The thing about naked dead guys was that they didn’t carry identification.
“I’ve submitted the fingerprints to the IAFIS,” said Dr. Paul Moody, referring to the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System maintained by the FBI. “If he’s in there, we’ll know in a few hours.”
We stood in Dr. Moody’s office, located in what passed for our “downtown”—it comprised six buildings, three of which were restaurants. Moody was our only doctor. He was also the region’s only qualified coroner. As such, it was his job to identify bodies and determine causes of death. According to him, this case wasn’t exactly a rush job, since our John Doe had been on ice all winter, literally.
After photographing the crime scene, Miguel and I had been careful to dig out John Doe from the ice. Then we’d strapped him to a sled, easing him onto his side. Talk about dead weight! As soon as his vacant eyes had met mine, though, I’d decided to cover him with a white sheet. I really hadn’t wanted to look at the stillness in those long-dead eyes for the next twenty-five miles back to Hope. Besides, it was freezing out. And it just seemed, I don’t know, right to cover the poor, naked bastard, even if said bastard was dead.
The ride back into town had been a long one. It was a ride that took us through the densest of woods and along the most forgotten of trails, through a rugged landscape that still wasn’t showing the first signs of thawing. Winter in Alaska was a long one. So long, in fact, that it felt neverending. As we covered mile upon mile of white landscape, I wished to see the occasional fern popping up through the snow that might hint at the end of winter and the dawning of spring. Or the way the maples sported a reddish glow as new buds appeared at the tips of what were once bare and lifeless twigs. But, no, the branches of the maples were just as bare and