Page 3 of Close Her Eyes

Josie looked over at her sister. Trinity smiled, “It is Friday night!”

Drake raised a brow. “What do you think about axe throwing? There’s a place over on—”

Josie held up a hand to silence him. “Let me stop you right there. You two are not going axe throwing after you almost blew yourselves up.”

“Dinner and a movie it is,” said Noah.

They went to Josie’s favorite restaurant. Josie was having the best time she’d had in months. Later, as she settled into her seat at the movie theater with a giant tub of popcorn between her and Noah, she felt her phone vibrate inside her coat pocket. Passing the popcorn off to Noah, she pulled her phone out and groaned when she saw Mettner’s name flash across the screen.

“I knew you’d get a call!” Trinity said from her seat on the other side of Noah.

Josie looked over at her sister long enough to see Drake hand her a twenty-dollar bill. “Every time,” he mumbled.

Noah laughed. “Agent Nally, the eternal optimist.”

Josie swiped answer. “What’ve you got?”

Mettner said, “A body. Along Hempstead Trail, on the bank of Kettlewell Creek.”

TWO

The woman lay in a heap among the rocks next to the creek. Beyond her crumpled form, the murky water of Kettlewell Creek rushed and churned. Its level was high for February, and the wind whipped off its surface, reaching all the way up to where Josie stood along the asphalt trail that ran parallel to the water, now separated from the bank by crime scene tape. Hempstead Trail was on the northeast fringe of the city. Formerly it had consisted of a group of old houses two blocks to the east of the creek. The massive flooding a few years back had washed many of those houses away. The rest had been condemned and knocked down. City Council had ruled that the land would not support any new construction, so now it was considered a green area with a walking trail that spanned roughly a mile. Along the creek bank, Josie saw several of her colleagues picking their way carefully among the rocks, mud, and other debris as they took photos, sketched out the scene, and placed evidence markers.

Before she arrived, Mettner had called in their Evidence Response Team, headed by Officer Hummel. The ERT had cordoned off the scene from the road all the way to the water and set up lights throughout, turning the night to day. Josie found Hummel’s SUV, its hatch open, and retrieved a Tyvek suit, booties, gloves, and a skullcap. Her coat was too bulky to fit beneath the suit so she shed it, noting that the temperature had dropped precipitously since the grill explosion in her backyard. Ignoring the cold that enveloped her, she made her way back to the crime scene tape. A uniformed officer stood guard, clipboard in hand, making sure that only authorized personnel entered. He signed her in and then held the tape up so she could slip beneath it.

The ground sloped downward toward the water. It was mostly weeds, brush, and some trash: discarded soda bottles, beer cans, some cigarette butts, and a few food wrappers. The Tyvek booties slid a little in the mud as Josie made her way down to where a bed of rocks met the swirling creek water. A couple of the crime scene techs nodded at her. She nodded back and kept going to where Mettner stood near the body. The county medical examiner, Dr. Anya Feist, was on her knees, checking for any obvious signs of injury or trauma. The victim was young, probably late teens or early twenties, dressed in jeans, a puffy dark purple coat, hiking boots, and a gray knit cap with a pompom on it.

It was the pompom that twisted Josie’s gut.

Long, dark hair unfurled from beneath the hat, mussed. Strands lay across her right cheek while the rest of her locks were in disarray. One of her arms lay across her stomach while the other was extended over her head, its elbow bent. A gray, knit glove covered her right hand. The letters S.E. were sewn in black near the wrist. Her other hand was bare. Her feet were spread about a foot apart, one leg straight, the other bent slightly. She looked like a doll, haphazardly discarded.

“She fell?” Josie asked.

Mettner looked up from the notes app on his phone. “Oh, hey. Thanks for coming. We’re not sure.”

Dr. Feist gave Josie a grim smile. “Detective Quinn, always a pleasure.” With a gloved hand, she touched the woman’s chin and then her throat. “I don’t see any evidence of injury at all. Help me turn her, would you? I took the photos I need. Hummel already took pictures for the ERT. He said I could move her.”

Josie got down on her knees beside Dr. Feist. While the doctor clutched the woman’s shoulder, Josie slid one hand behind her hip and the other behind one of her knees. Although her body was the kind of cold that only the dead could produce, her limbs were slack. She hadn’t gone into rigor mortis yet. Slowly, they pulled her toward them. Josie held the woman in place while Dr. Feist brushed through the hair at the back of her head, searching for injuries. With a sigh, she said, “I don’t see anything here. Could be a closed head injury. Could also be natural causes.”

As they eased her back into place, Mettner pointed upward toward the road. “Could she have broken her neck on the way down? If she fell?”

Dr. Feist studied the woman’s face. “I suppose it’s possible, but that’s not a very steep incline. If she fell at the right angle, maybe. It’s also possible that she went into cardiac arrest or had a heart attack and fell.”

“She’s pretty young for those things, don’t you think?” asked Mettner.

“It’s still possible,” Josie said.

“We’ll run toxicology, too,” said Dr. Feist. “It could be an overdose of something. I do see a lot of that in young people these days. There could be injuries that aren’t visible. As I always say, I’ll know more when I get her on my table.” She stood up, wiping at her dirty kneecaps. “I’ll go up and let the EMTs know they can transport her.”

“Who found her?” asked Josie, watching Dr. Feist move carefully back up to the road.

Mettner swiped at his phone. “A woman named Jeanne Wack. She lives about a ten-minute walk from here. Her son is five years old. Evidently, they walk up and down this road every afternoon before dinner—it was still light out when they found the body. Her son looked down toward the water and saw purple, told his mom a lady was sleeping near the river. Ms. Wack made him wait up top while she checked on the victim. There was no pulse so she called 911. She said she didn’t recognize the deceased, and they did not see anyone else on foot nearby.”

Josie looked down at the woman’s face. Her eyes were open, brown irises fixed upward, unseeing. “Does she have any ID on her?” Josie asked.

Mettner nodded. He walked a few feet toward the water and pointed to an evidence marker that sat beside a brown purse. It was medium-sized with a long strap, and it rested on top of a flat rock, its zipper open. “We found this here. There was a wallet inside with a driver’s license belonging to nineteen-year-old Sharon Eddy of Denton. She lives a few blocks away.”

Josie squatted down and peered inside the purse. “She’s got cash in here and a phone.”

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