Page 16 of The Witch’s Orchard

TWELVE

D EPUTY AJ BARNES’S HANDS quiver as he slides them from his pockets.

“Jesus,” he says, just a whisper. I almost don’t hear it.

I called the sheriff’s station first, told them there was a body in the woods. Then I called Shiloh, told her what had happened, that Max would need someone with him. I couldn’t leave the body. Max deserved to be told about this in person, but I didn’t want him coming down and finding this scene.

I took a few pictures while I waited for the cops to show up.

I walked around the area, touching nothing, looking for anything that might help.

I found nothing. The windy mountain night had blown leaves all over the place and I didn’t want to walk more than five feet away from her with all the crows standing sentinel on the stones, looking down at her with hungry eyes and sharp mouths.

And then Sheriff Jacobs and Deputy Barnes and an older man in a suit and a female deputy with a bag full of camera gear all tromped down the Andrews side of the gorge, crossed the creek, and made their way up to the stones.

I watched them. And I waited.

And now they were here.

“Jesus,” Barnes says again.

“Is it her?” I whisper.

We are all trying to ignore the echoing of our words, all of us talking so low it’s as if we don’t want the forest to hear us and repeat what we’ve said.

“Barnes?” I whisper again. “Is it Molly?”

He shakes his head, says, “I don’t know. She was just a tiny little kid when I saw her last. Hell, I was just a kid.”

“It’s her,” Jacobs says. “It’s her. I’ve stared at those pictures long enough.”

He’s talking to himself, I realize. Not to me. His skin, which had been ruddy yesterday when he confronted me outside the bakery, is a sick gray color, and I think for a minute he might step away to vomit in the bushes.

He sighs instead, scrapes a rough palm over the stubble on his cheeks and chin, and then he turns to me and bears down with a hard stare.

But before he can open his mouth the little old man in the suit clears his throat and leads us all out of the stone circle, then says, “Strangulation. With, perhaps, a fabric belt or scarf. There are claw marks on her throat and blood under her nails. I’d guess she scratched at her own neck, trying to get whatever it was off.

” He pauses and sighs and then says, “I’ve still got Molly’s records on file.

Her dental will have changed but… I treated her when she sliced open her chin.

Six stitches. You can still see the suture marks. ”

He holds the tip of his index finger just over the scar.

“Ah, hell,” Deputy Barnes says. We turn and there’s another deputy and a pair of EMTs with a stretcher coming down the hill. Behind them, standing with his eyes screwed shut and his hand over his mouth, is Max Andrews.

I watch as Barnes takes off across the creek and scrambles up the side of the gorge toward Max. Beside me, Sheriff Jacobs is seething. His voice is all bitter bile as he bites out, “This is your doing.”

I don’t turn to look at him. I just watch as Barnes puts his hand on Max’s shoulder.

I say, “How is that?” I keep my tone soft, calm.

“You just had to ride into town with questions. Getting people riled up.”

“Max hired me to find his sister,” I say.

“Well, you sure as hell did.”

He moves away and directs the deputies. The female deputy opens up her bag and takes out a big DSLR camera and the flash goes off and off and off, and I watch as Shiloh emerges from the field and runs up to Max and puts her arms around him and he buries his face on her shoulder and cries.

“Yeah,” I say to myself. “I sure as hell did.”