Page 31 of Colton in the Wild
“Appears to be a woman, long dark hair, mostly buried, but with her head and left arm above ground.” He got out his phone and brought up the string of photos he’d taken. He picked the one that best showed the position and condition of the body and showed it to them. They went very still.
“Arranged,” the one in plain clothes murmured.
“What I thought,” Spence agreed.
Dad had gone stiffly still beside him. Rigid, in fact. Belatedly, it hit him. He looked at his father apologetically. “Sorry, Dad. I didn’t think about—”
Ryan Colton let out an audible breath. “It’s all right, son. I just wasn’t prepared for that.”
The two cops were looking at Dad with interest. “It’s ancient family history,” Spence said quickly. “Almost thirty years ago ancient.”
Both men nodded then and he wondered how much of the Colton history was common knowledge around here. He’d never wondered that before, and he felt rather guilty that he’d so successfully put it out of his mind. True, he hadn’t even been born yet, but it had shaped his father and older cousin, and he should be more aware.
“Is this connected to the shooter you encountered?” asked Barton.
“No idea. Like I said, it looked like she’d been there a while.”
“What’s that on her hand?” Reynolds asked, peering closely at the image on the phone.
“A fake, I’d guess,” said Barton. “Nobody’d leave a real diamond that size behind.”
Spence hesitated then reached into his pocket and brought out the small bag with the ring they were staring at in the photo. “I know removing evidence isn’t good, but there were signs of recent animal predation in the vicinity, and I thought it would be better to have it than get there and find it’s vanished into some rodent den or something.”
The two law enforcement men stared at the bag. Barton reached out to take it, almost gingerly.
“I didn’t touch it directly,” Spence explained. “I used some sterile gauze that was in that bag, and it went right back in.”
Because I used all the rest of that gauze on Hetty’s leg.
“Look,” he said abruptly, “I need to get back and see how Hetty’s doing. If you want to talk to me more, come on inside.”
“We’ll need a formal statement from both of you,” Barton said, then, rubbing at his jaw, changed it to, “Two formal statements from both you and Ms. Amos.”
“Right now,” Spence insisted, “I need a formal statement from the doctor, saying she’s going to be all right.”
He didn’t get that when they first went inside. There was no news yet, he was told, and to please take a seat. After a brief conversation with the woman who appeared to be in charge of the emergency intake, Barton led Spence over to a private meeting room. He went, after his father nodded at him encouragingly, saying he’d stay right there and interrupt with any word on Hetty.
The room was very small, a table with two chairs on each side, and not much else. Except a painting on one wall that looked to Spence to be of a spot along Thompson Pass. A spot he’d been to a time or two, he thought as he studied the piece. He wondered idly who had painted it as he sat down.
It didn’t hit him until the two other men sat across from him that this was likely the private room where bad news got passed along. He suppressed a shiver, thinking about people who had probably had their lives upended in this room with word that their loved one or family member had not made it.
He shook it off and looked at Reynolds and Barton.
“You want this in chronological order or order of importance?” Not to him, of course. To him, Hetty was the most important, but he’d been around Eli and Kansas enough to know what these guys would consider important.
“Let’s start with the as-it-happened version,” Barton said.
Spence walked them through it, from the engine shutting down, Hetty’s skillful landing, them radioing for help, checking the area for any wildlife to be cautious around, setting up the campsite, even, embarrassedly, admitted he’d stupidly left his rifle in the storage shed, thinking he’d already checked for natural threats and he’d be right back anyway.
He’d never expected a human threat.
He went through the rest, ending with Dad’s arrival, thinking thatWe spent the night in the cavewas far too simple an explanation for what had really happened in those intervening hours.
“And you never saw the shooter?” Reynolds asked again.
“No. All I can tell you is what she told me.” He went through Hetty’s description of the man, including the possible scar that might not be a scar.
He didn’t know how long they’d been sitting there, going over it again and yet again, before the door opened. Rapidly, without even a knock. His father was there, a look of pained worry on his face.
