She moved on, discovering another set of boot tracks, then a large area where something might have bedded down—likely deer, but there were some larger animals in the area, too.
She took a step, and her boot struck something hard. Feeling a rush of excitement, she reached down and pulled out a clear beer bottle, the label long since disintegrated. She set it upright beside a tree and kept moving, searching the snow for anything that didn’t belong.
Halfway across the patch of woods, she found a trail that had been used by more than one person. This deep in the woods, she wasn’t sure how long it took the snow to filter to the ground. Overhead it was still thick in the trees, making it impossible to say if snow from the last storm had touched the ground here. There were other businesses on the far side of the woods and houses on the streets a mile or so beyond. It was conceivable that some of the bar’s patrons walked home this way, though from what she’d seen, Hagen residents didn’t worry much about driving under the influence. Hagen’s motto was more “Why walk when you can drive?”
The woods grew darker as she walked. Her eyes were getting tired when the flashlight beam struck something. She blinked, and it seemed to vanish. Then she saw it again. She studied the shadow. In one area, the snow was packed down and tinged a pinkish shade. But what would tint the snow that way? Blood? She looked around. Way out here?
Kylie bent down, aiming the flashlight. It could definitely be blood. She leaned over to take a picture with her phone, but the image was too dark to see the pinkish shade. Using the flash made everything white. She shoved the phone back into her pocket and freed her hands to collect some of the snow. She needed a way to mark the spot in case it was the scene of the killing.
As she reached to retrieve an evidence bag from her pocket, something rustled nearby. A shadow crossed her vision. She twisted around, but there was nothing. She turned back, and the light from her flashlight blinked twice and went dark. She slapped it against her palm. Tried flipping it on and off. No luck. Loosening the bulb section and screwing it tight again didn’t help either. These flashlights never just died.
Returning her attention to the ground, she tried to find the pinkish tint again. Still squatting, she whacked the flashlight on a nearby tree, tried the on/off switch again. Not even a flicker. “Damn it.”
She closed her eyes and opened them, as though rebooting her vision. It was too dim. She pulled out her phone again to use the flashlight, but the device caught on the edge of her pocket and flew from her hand.
Another crackle of shifting branches made her scan the woods, but the shadows of the trees made the forest feel like dusk rather than noon. A shadow darted from her left. Gasping, she went to duck when a large white-tailed deer leaped between the trees, then slowed to a trot.
“Damn,” Kylie whispered, trying to catch her breath. She patted the ground in front of her. Where the hell was her phone?
Her pulse began to beat a haunting drum.
You’re just in the woods. Thirty feet from your cruiser, from backup. If she had to, she could go back and get another flashlight. She patted the snow, everything hard and indistinct under her gloves. She pulled them off and patted again, feeling the cold crunch of snow.
She thought she saw the black phone when a light shone full in her face.
She cried out and covered her eyes with her hand. “What the hell?”
“There you are.” The light shifted, and Carl Gilbert’s face appeared in the beam of the flashlight. “You drop your phone?”
She scanned his face, her heart still racing. “Yeah.”
“It’s there,” he said, stepping past her and reaching into the snow right where she swore she’d been searching.
She picked it up and put it back in her pocket. Pulling her gloves back on, she was still fighting to calm her racing heart.
“Find anything?” he asked.
“Some blood, I think.” She waved him over. “Shine your light right here.”
The two of them located the pinkish spot. “I think we’ll want to collect some snow,” she said.
“I can do it,” Gilbert said. “Vogel was trying to reach you on the radio.”
She hesitated.
“I got this,” Gilbert said again, pulling a small plastic container from one pocket. Almost like he’d known he’d need it. She’d brought an evidence bag, she reminded herself. But he had a container.
Hesitant to leave, she watched him scoop snow into the container. He held it out to her, the pinkish tint visible through the clear plastic under the bright beam of his flashlight. What did the DA want? Glen Vogel was mostly a pain in her ass. A big man in his late fifties, he was an old-fashioned misogynist. The only redeeming thing about Vogel was his wife, who liked to show up at the station with baked goods, her demeanor cheery and kind. But Kylie had to admit the thing that endeared her most was Mrs. Vogel’s raspberry–white chocolate scones.
“We should mark the spot, too,” she said. “So we can find it again.”
“Good idea,” Gilbert said. He looked around for a second, then pulled a large pocketknife from his pocket. He thumbed a button, and the blade released. On the nearest tree, he carved an X into the bark. Then he did the same to another tree. “If you want to wait a minute, I can walk you back out,” he said. “It’s kind of dark.” He reached for a third tree, and Kylie turned to leave.
“I’m fine,” she told him and started walking before he could argue.
At her car, she climbed inside and brought out her phone to call Vogel. She felt light headed and winded, as though she’d run a long distance. Gilbert had startled her, was all. She stared down at the worthless flashlight, tossed it on the passenger seat, and turned on the engine.
The first thing DA Vogel said when her call was patched through was, “We’re going to hold off on searching the bar.”
Kylie clenched her phone with an iron grip and forced herself to use her nice-lady voice. “Sir, it’s urgent that we search the premises as soon as possible if we want to avoid losing potential evidence. We found blood in the woods.”
“Blood?”
“Yes. In the snow.”
As soon as the words were out, she recalled the white-tailed deer. Surely animals died in those woods all the time. But then where were the bones?
“We’re collecting a sample for the lab,” she told him.
“Good,” DA Vogel said, and she could hear the squeal of his big leather desk chair. Every time he leaned back in that thing, it shrieked like a pig about to be slaughtered. With all 230 pounds of him on the worn-out springs, the chair would surely fail. How she wished it would happen while she was watching. “We’re still going to wait on the bar,” he said. “There’s nothing to indicate the crime happened there.”
Hagen had a murder—an actual murder—and the first real crime since she’d arrived from Fargo eight months ago. As the town’s only detective, if she solved this one, she had a chance at a spot in Fargo. And damn if eight months in this place wasn’t seven months and twenty-nine days too long. “Sir—” she began, formulating a plea in her mind.
“You interviewed how many people who were in the bar?” Vogel interrupted.
Kylie gritted her teeth. A bunch of drunkards being wooed by women in short skirts. Not a reliable source.