“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 lifeless now as they had been two months ago.
Not wanting to lose myself in my own wistful thoughts, I considered what Miguel had said about burning John Doe. And all I could picture were those frozen eyes thawing in the heat of the fire as the flames consumed them. Apparently, burning was the only way to keep the body from rising again, whatever the hell that meant. According to Miguel, the silver dagger was only a placeholder, of sorts.
“So he’s not really dead?”
“Oh, he’s dead. It’s just that...” Miguel had shrugged, and then went silent for a few seconds, as if he were considering how much to tell an outsider. I’d encouraged him to continue, and he’d added, “It’s just that we don’t take chances out here.”
Later, as I’d followed behind on my own snowmobile, the sheet flapped in the arctic wind and I’d occasionally caught sight of the man’s face and the shocked expression in his eyes. Yes, I was accustomed to seeing surprise in the eyes of the dead, but this one still struck me as different, even now, even while I was standing here beside Dr. Moody and staring down at the corpse before us. There was just something about his eyes, about the shock in their depths.
His eyes don’t look dead, I suddenly thought to myself as I glanced down at the body, which was spread out on the gurney before me.
I shook my head at the absurdity of my thoughts and nearly asked Dr. Moody what he thought of John Doe’s expression, but it wasn’t the good doctor’s job to determine a victim’s expression. It was his job to perform an autopsy, which he’d already confirmed he had.
“Any suspicious death requires one, Chief,” Dr. Moody said as he bobbed back and forth in his desk chair. Then he gave me a broad smile that said he liked calling me by my title. “Although we try to honor local Native American customs when possible,” he continued, “in this case, I would assume our mystery man was First Nations, but there’s no way of knowing which tribe. There were no identifying marks or tattoos on his body. No scarification, or traditional dress.” Then he shrugged and looked slightly embarrassed. “He wasn’t dressed at all, was he?”
I just shook my head.
He cocked his head to the side and then shrugged. “It’s a shame because we could have learned something had he been. Anyway, in this case, state law trumps cultural heritage, because he wasn’t found on tribal land.”
I nodded again. I knew all of this already. But this was the first dead body I’d come across in my position as police chief of Hope, and, as such, my first interaction with Dr. Moody in any official capacity. Unofficially, I’d found the man to be an incorrigible flirt even though his desk was cluttered with framed pictures of grandkids, dogs and a wife, though heavier on the grandkids and dogs.
“I determined the cause of death was a stab wound to the chest, although it just missed the heart,” the doctor continued as he drummed his fingers along the faux wood of his desk. “Hypothermia would have played a role, too. A naked man in the woods, in the depths of winter, would have lasted only a minute or less. Unless his clothing was removed later.”
I, too, had pondered the whole naked bit. Thought about it hard. John Doe’s clothing could have been removed, maybe by whoever stabbed him. Maybe the killer needed his clothing? But I hadn’t seen evidence of any clothing caught in the teeth of the blade. And there hadn’t been any indication that John Doe’s clothes had been cut away in the first place. For all intents and purposes, the man seemed to have been naked when stabbed. Naked in the woods, in the middle of one of our coldest winters on record.
“Whisperings are that he’s a shape-shifter,” I said with a shrug. It wasn’t that I believed any of it. It was all nonsense as far as I was concerned, but I wanted to see where the doctor stood on the subject. “I keep hearing things about werewolves.”
Dr. Moody chuckled and his laughter seemed to ripple through his belly. He reminded me of Santa Claus. He was just missing the white beard and red suit. “Yes, there are those who believe in that sort of thing.” He gave a quick nod. “But us educated folk know better.”
I nodded, but his comment rubbed me the wrong way. “You mean ‘we’,” I offered, to which he gave me a confused frown. “It’s actually ‘we educated folk’,” I continued. “Not ‘us’.”
“We, us, same difference,” Dr. Moody responded curtly, apparently not very pleased at having his grammar corrected. He cleared his throat and faced me squarely. “Do you have any leads, Chief?”
I nodded. I’d spent the morning talking to our only lead, a hunter from Missouri who’d been tracking musk ox, a beastly, if not primitive, creature that, admittedly, I’d never heard of until moving to Alaska. To me, it looked like something out of the latest Star Wars movie.
Anyway, the hunter had stumbled across the body and then he’d immediately called us. As ordered, he’d stayed long enough for us to locate him. After getting his initial statement and contact info, I’d sent him on his way. Later on, I’d met with him at his rented lodge outside of town, and ordered him to walk me through everything again. At the end of our conversation, it was pretty obvious he hadn’t seen anything and didn’t know anything. It had just been dumb luck that he’d stumbled on the body before bears or wolves had. Then again, Alaska was a big-ass place. Hard to stumble on anything out here, let alone the rare dead body…
Naturally, I’d asked him how often he hunted in Alaska. Once or twice a year, he’d answered. I’d asked him if he was here with someone. No, he was alone. I’d asked him how the hunting was, and he’d said, “No musk ox yet.”