Angels Fall

a vault, her car gone. Figured she'd lit out."
    He dug for more eggs. "Wanted to talk to you about it. You could've bowled me over when I saw her back there in the kitchen this morning. Some relieved by it, I guess. I hated thinking she was out driving off somewhere in the state she was in."
    "People get in states, Mac." Doc waved a hand at Mac's stubborn frown. "Some more than others. Plain to see she had a rough time yesterday."
    "That's the other thing." Mac glanced over to make sure Linda-gail wasn't on her way back to top off their coffee. Though the juke was silent—no music until ten o'clock was Joanie's hard-and-fast rule—there was enough buzz of conversation and clatter to cover his voice.
    "First off, seems to me Rick should've known better than to have her come in alone to look at those pictures. Chnssake, Doc, most women couldn't have handled that sort of thing, much less one who's had the kind of time Reece has. He should've had you there."
    "Well now, Mac, I don't know why Rick would've thought to call me. I'm a family doctor, not a psychiatrist."
    "Should've had you there," Mac said, setting his jaw. "And second, from what she said in my place, she's saying it wasn't the woman she saw.
    Now. Doc, it damn near has to be, doesn't it? This isn't New York City or whatnot. We don't get people murdered right and left in these parts"

    "I don't know what you're getting at."
    "I'm wondering if, in the circumstances of all this, she just doesn't want it to be the same woman. Maybe she's hanging on to it too hard."
    Doc smiled thinly. "Who's playing shrink now?"
    "Working behind the counter for a couple decades is as good as being a shrink. Not everybody believed that girl when she said she'd seen that woman attacked." Mac added with another wag of his fork. "I did. Just like I believe that same poor woman ended up dead in that marsh. Reece can't handle it, that's what I think."
    "May be."
    "Well, you're the doctor. Help her out."
    "Don't you two look all serious and secretive." Linda-gail tipped coffee from the pot into their mugs.
    "Sitting here with your heads together."
    "Man talk," Doc said with a wink.
    "Sex, sports or horses?"
    Doc only grinned and forked up more pancakes.
    "How's Reece doing today?" Mac asked Linda-gail.
    "Better than yesterday, I'd say." She glanced over her shoulder. "Either of you hear if the sheriff's got word on that woman's identity?"
    "Haven't heard anything today, but it's early yet. Terrible thing," Doc added.
    "Scary, too, thinking we might have somebody around here killing women. Moose Ponds's a good way from the Fist, but still."
    "Women? ' Mac frowned.
    "If it's not the one Reece saw, then it's two different women. And okay, sure, Moose Ponds is all the way up by Jenny Lake, but maybe the same person did both of them. Like a serial killer or something."
    "Oh now, Linda-gail." Mac shook his head. "You're watching too much TV."
    "They wouldn't make so many TV shows about killing it people didn't go around killing, would they?
    And you know what else?" She lowered her voice now. "It Reece hadn't been up on the trail, just at the right time, nobody'd know anything about that woman. Could be this killer's done it before. I can tell you, I'll be sticking close to home until they catch him."
    "Now hell, that's another problem." Mac scratched at his head as Linda-gail walked away. "'Before you know it, people in the Fist'll be looking cross-eyed at each other, wondering it we got some psycho serial killer in our midst. Or some damn reporter'll write about it that way. and the tounsts'll bypass us, and 
    we'll lose the summer season. Some hothead will have one too many down at Clancy's and start a fight over it."
    Doc frowned thoughtfully. "On that one, at least, you may have a point."

    SINCE HE STILL had an hour before office hours, Doc went up to the sheriff's office before heading home. Denny sent him a sunny smile. "How you doing. Doc?"
    "Can't complain. Your ma have any trouble with that ankle?"
    "No. She's up and around just fine."
    "You tell her I don't want her doing any jigs just yet. That was a nasty sprain. Your boss around?"
    "Not yet. He's got till ten, unless something hits. Sheriff's been putting in a lot of late hours lately. Guess you heard about the body they found."
    "I did. Any word on who she is?"
    "Nothing's come in this morning yet. Sure is a hell of a thing. Son of a bitch must've kept her alive a couple weeks. God knows what he did to her all that