Angels Fall

sandwich, thinking of his wife and three daughters. He didn't want his baby wearing makeup. But she'd wear him down on it, he already knew. His oldest had his mother's tenacity.
    With a sigh, he stuffed the paper napkin in the take-out bag, tossed it away. And pouring a second cup of coffee, he went over Reece's statement in his head, winding his way—again—through the details, the timing. With a shake of his head, he added powdered creamer to his col-fee, carried it back to his office.
    He, too, booted up his computer. It was time to find out more about Reece Gilmore than she had no criminal record and came from Boston.
    He spent several hours searching, reading, making calls and taking notes. When it was done, he had a file and, after some internal debate, stored it in the bottom drawer of his desk.
    It was late when he left the office for home, wondering if his wife had waited up.
    And when he drove by Angel Food, he noted that the light still burned in the apartment upstairs.
     
    AT SEVEN-THIRTY in the morning while Reece was struggling to concentrate on buttermilk pancakes and eggs over easy, Brody armed himself with a thermos of coffee and climbed into Rick's car.
    "Morning. Appreciate you going out with me, Brody."
    "No problem. I'll think of it as research."
    Rick's smile came and went. "Guess you could say we've got a mystery on our hands. How long again did you say it was from the time Reece said she saw this happen until you got back there with her?"
    "I don't know how long it took her to get down to me. She was running, and I was already heading up the trail. No more than ten minutes, at a guess. Five minutes, I'd say, before we headed back, maybe another ten, fifteen to get to where she'd stopped."
    "And her state of mind when you saw her?"
    Irritation crackled. "Like you'd expect it to be when a woman sees another woman strangled to death."
    "All right now. Brody, don't go thinking I don't understand the situation. The thing is, I have to look at this differently. I want to know if she was coherent, if she was clear."
    "After the first couple minutes, yeah. You take into consideration that she was miles from help, from any way to get help—other than me— that it was her first time on that particular trail. That she was alone, shocked, scared and helpless while she watched it happen."
    "Through binoculars, across the Snake River." Rick held up a hand. "Might've happened just the way she said, but I have to factor in the circumstances, and the lack of evidence. Can you tell me you're sure, without a doubt, she wasn't mistaken? Maybe saw a couple of people having an argument, even saw this man she says she saw hit this woman."
    He'd given it a lot of thought the night before. Gone over the details himself, point by point. And he remembered her face—clammy and pale, her eves huge, glassy and deep.
    A woman didn't wear abject terror when she witnessed an argument between strangers. "I believe she saw exactly what she said she did. What she told me on the trail, and what she's told you three times in her statements. She hasn't veered off the details, not once."
    Rick puffed out his cheeks. "You're right about that. Are you two involved?"
    "In what?"
    Rick snorted out a laugh. "I gotta like you, Brody. You're a smart son of a bitch. Are you two personally involved with each other?"
    "What difference does it make?"
    "Information always makes a difference in an investigation."
    "Then why don't you just ask me it I'm sleeping with her?"
    "Well now, that was an attempt to be sensitive and subtle." Rick said with the faintest of smirks. "But all right, then. Are you sleeping with her?"
    "No."
    "All right, then," he repeated.
    "What if I said yes?"
    "Then I'd factor that information in, like a good law-enforcement official. Your business is your business, Brody. Except, of course, that sort of business gets around town quick as a cat pouncing on a mouse. Nothing so interesting as sex, whether you're having it, or talking about someone else doing it."
    "I'd rather have sex than talk about it."
    "That'd be you." The smile came and went once more. "And me, come to that."
    They drove awhile in silence until Rick pulled off the road.
    "Easiest spot to cut through and reach the place by the river you showed me on the map."
    Brody slung a small pack over his shoulder. Even for such a short hike, it wasn't wise to set out without the essentials. They moved through sagebrush and forest, where the soft dirt held