Practice to Deceive

had suffered an accident, to a drunk sleeping it off, or to a suicide. The latter was the most likely; the holiday season is depressing for many people, and anyone who staffs crisis lines or works in public safety knows that suicides peak around Christmas and New Year’s.
    To get to Wahl Road from the shopping center in Freeland, most drivers take Fish Road from Freeland’s shopping center, turning left on Woodard to its end, left on Lancaster Road, and then right on Wahl. Double Bluff beach was on the same side as the address given, and Mutiny Bay was across the road beyond a row of houses there.
    Sergeant Norrie drove slowly down the narrow dirt driveway. He spotted the vehicle in question and saw that it was a yellow GEO Tracker, license number 128-NXQ. As he got out of his patrol unit fifteen feet away, Norrie immediately saw that the GEO’s front passenger door was open, and the dome light illuminated the front seat area. He could see a white male with short brown hair slumped over the steering wheel.
    As he approached the open door, Norrie saw that the driver had apparently suffered serious head trauma. His forehead bulged with some kind of matter and large globules of blood. The man’s flannel shirt was soaked with drying red stains and Norrie noted that the driver’s-side door panel was also splattered with what appeared to be blood.
    Still, Norrie wasn’t sure yet if the man was alive and unconscious or deceased. He moved to the driver’s window, which was lowered about four inches. Not really expecting a response, he spoke aloud, identifying himself as a sheriff’s deputy, as he reached in to touch the silent man’s right shoulder.
    He felt no life at all; rigor mortis was well established, leaving the dead man frozen in his position behind the wheel.
    Paramedics Darren Reid and William Brooks from Whidbey Island Fire Station 3 arrived a minute or so after Norrie did.
    “I think he’s gone,” Norrie told Reid. “He’s in almost full rigor.”
    Reid checked and confirmed what Norrie said.
    The obvious expectation was that this violent death would prove to be a suicide.
    The bleak spot in the woods was soon crowded with responders. A few minutes later, Officer Leif Haugen of the Langley Police Department and Deputy Laura Price of the sheriff’s office joined Norrie. They had passed some EMT rigs and an ambulance leaving the address given, but there were no sirens. That probably meant that whoever was down the driveway was dead.
    Haugen and Norrie began to seal off a crime-scene area with yellow crime-scene tape while Price started taking photographs.
    She saw that the dead man was probably in his early to midthirties. He had sandy-blond hair, and he obviously hadn’t shaved for a few days. The coagulated mass of blood seemed to be from a wound right in the center of his forehead at the bridge of his nose. Oddly, he had fragments of blue glass in his hair. Wondering at first what they were, Laura Price found the lens from sunglasses on the passenger side resting near the seat. Then she spotted the blue frame from the sunglasses on the driver’s-side floor.
    It had been a gloomy few days and she wondered why anyone would be wearing sunglasses.
    She saw that rain and some tree debris had blown into the passenger side, and noticed an envelope and other mail lying on the floor there, along with cans and paper cups. She looked in the backseat of the GEO; she saw no blood—only clothing, shoes, and trash—but she couldn’t see exactly what was there because of the dim light, and she didn’t want to disturb them.
    Looking through the back window, Deputy Price observed a snow sled with coats lying on top of it.
    The dead man had bled heavily and his plaid shirt, crotch, and thighs were drenched with it. The seat belt had blood on it, but it wasn’t latched.
    His hands were also covered with blood and the steering wheel had grip imprints from his stained fingers. Price saw that he wore white socks with flip-flops, but the left-foot sandal was missing.
    Moving around the vehicle, Laura Price took many photographs with 35-millimeter film.
    Once the scene was contained and preliminary photos were taken, Rick Norrie asked Haugen and Price to begin a tentative canvass of nearby houses to see if anyone had heard anything unusual coming from the Blacks’ property in the past few days.
    * * *
    W HEN NICOLE LUA SAW blue lights whirling atop several deputy sheriffs’ cars a few doors down, she walked over