Garden of Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the father.
    The mayor pocketed his cell phone. “Well?”
    He was an outsider and a relative newcomer, if you used the Tuonela time line. He’d lived there about ten years. A young businessman with a lot of plans for change, and he didn’t want those plans screwed up.
    “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Rachel thought about her moving truck parked outside. How far would she be by now? Halfway across Minnesota? Selfish of her, maybe. But she wasn’t thinking of just herself anymore.
    Alastair Stroud patted his shirt pocket and produced a small notebook and pen. “Was it a wild animal?”
    “It was, wasn’t it?” the mayor asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    “But it could have been, right?”
    “The skin was removed quickly and efficiently, with what looked like great precision. I don’t know how something like that could have been achieved. I’m not sure the most skilled surgeon in the world could have done something like that. And if it could be done, it would take hours. It would be tedious and sloppy. Skin will sometimes slip off after a body has been dead for a few days. I often remove the entire skin glove in order to get good prints, but this . . .” She shook her head.
    “The husband said she was gone for only a short time before he found her.” Alastair clicked his pen. “What could do that?”
    “Coyotes,” McBride said from the comfort of a stylish suit. “Had to be coyotes. I grew up on a farm. I know what a pack of them can do in just a matter of minutes.”
    “I couldn’t find any evidence of bite marks. Coyotes would have eaten at least part of the body.”
    “Maybe the husband scared them off,” Stroud suggested. “Maybe it wasn’t coyotes, but wild dogs. Or even tame dogs. Tame dogs don’t kill for food, they kill for fun.”
    True.
    “Chief Stroud and I have been talking, and we’re hoping you’ll stick around until we can find a replacement,” the mayor said.
    Finding a replacement wouldn’t be easy, since she played the unusual dual role of both coroner and medical examiner.
    “It would bring some reassurance to residents and visitors,” the mayor continued. “We don’t want to alarm people, not when we’re just getting the whole tourist thing off the ground. Your departure, on the heels of this ghastly death, will look odd.”
    “But I was leaving before it ever occurred.”
    “Most people won’t know that. Most people will look at it and think you ran. That maybe you were scared. And we know there’s nothing to be scared of. I’m going to put together a team. We’ll scour the area and find the coyotes or dogs and round them up.”
    That didn’t sound like a good idea. She was already imagining a mass slaughter of innocent animals.
    “You feeling okay?” Alastair asked. “You look a little pale.”
    It was all too much. I thought I was getting the hell out of here , she wanted to shout.
    She had to get away before the baby was born.
    She’d hoped to be settled in California, find a good obstetrician and pediatrician. She couldn’t have the baby here. Not in Tuonela.
    She tugged off the disposable gown and wadded it up. “I’ll be fine.”
    “So you’ll stay?” the mayor asked.
    “I’ll think about it.”
    The mayor’s cell phone rang. He excused himself and stepped outside for a better signal, leaving Rachel alone with Alastair Stroud.
    He’d aged since she’d last seen him. He was still a nice-looking man, now with a thick head of snow white hair that seemed to have turned overnight.
    “How’s Graham?” she asked.
    Alastair closed and pocketed the notebook. “I’m trying to talk him and Evan into moving back to town. There’s plenty of room for all of us in that big house. It’s not really my house anyway; it’s Evan’s. I don’t know what he moved out there for. I guess he thinks he’s saving an important part of history.”
    “It shouldn’t be saved.” It was no secret that she and Evan had disagreed about Old