Free The Frailty of Flesh by Sandra Ruttan Page A

her a small smile.
    She half smiled back, one side of her mouth turning up. Those smiles lit her eyes differently. It wasn’t happiness; it was amusement. In this case, wry amusement, probably centered on Officer Parker and his ego.
    “Was the water this high when you found the bag?” Ashlyn asked once they reached the spot along the shore.
    “It’s risen a bit, but not much,” Sims said. “We found the knapsack here.” He pointed to a spot, pressed up right against the water, where a dead tree hung out over the inlet. “It was caught on one of the branches.”
    Tain didn’t even need to look at Ashlyn to feel her smile. “Guess that’s our quota for this case blown,” he said.
    She started to laugh. “And yet the sweater was wet, so the evidence may be contaminated. A defense attorney can argue someone stuffed their sweater into a bloody knapsack, unknowingly. I’d hoped we’d find some evidence of Shannon’s movements, if she came down here to toss the bag in the water.
    “And what about her pants?” Tain asked. “Wouldn’t they have blood all over them? Why dump a sweater and not the pants?”
    Ashlyn shook her head. “Not a break in sight with this investigation.”
    Tain saw the question on Sims’s face as he looked from one of them to the other. “Luck, Sims. I doubt whoever threw that bag meant for it to hook on the tree so we’d find it. They meant for it to be underwater.”
    “Where was Christopher found, exactly?” Ashlyn asked.
    Sims led them up the shore a short distance. From there they had a clear view to the spot where the bag had been located.
    Tain reached down and picked up a heavy stick. He threw it at the tree and bounced it right off the spot where the bag had been recovered.
    “Any identifying marks on the baseball bat?” he asked Sims, who shook his head.
    “No name.”
    “Okay, Sims. I want a detailed description of the bat on my desk when I get back to the station. You need to get the bat, the bag and the sweater to the lab right away. I also want a thorough description of the hoodie and anything that might indicate who was wearing it.” Tain put his hand up when Sims appeared about to interrupt. “What kind of bag was it?”
    “A black knapsack. Nothing on it to say who it belonged to, but I’ll have a general description of it for you, along with the sweater and the bat. And as soon as we have information on the shoe prints I’ll update you immediately.”
    “Good.” Tain turned and started to walk, Ashlyn following him without more than a quick glance at Sims.
    “I thought you liked him,” she said after a moment. When he didn’t respond she said, “Out with it.”
    He stopped. “Look, we have a job to do here. Maybe if he wasn’t so anxious to impress he would have found the trail through the woods himself.”
    “There are a lot of other people to point fingers at. The officers who searched the section of the woods nearest the road may have missed Christopher Reimer entirely.” She paused. “You remember what they said when I ordered the search? We had no grounds to search the woods. We weren’t just looking for possible witnesses; we were looking for a murder weapon. It’s standard procedure to search the area, and since there are trails that go through the woods it’s a logical place to try to hide a weapon, and it’s also a possible avenue of escape.”
    The PoMo police officers, Parker in particular, had given Ashlyn attitude about her orders. She was right, but that wasn’t even what nagged at Tain now.
    Something Sims said, about why he sent men back out there, and something else about Christopher Reimer that wasn’t adding up.
    Before Ashlyn could ask what he was thinking he said, “Do you have an address for that witness?”
    She nodded. “I just hope he has something useful for us.”
    Even this early in the afternoon traffic was already starting to build. In British Columbia’s Lower Mainland, at this time of day rush-hour traffic