Free Twisted Reason by Diane Fanning

Hirschhorn rushed forward, hoping and dreading the find of another slipper – or the body of a young girl.
    He’d planted another half dozen flags before the pond came into view. He exhaled noisily. He certainly didn’t want to find a drowned child but he knew from the start that it was a possibility. He walked a few yards forward when he saw it – a flash of fabric among the reeds on the edge of the water. He broke into a run.
    He saw the tendrils of hair floating on the surface and shouted out, “Hannah!” before realizing that the body was too long for a child. He knelt in the mud and pulled the head out of the water, flipping an elderly woman – obviously deceased – on her back.
    Hirschhorn knew it was time to call in the state boys. The pond would have to be searched, both for evidence in the case of the dead woman and the possibility of locating Hannah. Drained, dredged or dived, that was the state’s purview. He placed the call.
    He selected a few deputies to stay with him to conduct a perimeter survey of the pond and secure the crime scene. He sent the rest of the group on to continue the search for the little girl. He hoped they would find her far away from the pond; if she was here, the news would not be good.
    He divided up the men with him into two groups of three and headed them off in opposite directions around the body of water. They poked poles into the reeds that ringed most of the pond and jabbed them into the muck a few inches into the water. He was grateful it was early in the year – a few months from now and they’d all be welted from mosquito bites. The searchers were about two-thirds up each side when someone opposite Hirschhorn called out, “Found another one!”
    “Hannah?” Hirschhorn asked.
    “Nope. This is a man. Gray hair. But not much of a face left. ID ain’t gonna be easy.”
    Hirschhorn clumped around the far end of the pond, scanning the water’s edge as he went. He looked down at the body and its animal-ravaged face. He couldn’t recall any open cases of missing elderly in the county – not any that would have been gone long enough for that much damage. He’d have to call back to the office. For that matter, he’d have to check with the city, too. It wasn’t too far a drive from there to dump a body here.
    They finished up the perimeter search and strung the tape, tree to tree, around the whole area. He’d called his administrative assistant. She was checking their files, would call the city missing persons department and report back.
    There was nothing to do now but wait for the state folks to arrive. And hope when they got here, they didn’t find a third body. And if they did, to pray that it wasn’t Hannah.

 
     
    Fourteen
     
    Lucinda pushed her arms through the turquoise, knee-length lab coat and tied it behind her. She secured her hair at the back of her neck and put on a surgical cap. She slipped into booties, slid on rubber gloves and donned a pair of goggles. A mask hung around her neck, ready to be raised when the cutting started.
    She pushed through the stainless steel swinging doors into the autopsy suite. The room smelled funky but not nasty – they worked on the really bad cases in an isolated room with its own separate ventilation system for which Lucinda was eternally grateful. Poor Edgar Humphries’ nude body lay on the stainless steel, buttocks up, as Dr. Sam performed his external examination. He raised his eyes as he saw her approach. “Pierce.”
    “Doctor,” she responded.
    “This is a sorry thing for a man to endure at the end of a decent life,” Dr. Sam said. “Hope the good Lord lets me die of natural causes in front of a busload of doctors and a barrelful of nurses. Anything to spare me this final indignity. Autopsies are dreadful things.”
    “But Dr. Sam, I’ve always appreciated the way you’ve insisted on respect for the deceased. There’s never been anything out of order in your morgue.”
    “Respect is all well and