Free Slickrock Paradox by Stephen Legault

interview me again, I’ll bring a lawyer. Otherwise, I’m washing my hands of this. Good luck, Agent Taylor,” Silas said, looking at the man, who was still seated. “I hope you do a better job finding this young lady’s killer than you have done finding my wife.”
    Silas walked to the door and tried to turn the handle but it was locked. He looked at Willis. “Dex, would you open the goddamned door, please?”
    Willis walked over and knocked. One of his deputies opened the door. Silas walked past the maze of cubicles that amounted to the Grand County Sheriff’s Office and into the growing heat of the day.

SILAS SAT IN THE OUTBACK until the heat became oppressive. He decided to go to his Red Rock Canyon bookstore instead of home. He drove through the stifling streets and soon arrived at the store. Inside, he dumped the mail and the newspapers on the desk and sat down at his computer. He wanted to look at the various news sites for anything on Penelope.
    A story in the Salt Lake Tribune caught his eye: “Body found in Arches NP by hiker.” He’d grown so accustomed to scanning for such a story that his eye was naturally attracted to it. But the bones weren’t Penelope’s and he was the “hiker” noted in the story. He scanned the article and felt a wave of relief that he hadn’t been named. The story noted that the FBI had been called in and that the circumstances surrounding the death were suspicious, but that a murder investigation hadn’t officially begun yet.
    Yet . Silas knew that within a matter of hours, or maybe days, the FBI would announce that the young Native American woman had been murdered. He read the rest of the story and considered for a moment how he would feel if it was Penelope’s body he was reading about. He felt a strange kinship with whoever had lost this young woman only to have her turn up murdered. When the FBI identified the skeletal remains, they would send someone to find this young woman’s husband, or her parents, or maybe her siblings, and inform them of her murder.
    Silas sat at his desk and considered the case for a moment. The body had been hidden—likely buried—under the cottonwood, for a long time, Dr. Rain had said. Any trail leading to a killer would have grown cold in the intervening years.
    Silas shook his head and continued his online search. There were more stories about the corpse in Courthouse Wash, but nothing else that would lead him to his wife. He shut his computer down. The ring of the telephone at his elbow startled him and he waited for a second ring to compose himself.
    â€œHello?” he said into the receiver, forgetting to add the name of his shop.
    â€œSilas, that you? It’s Ken.”
    â€œHi Ken.”
    â€œI’ve been trying to call you all morning!”
    â€œI think my cell phone is dead. Literally dead. Got a little water and sand in it.”
    â€œOf course. Did they ID the . . . the remains?”
    â€œIt’s not Penny,” said Silas. “I was wrong.”
    â€œWho is it?”
    â€œThey don’t know.”
    â€œThen how do they know it’s not Penny?” Silas explained to Ken what Rain had told him that morning. “What are you going to do?”
    â€œGo home. Get some sleep.”
    â€œNo, I mean about the remains?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œ You found it.”
    â€œKen, this isn’t a kid’s game. It’s not finders keepers. The FBI will handle it.”
    â€œLike they handled Penny,” said Ken, echoing Silas’s own doubt-filled sentiments.
    â€œIt’s not my problem. I’m going to go home, sleep, rest my ankle, and as soon as I can, I’m going to start looking again.”
    â€œSilas, don’t you think you found that young woman for a reason?”
    â€œWhat the hell are you talking about?”
    â€œYour dream.”
    â€œYou said so yourself,