Dream Chasers by Barbara Fradkin Page B

MacPhail intoned, showing none of the glee that usually accompanied even the grisliest of deaths. His mood was reflected in the faces of all the police officers on the scene. They had known the odds and read the danger signals, but they had hoped against all reason that they would find her alive. Dejection radiated from their slumping shoulders and their listless search of the grounds. There was no urgency now, no race against time. There never had been.
    On his way to the scene, Green had pushed through the media, who were pinned back in the park above, mercifully out of sight. They were suitably sombre, waxing poetic as they spun the sparse information they’d been given into full-bodied stories of Lea’s ill-fated end. Green knew that within minutes, the news would be on all the airwaves, reaching her school, her friends, and her mother. Someone needed to get to the woman first.
    He eyed the body, which appeared to be naked. Lea’s mother had said the bikini came off easily, and Green wondered whether the river had torn it free, or some human hand.
    â€œHas MacPhail said anything about sexual assault?” he asked Sullivan.
    Sullivan shook his head. “So far he’s observed no signs of trauma, except some tearing of the skin on her shoulders and hips. Post mortem, he said, likely caused by the rocks in the river.”
    â€œThank God for that small mercy. It might be a comfort to her mother, if anything could be. She needs to be informed before she catches the whole discovery on TV .”
    Sullivan nodded. “I sent Bob Gibbs and a woman from Victim Support over to give her the news. They’ll bring her to the morgue for the ID when MacPhail gives us the word.”
    The two detectives watched in silence as MacPhail prowled around the body with his powerful flashlight, probing every inch and frequently signalling Cunningham to photograph a particular detail. Cunningham’s partner could be seen stalking through the trees on the island, marking every broken beer bottle, used condom and cigarette butt to be photographed and collected. On this picturesque little island a stone’s throw from Carleton University campus, there were sure to be plenty of all three.
    It felt like an eternity before MacPhail straightened up, nodded to Cunningham and headed back towards Green and Sullivan. He strode through the water, oblivious as it engulfed his hiking boots.
    â€œI came prepared for dirt and trees, not water,” he announced in his booming Scottish brogue. Dr. Alexander MacPhail hadn’t been near the Highlands in the last thirty of his sixtyodd years, but managed to sound more Scottish with each passing year. The joke in the police force was that he was drinking up Scotland shot by shot. It did not appear to diminish his acumen one bit, however.
    He snapped off his latex gloves and crushed Green’s hand in his powerful grip. “I thought you were on holidays, laddie.”
    Green stifled a grimace at the thought of where the hand had just been. “I am. Just dropping by.”
    â€œOh, aye.” MacPhail shot him a knowing smile. “ HRH will be calling you back in, mark my words. Any time the press is going to shine a spotlight, she likes all her boys lined up neatly in a row. In their Sunday best as well,” he added, arching one eyebrow at Green’s T -shirt.
    Green was wondering himself when Superintendent Devine would call. No doubt when the news of the body reached her ears. God forbid she should actually oversee the case all by herself. After ten years as Ottawa’s chief forensic pathologist, MacPhail had her pegged to a T.
    â€œBefore she calls, I’d like some facts to feed her,” Green replied. “What can you tell us?”
    â€œWell, from the degree of putrefaction and the absence of rigor, I’d say she’s been dead about two to three days, so she likely died sometime the night she disappeared. We know she only surfaced in the