Legally Dead by Edna Buchanan

smaller gator that came from nowhere, gliding smoothly toward them at a thirty-degree angle.
    â€œGo!” he shouted, desperation in his voice. The dog, a few feet away, was swimming toward him. Suddenly obedient, Scout turned, and began paddling back toward shore with Venturi right behind him.
    As his feet touched the mucky shallows he caught the stranger under the arms to drag him toward solid ground. Scout was already ashore, at the water’s edge, barking fiercely at the gators.
    Making it out of the lake didn’t mean they were safe. Surprisingly fast on dry land, gators often attack, then drag their prey into the water. They kill pets, wildlife, and people who venture too close to lakes and canal banks.
    He knew he couldn’t outrun them. Struggling to gain purchase on dry land, he slipped in the mud. The man, a dead weight, nearly fell from his arms. The gators were just a few feet behind. Venturi saw their flat reptilian eyes and their upper teeth. The stranger might be dead already. Should he save him, or the dog? If the man was still alive, he had made his own choice, put himself in this position. At least Scout was alive. So far. A barking thirty-five-pound mutt would have no chance at all against a hungry four-hundred-and-fifty-pound alligator.
    He rolled the man up and out of the water, then ran for his gun, tucked into one of his boots twenty-five feet away. Then he saw something better. A heavy piece of wood, a four-foot-long branch from an Australian pine. Venturi disliked shooting an animal. He hated to kill these prehistoric-looking reptiles unless he had no choice—humans were the intruders here after all. And gunshots might attract a forest ranger or a deputy on patrol. He did not feel comfortable identifying himself to law enforcement at the moment.
    The first, bigger gator splashed out of the water and paused for a millisecond, as though deciding whether to go for the motionless body on the ground or the furiously barking dog, an annoying moving target. He went for the dog.
    Venturi advanced, swung with all his might, smashed the clublike weapon across the gator’s snout, and let it go. The startled creature hissed, then splintered the thick branch between his teeth with a loud crunch.
    The second gator paused, giving Venturi time to drag the stranger to his boat. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” he called to the still-barking dog. Scout scrambled into the boat with them, shaking water off his coat, panting, and glancing indignantly over his shoulder.
    If the dog didn’t realize it before, he knew it now—he wasn’t in New Hampshire anymore.
    The man sprawled in the bottom of the boat coughed, then snorted. He was bleeding but still alive. Venturi checked his airway, found it clear, then turned his head to one side. A surprising amount of water gushed from his nose and mouth.
    He appeared to be in his forties, medium height, and slender, at about 145 pounds. His hands, though bruised and scratched, were soft and pale, not those of a laborer. He looked like someone who worked indoors at a sedentary job.
    Venturi had no doubt that he had interrupted a suicide attempt. The man’s wrists were slashed, as well. The cuts were not hesitation marks, but he had done it wrong and the wounds were superficial. He had also stabbed himself in the chest, but his breastbone had apparently deflected the knife thrust. The throat wound was bloody, but if the blade had penetrated his carotid artery he’d already be dead. The head wound bled freely, as head wounds do, but the bullet had only grazed his scalp. Venturi decided this was the most inept suicide attempt he’d ever seen. Yet it was no cry for help or bid for attention. The man was serious. Dead serious. He never intended to be found.
    Who is he? Venturi wondered. Few suicides travel deep into the wilds to dispose of their own bodies, which was exactly what this man had done. Bleeding from self-inflicted injuries,