I tell her it shouldn’t be long for the tent. After that, I’ll get the body to my office as quickly as I can.

“If you don’t mind me saying so, it doesn’t seem right to just leave her lying there out in the middle of everything.”

“I’d do her a far greater disservice if I compromised evidence in any way,” I reply.

“We can’t put anything over her? A sheet or something?”

“I’m afraid not. I can’t risk dislodging or losing evidence, especially trace evidence. If I cover her before going over her carefully with a lens, I won’t have any idea what I might be messing up.”

“Well if she’s been out here for a while anyway, I guess waiting an extra half hour isn’t going to change anything,” Officer Flanders decides.

“What makes you think she’s been out here for a while?”

“Well that’s what Barclay thinks.”

“It would be best if we don’t circulate rumors,” I reply, and she shines her flashlight on what I’m carrying.

“Can I help with something? It’s too hot to be hauling anything heavy.”

“I’m fine. And if any of you need water or to step out of the heat, we have our truck.”

“As long as there’s nothing dead in there,” she jokes.

“You’ll be happy to know that we don’t transport bodies in the same truck where we rest, drink, eat, and work. We’ll have a van here for the body,” I explain, and Officer Flanders has a broad face that’s neither pretty nor unattractive.

She’s what my mother used to call “plain,” by which she meant an unremarkable-looking girl who was worse off than “the ugly ones.” That’s how she would say it, and her explanation for such a vile statement couldn’t have been more logical. At least in her limited way of thinking, and also in Dorothy’s because she shares the same point of view. Pretty girls don’t try at all because they don’t have to. Ugly girls try harder for obvious reasons.

That leaves plain girls, which usually is synonymous with smart girls, and they need to try but don’t know any better or can’t be bothered. So plain girls have the distinction of finishing first and last in the categories of accomplishment and attractiveness respectively. It’s my mother’s own weird version of “The Tortoise and the Hare,” I suppose, only there’s no moral and no one really wins.