I tried to inspect the body without touching it. There was an ugly hole on the right side of the back of the neck. There wasn’t much blood around it, but blood had seeped down through layers of clothes and pooled in the gearbox.

I took more pictures. I wondered if I could slip a hand into the victim’s coat or pants pockets to look for an ID, but she was leaning against the steering wheel and I’d have to move her, effectively destroying all evidence around her death.

Her right hand was holding the steering wheel, but the left had fallen to the seat. When I shone my flash on it, I saw a scrap of paper in the cup made by her palm. She’d been clutching it when she died. As her muscles relaxed, the scrap had dropped free.

Bad detective, I admonished myself, removing evidence, but I took off my right glove and stuck two fingers in like tweezers to retrieve it. Held it carefully while I stepped away from the truck, away from the water, tucked it into a zip pocket of my windbreaker, and returned to the truck long enough to shut the door.

I was climbing back up the ravine side, my wet socks squelching inside my boots, when I saw the flashing lights. Idiot! In the stress and excitement of finding McKinnon’s truck, I’d used my iPhone to take pictures. Damn and triple damn. I had a fleeting urge to shinny up the pillars and stop a car on the road above. Instead I used the time to text Luella Baumgart-Grams, the defense attorney my Chicago lawyer had found for me.

36
Casual Day in Court

I’ve spent time in holding cells in Chicago. Compared to them, the Douglas County Jail was the Ritz. No bedbugs, no people suffering psychotic breaks at two in the morning, no stench from years of sweat and other bodily fluids thinly masked by bleach.

Luella Baumgart-Grams had driven to Lawrence from Overland Park, but she’d arrived after the end of business hours in the Douglas County courts. However, she promised to spend the night in Lawrence and escort me to the Law and Justice Center in the morning. More important, Luella took care of my biggest worry: looking after Peppy. Luella had Free State Dogs board the dog overnight, which meant I didn’t go nuts with worry in my clean cell.