“I puked my guts out; then I called nine one one.” He takes a deep breath, blows it out. “Then I got the hell out of there.”

The flash of blue and white lights on the treetops announces the arrival of a law-enforcement vehicle. I glance behind me and see a sheriff’s department cruiser park behind the Tahoe.

“Where, exactly, did you find the body?” Tomasetti asks.

Foster thrusts a finger toward the mouth of the path. “Take the trail. You’ll hit the creek a quarter mile in. Go another thirty yards and you’ll see it on your right. There’s a tree grows into the bank. Floods washed out the soil and the roots are exposed. She’s jammed up in all them roots.”

Beyond where Tomasetti stands, I see Sheriff Goddard slide out of his Crown Vic, his Maglite in hand, its beam trained on the fisherman. “Danny?” he calls out. “That you?”

“Yeah, Bud.” The man heaves a huge sigh. “I’m here.”

The sheriff nods at Tomasetti and me, then turns his attention to Foster. “What the hell you doing out here this time of the morning?”

“Fishing, like I always do. There’re large-mouth bass down in that deep hole. I don’t know why everyone keeps asking me that when I done answered already.”

“Well,” the sheriff drawls, “you know how cops are.”

Goddard shines his light on Foster’s clothes. “How’d you get that mud all over you?”

Foster looks down at his pants, realizes his crotch is wet, and pulls out his shirttail to cover it. “I got so shook up when I found that woman down there, I dropped my flashlight and got off the trail. I fell down in some bramble.”

Tomasetti looks at Goddard. “You get a perimeter set up?”

Goddard nods. “I got two deputies out there. State Highway Patrol’s on the way. We’re covered, but barely.”

“We’d like to take a look at the scene, if it’s all right with you,” Tomasetti says.

The flash of relief that crosses the chief’s face is palpable. Most cops are, to a degree, adrenaline junkies. When something big goes down, most want to be in the thick of it. Some, I would venture to say, have an overstated sense of morbid curiosity. Goddard seems to break the mold on all counts. “Probably best if a bunch of us don’t trample the scene,” he says. “You two go on, and I’ll wait for the coroner.”