He turned again to the woman. Without touching the body, Mahler knew from the blood trail on her neck that a deep wound would be found on the back of her head. He could also tell from the absence of blood on the bench and ground, and the body’s position, that the woman had been placed on the bench postmortem. He thought of the line at the end of the old film Sunset Boulevard, when William Holden says, “Funny how gentle people get with you once you’re dead.”

Closer up, he could see the top of her shoulders and the edge of a dark silk blouse. In the left earlobe, a pierced earring in the shape of a hollow star. The heavy fabric blanket covering her had traces of blond fibers. Animal hair. Maybe a dog.

Mahler had viewed the bodies of homicide victims for a dozen years but never got used to it. He felt how his presence invaded the victims’ intimacy with their death. He had taught himself to see what he needed, to focus on the manner of interruption—the large-caliber bullet opening on the side of a gang member’s head or the knife wound on a farmworker’s chest that left no other trace than an uneven, pencil-thin line across his flesh. At the start, a veteran homicide cop named Tommy Woodhouse had told him, “When you feel like looking away, that’s when you should look.” Now Mahler bent close to the victim and studied the dried blood on her neck. Beside the blood, he saw the dark shadows of bruised skin.

The sight staggered him. As he rose, his legs weakened, and he held out an arm to balance himself. He looked as far from the body as he could, toward the distant lake, its quiet surface just visible in the fog. He thought of the other two times he had been called to this same park, to places across the lake, and stood beside the bodies of young women. The first in jeans and sweater, the second in running gear. Both facedown and so perfectly still among the native ryegrass and manzanita they seemed like something new and terrible growing there.

Mahler drank more coffee and felt his hand squeezing the cup. He waited to recover his balance. Then he looked up the hill and nodded. He wanted to be alone, not to have the conversation that was to come.

Coyle, Eden, and the park ranger worked their way down the hill. Coyle introduced the ranger as Officer Hadley. The ranger had a few inches on Mahler, with the chest and upper arms of someone who spent a lot of time in the gym. He wore a gray uniform, parks department baseball cap, and a pair of deep-black, rimless sunglasses that Mahler figured cost him half a paycheck. He stood stiffly with his hands folded in front of him.