“I stopped back there—” she gestured down the trail “—to stretch at the four-mile marker. Started off again, and when I rounded the corner saw the ATV tracks going off toward the lake. At first I didn’t think much about it, but when I glanced down the slope I saw something odd—a hint of color. Neon.”

“And then?”

“I followed the tracks. The neon was the pink stethoscope around the victim’s neck. It was clear she’d been murdered—cut open, bled out there.”

“You could tell that with a look?”

“There was a fucking lot of blood.”

“You didn’t touch anything?”

“It was obvious she was long dead, I figured four to twelve hours. I didn’t need to check for her vitals.” She was assessing him, and there was a slight shift in her posture and demeanor. So subtle that if he wasn’t a trained interrogator, he wouldn’t have caught it.

“Based on the visual evidence,” Quinn said, “it appeared that the killer brought the victim to this location. No sign of a struggle or attempt to escape—the environment at the time was undisturbed, unlike now that the crime techs and police have gone over it. She was likely unconscious or drugged to the point of compliance. He laid her down, head toward the lake—Why? A ritual? Convenience?—and then sliced her from sternum to navel.”

Quinn’s tone had definitely shifted, from borderline playful to no-nonsense cop.

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Did you look at the crime scene photos?”

He’d glanced at them, but he hadn’t analyzed them. “Briefly.”

“It might not be obvious unless you enhance them,” she said, “but based on the killer’s footprints—not so much prints as impressions because the ground is rocky underneath the slush—he stood over her body, one foot on either side of her thighs. He’s right-handed—he sliced down, pulled the knife out, and stood above her. There was a significant pool of blood on the right side, where it likely dripped from the knife as he watched her die. Well, that was my sense when I saw it. I could be wrong.”

She spoke as if she knew she wasn’t wrong.

“Then, whether because the victim wasn’t completely dead or he had a compulsive need or was in a rage, he cut her from left to right three or four more times—there was significant blood spatter on the leaves and foliage to the right of the body. He didn’t specifically gut his victim—didn’t take out the organs, unless something’s missing when they autopsy her—but he certainly enjoyed the mess he made.” She paused a moment, then added, “He wasn’t in a rage. A rage would be multiple stab wounds, not a few slashes. At least, that’s my educated guess.”

She pointed north. “The killer left a different way than he came—he rode along the lake as far as he could until the terrain forced him back up to the trail. I told Andy—Detective Knolls. He’s the only detective in Liberty Lake, by the way. Good cop if you like your t’s crossed and your i’s dotted, if you want to find a thief robbing vacation houses on the lake or locate a serial rapist. But not so much a homicide cop. Anyway, I told him the killer cleaned up in the lake. I can’t prove it, just my gut. And the evidence supports it. The killer walked about fifteen feet from the body—away from her, but where he could still see her. There were many footprints between where the ATV was parked and the edge of the lake. Both with shoes and barefoot. Andy said the water was too cold for a dip, but I think that’s part of the ritual. Were the other bodies found near water?”