The Karelian bear dog’s ears perked up. A distinctive white hourglass shape marked his face with black fur on either side. His chest and paws were white as well. When he wasn’t chasing bears from residential areas, he was searching for and rescuing people. She couldn’t reach around to pet him, so she settled back into her seat and sipped her latte. “I wonder. Does he miss chasing bears during the winter?”

“Yes. It’s in his blood, but he’s good at searching as well.” Huck drove easily down the icy roads, his profile harsh in the soft morning light.

She’d like to see the animal herd a bear away from people. For now, she had a murderer to find. “Tell me about the hands.”

He turned left to go toward Everett. “They were found on a tree stump about three miles away from the crime scene, down the trail I cut in yesterday.”

Laurel watched the snowy world fly by outside. “How were they placed?”

Huck dug his phone from his back pocket and handed it over.

She pressed the icon for photographs, and the two hands appeared. They’d been left palms down with the thumbs just touching each other. They were mottled and purple, no doubt frozen solid.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“I’m uncertain,” she murmured, setting her latte back in the holder and using two fingers to widen the picture. “One theory was that her hands were taken to postpone identification of the body, but if the killer placed her hands where we could find them, then that hypothesis is disproven.”

He reached for his coffee and took a deep drink. “Then why cut off her hands?”

Laurel shook her head. “Good question.” She could spend all day creating theories and postulating concepts, but they didn’t know enough about this killer to even begin.

The silence stretched during the drive, not comfortable, but not awkward, either. Maybe she should try some sort of small talk. The weather didn’t interest her, and it probably didn’t interest Huck. They’d already talked about the dog. She racked her brain for something interesting. “Did you read that the scientists at CERN have found unusual data from a B meson that might open a new area of physics?”

He blinked and looked at her for a second before turning back to the road. “Does that have something to do with the frozen hands?”

“Um, no.” So that wasn’t interesting. It was to her, but that was just because she liked mysteries that could be solved. “Probably not.” So much for that topic.

He turned down the heat in the cab. “I didn’t think physics was one of your degrees.”

“It isn’t.”

He nodded. “What are your degrees again?”

Was that small talk? Maybe. “I have degrees in bioinformatics and integrative genomics, data science, organizational behavior, psychology with an emphasis in abnormal psychology, game theory, and mathematics.”