the need to do something dramatic, something daring, was clearly strong in her.
Who was he? Who would meet his end in such a remote and dreadful way? I dug gingerly into the pockets. Like my own, they had clammed shut from the weight of the water. I had a hard job of it, as cold as I was, and I wasn’t rewarded with much when I finished. There was nothing in his jacket or his front trouser pockets but a handful of change. I gritted my teeth and stuck my hand under his buttocks. The back pockets were empty, too, except for a pencil and a matchbook.
No one in the modern age goes out in a suit and tie without a wallet, or at least a driver’s license. But where was his car? Had he done like me? Parked two miles away and come on foot for a secret rendezvous?
My head was aching so with cold I couldn’t think clearly, but I’d have been bewildered even if I were warm and dry. I know people drown in their baths in panic, and I myself had had a moment’s terror when I couldn’t get my head through those weeds, but why had he left all his papers at home? Had he come here on purpose to die? Was this some dramatic event planned for my teenager? Come out in the open about me or I’ll kill myself? He looked in repose like a steady man, not the person for such dramatic actions. It was hard to picture him as Romeo to my young heroine’s Juliet.
When the emergency crew arrived, I was still holding his matchbook and pencil. I stuck them into my own jacket pocket so I wouldn’t be caught in the act of stripping the body.
Besides a fire department ambulance, the dispatcher had sent both the New Solway cops and the DuPage County sheriff’s police. The body had turned up in unincorporated New Solway. That technically meant it belonged to the DuPage County sheriff, but the dispatcher had also notified the New Solway police. Even in my frozen state, I could understand why. The houses along Coverdale Lane were a who’s who of greater Chicago Big Money: New Solway cops would want an inside track on who to blame if the local barons-or baronesses-got testy.
The two groups jockeyed for dominance in inspecting the body. They wanted to know who I was and what I was doing there. Through my
chattering teeth I told them my name, but said I couldn’t talk until I was some place warm.
The two forces bickered for another long minute while I shivered uncontrollably, then compromised by letting the New Solway police ride along while the sheriff’s deputies took me to Wheaton.
“My God, you stink,” the sheriff’s deputy said when I climbed into his squad car.
“That’s just the rotting vegetation,” I muttered. “I’m clean inside.”
He wanted to open the windows to air out the smell, but I told him if I ended up with pneumonia I’d see he footed the medical bills. “You have a blanket or an old jacket or something in the trunk?” I added. “I’m wet and freezing and your pals waiting for the shift change so they wouldn’t have to take the call didn’t help any: it’s been over forty minutes since I phoned.”
“Yeah, bastards,” he said, then cut off the rest of the sentence, annoyed with me for voicing his grievance. He stomped around to the trunk and fished out an old towel. It couldn’t be any dirtier than I was: I draped it around my head and was asleep before the car left the yard.
When we got to the sheriff’s headquarters in Wheaton, I was so far gone I didn’t wake up until some strong young deputy yanked me out of the backseat and braced me on my feet. I stumbled into the building, joints stiff in my clammy clothes.
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” the deputy snapped. “You need to tell us what you were doing on private property out here.”
“Not until I’m clean and dry,” I mumbled through cracked and swollen lips. “You must have some clothes out here I can borrow”
The deputy who’d brought me in said that was highly irregular, they didn’t treat housebreakers like hotel guests in DuPage County. I sat on a bench and began undoing the zipper on my windbreaker. A chunk of some dead plant had worked its way around the pull. My fingers were thick with cold, and I worked slowly while the deputy stood over me wanting to know what in hell I thought I was doing. The zipper took all my attention. When I finally had the jacket undone, I pulled off the wet sweater underneath. I was starting to take off my bottom layer, a T-shirt, when he grabbed my shoulder and yanked me back to my feet.
“What are you doing?”
“What it looks like. Taking off my wet clothes.”