“Well,” Holgersen said, regarding Angie with an expression of something like sympathy on his face, which irked her. “Good to see ya, Pallorino, Doc.”
“Yeah.” Angie watched him lope his way through the tables on his way back to Webb at the bar.
O’Hagan studied her. Reading something. “Another drink?”
“I should go. I—”
“We’re not done here yet, Ange. Go on, have another drink.”
She inhaled. “Okay,” Angie said. “Another.”
The doc waved to the server, held up two fingers, and pointed to their glasses. She turned back to Angie. “One thing looks to be certain here,” she said with a nod to the report. “That blunt-force trauma to Gulati’s skull would have done her in. Whether that happened in the water or on land remains a question.”
The drinks arrived, and the server took their plates.
“Okay,” Angie said, reaching for her tumbler. “If Gulati didn’t die in the river, if, say, she was injured going over the falls but washed up and came ashore somehow, and if she lived long enough to bring her baby to term and give birth ...” She swore softly. “That raises all kinds of questions. Like, where was she all that time? Why was she unable to seek medical attention or come home? What happened to the baby? Did it die in birth? Where is it buried, then? How did she end up in waders with a hole in her head near the river? Andwhy?”
“If she didn’t die in the river, that perimortem spiral fracture would’ve occurred on land at the time she incurred the blunt-force trauma to the skull. I’ve seen those spiral arm fractures before, primarily at a mass grave site in Burundi. The women in a village were raped by soldiers and then killed. Some had tried to escape by wrenching so hard against the hold of their captors on their arms that they broke their arms, resulting in this torque-type fracture.”
“So ... she was trying to escape, perhaps. Running away in those waders that were not hers. She was grabbed. She twisted against the hold. And then maybe she was hit on the head with a sharp object, like a ... hammer or wrench or something.”
“That scenario would be consistent with the postmortem results, in my opinion.”
Angie picked up her drink, sat back against the plush leather in their booth. “So what happened to her baby? This makes no sense. This—” Something struck her. Hard.
“What is it?” Barb said.
Another memory. Axel Tollet’s place. Which was near the river. Not far from the grove where Jasmine had been found. ATV. Arrows with yellow fletching. Little teddy bear. Bottles for the cubs—
“Similac,” she said. “What do you feed bears, Barb?”
“Excuse me?”
“Little orphaned bear cubs that have not yet been weaned—how do you feed them?”
“I don’t know. Baby bottles. Some kind of milk replacer.”
He calls the folks at Wild Critter Care—it’s a voluntary wild animal rehabilitation center—and they unofficially guide and advise him.
Claire’s words tumbled through her memory. Angie grabbed her phone and pulled up a search engine. She punched in Wild Critter Care, and the website and contact details came up. She checked her watch and said to O’Hagan, “Hang on. Need to make a quick call.”
When a woman answered and introduced herself as the manager, Angie explained who she was and cut right to the chase.
“I have a wildlife question in relation to a case I’m working. What kind of formula would one feed baby bears, orphaned cubs, to replace their mother’s milk?”
“A sow’s milk is high fat, no carbs. The cubs don’t do well on a replacer high in carbohydrates.”
“Could you use a human infant formula? Like Similac?”
“Negative. If you were going to use a commercial milk replacer, it would be something like Esbilac powder. For puppies.”
Angie hung up, energy humming in her blood.
“What is it?”
“One of the men who lives near the river had baby bottles in his shed and a little stuffed teddy bear. His niece said the bottles and stuffed bear were for the orphaned cubs he’d once rescued. But the old tins on the shelf were labeled Similac—for human babies.” She paused. “What if hewasfeeding a human baby. Shit—” Angie sat erect. “Waders. He had two pairs of boot-foot waders hanging in his shed.”
“It doesn’t prove—”
