Lost Girls

On the fourth day I decide to go for a drive. North, past the side road to the lake, Bishop's Hospital, the last McConnell Auto Stop. The air bracing and loud as the sea in my ears, crashing in through the missing front windshield.

Into the wilder place where there are no longer any signs promising the arrival of another town so many miles down the road. Nothing but the narrow pavement cutting through the trees, skirting bog, working out a short-term lease with everything around it.

Stop for a lunch of tortilla chips and coffee at a gas station with a startling collection of international porn for sale alongside the cigarettes and spark plugs. Head north again. The sun not so much lowering as fading away entirely.

Then I see it. Something up ahead in the road.

I slow well before I reach it and pull over onto the gravel shoulder. A deer. Its hips knocked from their sockets, legs impossibly splayed out from each other. A spattering of blood followed by a smudged trail tracing its effort to pull itself off the road. But still alive: side rising and falling, tongue flicking out of its mouth, eyes looking up at me.

For a moment I take stock of the animal's injuries, estimate where I would be on a map, how far from someplace large enough that it might have a vet. Decide the injuries are too severe, the someplace too far. Then I drag the deer over to the side of the road where I sit down beside it and lift its head to rest on my lap.

Three cars pass in the time it takes afternoon to become dusk, dusk to become night. Two blow past without a blink of brakelights but a monkey-faced woman in a 4 x 4 slows, glances over at the young man in a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, rocking back and forth with a deer's head in his lap. Then, without stopping, drives on.

Listen to it breathing in spasms that bounce my hand into the air from where it strokes the length of its neck. Lies still again, and I count the time in my head before its next breath.

One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four--

The foaming mouth clicks open wider and pulls another half-cup of life into its lungs.

One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five--

How long do we stay together? How long have I stroked its side, making a sound--shwee- sha--that I only now remember my own mother making to calm me into sleep? Can't guess. Can't guess the time it is now, how long the animal requires to die. But when it does, I know it. Something lifts away from its skin and passes through me before dispersing into the darkness.

When I finally get up my legs refuse to obey for a time, sandwiched between the deer's weight and the piercing surface of the gravel shoulder. Then I step into the ditch, grab hold of its hind legs, and pull. Even though I've got the leverage of the decline on my side it's harder than I would have expected. Not only the animal's weight but the flexibility of its ligaments and joints resists movement, absorbing every effort to haul it down. But after a time I strike upon the method that works best: short, concentrated jerks in the same direction. Taking it two inches at a time results in slow progress through the high grass to where the drooping ferns and willows stand higher yet. After a while I turn to look into the forest and over the ground that glows blue from the patches of snow that survived the day's sun. Another thirty feet or so to be out of view from the road. Grab hold of its legs again. One. Two. Three.

Start digging with my fingernails, the pads beneath my thumbs. After a time I discover that the job goes quicker using a flat stone as a shovel, sending the soil up into a growing pile. Will myself to make the hole deeper, broader, eventually rolling into it myself to improve the angle and gauge its size. When the earth begins to yield to the limestone beneath it I scrabble out on my knees and push the animal into its grave.

When I'm finished there's a bulging mound left, but I can imagine returning next spring, next week, and not noticing that anything had ever been buried here. The sun coming up weak through the starved branches. Think of words to say but none come and I'm thankful for this, closing my eyes instead and conjuring wordless thoughts for myself, the dead animal, and anything else I can think of. A random sequence of face and moment and voice that comes to form a single memory in my mind, a kind of godless prayer.

Later that morning a fax arrives with the DNA results. Two hair extractions from Mrs. Arthurs's package matched with those found in the backseat of Thom Tripp's Volvo, one of them in turn matching drops of Krystal McConnell's blood found on the same. There was also an unexpected aspect to the lab's findings. A third hair type bearing an unknown DNA identity found among the other two. Different from the others even by sight: long, straight, and blond.

''Isn't that rather odd?'' Goodwin asked me as he handed over a copy of the lab's written report. I told him I was as surprised as anyone.

Marching up the broad steps to the Murdoch Prison for Men, its blunt facade now almost dignified with a front lawn rolling out before it white with cleansing snow. The failed rosebushes on each side of the door buried along with everything else except for a few pruned branches reaching up, gray and gnarled. It's always the same with prisons. Right there at the gates of some forgotten place of grief and desperation a bored janitor or local do-gooder gets it into his head to plant something beautiful and it never grows.

Once inside I'm almost pleased to see that it's the leprechaun guard behind the desk again, grinning out at me with small teeth held together by wads of tartar the color of caramel.

''Mr. Crane! Looks like you've been out and about,'' he says, motioning his chin down to the torn, mud-caked bottom of my overcoat.

''Just the unavoidable filth to be found everywhere in your fair town, Flaherty.''

''Perhaps if your car had a windshield you could keep yourself a bit more tidy. Have a bit of trouble, did ya?''

''A fender bender.''

''Quite so! Quite so!'' He nods, allowing himself an appreciative smirk. ''Here to see your man?''

''If he has to be mine, then yes.''

Without further command Flaherty takes me down the hall to Interview Room No. 1 to await the always unpredictable entrance of Thomas Tripp. Off goes my overcoat and the suit jacket follows a couple seconds later but I'm still dripping sweat down my sides, darkening through the white cotton of my shirt. Now that winter has come they've got it way too hot in here. By the time Tripp arrives I've got my tie loosened halfway down my chest and sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Seems to be feeling it himself, puffing his cheeks out in an effort to catch his breath (did they just yank him out from his morning workout?) and blowing tiny pearls of saliva out his mouth.

''Thom, I regret to say that I'm the bearer of bad tidings this morning.'' I try for a fatalistic laugh but the empty echo it leaves in the room tells me to give it up. ''As you know, a sample of hair was found at the edge of Lake St. Christopher a few days ago and it's just come back from DNA testing in Toronto. Two match with Krystal and Ashley, and there's a third nobody's sure about. The point is, this means the girls are buried in that lake, that's where they died, and they didn't do it all on their own. This completes the story the Crown's been telling. So much so, I'm afraid we have to reconsider our position in this trial. We need to take a serious look at this, you know, and maybe face up to something we'd hoped we wouldn't have to face.''

Tripp's not avoiding my eyes as he usually does, but he doesn't seem to be listening to what I'm saying either. Instead he takes me in with a politely restrained amusement, as though I've left a dried dollop of shaving cream under my nose. When he gets around to responding it's with a teacherly superiority, an adult talking to a child about stealing another's pencil crayons.

''She's been talking to you, too, hasn't she?''

''Could you be somewhat more--''

''Because she knows who you are all right.''

''Mr. Tripp, please keep in mind that you're the one accused of double murder. I would ask you to further keep in mind that I haven't been accused of a thing.''

''You don't have to be accused of anything to hear them. But you already know that, don't you? And who could accuse you, anyway? You're the lawyer!''

Laughter. A hearty cocktail-party bellow, his rheumy eyes glistening from the force of it.

''Well, thanks, Thom,'' I say when he's throat-cleared his way back to silence. ''But I'm not much interested in your expert opinion on psychotic behavior in others. You are right about one thing, though: I'm the lawyer, and you're the client. Can we stick with that for a moment without the yucks, please?''

A knowing trick of a smile at the frothy edges of Tripp's lips that makes me want to give the side of his head