The Circle of Blood

Chapter Four

IF ONLY SHE hadn’t worn the boots.

Snow had begun to fall harder. The flakes were powdery, like bits of silk. Cameryn hadn’t been able to gain traction because of the leather soles on her cowboy boots. Why had she worn them today of all days?

“I want a pair like that, too, now that I’m in the West,” her mother had announced on her second day in Silverton. “It’s a good thing you didn’t inherit my wide feet.”

Cameryn grimaced at her own A-width boots, feeling a surge of irritation-they’d made her fail just when her mother needed her.

Ducking around the corner of the Shady Lady, she pulled her BlackBerry from her back jeans pocket and punched in her mother’s number, swallowing hard. It rang only once before she heard, “Did you find it?” Hannah’s voice was high, agitated. In the background Cameryn heard a thumping sound, like a pounding fist. “I know it wasn’t fair for me to send you, but I knew you could run faster than I ever could. Did you find her?” Thump, thump, thump.

“I’m sorry. I tried but… she got away.”

There was a pause. It stretched out so long Cameryn wondered if Hannah was still on the line. “Mom? Do you want me to call Justin? Or the sheriff?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

The pounding started up again. “Your father will find a way to turn it against me.”

Cameryn tried to reason with her but it was no use. Patrick, Hannah claimed, would find a way.

“I should never have picked her up.” Hannah stayed on that loop, chastising herself while Cameryn stood there, unsure of what to do. All the world was frozen: the telephone wires, the whiskey barrels that held summer flowers, the grass, the distant trees. Cameryn began to feel a different kind of chill. There was something off about this conversation. From her forensic psychology books she knew that everyone handled stress differently. Was this all it was-stress? She tried to convince herself, but even as she did, she only half-believed.

When Hannah finally took a breath, Cameryn broke in and asked, “Where are you?”

“In my car on Fourteenth.”

“Okay. Let’s think this through.” As a knot of people crossed by, singing, Cameryn pressed a finger in her ear and turned away. “Did you get Mariah’s last name?”

“Just Mariah. I’m sure she’s hitched another ride. I’m sure she’s gone.”

“I can drive up to Ouray and start looking.”

“No!” Hannah sounded genuinely panicked. “Promise me you won’t go. Promise me!”

“Okay, okay, I promise.”

“I’ll handle this myself. You’re a good daughter. I have to go.” With that, she hung up.

Cameryn sagged against the wall, the knees of her jeans dark and damp from when she’d fallen. She’d accepted the news calmly that her mother had been institutionalized, because it had been so long ago. But new doubts began to nibble at her mind.

Stop, she told herself. Think.

Usually she was able to analyze clinically, sifting and examining evidence as though each fact were a mosaic tile. Line them up in their proper place, and a picture would emerge. But the pieces of her mother made no sense. Elusive, defensive, euphoric, despondent-her mother’s emotions cycled as rapidly as the Colorado weather. Punching redial, she heard Hannah’s voice mail immediately kick in. Cameryn slipped the BlackBerry back into her pocket. There was nothing more she could do.

With her head bowed, she threaded her way through the throng of tourists. “Hey, Cammie, aren’t you staying for the dogsleds?” a voice cried, but she didn’t respond, too lost in her thoughts even to look up.

Turning north on Eleventh, she thought how different this problem was from the mysteries she faced in the autopsy room. If it were a body, she would have been fully prepared to peel back the skin and look inside, removing organs, slicing them open in her search for answers. But this was her mother. The mind and its thoughts were intangible, her sharp autopsy knives useless. The dead are so much simpler than the living, she decided.

Realizing she hadn’t had a thing to eat or drink all day long, she bought a hot chocolate from a vendor and gulped it down. She needed to be alone, away from the prying eyes of her father and grandmother, so she set her path for the library, one block up on Reese Street. Lit from within, Silverton’s public library glowed yellow, its light reflecting on snow in rectangular patches. After kicking the snow off her boots, Cameryn made her way up the cement steps.

A small brick building, the library had been built with funds from Andrew Carnegie in 1906. The metal letters over the door were distinct, although the U in the word PUBLIC was shaped instead like a V. Beyond the small antechamber was a second door, this one inset with windowpanes and topped by a glass transom.

A tiny bell jingled as Cameryn stepped inside. Just as she had hoped, no one was there except the librarian, who stood behind a heavy wooden counter. “Cameryn Mahoney, I thought you’d be at the festivities!” Jackie Kerwin exclaimed. Dark-eyed and slender, Jackie was an outdoorswoman who would hike to the top of Kendall Mountain and then, while there, read an entire book. Like many in Silverton, Jackie was a marriage of opposites.

“I’ve got a paper due and I thought I’d get a head start,” Cameryn lied. “I just need the Internet.”

“Well, aren’t you the dedicated student. You’ve certainly come at the right time.” Jackie swept her arm toward the empty room, palm up. “You’ve got no competition today. I was about to do inventory in the back, so”-she looked at Cameryn-“unless you need help…”

“No,” Cameryn answered, relieved she would be completely alone. “I’ll be fine.”

“Good. Just give a holler if you need me.” With that, Jackie disappeared into a back room.

The interior of the library had been decorated like a home. Thick oriental rugs were tossed about on polished wooden floors, while padded rocking chairs filled every corner. A small fir tree decorated with paper snowflakes blinked lights near the front door. In the window Jackie had placed a Hanukkah menorah. Dried lavender and pinecones, in honor of Winter Solstice, stood next to a Kwanzaa unity cup. Cameryn detected the smell of cinnamon, from the candles, maybe.

But it was the computers she wanted. Two sat atop a long wooden desk, cursors blinking. She headed toward the bright blue screens and, after a backward glance, sat down on one of the swivel chairs. Part of her wanted to get the facts about her mother, while another part of her was against the idea. In the end, the scientific part won out. It was best to know what she was dealing with.

Concentrating, she tried to remember the name of the drug her mother had said she used. As she shut her eyes, she rewound the conversation in her mind. Tregetol. Wasn’t that what her mother had mentioned? She hesitated only a moment before typing Tregetol into the search bar, chewing her fingernail as she stared at the screen. The message Did you mean Tegretol? popped onto it. When she hit that word, hundreds of sites appeared.

Tegretol was the brand name of carbamazepine, a drug used to treat mania and bipolar disorders. Although she’d heard of mood disorders before, Cameryn had no idea what a diagnosis could mean, and so she carefully typed Mood Disorders. This time a tsunami of information washed upon the screen. She scrolled past Mental Illness Ranked Second in Terms of Causing Disability to the Diagnose Yourself link. From there, she found the MyTherapy Features, clicking onto Mood Disorders. Following that trail, she found Bipolar Disorder and Tegretol. Leaning close to the screen, she read:

Bipolar Disorder is a psychiatric condition defined by extreme, often inappropriate and sometimes unpredictable moods. These moods can occur on a spectrum ranging from debilitating depression to unbridled mania. Individuals suffering bipolar disorder generally experience fluid states of mania, hypomania, or what is referred to as a mixed state in concert with clinical depression…

There she stopped. Fear stabbed her as she read the definition a second, then a third time through. Medication promised relief but patients were always subject to relapse. Stressful events, one article stated, were a kind of “kindling” that, when lit, could start a manic fire. Scrolling farther, she read, A diagnosis means treatment and treatment means control. The compassion of family and friends is critical to a patient’s well-being.

Overhead, chandeliers threw out soft light through glass bells. A stuffed teddy bear looked on from the children’s corner. Cameryn didn’t know whether to retreat or advance, yet she forced herself to read on. In the comments section, a person with the initials A.B. had written: “Letting someone in on the truth is the most fearful thing I ever do. Some people look at me like I could hurt them, when the reality is the only one I want to harm is myself.” Another wrote, “I’m abandoned to swim against the riptide of prejudice.” A woman from Texas added, “For those of you who choose to love people like me, I promise sweet reward. It is a lonely road we walk. The faithful allow us to go on.”

Cameryn’s eyes filled, making the print swim. Turning away from the screen, she sat in silence. Is that how Hannah had felt? It’s a lonely road we walk. Was her father counting on Cameryn to turn away when she learned the truth about Hannah? She loved her father, and yet she needed her mother, too. She’d rather have this broken woman than no mother at all. The faithful allow us to go on. Cameryn knew she could help Hannah while remaining her father’s daughter. She could love both her parents, separately, equally. Love meant she didn’t have to divide them in her heart.

Time dissolved as she sat thinking, feeling protective. The roles of mother/daughter had reversed: Cameryn would protect Hannah. She would help her mother and keep her well. Now that she understood, everything would be all right.

When her BlackBerry rang she almost didn’t pull it from her pocket. It startled her to see that almost two hours had passed. Outside, unseen, the sky had darkened.

“Hello,” she whispered.

“Cammie?” It was her father. His voice sounded strangely tight. “Where are you?”

“In the library. I was-looking things up. What’s wrong?”

“We’ve got another one.”

She didn’t need him to say more. This was an official call. A coroner call.

“Who?”

“They don’t know yet. The body’s in a lane off of Greene Street. Listen, I know what I said about your mammaw not wanting you to see any more death, but I think I’m going to need you on this one. The sheriff is really thrown. I guess the victim looks pretty young. Are you up for it?”

“Of course.”

He sounded relieved. “Okay, then-I need you to go home and get the station wagon. The gurney’s still in the back, but I put everything else away in the garage. Grab a fresh body bag. The death kit’s right above them on the shelf. The camera is inside on the counter. Gather up everything, then head out as fast as you can.”

“Where am I going?”

“The body’s in that passageway between the Carriage House and the Highlander Apartment Building. Jacobs said they need a coroner, pronto. You’ll beat me to the scene.”

Twisting in her seat, she began to pull on her coat. “It won’t take me long. I left my car at the Grand, but I’m only a few blocks away. I’ll hurry home and load up. Where are you now?”

“I was going to Ouray. I’ve already turned around.”

Ouray. That meant her father had been on his way to see Judge Amy Green. But there was no time to entertain thoughts of the other woman in her father’s life. Someone had died, and this time her father had asked for her.

Sighing, he said, “Two people dead in one day. It’s too much death.”

“Dad, I’m all right,” she protested. “Don’t worry, I promise, I can take it.”

“I meant for me.”

The emotion in her father’s voice surprised her. He was the one who had told her they had to detach in order to be death’s detectives. “The chances of dying are one hundred percent,” he’d say. “The only thing to be determined is where and how. If you find yourself getting too emotional, think statistically. We all have an expiration date.”

“Dad, what is it?” she asked now.

She heard him hesitate. “Sheriff Jacobs told me- Cammie-this one’s a suicide. Some kid put a bullet in his head. An accident I can understand, but taking your own life when you’re young and you’ve got your whole life ahead of you… It’s just hard to think someone would do that to themself.”

“Oh,” she said. She had just assumed this would be a garden-variety death. Like Benjamin, people died in car wrecks. Sometimes they drowned. Mostly they were old and their bodies just gave out. But a suicide?

Her father’s voice began to crackle over the line. She knew she was going to lose him soon. The reception from the mountain was spotty at best, especially in a storm. “You know the drill,” he told her. “Jacobs can’t get-ID until-a coroner-the scene. That-you. Do you think- can work it-a while?”

“Sure,” she answered, sounding more confident than she felt. The thoughts of her mother were shoved aside, quickly and completely. There was no room in her head for Hannah. For the first time she wouldn’t fill the role of assistant to the coroner, she’d be the coroner herself.

“-hurry. There’s-body- ”

"I’m on my way,” she said, but it didn’t matter. The line was dead.