Bluewood Mountain

[Gum do Mugu]

The rain rolled in with the constable and a couple of his deputies. Together, the lawmen walked the shoreline’s rocks like the kids had before them. Dodo blocked his subordinates with his right hand in one’s belly and his left hand in the other’s. “Fellas,” he said with five decades of compassion, “wait here—I wanna talk to the kids, first.”

“Okay.” / “Sure.” <– the replies from each of them.

Dodo did the cobble wobble and came up behind the kids. Inca, River, and Martie were soaked to the bone, shivering, and still suffering the sharpest edge of a jagged trauma. Inca's was crying her eyes out. River was wailing words like “no” and “why”. Meanwhile, Martie had her back turned and longed for the opposite shore and the lie that everything was going to be fine.

“I got your call,” Constable Dodo said calmly. “A couple of my best guys are over there.” The constable pointed to the two belly boys a way down the shore. “They’ve got blankets and coats—some warm soup. I want you to go back to town with them.”

Nothing.

Constable Dodo waited.

He corrected the hood of his raincoat with a tug and dug his hands into his pocket.

There was a chill, and together with the rain, it worked to cement the details of a day that nobody in this lonesome town would ever forget. Mountaintop gusts bit their faces. The clouds were low enough to touch and black enough to haunt. The psychosphere conspired with the atmosphere and the very mountains themselves to isolate the sorrow-ridden people of Bluewood Mountain.

“I’m sorry, guys,” he said after a minute. “I’ve got to get you back to your parents.”

River sniffed and snarled, “what about Autumn’s parents?”

“River,” the constable said, stiffening his lip against the tragedy, “I’ve got to get Autumn out of here as well. You know that. I have to get her back to her parents… even still. I have to do it. And I have to begin the investigation right now.”

Snorting and driving his feet into the substrate, River Roe reluctantly conceded. The young lad was like a young bullock, yielding to life's worst moments like cattle yield to a stern master. He grabbed Inca by the shoulder and tugged her under his arm. “Mart,” he shouted, trying to snap her out of her traumatic trance. “Let’s go,” he insisted. “MARTIE!”

She snapped, “SHUT THE FUCK UP! OKAY?”

River flared his nostrils. Inca thumped him in the solar plexus. River didn’t budge. She thumped him again.

“Fucking stop it, guys,” Martie said turning away from the water and dragging her two friends by the wrist. “Autumn’s gone, she’s not there. That’s it.”

The three teenagers and two officers of the peace headed back to town.

Dodo was left alone with the body.

[Gum do Mugu]

Together, they all went down to Bluewood Mountain Infirmary. They saw their baby there, stretched out on a cold steel table. Autumn Jack was so sweet, so calm, so fair. So dead. The victim’s ripped dress—and all her clothes for that matter—had been removed as a matter of course. For decency’s sake, her body had been draped with a clean, white sheet. Only her face and her bare shoulders were uncovered. Autumn’s lively blonde hair bounced over the edge of her cold, cold bed. Xanga, the girl’s exotic mother, fixed her daughter’s hair with the push of a slim finger. Meanwhile, Arteur simply stood behind his wife; he shivered and wept uncontrollably.

The constable—waiting at the back of the room—had done the family the favour of closing the hopeless girl’s eyes. As an officer of the law, he was familiar with lifeless eyes and their wicked capacity to inflict trauma. Sleeping eyes were the best, thought Dodo.

After some time, the infirmary’s broad doors gently crept open to welcome a procession of the Bluewood Mountain’s mourners. Chief among them came the crying tears of River and Inca Roe. In contrast, the Roe family’s adults ambled with the solemn silence of those previously acquainted with grief. Rosa Roe grabbed Inca by the shoulder and squeezed, relieved that her precious child wasn’t on the table.

“Uncle Juck,” River asked quietly, “how long will they keep her here?”

“Probably just today,” his uncle replied. “Because of the way it happened they’ll want to do tests,” he conceded with a long, drawn out sigh.

River bit his lip and sniffled.

The constable, meanwhile, cast himself with decorum. He carefully guided the townspeople in to pay their respects. But, internally, the detective’s mind was wandering through the possibilities. The boyfriend, River Roe. Naturally, that’s where the investigation would begin. Martie, Inca. Dodo watched, maintaining his blank expression, while each of Autumn’s family members and friends walked by. The parents. Over the years, the constable had watched with ease while criminal after criminal exposed their own guilt—body language, for most, was difficult to subdue.

In the dim light of the infirmary’s viewing room, Constable Dodo watched hands shake hands, he watched hugs and he watched tears, he watched the movement of their eyes. Yet, for all his watching, nobody screamed out in sin. For the first time in a decade, Bluewood Mountain’s principal policeman had a real mystery on his hands.

Who killed Autumn Jack...

One of Dodo's deputies poked his head through the door and winked at the constable. "It's the doc," whispered Dodo's underling, "he's out here acting like a-"

The constable cut off his deputy with an thunderous brow and mouthed back, "TELL. HIM. TO. WAIT."