The Defilers. Deborah Gyapong

securing the broken church door as well as I could I raced back to Rex’s body. The woods were silent so I holstered my gun and examined the corpse again, sheltering the flashlight beam with shaking hands. I had to turn off the light. I’d seen dozens of dead bodies before, so I had no idea why this one bothered me so much. I looked up at the dark grey sky. Snowflakes melted on my face and one landed on my eyelashes. A feeling of overwhelming loneliness swept over me.

      I turned the flashlight on again. Frozen congealed blood covered Rex’s blue and green quilted work shirt. The fact he wore no coat and the extent of the body’s stiffness indicated he had probably been shot sometime the previous day, which had been much warmer. I expected we’d find footprints frozen in the mud under the snow. My hands and feet ached from the cold. What’s taking them so long?

      Finally, lights from three police cars appeared through the trees near the church. I waved my flashlight so Will could find me. Two lights moved through the brush toward me.

      “Over here!” I shouted.

      “We see you!” a male voice rang out.

      I shone the beam on the body as two officers trudged toward me. I knew from their voices Will wasn’t one of them.

      “What’re you doing here, Donner?” A tall Mountie lifted his flashlight to make a light over our heads. Constable Bob Morin. With him was Constable Eddie Johnson.

      I blinked in the light. “Securing the crime scene.”

      Eddie squatted next to Rex’s body. “That’s not what he meant. You spend all your nights off roaming around in the woods?”

      “South Dare’s a happening place. Sure I’d find you out here too.”

      Will emerged from the dark carrying a video camera and a briefcase of forensic gear.

      I played my flashlight on the corpse. “He’s pretty stiff. Been dead since yesterday.”

      Not looking at me, Will set the briefcase off to the side. I cringed as his flashlight explored the outline my body had made in the snow when I’d fallen next to Rex.

      Eddie guffawed. “Looks like Donner’s been getting cozy with the corpse.”

      Will squatted next to the body. “IDENT will be kicking butt for all these footprints.”

      He got up and fiddled with the video camera. “Bob, put up the tape. Eddie, get the debrief.”

      Eddie nudged my arm with his elbow, his pen poised over his notebook. “You want to tell me what happened?”

      “This is my file. I found the body.” I wrapped my arms around myself for warmth and stamped my feet.

      “This is my file,” he mimicked in falsetto.

      “You always act like a jerk?”

      The sky was brightening and I could just make out the line of Eddie’s double chin as I told him what I’d seen.

      He seemed especially interested in the deerjackers.

      “These people accidentally kill several of their own every hunting season.”

      “This was no hunting accident.”

      Eddie nodded his egg-shaped head. “Look at what he was wearing. He should have been wearing hunter orange. He was a fool to go walking in the woods in clothes like that. Whoever shot him probably thinks they got the bear.”

      I rolled my eyes. “Bear?”

      Bob was stringing yellow tape across the path behind us. “A renegade black bear out here mauled a kid last summer.”

      Eddie chuckled.

      “What’s so funny?” I clasped my gloved hands tight to keep from backhanding him.

      “Some people out here thought Rex could change into a bear,” Eddie said. “Maybe they shot the bear and it changed back into Rex!”

      I glared at him. “You have a lot of contempt for the people out here, don’t you?”

      “You will too when you’ve worked in Sterling County long enough. Listen, honey, just FYI, the staff sergeant isn’t too happy you’re out here. Karen wants you to report as soon as you’ve debriefed us. Why were you out here anyway?”

      Eddie’s smirk made me livid. I paused several seconds until I could speak in a professional tone. Then I told him about Alan Dare and his rabbit snares.

      “Just like Alice in Wonderland, following a rabbit.” Eddie scribbled in his notebook. He grinned, exposing lots of gum and a row of tiny teeth.

      Will trudged toward us. “You notice anything? Footprints?”

      “Nothing,” I said.

      “Karen is expecting you.” Will still wouldn’t look me in the eye. He pursed his wide mouth into a straight line.

      “I heard.”

      Will laid his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “You get your debrief?” When Eddie nodded Will finally glanced at me. “You better go now.”

      Shaking from anger and the cold, I drove out toward the highway. The snow made the shacks and trailers of South Dare seem even more hopeless. A bare bulb shone through the frost-streaked window of a tarpaper shack. Smoke wafted from a stovepipe stuck through the shed roof. How fast would news travel that Rex was dead?

      At the detachment I found Staff Sergeant Karen Ramsay standing by her gurgling coffee machine, holding a mug in her hands. She sized me up, then motioned for me to sit down. I shook the snowflakes off my cap. She offered coffee, but I said no. Then she stepped behind her desk and sat down, her uniform perfectly pressed, her frizzy curls escaping the combs she used to pin up her hair. I told her about Rex Dare’s apparent murder. She told me she might call on the General Investigation Section, or GIS, from Halifax.

      My heart sank at the thought. GIS could end up taking control of the investigation, denying me the career opportunity I had always dreamed of.

      “You’re not getting paid for this morning.” Karen continued to pore over the papers on her desk.

      “That’s fine. Didn’t expect to be. But I’d like this to be my file.” I sat on the edge of the seat, my parka across my lap. My boots left little pools of melted snow on the tile floor.

      “If GIS comes in, they’ll take the file.” Karen peered at me. “Otherwise I’ll give it to Will. He’s got more forensics and he’s familiar with South Dare. Right now I’d like you to go home and take your scheduled days off.”

      “I’m being taken off this file?” I shouldn’t be disciplined for this! Karen was worse than any male staff sergeant I’d ever worked under. I’d applied to Sterling because I thought a female one would give me a fairer shake.

      “Don’t be ridiculous. This detachment is too small for anyone to own a file.” She wagged her finger at me. “And another thing. You can’t go off half-cocked into dangerous areas without backup. If you’d been injured or killed, you might not have been discovered for days.”

      “I understand. May I go back to South Dare today on my own time?”

      “No.” Karen’s cell rang. She opened it and put it to her ear.

      “Yes? Okay. Only a couple of members are here. One’s patrolling the town.”

      She stood up and turned away with a sigh. “Okay, I’ll send them now.” She edged around her desk and closed her phone. “They need help with crowd control. You’re back on duty. But you’re off tomorrow and Sunday.” She had a warning look in her eyes that made me realize pushing back might land me in deeper trouble.

      I rode back to South Dare with the constable who’d been patrolling the town of Sterling. When we arrived a sizeable crowd had gathered in the church parking lot. A dark van had pulled up to take the corpse to the morgue. Anxious relatives,