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other side so we won’t capsize.”
    “Sure.” I left the steering wheel—the boat was stationary now anyway, drifting on the swells—and headed for the port side. From the railing, I turned to watch Derek bend over the wale, straining. The small boat rocked, tilting almost flush with the water surface before he managed to haul the body, none too gently, into the boat.
    I squeezed my eyes shut. I’ve read books describing bloated, drowned corpses fished from the water, nibbled by lobsters and fish, and I didn’t think I’d like to experience one firsthand.
    “It’s OK, Avery,” Derek said, his voice low. “She doesn’t look bad.”
    “Just dead?” But I opened my eyes.
    No, she didn’t look bad, although she looked very dead. Pale and somehow empty.
    She must have been a pretty woman, alive. Her features were regular, with wide cheekbones and a dimpled chin. Eyebrows and lashes were a few shades darker than the blond hair slicked back from her face by the salt water. Dry, it would probably be ash or wheat blond. At a guess, she was somewhere in her midtwenties, about my height, but with longer legs and a slim figure.
    “Are you going to try mouth-to-mouth?” My voice was hushed.
    Derek shook his head, his eyes on the still figure in the bottom of the boat. “It’s too late. She’s been in the water for hours. Probably since sometime last night.”
    “Poor thing. Drowning must be a horrible way to go.”
    “I don’t think she drowned,” Derek said. “She probably died from exposure. Hypothermia. The water is freezing this time of year, with all the snowmelt. Wearing just that”—he indicated the jeans and skimpy shirt—“she would have frozen to death long before she had time to drown.”
    “I’m not going to ask you how you can tell.”
    He turned back to the wheel. “We’re gonna have to go back to Waterfield. Get your phone out, would you? There’s not gonna be any reception out here, but once we get closer to land, you should be able to raise Wayne.”
    I nodded, digging in my pocket. Before I tried to call the Waterfield chief of police, though, I found a tarp under one of the seats and covered the dead girl with it. Both because I didn’t want to look at her, and because I thought she could use that little bit of dignity.
    By the time we were within sight of land, I had coverage, and I dialed Wayne’s number. When he answered, I explained the situation. His first words were, “Not my jurisdiction,” but then he said that he’d call the coast guard, although “it isn’t their jurisdiction, either. They respond to incidents on the water, like shipwrecks, fires, and oil spills, but they don’t investigate drowning deaths.”
    “So whose jurisdiction is it? The state police? Your friend Reece Tolliver?”
    “Maybe,” Wayne said. “I’ll give him a call and find out. And I’ll meet you at the harbor in ten minutes. Tell Derek to put in somewhere out of the way. When the ambulance shows up, I don’t want a crowd gathering to see what’s going on.”
    I relayed the instructions to Derek, and then I found myself caught up in thoughts about the girl—the corpse—and wondering what had happened to her.
    She wasn’t dressed for being out on the water in early April in Maine. Or outside at all, for that matter. She should have been wearing an overcoat of some sort over the flimsy top, not to mention shoes and socks.
    The soles of her feet were abraded, I’d noticed, as if she’d been walking barefoot over gravel or rough tree roots. But what kind of idiot goes outside barefoot in April, when the ground’s only been thawed for a week or two?

    “A drunk one,” Wayne said when we had put in to shore and I had pointed out my observations. He’d been waiting for us at the far end of the harbor, as far away from any houses or businesses as he could get. “She’s probably some girl from Barnham College, who had herself a good time last night, and now she’s paid the ultimate