“Why is she dressed like a man?”

  Elmira’s Sheriff, Shannon Meadows, had to think for a second before responding to his second in command’s strange question. After all, it was only ten minutes ago he had been sitting in his office going over last night’s incident reports when a disturbing call came into the station. Arnold the dispatcher, whose enthusiasm often outstripped his grasp of things, poked his bearded face into his office.

  “Sheriff,” Arnold practically spat the words out. “Have I got something to tell you. Somebody down by the river went crazy with a Prius.”

  “A Prius?” Sheriff Meadows looked up from his desk with tired eyes. “What are you talking about, Arnold? It’s not possible to do anything crazy with a Prius.”

  “Want to bet?”

  Over the next thirty seconds, the hyperactive dispatcher relayed that there had been an accident three blocks away, near the intersection of North Market and Remington. It involved a single car, one fatality, and a whole mess of property damage. As usual, Arnold played the role of hysterical town crier trying to make a difference.

  The Sheriff, in his usual capacity, worked very hard to take everything with a grain of salt.

  As Meadows grabbed his coat off the back of a chair, his worry fell on the people who were busily exchanging gifts their children had gotten for Christmas from a relative who was likely out of touch with the cool toys. But as quickly as that nervousness flared, it subsided. Most of the shops on N. Market had either gone out of business or moved to the new mall. Nobody wanted to shop down by the river anymore.

  What little remained consisted of an amalgamation of empty business fronts, antique shops, and second-hand clothing stores. Since it was close, Sheriff Meadows decided to walk the three blocks. He regretted this decision almost instantly. Cold air was pelting the town from the recent storm, and it turned what should have been a quick couple of minutes into what seemed like an hour of misery.

  Once on the scene, this misery turned sadly joyous. No one other than the driver was injured. And the destruction the electric car did to the unoccupied portions of the street was minor.

  “Sheriff,” one of his deputies appeared from behind a hastily parked EMS vehicle. “The boys down at the firehouse just arrived. They want to fire up the Jaws of Life. Should I have Henry start prying her out?”

  Meadows sidestepped a couple of gawkers before not so politely directing them to the other side of the street. “No,” he blew forcefully into his hands to warm them up. “Tell him to wait for the Crime Scene Unit before doing that.”

  The young deputy signaled he understood, then disappeared behind the ambulance.

  “Still…” His second in command pressed again. “It’s weird, don’t you think? A pretty little girl like this shouldn’t be wearing a flannel shirt and a pair of wranglers. Dressed that way, she should be driving a pickup, not a toy car.”

  “That’s strange, alright.” Both men shared a look of befuddlement. “But who can tell these days.”

  Allen Broyles, a stout man with a thick red mustache, continued staring intently through what remained of the driver’s side window. As he spoke, more strange things about the scene began to pop up. “And why is she wearing work boots? Have you ever heard of a teenage girl driving around in a Prius, dressed like she’s heading for a logging site?”

  Meadows stepped off the curve and poked his head into the car. “Maybe she’s wearing her boyfriend’s clothes. You know… the shameful ride home or something.” He plucked a cheap pen from his pocket and used it as a makeshift tool to gently push back the young woman’s hair. “She’s not even wearing any makeup.”

  Even with the airbag deployed, the steering wheel had really done a job on her. Copious amounts of blood and bruising were splashed across her fragile face, though none of that damage was enough to keep the Sheriff from being drawn to her eyes. Deep blue, like uncut topaz, they had the strangest quality about them.

  It was a quality Shannon Meadows had seen before when someone died in a state of absolute fear. He remembered how blue his daughter’s eyes were when she… he shuddered against the harsh wind.

  “Do you think she was drinking?” Allen asked.

  Sheriff Meadows pushed in closer and sniffed at the body. “I don’t smell anything.”

  “How do you explain that then?” Allen pointed toward the section of North Market directly behind them. The Prius had crashed into three separate businesses before finally ending up here beneath a streetlight.

  “From what people on the opposite side of the street reported to me, the Prius ran the red light at Remington before colliding with the first storefront.” Allen stepped off the curve and pointed down the street. “Then, after about ten feet of stupidity, the driver tugged her wheel sharply, and plowed into what used to be Taylor’s pawn shop.”

  Meadows craned his neck past a fire truck to survey the lack of damage. “She hardly scratched it.”

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  “That didn’t mean much to her, because after the car somehow managed to get some speed, she plowed into the old dry cleaners like a torpedo.” Allen returned to his original spot near the wreck. “One of the witnesses said by the time she got around to the streetlight, the car was barely going twenty.”

  “Maybe it was drugs,” Meadows offered. “High on speed or meth, the driver could have been just out of her mind hallucinating.” Out of respect, he brushed some shards of glass off the woman’s shirt but caught himself after one swipe. The crime scene investigator hadn’t taken any pictures yet, damn it. He wasn’t about to get caught disturbing another body.

  “It’s possible.” Allen stepped back from the twisted piece of battery-powered aluminum. “We won’t know anything until we get the ME to run some blood work.”

  Allen heard the familiar stomping footsteps of the town’s only crime scene investigator walking up behind him. Having just arrived on the scene, Henry Burkett looked very eager to get started with his initial sweep. “Henry,” the sheriff greeted him as Allen circled the car until finally joining his boss back on the sidewalk. The broken streetlight teetered precariously against the wind.

  “Sheriff,” Henry quipped. “We didn’t get handsy again. Did we?”

  “No,” Meadows tried his best to wipe the remaining glass from his hand casually. “Not after the last time, Henry.”

  The sun retreated further beneath the horizon, forcing Allen to wrap his jacket a little tighter around himself. “Still, it’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. I could see her doing it once, maybe even twice if she was loaded enough. But at a certain point, it’s almost like she was trying to kill herself.”

  “Was she?” Sheriff Meadows allowed the possibility to linger in his mind because unlike Deputy Allen, he had seen far stranger things in his time on the job. “Was there anyone who got to her before she died?”

  “Yes sir,” Allen pulled out his well-worn interview notebook. Small towns hardly required full-time detectives, so he often filled in when the need arose. “The first person on the scene was Mr. Lee. He attempted to get her out, but you saw the damage. No way his 130-pound ass was going to wrench that door loose. He did say that she was conscious for a moment before the end.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  “Just more strange shit.” Allen closed his notebook and sighed. ‘Apparently, the victim told Mr. Lee, ‘I am not innocent. This is the end I deserve. My shackles have finally been unchained.’”

  “I am not innocent? My shackles have been unchained? Maybe I was right about the drugs. Hey, James wasn’t drinking again? You know how he gets this time of year.”

  Before Allen could answer, a voice cried out from the middle of the intersection so loudly that the sound from the emergency services vehicles was almost completely drowned out.

  “Come on, people!” the voice was surly and deep. “Nothing new to see here. They’re still dead.”

  In the middle of the intersection, one of Meadows’ deputies directed traffic in a rather unusual manner. Though truth be told, it wasn’t all that unusual for him.

  “Look at you,” a family in a four-runner slowed down to get a good look at the accident. “She’s dead… it happens.” He caught the driver’s eye and scowled. “It’s not like you’ve got all the time in the world.”

  The sheriff let out a deep sigh.

  “Joseph,” his voice bellowed just as loudly. “Calm down!”

  Deputy Joseph Howlam, late thirties, with a big belly, and a receding hairline heard the sheriff’s attempt to rein him in but protested against it. “Statute 182461B of the Pennsylvania penal code Sheriff, this is an accident scene, not a viewing hall.” Violently, Joseph waved his flashlight at the next slow-moving vehicle as a warning to speed up. “This happens to everyone given enough time.”

  Meadows didn’t know whether to scream or agree as the morbid stream of onlookers continued to file past. “Be polite, Joseph! I don’t need you getting worked up over this like last time. Remember what the doctor said about your blood pressure.”

  Joseph pushed the brim of his hat up to the point where the sheriff could get a better look at his beet red face. “Don’t worry about that, Sheriff. Avery keeps telling me that if I keep this lifestyle up, I’m taking years off my life.” Another car decelerated, but unlike the last time, Deputy Howlam just stared daggers instead of screaming. “Though I’m starting to think he’s full of shit. The way I feel, I think I just might live forever.”

  The rotund peacekeeper paused as another car crawled through the intersection. Instantly, Joseph’s beet red face exploded into a violent crimson color, and their conversation was quickly forgotten.

  “How old is he now… thirty-eight?” Allen made sure to keep his voice low lest the deputy overhear him.

  On the other hand, Sheriff Meadows didn’t share his number 2’s reservations when it came to his cranky deputy or his moods. “Thirty-nine,” Meadows let out an exasperated sigh of relief as the college kids drove off down the street relatively unharmed. “His birthday was last week.”

  “Was there a party?” Allen had to ask because he had been on vacation until yesterday.

  “No, but we did sing happy birthday.”

  Allen couldn’t help but laugh at the mental image of Joseph in a party hat. “How mad did he get?”

  “About the same as he did last year.”

  The sheriff lamented having to straighten out Joseph. The conversations they had were usually long and pointless, but screaming at innocent drivers was overkill. Joseph knew that. Meadows was about to remind him when his cell phone started vibrating. Relieved for the distraction, he pulled it out and checked the caller ID.

  “Why would Robert Rogan be calling me?”

  Allen shrugged his shoulders. Everyone in town knew that around this time, Rogan was holed up at the Huddle House having his usual dinner. So, it was with a hint of astonishment that Meadows flipped open his phone and answered. “Hey, Bob. What’s up?”

  Allen stood dutifully beside his boss and tried unsuccessfully to ignore their conversation. However, Allen was a curious man by nature, so not listening in was difficult. From what he could overhear, Bob had discovered some dead animals near Jasper Lake yesterday. Not being that interested, Allen tuned out what followed easily.

  Though near the end, something very curious came up.

  “So, what are you saying Bob? You want Jonathan to do an autopsy on a deer. Why, do you suspect foul play?” Meadows looked from one end of the street to the other and attempted to rationalize why a young woman dressed like a lumberjack would use her car as a battering ram to lay waste to half of North Market Street. He couldn’t.

  Dis something just as strange happen to Bob?

  On the other side of the street, small groups of shoppers began to huddle together in the cold, speculating on what had happened. As soon as he saw this, the sheriff knew he would have to act fast. If there was one thing a small-town sheriff needed to stop quicker than an actual crime, it was the speculation of one.

  Maybe Allen was right about running some blood tests. And even though he hadn’t had much luck working with the town’s ME in the past, what choice did he have?

  “Bob…” He shot Allen a knowing look. “We’ll meet you there.”