"Anything?" Riley asked when I returned.
I doubled over, hands on my knees, panting for breath. "It was her alright."
Riley's eyebrows went up. "Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. I memorized her license plate when she first parked her car in my driveway." Did he really think I'd forget my training?
He reached out and put his hands on my shoulders. "I'm sorry, Wrath. I really wanted to be wrong."
I shrugged him off. "Just because she dumped something doesn't mean it was a body. Maybe it was garbage, or some cumbersome item she picked up somewhere, or some uranium…"
"…or a weapon used to murder Anna Beth. Or another body."
I stared at him. "You still think she might have been here for someone else?"
He shrugged. "I'm saying we have to be open to every possibility."
"It could be Lana," I suggested.
Riley thought about that. "You know what? You may be right. We need to find out who's down there."
I walked over to the edge and looked over. I couldn't see anything. Too bad there wasn't a ledge or something that could snag a body in mid-drop.
Riley pulled out his cell. "We should call Sheriff Carnack. He could bring the manpower to search the water."
I shook my head. "No. I've had enough of this. We're going down there. Now." I needed to know who or what was now sinking into the water below.
This was easier said than done. There wasn't exactly a staircase to conveniently take us to the bottom. The walls were sheer granite.
"Have you done any rock climbing?" Riley folded his arms over his chest. "Because I don't remember you doing that."
I rolled my eyes. "I'm a Girl Scout leader. I can teach ropes course and zip line, and I've climbed the rock wall at camp."
"This is significantly harder than a plastic wall with foot and handholds."
He was right, but I didn't want him to know that.
"Do you have any rope in your car?"
With a heavy sigh, Riley nodded and took off down the drive to the gravel road. It would take him about ten minutes to get to the car and another two to drive back.
I sat down on the edge of the rock, my legs dangling beneath me, and stared at the water, wishing I had X-ray vision. Too bad that wasn't possible. It would've made my life as a spy much easier. I'd have been able to see the .50-caliber gun through the post office walls in Porvoo.
Was I right to do this now? I mean, besides the fact it was incredibly stupid and dangerous—something that had never stopped me before, with mixed results at best. We could call Carnack, and he'd be only too happy to drag the reservoir. But what if it was nothing? Then we'd be wasting his time and taxpayer money.
Riley was right. I hated that. It wasn't his fault, and looking at things dispassionately was the correct course of action. Maybe I was becoming too trusting. That was a dangerous problem for a spy, but in a small town, it was important.
I'd been away from the game for a long time. Long enough to be more civilian than spy. Did Hilly play me?
"Of course she did," I grumbled and threw a rock into the water below. "Hell, I'd play me."
Taking advantage of people was the first thing we were trained on. Trust no one. Always be vigilant. Those were slogans hammered into my head for years. Too bad they never told us to be wary of assassins (who weren't assassins) who showed up on your doorstep for a vacation and a chance to become BFFs.
Riley's car appeared, and he parked and got out. I joined him at the trunk. When he opened it, I gasped. Now I really knew I was off my instincts.
"Are those," I asked, "Twinkies?"
Riley turned white as a sheet, which, considering his natural golden glow, was saying something. I guess he hadn't thought about the thirty or forty boxes of assorted Hostess products in his trunk.
"And Ding Dongs? Cupcakes?" I opened a box and stuffed an apple fruit pie in my mouth. For energy, of course.
I reached for his head and tugged on his hair. It didn't come off.
"What are you doing?" He slapped my hands away.
"I wanted to see if you were Scooby-Dooing me. The Riley I know wouldn't have this stuff within a ten-mile radius of his precious arteries."
I dug through the boxes and stood up with a start. "Chocolate Twinkies? These are really rare!" I stuffed a few in my pockets.
"This isn't what you think," he said slowly.
"This is exactly what I think." I looked at his waistline. "You haven't gained an ounce since you moved here, and I've never heard of you using the gym. And unless you have a hidden room in your house, I haven't seen so much as a kettle bell. How do you do it? Is it liposuction?"
"This stuff isn't for me," he snapped as he dug underneath the treasure trove of sugary goodness until he brought out a long nylon rope.
"Riiiiiiight."
"Seriously!" He pointed to the trunk. "The boxes aren't even opened!" Riley paused. "At least they weren't until now."
"You tell yourself whatever you need to. I know what I'm seeing." I cried out as I spotted something. "The Most Stuf Oreos! I've never seen these in person, and I'm pretty sure they don't carry them in Iowa!"
It was like finding a talking squirrel or purple swan that belched rainbow glitter! These had a huge thing of filling between the cookies. It was the holy grail of cookies.
"I'm going to have to confiscate these," I said, taking the package and chucking it onto the front seat. I emptied my pockets next to it.
"Hey!" he protested.
"Unless you tell me why you have a trunk full of junk food." By the way, I said this because I knew he'd never tell me without a serious round of torture.
"I don't have to explain anything to you." He sniffed.
"You got any more of those in there?" I asked. But it came out like mxmphxxch because I'd manage to stuff two of those enormous Oreos into my mouth at once. I started to choke on the sugary goo, and Riley Heimliched me back to safety as half a cookie shot across the hood of his car.
"Let's just get this over with." He sighed.
I coughed a few times and reluctantly swallowed. "Maybe you're not really Riley! You could be a plant! The CIA has surrounded me with spies for reasons I can't come up with right now."
The sugar pounded through my veins, and it was glorious! I don't know if it was the excitement that we might find Lana dead or the chemically enhanced baked goods, but my head started buzzing.
Riley shook his head. "Here's the rope. How do you want to do this?"
After making Riley swear he wouldn't touch the goods I'd taken from his trunk, I took one end of the rope and tied it around a sturdy tree close to the edge. Too bad I didn't have a harness. That would be the safest way to do it. But I had nylon rope, so that would have to do.
I tied the other end of the rope around my waist and gave Riley a thumbs-up as my sugar buzz sped up, turning my brain fuzzy.
"What's that for?" He frowned.
I rolled my eyes. "In the movies they always give the thumbs-up before going over the edge."
"Name one movie…"
"Just keep an eye on the other end of this rope," I grumbled as I stepped off the rocky ledge and then free fell for about thirty feet, coming to an abrupt halt at the bottom that nearly cut me in half.
I dangled there for a moment, racked with pain and loss of breath. What the hell had happened? The pain sobered me up from my sugar binge immediately as I hung there, spinning slowly.
I'd violated the first rule of Girl Scout safety. I'd been cocky, didn't think it through because of that, and didn't do any safety checks. I just jumped off the ledge and plummeted. I blamed Riley and his trunk full of sugar drugs.
Dangling about five feet above a tiny rocky beach, after I started breathing again, I wiggled out of the rope and shouted for Riley to come down.
"I'm not doing that!" he yelled. "You could've died!"
"But I didn't," I insisted, even though I knew I was going to have a rope-shaped bruise around my waist and would be in agonizing pain for about a week. "Just stay there and keep a look out!"
There was a very narrow edge to the reservoir halfway around it. Stepping up to the water, I stared into its depths. I knew there was a drop just a foot away. This canyon had been dug out straight down.
The good news was that the water was fairly clear. I just had trouble seeing farther than a yard into it. Looking back up at the ledge, I wondered how far Hilly would've tossed the body. You wouldn't want it too close to the edge because that would make it easy to retrieve.
On the other hand, even with her athletic prowess, throwing a body took a lot of effort, more than just dropping it. I had no idea who she'd dropped, but if it was a large person, she couldn't have done more than that.
"What do you see?" Riley shouted down. "Anything?"
"Not yet," I shouted back.
Leaning against the rock wall, I took off my shoes and very carefully stepped into the water. My toes curled over a ledge. When I still couldn't see anything, I backed up, got onto my knees, and leaned forward.
Was that something just beneath me, or was it my shadow? It was a sunny day. I pressed my palms into the water, wrapped my fingers over the ledge, and stared. If only I had superpowers that let me see through things. Wouldn't that be awesome?
Sadly, I didn't.
"Climb back up," Riley said.
Should I quit? Maybe it was time to call the sheriff, even though I wasn't any closer to finding out what had been dropped. What if it wasn't a body? Could it just have been a huge rock? A bag full of clothes? Hopefully it wasn't Wolfie, the red wolf from the zoo. I'd have to kill her for that.
None of this made any sense. Why would Hilly find this place and then come out here to dump something if it wasn't bad?
"Wrath!" Riley shouted. "Come back up here."
I shook my head and stripped down to my bra and underwear. Then I dove into the water. It was lukewarm, which was good, since I hadn't thought about it before diving in. In hindsight, I'd yell at my troop if they did something like this. Of course, that would be after yelling at them for coming down the canyon walls like I did. I was proving to be a bad role model. I'd have to make Riley pinky swear not to tell anyone.
"Merry!" I heard Riley scream as my head broke through the surface of the water.
"I'm fine! I can swim!" I shouted back as I treaded water.
Taking a deep breath, I ducked under the water once more and swam down farther into the reservoir. There wasn't much to see at first. The water was remarkably clear, but the farther down the darker it got.
A few fish darted in front of me, and I jumped. Then I went back up for more air. I may be a strong swimmer, but I couldn't hold my breath very long. One more gulp, and this time I pushed myself hard to swim farther.
Something ahead of me gave me pause. It looked like a ghost with a rope tied around its leg, anchoring to something farther below. I swam over and discovered it was a body wrapped in bedsheets. I couldn't tell if it was male or female. At least it didn't say Richie Did It anywhere that I could see.
Up for air once more, I squinted up at Riley and told him I'd found a body. But who was it? My heart beat a little faster in hopes it might be Lana.
"Get out of there," he yelled. "I'm calling Sheriff Carnack."
I ignored him and swam back to the body underwater. Tugging on the sheet didn't help, so I reached for what I hoped was the ankle. Well, it seemed like the ankle, even though it was well-wrapped. The knot was something I'd never seen before, and that's saying something from a Girl Scout leader. Obviously Hilly didn't show the girls all of her knots at the meeting.
Four times up to the surface and back down and I didn't unravel it a single centimeter. I was coming back up for air, thinking I'd swim down to find what was anchoring it, when I noticed the shadows of three people standing on the tiny shore.
"Mrs. Ferguson?" Sheriff Carnack held out a towel, which I accepted since, you know, I was in my undies and all.
The other two men, who were wearing swim gear and diving masks, politely looked away.
After wrapping the towel around me, I asked, "How did you all get down here so quickly?"
Carnack pointed at three rope ladders on the canyon wall. Well, that would certainly make it easier to get back up.
I pointed out the location. "It's about ten feet toward the center and maybe six feet straight down." The divers got into the water and disappeared.
"I have to ask, Merry," the large sheriff said. "How did you know there was a body in there?"
I tried to think of what to say before deciding to deflect. "Didn't Riley tell you?"
He shook his head. "All he said was you guys were out hiking and heard a splash. Although I don't know anyone who'd go hiking wearing those shoes he's got on." He squinted up at my former handler. "He also said you dove in from up there."
And that's when I noticed that the rope was gone. Why had he pulled up the rope? Maybe he didn't want them to know how stupid I'd been, or maybe he didn't want the sheriff to see his trunk full of Twinkies. Were they stolen? Were they hot Twinkies?
Focus, Merry! That would be a question for another time.
"Yup," I lied. "That's right."
"That's a fair fall." Carnack tried to hide a grin. "You'd have to be an amazing diver to accomplish that."
"I cannonballed it," I lied. To be honest, I was pretty sure no one would survive doing that, but it would've made me a legend in Whovian history.
Before he could call me out on that, the two divers emerged, giving their boss the thumbs-up. If only Riley was down here so I could point that out.
"Looks like you're right." Carnack nodded at the men.
It took about five minutes to bring the body up. A piece of cut rope dangled from the ankle. Oh sure, it's easy to cut a rope. They hadn't even tried to untie it. They must've been former Boy Scouts, because no self-respecting Girl Scout would use such a cheap shortcut.
There wasn't any room to lay out the corpse. The tiny ledge wasn't big enough for all four of us. I climbed back into my clothes and started up one of the ladders, while the men managed to lash the corpse to a rope and climb up with it.
Back on top, I looked at Riley, who shrugged.
"What happened to the rope?" I hissed.
He gave me a look of total innocence. "What rope?"
"The one in your trunk!"
"There's nothing in my trunk." He narrowed his eyes in a warning.
"Fine," I snapped. "But I still get those Oreos and the other stuff I put on your seat."
For being a large man, Sheriff Carnack had no problem getting up the ladders. He helped the two other men bring up the body. They laid it out on the ground at my feet.
"It wasn't heavy," one of the divers said. "I think it's a woman."
I was having trouble breathing. Mainly because I was about to have proof that my new best friend really was here to kill someone. But who could it be? Was it someone I knew? Was it Lana? If so, I would be grateful for that. I'd pretend to be sad though.
"Remove the sheets please, Deputy Deputy," Carnack said.
"Deputy Deputy?" I asked. I'd never really tried to get to know any of his guys.
He nodded. "His last name is Deputy."
Deputy nodded. "Like Major Major Major Major in Catch 22."
"He doesn't ever want to be promoted," the sheriff added. "Although I think Sheriff Deputy has a nice ring to it."
My attention was turned to the body as the men began unravelling the corpse. The body was face up, staring at us sightlessly.
"What?" I shouted. "How?"
This victim did not die of drowning or anything else. This victim died of a stab wound to the back. I knew this because the woman on the ground was Anna Beth Trident.