Bet arrived at Rob’s house to find him waiting for her after her cryptic call. She sat him down in the living room and told him who Peter Malone had pulled out of the lake.
“How could I not have seen this coming?” Rob’s voice shook with emotion. “How could I have believed all these years she just walked away?”
He agreed to go with her to the morgue to confirm the ID. On the drive back down she took a chance and told him about her own recovered memories. She felt she owed him that. And she might as well do a practice run before she told the whole town.
Now they stood in the hallway outside the morgue while Rob caught his breath. It had been difficult for him to see his mother looking eerily suspended in time.
“Your father told you she abandoned you. Why would you think otherwise?”
“But still, all these years. I never looked for her.” He laughed, though the sound held little mirth. “Until now.”
Whatever else might be true about Rob Collier, she believed his shock and grief were real. She wasn’t sure what she could do to comfort the man. She reached out and touched his arm.
“You believed she left you. You didn’t want to be rejected again. And you thought she never tried to reach you. You had no way to know she couldn’t.”
Rob rested his head in his hands, but no tears came. His shoulders sagged, and Bet felt the sadness and regret coming off him in waves.
“Who did this?” Rob finally spoke. “My father? You saw the person who pushed her through the ice. Are you sure you didn’t recognize him?”
“It was dark and I was looking through the trees. Apparently I was terrified enough for that to put me into a fugue state,” Bet reminded him. “You said you believed me about that.”
“But you remember now. Was he a big man? Like my father?”
“Rob,” Bet said, keeping her voice even. “It was freezing out. Whoever it was had on winter clothes, a parka, a knit cap.” Bet shrugged helplessly, feeling like a failure for not having more to tell him. “I was a kid. Everyone looked big to me then.” She didn’t add that she might not have recognized her own father under those conditions.
Rob took a deep, steadying breath. “I know. I’m sorry.” He straightened up and began to walk back into the autopsy room.
“Rob, you can’t be in the room for this.”
“I’m not going to watch the autopsy, but I need to see her again.”
Carolyn looked up as they entered, concern on her face.
“It’s okay,” Rob said. “I’m just going to be a few minutes; then we’ll leave you to do your job.”
Carolyn nodded, and the three of them moved around Lillian’s body. Carolyn had covered her with a sheet, but she clearly lay naked underneath it. Only her face, neck, and upper shoulders remained visible for the moment.
“She could be sleeping,” Bet murmured.
“Incorruptibility,” Carolyn said.
“What?” Bet asked.
“The Roman Catholic Church believes that supernatural interference prevents decomposition in certain bodies,” Rob said.
“I’ve never seen it before, myself,” Carolyn said. “Catholics believe the body should exude an odor of sanctity.”
Rob leaned over his mother and breathed in deeply. “I don’t smell anything floral. Maybe … metallic. Like copper.”
“We’ll have to assume, then,” Carolyn said, “that your mother is not a saint.”
“You two don’t really think this is supernatural, do you?” Bet looked back and forth between them.
“No, of course not. I didn’t mean that,” Carolyn said. “I just meant that’s the name the church gives this phenomenon. There’s going to be a scientific reason for it. Probably the cold. Human remains have been found preserved in ice, even cold peat bogs in Ireland. In those cases a combination of highly acidic water, cold, and low oxygen preserved the skin and organs.”
“But not the bones,” Rob said.
“Correct again, Mr. Collier.” Carolyn watched Rob closely. “Bones eventually dissolve from the acid in the peat; it attacks the calcium phosphate.”
“But this preserved after almost twenty years?” Bet wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen Lillian with her own eyes.
“One of the most famous cases of mummification is that of Lady Dai,” Carolyn said. “She died in China in 163 BC. When she was found in 1971, she still had hair, skin, even blood in her veins.”
“That’s incredible.” Bet shook her head. “She’d be almost two thousand years old?”
Carolyn nodded. “That makes your find here seem a lot more possible, doesn’t it?”
“Why was she preserved in our lake, though? It’s not a peat bog.” Bet kept her eyes on Rob. She couldn’t imagine what was going through his head as they looked at his mother’s corpse.
“Besides the cold,” Carolyn said, “she was wrapped up pretty tight. Without anaerobic activity, the decomposition process would slow. It would keep fish from eating her.”
“There are no fish in the lake.”
“What?” Carolyn’s face showed her surprise.
“In Lake Collier. There are no fish.”
“Seriously?”
Bet laughed at her incredulity. “How can you not know that? You’ve lived here in E’burg how long?”
“I’ve never been up to Lake Collier, though.” Carolyn stood quiet for a long moment, deep in thought. “No fish at all?”
“Nothing. Not a fish, not a tadpole. No signs of life.”
“Ever?”
“Not as long as I can remember.” Rob rejoined the conversation, and Bet nodded in agreement.
“Why is that?” The medical examiner looked at the two of them as if they could explain the vagaries of the lake in detail.
“I always assumed it was the cold or the altitude.” Bet thought about Peter Malone. “The scientist studying the lake right now thinks it was formed from a glacier. Maybe nothing ever started growing.”
Carolyn rejected the thought. “That doesn’t make sense. Lots of fish and amphibians can survive in cold water, and at higher elevations. You should have something. Is there plant life? Anything?”
“No, nothing,” Bet said.
“Anyone ever tested the water?”
“Tested?” Rob looked troubled. “Tested for what?”
“That would be the question,” Carolyn said. “What could be in the water that keeps anything from growing and preserves the dead?”
“You have something in mind?” Bet felt a sense of dread creeping up her spine.
“You do have an old mine up there, right? Lots of stuff can ooze out of an old coal mine.”
Bet had never heard anyone speculate about why Lake Collier was dead. It had just always been that way.
The medical examiner returned to the case at hand. “You sound very certain about the year your lady went into the lake.”
“I have no doubt,” Bet said.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Eyewitness account,” Bet said.
“Reliable?”
“Very.” Rob didn’t look at Bet as he answered.
“Odd. Coming so many years later.” Carolyn gave Bet a searching look.
Bet shrugged. “People keep secrets for all kinds of reasons.”
“True.” Carolyn turned and pulled her light down closer, inspecting Lillian’s face. “But secrets have a way of coming out, don’t they?”
“Did you see anything that would indicate cause of death before you covered her?” Bet asked.
“Nothing obvious, but I’ll have to do a full autopsy. Keep in mind, after all this time it may be difficult to ascertain for certain. She’s incredibly well preserved, but time has still taken its toll. I should get started. Exposure to oxygen may start breaking things down.”
Bet asked one last question. “Is she missing any hair?”
Carolyn took a thin metal instrument and carefully separated the long strands of Lillian’s hair. She looked up at Bet, eyes wide.
Bet didn’t need her to say yes to know the answer.