It's All In The Blood

It's All in the Blood

I started my day with the same usual routine. First, I had rolled out of bed, then I had a glass of orange juice, and followed that with donning my jogging suit, the thickest pair of socks I owned, my beat-up old boots and my girl hat Ð'-- as my ex-boyfriend liked to call the knit cap decorated with tassels and cute little flowers. I had opened the door of my cottage prepared to brace myself against one of the coldest winter storms Lake Tahoe had ever experienced Ð'-- because like it or not, I had to jog or I didn't function through the day Ð'-- and had been shocked by the incredibly still air...until I closed the door and stepped out, then wind gusted up and almost knocked me flat.

But finding a dead body, half in the lake, half out...seeing her hair splayed across

the pebbles, the snow piling up on her body, the back of her parka puffed up and floating

like a buoy, the murder weapon Ð'-- a blood-drenched rock, only inches away Ð'-- was not usual and made the orange juice rise to my throat and turn sour.

"Help!" Who in their right mind other than myself was out for a jog at six a.m.? It was, after all, still so dark that the seagulls hadn't shown up for their fish breakfast. Thank God. I'm not sure if I could've handled seeing a dozen birds scouring her body for food.

"Oh, Jessica." I wanted to touch her, to hold her, to bring her back to life. I'd only known her two weeks. She had been the sweetest chair lift operator I'd ever encountered, and I'd encountered a few over the past five years of living in Tahoe, few of them sweet.

See, I'm a lonely ex-soap opera writer gone astray. I wasn't much of a writer, writing scripts for shows here and there that never actually made it to big production. Now don't get me wrong, I have always had a passion for writing ever since I was a young girl and was told that I have a gift for writing. That my story could reach out and touch the soul of those who read it. But not to those soulless Hollywood producers whose shallow idea of a good story is based on sex and violent. Your confident really take a hit when you pour your heart and soul into your story only to be rejected before it even has a chance to be finished. I'd moved to Lake Tahoe to regain my sense of self and to find my inner voice Ð'-- ah, hell, to write a novel that to this day is nowhere near finished. Thankfully, the generously goodness of my father's inheritance to me in his will has kept my cupboards filled with everything but beans and hot dogs.

I looked back at Jessica's swollen body and my stomach lurched. If I only had a

blanket. To keep her warm. To do something.

"Help, someone!"

Jessica had recently arrived in Lake Tahoe to find herself...it's like a recurring nightmare for many of us up here. She had left her boyfriend of three years somewhere back in the Bay Area, near one of the Silicon Valley pit stops. He was a techy, she had told me, a computer nerd not unlike Bill Gates, though he hadn't quite made his billions yet.

Hell, she was only twenty-two. Young enough to be my own kid, if I'd ever had any. On an impulse, I leaned down next to her to say a quick prayer. That's when I saw a partial track left in the almost-frozen mud by her head, the welts of hiking boots filling with silt and lapping water. "Evidence," I mumbled, wishing to God I had a camera so I could record it before the near-freezing waters of Tahoe eroded it into nothing. Whoever had done this hideous act had covered all his tracks except one. Did he know? Would he be back?

"Help, Damnit!" I wasn't willing to run up to the road and leave her. She needed me with her. I'd want someone with me if I Ð'--

I covered my mouth in an effort to hold back the vomit, and remembered how when Jessica had gotten off early one day, we had taken a run down a black diamond slope together Ð'-- kindred spirits, she had called us. I got all the low-down on her boyfriend on our first meeting, not that it was that much information. In fact, I can be rather chatty on the ski slopes, and I think Jessica may have gotten my entire life history in that brief period instead of the vice versa. Obviously, I don't have a huge life history if it only takes fifteen minutes, but hey. Anyway, I don't think I learned much more about her except she and her boyfriend had talked about marriage, but then had decided against it. I recalled how Jessica had clammed up then. Said something like her mother wouldn't have approved. We had made promises that we would ski together on her next day off, but neither of us had followed up on the plan. So much for kindred spirits.

And now she laid before me...dead. Her brains bashed in. Her once-lovely face purple. Her eyes wide open, staring at the sky in obvious shock that someone would take her life. And I felt the tug of kindred spirits, like I was destined to help her and wouldn't go to heaven myself if I didn't. Guilt can be quite a motivator.

"Please, someone, can you hear me?" I screamed at the top of my lungs, hoping to heaven someone would answer. I didn't want to let her lie here, and I didn't dare move her. I'd written episodes of murders in soap operas Ð'-- there had to be at least one a season for ratings Ð'-- enough to know that you can't move a murder victim and screw up the crime scene. There were always technical advisors on the set that filled us in on these little details.

"Who did this to you, Jessica?" I whispered, as if speaking to her spirit on some other plane. Pretty little Jessica, who always said, "Have a good day," every time I got on the chair lift, who smiled every time a child skied up. It didn't matter if it was one of those kids with attitude on snowboards in baggy pants or a tiny tot with chapped lips, sunburned red face and snot hanging out its nose, she smiled. She was the essence of purity and innocence.

"Somebody, help!" I was getting angry. Why in the hell wasn't anyone up and

around to help? Where were the police?

"What's going on?" I heard a woman shout from the railing above.

"Dead body," I yelled, as if every day there was a dead body. I couldn't believe how calm my voice sounded.

The flare of a flashlight blazed a path

...