Lake of Tears Read Online Free Page B

Stop and get something to eat, although probably the first thing she’d want to do was feed him. He remembered she was a good cook. He hadn’t seen her in over four years, before he went overseas. He wondered how old she would look. He wondered what she would think of his new face.
    He wouldn’t stay there long.
    Just long enough to deal with Andrew.

    “Could you get us a list of everyone who worked on this project?” Amy asked, looking at Ellen Becker-Richards, who was married to Stewart Richards and the codirector of the Burning Boat project.
    Ellen was in her early forties, Amy would have guessed, but looked younger and dressed very young. She was wearing workout shorts and a ripped T-shirt over a long-sleeved shirt. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail and tucked under a matching baseball cap—which read, not surprisingly, Got a Match? Amy was avoiding saying Ellen’s full name because she hated saying hyphenated names—they just bugged her. Why couldn’t they either keep their own name or take their guy’s—why make the whole world suffer from their indecision?
    “I think I could put a list together. I’m not sure we have one. People kinda come and go.”
    “Your husband mentioned that you had some help from students of his. Were most of the people from outside Pepin County, or did you also have people helping from around here?”
    “I’d say it was about half and half. All told, we probably had about twenty to twenty-five people working on the boat.”
    “Is anyone missing? Did any of the students not show up?”
    “Not that I’m aware of.”
    “If this body was put in the boat on Friday night, why would no one have seen it on Saturday?”
    “I’m guessing because the boat was pretty much done. Any work we did to it on Saturday was really external—piling up brush, clearing around it. But we were working on the lanterns on the beach and the other art pieces in the park.”
    Amy wrote down a note.
    “I have a question for you.” Ellen folded her arms over her chest. “Why do you think that whoever did this has a connection with the project?”
    “We don’t know, but it’s a place to start. How would anyone even think to do this if they didn’t know about the boat?”
    “Yes, but everyone knew about the boat. The whole community has been watching us build this for the last few weeks. It’s no secret.”
    “You’re right. But like I said—it’s a place to start. Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me if they had a connection. Otherwise what would they be doing around it? Either to hide in the boat, or put someone there.”
    Ellen unfolded her arms and dropped them down to her waist, then tilted her head back. “This is not exactly the kind of publicity we had envisioned coming of this project.”
    “No, I don’t imagine.”
    “But unfortunately, it fits with one of the uses of a longboat.”
    Amy wasn’t sure why she had said that. “What do you mean?”
    Ellen looked at her funny. “Aren’t you Scandinavian?”
    Amy shook her head. “Matter of fact, I’m not. Scotch-Irish. Why?”
    “Well, longboats were often used to bury the Viking leaders. They’d lay them out in the bottom of the boat, light it on fire, and push them out to sea.”
    “Never knew that.”
    “Someone knew what they were for. That’s probably what made them think to use it that way.” Ellen looked around at the tarps going up. “Boy, you’re really gearing up here.”
    “Gotta protect the evidence.”
    “You think you’ll figure out what happened?”
    “We usually do.”

CHAPTER 4
    The rain swept in with some wind as evening fell, enough to cause the branches of the cottonwoods to waltz along the shoreline. Claire was sitting in the squad car parked right outside the crime scene barriers, waiting for the bone guy to show up, a forensic osteologist. An official member of BARFAA, of all things. What a name. Stood for Bioarcheology and Forensic Anthropology Association—either they had a great