He stood now directly over the woman, squinting, looking only obliquely at her. He didn't want to touch her. What if he touched her and she were alive with her brains drooling out of the back of her head. If she moved he was afraid he'd bolt. He felt helpless. He wouldn't be able to help her. He'd better run for the cops. It was maybe another mile. That wasn't hard. He'd run thirteen Friday. He'd already run nine today.

Is she dead? they'd say.

I don't know, I didn't dare touch her, he'd say.

And the cops would look at each other. No, it would be too embarrassing. He'd have to touch her. He squatted down on his heels and felt around for her neck, looking at her only sideways with his eyes nearly shut. He felt for the pulse in the carotid artery. The same place he took his own after running. There was no pulse. He made himself feel hard for nearly a minute. Nothing. As he moved his hand he felt something warm and wet and jerked his hand away and rubbed it on the ground without looking. He stood up. The woods were nearly all white pine here, and the sun coming through the trees made a ragged dappled pattern on the woman's white slacks. One shoe was missing. Her toenails were painted maroon.

Newman turned and began to jog down the railroad tracks. As he jogged he could feel the panic build in him, and he ran faster toward the cops.

CHAPTER 1.

She was there when he drove back with two local cops. The crows had been at her, and as the patrol car pulled in beside the railroad tracks three crows flew up and went to the trees.

For the two cops it was the first shooting victim they had ever seen.

They had seen bad corpses in car wrecks and people who'd died of heart attacks on the way to the hospital, and once they'd had to remove the remains of an old man who had died three weeks prior. But never before a murder. The murder scared them a little.

The senior officer was Ed Diamond, six and a half years on the force.