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, but it was hard to tell because it was wet. It formed a heavy curtain on both sides of her face.
A summer-weight cotton robe had been carelessly tied at her waist. The wide sleeves had fallen back to reveal slender arms sprinkled with pale freckles. The skirt of the robe had separated above her knees, leaving her legs bare. Her toes were curled into the deep pile of the bath mat.
She wasn't Caroline King.
Inside the bathtub, the porcelain was wet. Three of the pewter rings holding the shower curtain had been detached from the rod, leaving the wet curtain hanging unevenly. A bottle of shampoo in the corner of the tub was uncapped.
She must have been interrupted while taking a shower, which explained the damp patches where her robe was stuck to her skin.
Lying on the floor a few inches from her feet, incongruous with the vulnerability of her pink, bare toes, was a .38 revolver, a standard Saturday night special. The base of the commode would have kept it from being seen by the EMTs. Ski wondered if that had been deliberate.
He removed a pair of latex gloves from the hip pocket of his jeans and worked his right hand into one of them, then cautiously walked forward and bent down to pick up the revolver by the trigger guard. He thumbed the latch, and the cylinder swung out. There was an unspent bullet in each of the six chambers. He sniffed the barrel. It hadn't been fired recently.
As though only then realizing that he was there, the woman lowered her hands from her face and looked up at him. Her light brown eyes remained disconnected and vague. The whites of them were streaked with red from crying. Her skin was very pale, her lips practically colorless.
She swallowed noisily. "Is he all right?"
"Not really."
Whimpering, she looked past Ski to the bloodstain just beyond the threshold. "Oh, God." She pressed trembling fingers against her lips. "I can't believe this happened."
"What did happen?"
"He's got to be all right. I should be with him. I must go."
She tried to stand, but Ski placed his hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down. "Not now."
For the first time since he'd come into the room, she focused on him. "Are you ... Who are you?"
He unsnapped the leather wallet on his belt and opened it to show her his ID. "Deputy Ski Nyland, Merritt County S.O."
"I see." But Ski didn't believe she actually did. She'd barely glanced at his ID. Her watery gaze was imploring. "Please tell me he's going to be okay."
"What's your name?"
She seemed to have to think about it. Then she hooked her wet hair behind her ears and answered in a husky voice. "Berry Malone."
Ski noted that her last name wasn't the same as that of the man who'd been shot. Neither of them was named King.
He said, "The wounded man, Ben Lofland ... is that right?"
She gave an abrupt nod.
"He's on his way to the ER."
"He's not dead?"
"Wasn't when they left with him."
"He bled a lot."
"He did, yeah."
"He can't die."
"Unfortunately, he can."
She made a choking sound and whispered, "I must call his wife."
