This story was completed before Season 4 began.
Chapter 1
Mid-March
The saving grace was that now, seven weeks later, it was as though it had never happened.
Maybe he was deluding himself, but he didn't think so. As far as he could figure, nothing had changed. Vic still showed up early and stayed late, immersed herself in every investigation, remained committed to the principles of the profession.
She still barked out his name as her boots knocked across the wooden floor, the energy of discovery buzzing around her like a force field. She still grabbed hold of him with her eyes, intense and unafraid, saying, "Check it out, Walt. This asshat has a history," or, "Twenty bucks says this genius knows more than he's letting on."
She'd hand him the report or the article or the photograph or whatever it was she'd uncovered, then she'd lean across the desk to point something out, so close he could smell her lotion, feel her heat.
She'd bite her bottom lip, and to his shame, his gaze would shift there without his consent. She never seemed to notice, though, and he convinced himself he was grateful for that.
Business went on as usual: She complained about traffic detail, argued with Ferg, objectified men, cussed excessively, and insulted witnesses. From time to time, late on a quiet evening, she'd even come timid and doe-eyed into his office to talk.
Then just as unexpectedly, she'd be gone, leaving him nothing new to wonder about.
** [ ||||| ] **
Late January
It was on a moonless late-January night that Warren Edwards was found floating face down in his half-frozen stock pond along with seven head of cattle.
Walt awoke from a deep, blank slumber to the ringing.
The restless, often wakeful nights on the couch were past, and these days, the grief wafted in and out of the windows of his life, present but no longer disruptive. Sleep seemed to do with him as it pleased, to scatter the fragments of his consciousness like puzzle pieces across time so that always it took some retrieving and patching to return to the here and the now.
His bare feet ached against the wood floor as he stood in the blue dark of the front room, taking the report from Aubrey Davis.
"You sure he's dead, Aubrey?"
"The man's frozen solid, Walt."
"You just happened upon the scene at two in the morning?"
"Them cows was bellowing up a storm. Couldn't get a wink of sleep over here. Reckoned there was a coyote out there."
"Or a wolf," Walt said. "They're back."
"Anything my bullet hits, I'm sayin' I thought it was a coyote."
"So you walked out through four feet of snow to Edwards' place?"
"Took the snow machine. Them cows sure ain't bellowin' now." His chuckle transitioned into a phlegmy cough.
"Just sit tight at home, Aubrey. We'll be by once we process the scene."
"You bringin' that girl with you?"
"Deputy Moretti isn't on call tonight."
"That's too bad," Aubrey said.
As soon as he hung up, Walt dialed Vic's cell—three rings, then voicemail. He forbade his mind from trying to explain it, but his mind never had been particularly cooperative.
His second call didn't even ring, and the imaginings were more explicit. He didn't leave a message.
Five minutes later, while he was buttoning his jeans, she called back sounding out of breath. At two-thirty in the morning.
"Walt. What's wrong?"
His stomach fluttered at the sound of her voice. What a fool he was.
"We've got a body out at county line."
"And?" She'd gone from genuine concern, worry even, to mild annoyance within the span of ten seconds.
"If you're busy," he said, "I can get hold of Ferg."
"It is Ferg's night, so yeah, that seems right." He thought he heard laughter in the background. "Would have been even righter if you'd done it before dragging my ass out of bed."
A wave of nausea surged through him.
"Walt?"
"I'm here."
"So call Ferg."
"Your truck has the best heater," he said. "It's five below."
"It's twelve. Above. I was just out there."
"I thought your ass was in bed."
"Did you just mention my ass?" She was flirting with him, and this time he'd started it.
With one hand, he tugged at the waist of his jeans, which had been slipping down over his hips.
"I'll make coffee."
"What the fuck, Walt?"
"So you'll pick me up?" he asked. "Since it's out this way?"
By three o'clock they were standing at the edge of the stock pond, Maglite beams bouncing off the ice into the frosty mist, inventorying the carnage.
Before they'd gotten out of the truck, she'd turned to him, right knee bent up against the center console, waiting for direction, and he'd gotten stuck. She was wearing her uniform with a multicolored beanie and matching scarf he hadn't seen before. In the dome light of the truck she'd looked so pure, her eyes and face glowing, her lashes so long.
"What?" she said.
He'd been here before, right in this exact spot with her deferring to him, handing it all over, expectant.
"You're pretty," he mumbled.
It wasn't a slip.
He had plenty of opportunity to stop it, and he chose not to. He chose, knowing it was a mistake, because as far as he was concerned it had already been decided, whether the rational side of him agreed to it or not.
Her eyes narrowed, and she tilted her head, only very slightly, and she said almost in a whisper, "What did you say?"
He drew in a sharp breath, shook his head, and got out of the truck.
For an hour and a half, they wrangled Edwards' corpse through the ice. She took one end of the forty foot rope, and he took the other, and she crunched around the icy bank to the other side of the pond, where he could see just her general dark shape and the clouds of warm white haze as she breathed. They pulled the rope taut and lowered it over the ice to drag the body towards the shore, taking turns calling out reminders not to fall in. Over and over the rope or the body got hung up on a stiff cow or a section of ice, and twice they decided to give up only to start again, first because of his brilliant solution, then because of hers.
Finally, close to five o'clock, as the east began to pale, they dragged the body up onto the shore. Ice covered the nostrils and the eyes, which were open wide. He held the light while she examined the body—no bullet holes, no sign of trauma. She unzipped the jacket, snapping off a sharp strip of ice in the process.
"Walt," she said, staring up at him. "Ligature marks?"
"Kind of low, but could be." He crouched down next to her and moved the jacket further out of the way. "Might just be a wrinkle." In the artificial light it was hard to tell. "That's a nightshirt."
"Pajama top," she said. "Nightshirt's like Ebenezer Scrooge."
"So he wasn't planning on being out here."
"Bellowing cows?"
"Came out to investigate and found the cows had broken through the ice?"
He stood up and looked out across the pond at the lumps of frozen bovine.
"Doesn't scream foul play," she said.
"No. But it doesn't not scream it, either."
She stayed with the body while he drove out to the road with her phone to call the coroner. When he got back she was walking around in circles, hugging herself. As soon as he came to a stop, she ran over to the truck and got in the passenger seat. She was an ice cube chilling the cab.
"Here," he said, pulling the thermos out from behind the seat. "That cup's yours."
While he poured, she held the mug, shivering. He didn't ask her if she was okay because that would only piss her off, and besides, he knew she was.
For a long time, she was quiet, hands wrapped around the mug, staring out through the side window at the body they'd covered with a horse blanket.
"You know what, Walt?" Her voice was soft, almost wistful, and it melted his heart a little.
"What?"
"Fuck you."