He stiffened and made a low, jerky exclamation when the bright beam touched what appeared to be a bundle of discarded clothing not more than thirty feet away.
Shayne swore softly and grabbed the light from the officer’s hand. He had seen that pinkish color before.
It wasn’t pink. It was orchid.
He stumbled forward, holding the flashlight extended before him. The bundle of discarded clothing took shape — the shape of a slender young girl.
Shayne slowed to a walk. It was far too late for hurrying now. Nora Carson was quite dead.
Chapter eleven
THE TOP OF THE ACTRESS’S HEAD was smashed in, the edges of the gaping wound showing clean and unbloody under the light of the flash. She lay curled about the base of an old tree stump as though she embraced it in dying. Her shoulders and arms were bare, creamy-smooth in the bright light; the orchid evening gown was twined tightly about her body from the knees upward.
Cal Strenk and the patrolman came up behind Shayne quietly. The miner’s breath made a faint slobbering noise in the stillness. None of them said anything.
Shayne bent and touched one of Nora Carson’s bright blond curls and her gown. Both were soggy. A few inches from her feet the creek water swirled and foamed over small boulders. The rocky bank surrounding her was clean-washed, with no sign of blood anywhere.
Shayne sent the beam of the flashlight up the steep slope, muttering, “She wasn’t killed here. Might have rolled down from above and lodged against this stump.” The light reached upward to the path leading to the cabin without revealing anything to indicate where the murder had occurred.