by Gregg Olsen
The day just gets better and better.
I open the door with the key and hit the inside unlock button. Nothing happens. I lean across and unlock the passenger door. Ronnie Marsh waits until I pull out of the parking lot before she starts what will become stream-of-consciousness chatter. I tune out somewhere around her graduating from middle school at the top of her class.
Three
The drive to the scene isn’t a long one. We cross over the narrow causeway to Indian Island and a second causeway to Marrowstone Island. I turn left on State Route 116, which is also Flagler Road. Every now and then a cut through the thickets of ferns and old cedars reveals the sun reflecting off the waters of the bay. It reminds me of my little brother, Hayden. In Port Orchard we lived not far from a little creek, where he would look for salamanders. He was seven. I was fifteen or sixteen. I read A Tale of Two Cities for English class. Charles Dickens said what I was feeling about those times in Port Orchard. “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” There’s enough time and distance from those days that I choose to remember the good. The bad is too painful. Hayden remembers only the worst of days and my screw-ups. He has little contact with me, and that is more painful than the memories.
Mystery Bay is to our left, the state park straight ahead. I see a sign for the boat ramp and slow down. A state patrol car is parked several hundred feet down the road with the emergency lights on. In front of it is one of our Sheriff’s Office vehicles.
Further down is a relic: a red or oxidized brown Ford Pinto.
A young man, teens, early twenties, stands behind the deputy’s cruiser, one arm wrapped around his chest, his free hand twisting the hair of a skimpy beard and stuffing the end in his mouth. His hair is long and black and curly and looks like it hadn’t been washed in… well possibly, ever. He wears camouflage army boots with the laces tied so loosely, I can’t imagine how they stay on his feet. His faded jeans are cuffed and tattered.
The trooper’s corfam dress shoes are dirt- and mud-free. So very shiny. If I’d been inclined, I could use the toes for a mirror. There’s not a fleck of lint or dust on his sharp-enough-to-cut-you pressed trousers. I look at the statie’s name badge: MacDonald.
“Your deputy is down with the body,” he says flatly. “No need for both of us to get dirty. Besides, one of us had to stay up here to keep the road closed to civilians.”
I glance at the pair of cruisers with their emergency lights flashing and then return my gaze to him. I want to say that I would have totally missed the police cars with the Christmas lights going and driven right past. But since I have a trainee with me, I shift gears.
“That’s what I figured. Good thinking.” I give him “the look” so he knows he didn’t pull a fast one on me. To my pleasant surprise I hear my trainee giggle.
Maybe she’ll be okay.
“Is that the person that found the body?” she asks.
The young man stopped twisting his beard long enough to offer his hand. He says nothing and I don’t take the hand. I doubt anyone would.
Trooper MacDonald speaks up. “This is Mr. Boyd.”
I nod. “I’ll need a statement from you, Mr. Boyd. Why were you down there?”
I didn’t see a boat trailer or any fishing gear. He isn’t dressed for anything outdoorsy.
He appears surprised by the question. I half expect him to ask if he is a suspect and then invoke his rights. To which I might respond that he has no rights until he becomes a suspect. The truth is everyone is a suspect until they’re not. I have learned that from experience. He doesn’t disappoint.
“I’m not a suspect, am I?”
“Absolutely not,” I lie.
He looks skeptical. “On TV the person to find the body is always a suspect.”
That was also true in real life.
“That’s TV, Mr. Boyd.”
“Robbie,” he says. “My name’s Robbie. I go to school at Olympic College. I’m taking criminal justice.”
“Great choice,” I tell him. “So you know how this goes. Tell me: why were you down there?”
He stuffs some of his scraggly mustache in his mouth and chews on it.
Gag.
“I heard about this place from a friend at school,” he finally says. “I don’t have to give you her name, do I?”
“No,” I say.
Not right this minute, anyway, I think. I’ll let him tell me all he knows and then I’ll get the name out of him.
“Okay,” he starts. “I was looking for a new hiking trail. I’m parked right over there.” He turns and points at the Pinto as if I hadn’t noticed it or it might have mysteriously moved. “I’m a hiker and a rock climber. I was looking for some cliffs. I’m very strong.”
“I can see that.” He looks all skin and bones in his grimy T-shirt and well-worn jeans and hiking boots.
He smiles and warms to me. Everyone does. I can charm when I need to.
“So,” he goes on, “I headed down to the bay—to the boat ramp, I mean—and I started looking for a trail.”
He stops a beat.
“This isn’t going to be on the news, is it? I’m supposed to be in class. I skipped a test and told them I was sick.”
It’s going to be in a full-length movie if you keep asking stupid questions, I think.
“I don’t think your name will come up,” I say.
He seems a little disappointed, so I pivot again. “But I can’t promise the news media won’t track you down.”
He brightens a little. That was the correct response.
“Well, I guess if I have to talk to them…”
“Finish telling your story,” I say.
“Okay, so I walk that way”—he points—“and I come to a place where I found a trail. I went into the trees and followed it a bit and that’s when I found the place.”
Ronnie interjects: “What place?”
“The rocks,” he says. “I’m a rock climber. You ever been rock climbing?”
She shakes her head.
I want to shake her for interrupting the interview.
“Mr. Boyd,” I say, “you found the body. Can you tell us about that?”
“Okay. Sorry. I just really like rock climbing.”
I gave him a stern look. I am running out of patience.
“Anyway, I came up to the little cliff, bluff, whatever.” Boyd has warmed to the subject. “It was only, like, thirty feet high, but it was sheer, man. I mean, it was straight down: ‘Do not pass GO, do not collect $200,’ if you know what I mean.”
He gives other expressions of this stupidity and I let him talk until he runs out of “likes” and “you knows” and appears to be wrung dry as far as skirting the subject.
“I was going to climb down. I left my climbing gear back in the car, but it looked like I could make it. Then I saw I didn’t have to. Someone left a perfectly good rope tied off to a tree. It was coiled up and I almost tripped over it. I pitched it over, checked the knot, and over I went.”
“The body,” Ronnie says.
I can see she is getting impatient too.
Good girl.
“So I got down to the bottom and there’s a bunch of big rocks and a tiny strip of sandy beach. I pulled on the rope to make sure I could climb back up. I didn’t want to fall down in those rocks. Some of them are sharp. Anyway, I was about to climb back up and I saw what looked like a foot sticking out between the rocks. I couldn’t see any way to get to this beach except by climbing down. I thought maybe the person had fallen off the cliff. At the same time I wondered how they could have, ’cause the rope was coiled up at the top of the cliff.”
He stops and looks at us.
“Aren’t you going to take notes?”
“I have a very good memory,” I say. “Go on.”
He sighs. “Okay. Fine. I go over and look and it’s a woman. She ain’t moving and looks banged up. I thought maybe she had fallen but then I see she’s not wearing anything but her panties and a bra. So I think m
aybe she tried to swim to the beach and got tossed up on the rocks. I climbed back up and called 911. Then I thought maybe she needed help and I got in my car, but it wouldn’t start. Then the officer showed up and he called for a deputy and, well, here we are.”
I question him again, walking him through his story. It doesn’t change. He climbed down, saw the body, climbed up, and called 911. Boyd swore he didn’t touch anything or take any pictures, although I don’t believe him, because he still has his phone. He’ll probably hightail it back to campus and show pictures to his buddies or sell them to the news media.
I say to him, “So when CSI gets here and takes fingerprints and collects DNA samples, yours won’t show up anywhere?”
He swallows and I hear his Adam’s apple click in a dry throat. He shakes his head. “I don’t think so. You can’t get fingerprints off a rope and that’s all I touched. Honest to God. And the rocks where I was climbing down.”
“We have a new technology that’s called Touch DNA. You probably heard about that in class.”
He stays silent.
“And it’s what the name says. When you touch something, part of your DNA gets on the item, body, whatever. Then, using the FBI and Homeland Security database, we can then trace it back to the person through family lineage and down to a specific individual.”
Boyd stops chewing on his beard and begins rubbing the side of his face.
“Well, to tell the truth, I might have walked out in the water to see better. But it was too deep, and I didn’t want to get that wet. I didn’t never touch her, I swear.”
The bottom half of his jeans are still damp.
My rule of thumb is that when someone says, “I swear,” what follows is going to be a big fat lie. I believe he didn’t touch the body but maybe he took pictures. Maybe even a selfie. People are sick. I should know.
“Can you let him sit in back of your car?” I ask MacDonald.
MacDonald does so reluctantly.
As he is getting in the back seat Boyd says, “I’ll give a full statement to your partner, Detective Marsh.” He smiles at Ronnie. She smiles back, turns to face me, and scowls.
“I’ll take his statement if you like, Detective. They taught us how at the academy. I’ve got a voice recorder on my cell phone.”
I’ve used my phone recorder to take confessions too. But the person giving the confession didn’t know I was recording them. Tricking them didn’t bother me.
MacDonald is cold. I need to turn on the charm.
“I’m Megan,” I say. “Can I call you Mac?”
“No. It’s State Patrolman MacDonald.”
Four
Seriously.
He wants me to call him State Patrolman MacDonald.
Not a chance.
This is going to be a long morning.
“Okay,” I tell him. “Is the rope still there, or did Deputy Davis have something of his own to climb down with?”
“He used the witness’s rope,” MacDonald says.
I was afraid of that. It’s too late to collect the rope. I follow the beaten-down grass path through a stand of huge big-leaf maples to a smaller fir where a climbing rope is tied off. The rope extends down the side of the cliff. I step out as far as I can but don’t see a body or my deputy. I return to the cars and MacDonald.
“Deputy Marsh will stay up here to wait for Crime Scene. Do you have crime scene tape?”
He nods.
“Can you help me out and string some along both sides of this road? We’ll need to search both sides for any evidence or tire marks.” I look directly at him.
He doesn’t say anything. He goes behind the car and opens the trunk.
“Unless you have hiking boots and work clothes in your handbag,” I tell my erstwhile deputy, Ronnie, “I want you to stay up here and take a statement from the witness.”
She looks down at her shoes. “Sorry. I thought we’d be staying in the office today. Tomorrow I’ll be better prepared, ma’am.”
Ma’am? Seriously?
“Don’t call me ‘ma’am,’” I tell her. “I’m Megan for today. Okay?”
“I’m really taking Mr. Boyd’s statement?” she asks.
“Might as well get your feet wet. I want you to write his name and personal information down. And get the license information.”
She takes a notebook and pen from inside her jacket. It was so tight fitting I didn’t see anywhere she could have hidden them. “And while you’re at it, search his car.”
“We don’t have a warrant. Is he a suspect?”
“No,” I lie again. “Just see if he’ll let you. If it makes you feel better, you can ask him to let you search his car while you’re taking the statement. If he says yes, it will be on the recording.”
She doesn’t look convinced.
“I’ve been at this awhile, Ronnie. Trust me.”
“I do. Trust you, I mean.”
Now, that’s a start.
“I’m going down to see what we have.” I go to Mac’s car, open the door, and ask Boyd, “Are you sure there’s no other way down there besides climbing?”
“I guess you could swim around.”
Smart-ass.
I return to Ronnie.
“Are you going to call Marine Patrol?” she asks.
“I’ll call from down there.” Mac approaches with a roll of yellow-and-black tape. “Thank you for helping. This is Reserve Deputy Ronnie Marsh.”
Ronnie offers her limp hand and he takes it long enough for it to drip through his fingers and says, “Nice to meet you.”
“She will be taking a statement from Mr. Boyd.”
I know Mac will gladly let Ronnie take the statement so he can avoid going to court or testifying. I don’t warn him that once Ronnie starts talking, there is no off switch. The witness is on his own.
I follow the trail through the trees again and stand at the top of the cliff. It’s about thirty or forty feet to the bottom. Rocks ranging in size from a football to a dinner table cover most of the beach. I scan for the body again, but I can’t see it from here. I turn around and start descending hand over hand, shoving the toes of my boots in any crack they can find. I get about ten feet from the top and look down again. Can’t help it. I don’t care for heights. I can’t even see the deputy. I start down again and don’t dare look anywhere but straight ahead. I hang on to the rope and try to lean away from the rock face like they taught in the academy.
“Watch out for…” a voice comes from below.
My foot picks that exact moment to find probably the only loose shale on the side of this cliff and I slip. Two things save me. There is a small sandy area where Deputy Davis is standing four or five feet below me.
And I land on top of him.
We look like a Jenga puzzle game, all arms and legs askew. The breath is knocked from me, and I can hear Deputy Davis grunting. He’d better not be enjoying himself. I roll off and he helps me up. He begins brushing the sand and dirt from the back of my jacket while I use my fingers to comb the sand out of my hair. He brushes the back of my butt and I move away.
I’m armed.
“I owe you one, Deputy Davis,” I say.
Actually, I owe him two—black eyes—if he touches me again.
“Not necessary, ma’am. I mean Detective Carpenter.”
Deputy Davis is a year younger than me. He has thick brown hair and a mustache that screams vintage porn star. Or maybe cop. Cop is much better. He’s not particularly overweight, but his stomach somehow manages to roll over his coaster-size buckle. He’s a good cop and a total pleaser as evidenced by his willingness and ability to make the climb down. I’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to break him of the habit of calling me “ma’am” and he tries. I have learned to accept it. He is being a gentleman. It’s the way he was raised. He explained to me that his mother taught him to call all ladies “ma’am” and all men “sir.”
My mother taught me to lie, manipulate, betray, and worse.
“Show me what w
e have, Deputy Davis,” I say. He likes to be called “Deputy.”
He climbs over some of the bigger rocks and I try to keep up. I can see the water lick at the rocks thirty feet away. I still don’t see a body. I wonder how Boyd saw a foot. I reposition myself on a large rock and look toward the water and I see it. A bare foot, ankle, and part of a lower leg. Toes pointing up.
We make our way closer until I can see the body. A woman. White. On her back in a small sandy area, a twenty-by-ten-foot stretch of beach. Her legs are pointed toward me, her head toward the cove. Her legs are spread with the rock between them. I look to the left and to the right. Boyd was correct: the rocks block any entrance to the body without going into the water. I will have to go over the rocks to get to the body. Or swim from the boat ramp.
I climb on top of another rock and look directly down on the body. Long reddish hair covers half of the face. My guess is she’s in her mid-twenties. Just as Robbie Boyd said, she’s wearing only a bra and panties. I look around but don’t see clothes. Her face is battered; her bottom lip split so much that I can see teeth through the cut. Dark, indented marks circle her wrists and ankles. A wider one encircles her slender neck. Her skin is light blue, but I see deeper blue or black marks on her torso.
It appears she’s been beaten or kicked.
I take out my cell phone and breathe in. I’ve got two bars. I’m tempted to call Ronnie and ask her to climb down. Instead, I call Captain Marvel of the Marine Patrol and advise him of the situation. It will take half an hour for the patrol to arrive.
I also phone Jerry Larsen, our coroner. Since he’s in his sixties, he won’t be able to make the climb. When he answers, I tell him to meet me at the boat ramp where Mac is parked. He can take the boat. I’d rather not get on the boat with Marvel.
“Do you have a camera, Deputy Davis?”
Davis reaches for his backpack and proffers a digital Nikon.