by Gregg Olsen
“Take all the pictures you can,” I tell him. “Some of where we climbed down and from there to where I’m at now. How high do you think that cliff is? Thirty feet? Forty?”
“Over thirty, ma’am.” He starts clicking away. He doesn’t have to be told to get close-ups or to tell me if he saw something unusual. Davis has worked crime scenes before.
“Captain Martin will want to take his own,” Davis reminds me, and I say nothing.
Captain Marvel can do whatever the hell he wants as long as he gets the body out without destroying evidence, and gets it someplace where I can get a better look. I always assume homicide until I know different.
Davis says what I’m thinking.
“I don’t think she was swimming.”
“And she didn’t fall from the top of the cliff unless she was running about forty miles an hour before she jumped,” I add.
“How long do you think she’s been here, ma’am?” he asks.
“Long enough to be dead,” I say, and immediately regret being smart with him. “We’ll have to wait for the coroner.”
I trace a way to move from rock to rock and maybe get down to the body, and I go for it. I slip only once and bang a knee. That’s going to leave a bruise. I’m on the gravelly, sandy shoreline now. Ten feet from the body. Her legs are pointed inland. She had to be brought in by boat. Pulled up into the rocks. Dumped. Posed. The tide has erased any drag marks in the sand. The body is at least fifteen, twenty feet from the water, but she has been pulled in between some rocks large enough to hide her body from the water. If Boyd hadn’t climbed down the cliff and spotted her, it might have been some time before she was found.
“Damn,” Davis says, and I turn toward him.
“What?” My heart is pumping a little.
“I ran out of film,” Davis says.
“That’s a digital camera. Stop fooling around.”
“Sorry, ma’am.”
He doesn’t sound sorry, but I forgive him. It’s the first time he’s ever shown any type of humor. He’s usually so focused and eager to please that I want him to loosen up. Humor is law enforcement’s way of pushing emotion away so you can function under pressure. I wonder what is stressing Davis out. He has worked horrible scenes with me before and seemed okay. I would ask him, but I don’t want to see another grown man cry today. I had that earlier with the fire marshal.
As I look over the body, I wonder how she got there. Maybe she was kidnapped, beaten, taken on a boat to be dumped at sea. Then she jumped overboard and ended up here. She would have had to have been pretty desperate to do something like that. I don’t even want to step out into the cold water.
The more I look at the position of the body, the more I see a dump site. She was brought here by someone.
I’m punching the sheriff’s number into my phone to update him when my phone rings. I answer.
“This is Nan. I’ve been trying to call you for half an hour.”
Nan is an administrative assistant, not my boss. Not anyone’s boss, for that matter. Even so, she acts like one.
“Sorry, Nan. The reception is sketchy here. I was just getting ready to call Sheriff Gray to tell him there are body parts everywhere and… oh, crap!”
“What?”
I say with a wicked grin, “I just stepped on a finger. At least, I think it’s a finger. Or maybe it’s a small—”
“I don’t want to hear,” Nan says. “I just want to tell you that a state patrolman named MacDonald has been calling and asking for your phone number.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“I didn’t think I should. I told him I’d pass the message on to you. Do you want his number?”
“Yes.”
She provides the number.
“Is the sheriff done with the Gamble family?” I ask.
“I can go ask him.”
I know she’s lying. She knows everything about everybody. Except me. “Never mind. Tell him to call me,” I say. I disconnect before I yell at her. I don’t know if she’s really stupid or if she’s just trying to get my goat.
I call Mac.
“I hear your Marine Patrol is coming here.”
“In a while,” I say. “Where are you?”
“I’m with my car. Do you need me to stay?”
Now I’m getting pissed. “Is there anyone else up there with you?” Besides my brand-spanking-new reserve deputy, I don’t add.
“Roger that,” he says, and the phone goes dead.
Jerk.
“I looked around the rocks, ma’am, but it might take a couple more guys to do a thorough search,” Deputy Davis tells me. “I saw a couple of soft drink and beer cans and put down flags to mark them.”
I don’t have to ask if he has crime scene flags in his backpack. He probably has a full forensic kit in there. I didn’t think of bringing anything. I didn’t even want to bring Ronnie of the blue power suit with me.
Five
Captain Marvel and one of his crew show up. They anchor the Integrity outside the cove and make their way to the shore in a bright yellow Saturn inflatable boat with a five-horsepower motor. The captain eases the inflatable near the rocks at the east end of the beach while his crewman jumps out and ties it off.
Captain Martin comes ashore last. He checks to see that the boat is tied up securely before heading in my direction. If this were a movie, there would be golden sunlight behind him. He’s wearing faded cargo pants, but his boots look as expensive as my car. He doesn’t say anything to me. Just looks the scene over. He smiles, and I can see why Ronnie is hung up on him. He has a square jaw, piercing cobalt-blue eyes, perfect white teeth, and wavy blond hair cut stylishly. The cargo pants are tight on his triathlon-built frame. I expect him to pose with a hand on his hip, his cape billowing out behind him. I unconsciously smooth my hair.
He nods toward the other deputy, who is wearing an almost identical getup. He’s the same size and build as Captain Marvel except he has long, curly brown hair.
The captain introduces us: “Deputy Floyd, Detective Megan Carpenter.”
“Floyd.”
“Detective.”
At least he didn’t call me “ma’am.”
Floyd digs into his backpack and pulls out full-body waders. They cover his legs and chest with straps going over his shoulders. He takes out a camera—not as nice as the one Deputy Davis has—and begins wading out to photograph the body from the water, then wades forward until he is only a few feet from it.
“Floyd brought a scuba outfit,” Captain Martin says. “He’ll check around out in the water while Crime Scene is working the beach.”
“That will be good.”
I call Mac again. “Has my crime scene guy arrived yet?”
“Yes,” he snaps. “I’ve been trying to call you, but your secretary wouldn’t give me your number.”
“Hold on,” I say, and ask the captain, “Can you go to the boat ramp and pick my guy up?” He nods and goes back to the inflatable.
“The coroner just got here,” Mac says.
“Captain Martin is going to meet them at the bottom of the boat ramp. Can you give the phone to Deputy Marsh?”
Ronnie gets on the line. “Deputy Copsey and the coroner are here, Megan.”
I hear the barely contained excitement in her words. “Captain Martin is coming to the boat ramp to pick up everyone. Are you finished taking the statement from Boyd?”
“Yes. Should I come with them?”
I ignore her question. “Did you let Boyd leave?”
“He let me search his car. I took pictures of the inside, the outside, the tires, and the plates. I got the information from his driver’s license and his address at the school. He wanted to leave. Said he had to get back to school, and if he wasn’t under arrest—”
“Okay, I get it. I would have you come with Crime Scene, but you’d have to do it barefoot.”
“They always have an extra pair of rubber boots on the boat.”
“Ha
ng on.” I turn and raise my voice so Deputy Floyd can hear. “Does the captain have an extra pair of rubber boots on the inflatable?” He gives me the thumbs-up. I turn away again and say to Ronnie, “You can come, but you’re probably going to ruin your nice outfit.”
“It’s an old one.”
She says that like it’s disposable.
“What’s your cell phone number?” I realize I never asked that. She tells me. I don’t have to write it down. I’ll program it into my phone later. “Can you put Larsen on the phone? The coroner.”
Larsen gets on the phone. His voice never ceases to amaze me. He’s well past sixty, with longish white hair, a six-inch white beard, and laugh lines at the corners of his eyes—all topped off with a merry tone in his voice. He’s taller than me, which isn’t surprising, and thinner as well.
“I’m coming down, Megan,” Larsen says. “I haven’t been rock climbing in years. An adventure is in the making.”
“You don’t want to come that way.” I say this nicely. He can be grumpy if I try to tell him what to do. “I’ve sent a boat to pick you and Crime Scene up at the boat ramp.”
“Oh. Okay.” He sounds disappointed. He can be pigheaded too, but I can’t let him get hurt. Sheriff Gray would disapprove, and Larsen is the only one with authority to order the autopsy.
“I fell on the way down,” I say.
Not a lie.
“You would have to be lowered down in a sling,” I go on. I know he won’t go for that. He stays quiet.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I don’t do boats,” he says. “I get sick. Don’t repeat that to anyone.”
“We’ll bring the body to you, then.” It will be a while. He’ll have time to go home, have lunch, watch television or take a nap, then come back. Jeez. I really don’t like being in charge. I almost always work alone. This is why.
“How am I supposed to examine the scene from here?”
Good question. I want to tell him I can have him airlifted in, but I don’t want to get that sarcastic. He’s a good guy. I can count on him to give an honest off-the-record opinion.
I hear Ronnie start to chatter in the background.
“I can use FaceTime on my phone. I can hold the phone where the coroner can view the scene and the body.”
“Is that okay with you?” I ask him.
“If I can get a cell phone that has that Face-do-hickey on it.”
“Put Ronnie on.” I hear him asking in the background if she is Ronnie. Then she comes on the phone again. “Ronnie, give your phone to the coroner.”
It’s not long before Captain Marvel is back with Deputy Copsey and blue power suit girl, who is becoming my appendage. She is smiling and chatting everyone up, especially Captain Marvel, who is favoring her with his strong profile in tight pants. I reluctantly admit he’s a good-looking man.
Deputy Copsey is the first off the inflatable and helps Ronnie onto the shore. She’s wearing bright orange rubber boots at least four sizes too big. Captain Marvel hands off several plastic cases of gear to Copsey, then jumps off himself.
My phone rings. It’s Larsen wanting to know what’s going on.
Ronnie has gotten Larsen fixed up and I have her give the phone to Davis. I don’t want her to get too close to the body until they have cleared the scene. Larsen gives Davis directions where to point the phone. Davis moves the phone around to different angles and up closer, then farther away. Larsen says something about very little blood and tells Davis to gently feel around the victim’s neck and head. He does.
“There’s a knot on the back of her neck, Jerry. Feels like the bone is sticking through the skin. I’d have to move her to tell you more.”
“Lift the face up a little and hold the phone so I can see it.”
Her long red hair is partially covering the face. Davis smooths some of it away and gently lifts her head. He holds the phone close to her face.
Her lips are deep blue, her eyes open. Davis cants her head to the side. She is younger than me.
Open contusions on her cheeks and chin and several big splits on her lips mar what was once a pretty face. If she washed ashore, the rocks might account for almost every injury. However, it can’t account for the dark blue ligature mark around her neck or the positioning of the body.
She was strangled and deliberately posed.
Six
I have no doubt this is murder. Larsen agrees, although he won’t say it officially until he examines the body in person. Crime scene techs lay out a black body bag. It takes Floyd, Captain Marvel, and Deputy Davis to wrestle the victim into the bag and then onto the floor of the inflatable. She can’t weigh much, but it’s awkward carrying a body. Ronnie and I ride back to the boat ramp with them.
The only thing worse than being in a small boat made of rubber is being on the same boat with a dead body.
At the ramp, Floyd jumps out and pulls the front of the boat up on the concrete. He ties the front line off, and he and Captain Marvel lift the body bag out of the boat and lay it on the ramp. Larsen wheels a stretcher up to the top of the ramp. Next, Captain Marvel and Floyd each take an end of the body bag. Ronnie and I take a side to help carry her to the stretcher.
I watch as Larsen unzips the bag and inserts a rectal thermometer into the victim. Her core temperature is 71.5 degrees. After death, a body generally cools one degree an hour until it reaches the temperature of its surroundings. The outside temperature is in the high sixties. Larsen lifts one of the victim’s arms to test for rigor mortis. I see that Crime Scene bagged her hands to protect evidence: broken fingernails, skin under the fingernails, blood. Her arm moves freely. Rigor mortis, or stiffening of the muscles, sets in about two to four hours after death. It can last from twenty-four hours to four days. She has been dead for three or four days. Any longer than that, seagulls would have started snacking on her body.
Larsen uses his thumb and forefinger to spread the eyelids open. Broken blood vessels are etched into the whites of the eyes.
“Petechiae,” Ronnie says. “She’s been strangled.”
“That’s quite observant, Deputy,” Larsen says, and she swells up like a pufferfish.
Larsen turns the victim’s head to the side. The crunching of bones is audible. “Not just strangled.”
“Broken neck?” I ask.
He looks in my direction for a split second. “Can’t say. Probably.” His gaze returns to the body. “Help me roll her to her side. I want to look at her back.”
Captain Marvel and Floyd roll her on her side until Larsen holds up a gloved hand.
“Okay,” he says. “You can lay her back down.” He zips the bag down as far as it will go and looks at her legs and the bottoms of her feet. He examines the skin on her knees. He lifts her arms up one at a time and looks at the backs of her elbows. Then, quietly and solemnly, he zips her up.
Larsen has a windowless white van that he uses to transport bodies to the morgue near Bremerton, an hour away. It is rigged like an ambulance and will accept the stretcher and lock it down. A pathologist will perform the autopsy. Possibly Dr. Andrade, whom I’m familiar with.
I know Larsen saw what I saw.
“The marks on her wrists and ankles,” I say. “Were they made by handcuffs?”
“Can’t say that for sure. Could have been a rope or a cable. I’d rule out electrical wire, though.”
“What about her throat?” It doesn’t look like a manual strangulation. There would have been fingermarks, thumb marks in the skin under the chin where the thumbnails cut into the flesh.
He doesn’t answer.
“But you agree she was tied up? Rope? Cuffs?”
“I don’t want to guess, Megan. I can tell you this: it wasn’t a rope. Rope would have left burns in the skin. Abraded the skin.”
I didn’t have to guess. I am almost certain the marks on the wrists were made by something narrow and metal. I saw deep impressions in the skin but no cuts like wire would make. I have seen this before. Up close a
nd personal. The mark around the neck was something different. It was not as wide as a belt, but the edges were defined.
A collar?
“Can you give me a guess on the time or cause of death?”
Larsen is shaking his head and peering up at me beneath his snowy eyebrows. “More than twenty-four hours. Strangulation, most likely, but I can’t rule out drowning or some other preexisting medical condition. I think her neck is broken. Maybe some ribs too. She was beat all to hell.”
He leaves with the body and promises to have a preliminary report ready for me in the next few hours. I will have to wait for the post mortem results as well.
Wearing a wet suit, Deputy Floyd searches the water off the cove for fifty yards out from where the body was found. I call Sheriff Gray to update him, and he dispatches a Jefferson County deputy to relieve MacDonald.
Captain Martin takes Ronnie and me back to the boat ramp, where we get in my car.
“Before we go back, can we look at the pictures of the scene again?” I ask.
“Sure.”
We trade phones. She set my phone to record the video of Larsen’s remote viewing of the scene. I watch and listen to her video interview of Robbie Boyd. She set the phone up in such a way that it caught him from the waist up. I can see most of his movements and expressions as he answered her questions. She asked good questions.
We finish about the same time and exchange phones again.
“Any questions?” I ask.
“Lots of them. This is my first crime scene.”
I can tell, but she handled herself pretty well. She didn’t throw up on the body, or run screaming out into the cove, or start crying like the fire chief did when he saw the charred remains of someone’s beloved pet.
I start. “What do you think we should do next?”
“Me?”
“Yes. What would you do next if it was your investigation?”
“Well, I would try to identify the victim.”
“Okay. How do you do that?”
“Missing persons. Circulate her picture,” she says, stopping for a moment. “No, that won’t work. She’s pretty messed up.”