On a Dark Tide

by Valerie Geary

  “You’re not leaving with all of this going on, are you?”

  Officers were setting up a tent on the beach. The medical examiner’s van drove up and parked along the curb.

  “Elizabeth’s soccer game is starting soon.” Clara turned from the commotion.

  If she hurried, she could make it to the school in time for kickoff.

  * * *

  A shrill whistle echoed across the field. White and red-striped Crestwood jerseys darted and wove through purple Anacortes jerseys. Freshman and sophomore girls with long ponytails and stilt legs shoved and feinted, twirled and spun, as they kicked the soccer ball back and forth, trying to gain ground against the other team. Seated in folding beach chairs and a set of metal bleachers, parents cheered from the sidelines.

  Clara stood a moment apart from everything and watched her daughter play. Elizabeth waited in the goal box, half-crouched with her hands spread and her quads tense. Her focus stayed on the ball, her whole being alert to every shift and twitch. She had been playing soccer since she could walk and was the best player on the Junior Varsity team, her skills far surpassing that of the other girls. Clara thought she should be playing Varsity, but Marshall and Coach Lansing disagreed.

  The Anacortes team took possession of the ball and moved it down the field with sloppy, uncoordinated kicks. They didn’t stand a chance. With a playful swat, Elizabeth knocked the ball out of the goal. An easy kick like that she could have blocked with her eyes closed, hands tied behind her back. Her teammates swarmed and guided the ball around the Anacortes defenders to the other end of the field.

  Clara found Marshall where she always found Marshall during Elizabeth’s games—pacing the sidelines. So invested was he in each play, he couldn’t sit still. A few times in past years, Elizabeth’s coaches had threatened to ban him from games for being too competitive. He’d since settled into a habit of pacing and muttering under his breath, only shouting when a goal was made or deflected.

  He scooped Clara into a quick hug, pecking her on the cheek before releasing her and returning to his pacing. She stayed in one spot, watching the ball fly between the players’ feet. When Marshall reached her a second time, he paused to ask about her mother.

  “She’s fine.” Clara waved the pastry box at him. “Mary says hello.”

  He took a muffin, then turned and paced the opposite direction, eating as he walked.

  When he returned to her a third time, she told him about the dead body on the beach.

  He stopped in his tracks, and for the first time that she could remember since Elizabeth had joined soccer, he wasn’t paying attention to the game.

  “Jesus,” he exhaled, then asked, “Was Eli there?”

  She nodded.

  “What did he say?”

  “Not much.” She started to explain how it was too soon to know many details, but a chill ran through her, and she gave herself over to it, her whole body shuddering.

  “Hey.” He gathered her up, tucking her against his chest. “Are you all right?”

  She loved it when he held her like this. Loved that she fit so neatly under his chin, how he could wrap his arms fully around her, envelope her in a way that felt protected and forever. He kissed the top of her head, made small circles with his hand over her back. They’d been married fifteen years, had been dating over twenty, since her sophomore year of high school, and she never tired of his tenderness, the way he took care of her. From the very beginning, he had been it for her. The only man she’d ever loved.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he whispered.

  She leaned into his platitudes, allowing them to crush the fear rising in her chest. Allowing herself to get swept away by the rhythm of his steady heartbeat.

  “It’s probably a fisherman. Or an overdose. No one we know. Don’t worry, baby.” He kissed the top of her head again.

  She nodded against his chest, folding his words into herself until she believed them. Don’t worry, don’t worry.

  A whistle blew. The bleachers roared.

  Marshall turned his head toward the field and shouted, “That’s my girl!” as Elizabeth deflected another goal.

  The sound reverberated against Clara’s cheek. She hadn’t known it was possible to love someone so much and to feel such love in return. She didn’t deserve it, a love this steady and good, but whenever she tried to tell Marshall that, he would laugh and say no one would love anyone if it came down to deserving.

  He stayed close to her, holding her hand until the final whistle blew and the game ended. It was a blowout—seven to zero.

  The teams high-fived and trotted off the field to their respective benches to gather their gear and water bottles. A few girls wandered over to the bleachers to meet up with their parents. Elizabeth talked with her coach a minute and exchanged a quick hug with her best friend, June. Then she tugged off her cleats and shin guards and stuffed everything into a duffel bag.

  Clara and Marshall started to cross the field to meet her. Before they got halfway, a boy wearing tight, acid-washed jeans and a black leather jacket approached Elizabeth from the other direction. He said something, and she smiled bashfully at him, ducking her head, making her ponytail bounce. He sat on the bench facing her, close enough he might have been leaning in for a kiss. She nodded at something he said. Marshall cleared his throat loud enough for Elizabeth to hear. She stiffened and looked over at them, then flashed the boy a quick wave, stood, grabbed her duffel and the rest of her gear, and left him sitting on the bench.

  Head lowered, she walked past Clara and Marshall toward the parking lot behind the gymnasium.

  “Who was that?” Clara asked, following her.

  “No one, a kid from school.”

  “He looks too old to be in high school,” Clara pushed.

  Marshall tugged on her hand and gave her a warning look, but Clara persisted. “What’s his name?”

  “He’s no one, I told you. He’s a senior. I don’t even know him that well.”

  “He has a name, though, right?”

  “Zach, okay? His name is Zach.” She threw up a hand in frustration. “He’s friends with June’s older sister or something. He was congratulating me on the win. No big deal.”

  Clara caught Marshall’s eye, trying to gauge how he felt about his fourteen-year-old daughter hanging around a senior boy who looked like he could be the lead singer in a British punk band. Marshall shook his head. Let it go.

  When they reached the car, Elizabeth flopped into the backseat. Marshall drove. As they pulled away from the school, Clara twisted in her seat and passed the pastry box to Elizabeth. “There’s a Danish in here with your name on it.”

  Elizabeth frowned, but she took the box.

  “You did great out there today, sweetheart.” Marshall smiled at her in the rearview mirror. “We’re so proud of you.”

  She relaxed against her seat and smiled back at him. She was her father’s daughter in every way, with her high cheekbones and chestnut hair, a broad forehead, and sharp chin. When she smiled, she smiled with her whole self, the same as Marshall. She would be tall like him someday too. The only thing she got from Clara were her eyes, which were turquoise and bright as the summer sea most days, shifting to gray whenever she was upset or the weather turned dreary. They were Caribbean blue as she took the Danish from the box and bit into it, smearing sugar and jam in the corners of her mouth.

  “You’ve got a little something…” Clara pulled a crumpled tissue from her purse and passed it back to her.

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes as she took the napkin.

  “So,” Clara said, facing forward again. “About this boy.”

  “Mom.” Her voice pitched into a whine.

  Marshall laid a hand on Clara’s knee, a clear signal telling her to stop pushing. Clara shook her head and turned to stare out the window. She didn’t see how wanting to know what was going on in her daughter’s life and who she was hanging out with was intrusiv
e, but apparently, now it was.

  Recently Clara had been trying to give Elizabeth more space. Because she asked for it, and because Marshall kept insisting it was the right thing to do. Elizabeth was old enough now to make some decisions on her own and test her burgeoning independence. She would succeed at some things and fail at others. Either way, it was good for her to try, wasn’t it? How else would she learn resilience? How else would she grow into a strong woman like Clara? These were the arguments Marshall used, and Clara could say little in response. Remember when you were a teenager? He’d whisper in the dark of their bedroom, their bodies curled together. Remember how much freedom you had?

  And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Left to do whatever the hell they wanted, children grew into monsters.

  Chapter 3

  There were more seagulls on the beach than crime scene technicians, and more birds flying in each minute. Brett watched them as she waited for the on duty detective to find her. Several birds paddled in the waves, bobbing like bits of white Styrofoam. Others floated like kites overhead. A few huddled on the boathouse roof, muttering to one another. They eyed the body, which was now covered by a small pop-up tent for privacy and protection against impending rain. Protection against the birds, too, she thought. One of the techs, who was bent looking at something on the ground, stood suddenly. A dozen birds near the tent perimeter flapped away, screaming their indignation.

  Brett was so focused on the seagulls, she didn’t notice Detective Irving Winters’ arrival until he was standing right beside her.

  “Voracious scavengers.” He fixed his gaze on the birds. “Dead or alive, they don’t care. If it looks like food, they’ll try and eat it.”

  He wore a long gray coat over a suit. His tie was decorated with a pair of fancy pheasants. After a few seconds of watching the seagulls settle again, Irving took a spiral notebook from his pocket and jotted something down. “Mostly herring today, but there are a few ring-billeds mixed in.”

  He tucked the notebook away before finally turning to look at her. Mist clung to the gray hairs dusting his temples. His expression was guarded.

  Brett had transferred to the Crestwood Police Department only four months ago. It had taken her less than a day to understand Irving Winters was a man who kept to himself. He was the sole African-American officer in a relatively small department. He’d worked his entire twenty-some-odd-year career in the same precinct and seemed to have carved out a place for himself as a man who could be counted on to do his job well, which Brett knew couldn’t have been easy. She hadn’t spent enough time with him yet to know his full story, but she did know what it was like being an outsider, having to work twice as hard to get half as far.

  Brett didn’t fit the mold of a typical police officer any more than Irving did. She could try and hide beneath bulky shirts and mannish jackets all she wanted; it would make no difference. She would never be a tall, broad-shouldered, white man with a neat military haircut, muscular arms, and an arrogant smirk. No matter how many cases she solved, how many criminals she brought to justice, how much she did right her first ten years, and how much she continued to prove herself capable in the next ten, there would always be people—officers and civilians alike—who thought she belonged in an apron, holding a spatula. Not in a uniform, carrying a loaded gun. She wondered if it was similar for Irving. If people looked at him the way they looked at her—as a liability rather than a hero.

  “You were the one who found him?” Irving asked her.

  “Technically, my grandmother did,” she answered.

  Irving nodded once, then laced his hands behind his back and marched toward the tent. Brett hurried to keep up with his long strides. As he walked, he threw questions over his shoulder, barely allowing her time to answer before rushing to the next.

  “How long was she alone with him?”

  “Less than ten minutes.”

  “Did she touch anything?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Did you?”

  “Of course not.” Her voice was sharp with annoyance that he thought her stupid or rookie enough to mess with a possible crime scene.

  “I’ll need to talk to your grandmother as well,” Irving said.

  Brett glanced at the house. After the first car had arrived on scene, she’d left the body with the uniformed officer to go check on Amma. She’d found her grandmother in the kitchen, already changed into dry clothes, and scooping fresh grounds into the coffee maker.

  “They’re going to want something warm to drink when they’re done out there,” she’d explained.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Brett had told her.

  Amma pulled several mugs out of the cupboard anyway, arranging them in a neat line on the counter beside the coffee maker and sugar canister. She smiled at Brett. “You want those men to like you, don’t you?”

  “I want them to respect me,” Brett said.

  “No reason you can’t have both, is there?” Amma’s blue eyes were so pale they were almost gray.

  She turned eight-four this year but looked a decade younger thanks to good genes and a fondness for wide-brimmed hats. She claimed living next to the ocean kept her young, too. There was something about the salt air, she said, that was as good for the skin as it was for the soul.

  If someone had asked Brett six months ago, she would have told them she was perfectly happy living in the Willamette Valley, working as a deputy for the Marion County Sheriff’s office. She’d just returned to regular duty after spending several months assigned to a special unit hunting serial-murderer Archer French, a psychopath who, over the last decade, tortured and killed eleven women across the Pacific Northwest. It had been a challenging case, and though she played more of a supporting role, she’d learned a lot. Her hope was that her work with the unit might finally lead to a promotion, and she was preparing to talk to her sergeant about what came next for her when Henry Bascom called.

  Henry was an old friend of Amma and Pop. He also happened to be the chief of the Crestwood Police Department. When Henry called at the end of May, he’d sounded worried but not panicked. When was the last time you talked to your grandmother?

  Brett tried to call Amma at least once a month. It seemed even more important now that Pop was gone, but sometimes Brett got too busy with work and forgot. Talking to Henry, she realized she hadn’t spoken to her grandmother since February. Brett hadn’t noticed anything concerning during that phone call, but according to Henry, Amma had called him several times in the past few months, looking for Frank. Frank, Amma’s husband and Brett’s grandfather, had been dead for five years.

  There was more, Henry said. When he went over to the house to check on her, he discovered the garbage hadn’t been taken out for weeks, and there was no food in the fridge except a moldy block of cheese and an unopened jar of pickles. The explanation Amma had given Henry for the garbage was that it had been Frank’s job to take out the trash. As for the food, she’d said she simply couldn’t find the time to go to the store, though what she’d been doing instead Henry didn’t know.

  I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to be alone anymore, Henry said.

  Brett was the only family Amma had left, so the responsibility fell to her.

  At first, Brett wanted to hire someone to check on Amma a couple of times a week and help with the chores. Then Henry mentioned something about a detective position opening up in the department. He said he would rush the hiring process for her if she wanted it. She hesitated only a minute before saying yes.

  Brett had never imagined herself returning to the town where her older sister was murdered, let alone living there. But in June, after confirming her plans with Amma and making sure the transfer paperwork had gone through, she packed up everything she owned in her ruby red VW Beetle and left Oregon for Washington. She’d been in Crestwood four months now, working as a detective for four months, which so far had been mostly burglaries and smash and grabs. She’
d also been filing a lot of paperwork, learning how the department worked, and figuring out where she would fit in.

  With this body washed up on the morning tide, she had a chance to carve out a space for herself in the department, but she didn’t want to come across as insensitive by appearing too eager. She tried for a nonchalant tone when she asked Irving, “Do you know who he is yet?”

  They were standing just outside the tent. Where an hour ago there had been little to no stench, it was overwhelming now. Brett swallowed down rising nausea and forced herself to breathe shallowly through her mouth. She’d handled her share of death calls over the years, but it never got any easier.

  Irving took a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his nose before answering her. “His name is Nathan Andress.”

  The name was familiar. She hoped it wasn’t who she thought it was, though the likelihood of two Nathan Andress’ living in Crestwood was small enough to be impossible.

  An older man wearing a navy blue windbreaker and khaki pants, with a crown of frizzy white hair and wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, crouched beside the body. Glancing up at Irving, he shook his head. “Don’t even ask, Irv. You’ll know the cause of death when I know, and right now, I don’t know. He was in the water long enough to make this case a pain in my ass, I’ll tell you that much. Anything I say right now would be little more than a guess, and you know I don’t like guessing. Send an officer over to me on Monday. We’ll cut into him and see what’s what.”

  “Charlie, this is Detective Buchanan,” Irving said. “I don’t think you two have had the pleasure of meeting yet. This is Charles Hadley, our county medical examiner.”

  “The only person allowed to call me Charles is my wife after I’ve left the toilet seat up.” He offered a wide grin and gestured to the younger man standing next to him, taking copious notes. “This is Kevin Park. He’s the cub they hired to replace me. Joke’s on them, though, I’m never leaving.”

  Kevin pushed at thick black glasses and smiled shyly at Brett.