On a Dark Tide

by Valerie Geary

  He didn’t let her finish.

  “Everything you need is in the file.” He picked up his desk phone and stared pointedly at her as he dialed. He tapped his wristwatch and mouthed, You need to go, before turning his back on her.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Brett walked into the front lobby of Crestwood General Hospital. Kevin Park, the medical examiner’s assistant, waited for her by the information desk.

  “Charlie doesn’t like to have people wandering into his morgue,” Kevin said by way of explanation, giving her a tight-lipped smile and a half-shrug. He led her to the elevator that would take them down to the basement.

  As the doors closed, she attempted small talk. “So, Kevin, what made you decide to become a medical examiner?”

  “I like mysteries,” he said, the corners of his mouth still twisted up in a polite smile. After a beat, he quickly added, “And my parents wanted me to be a doctor, but I have a hard time talking to people, so this seemed like a good fit.”

  “Because the dead don’t talk.”

  His smile widened as he gave her a fleeting nod, then turned his gaze back to the panel lights flickering on and off as the elevator moved them closer to the basement. She waited for him to ask why she’d become a cop, but he stood quietly, saying nothing.

  It was a question Brett got a lot. Why police work? And she answered differently depending on who was asking. Sometimes she told people she joined on a whim. Sometimes she said she failed out of law school. Sometimes the story was that her uncle was a cop, and he always made the job sound so interesting. These things were no less accurate than the real reason she joined the academy: because of Margot. Because Brett wanted to do better than the detectives who had mishandled her sister’s case. Because she knew she could do better. She never wanted another family to suffer the way hers had. She’d been young when she signed up for the academy, barely twenty, and naïve, too, thinking a badge and a gun would be enough to fix the broken parts of this world.

  As the elevator dinged and the doors began to slide open, Kevin smiled at her like they were both in on a secret. He said, “The work we do is good, Detective. There is honor in speaking for the dead.”

  He stepped from the elevator. Brett followed him as he led her through a maze of hallways to the medical examiner’s office.

  The air was chilled, the light dim except for a single bright lamp shining down on the metal autopsy table where Nathan Andress lay covered by a sheet.

  Charlie was already there, prepping his tools. “Oh, good. I was just about to start. It’s Brett, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Strange name for a girl.” He pulled on gloves and walked to the table.

  “My father liked Hemingway,” she said.

  The truth was her father wanted a boy, and so he’d given her a boy’s name, but whenever she told people that version, they felt sorry for her. When she told them she was named after a character in a classic novel, they treated her like someone interesting.

  Charlie tipped his head. “Can’t say I ever much cared for Hemingway.”

  “You and me both,” Brett said.

  He nodded like he approved. “Shall we get on with it, then?”

  Kevin offered Brett a gown, hair cap, and gloves, which she put on as Charlie pulled the sheet back from the body. “It was pretty obvious what happened once we got his clothes off.”

  He pointed to a large brown sack sitting on a nearby table. “You’ll want to take those with you, though I doubt the lab will be able to do much with them. He was in the water long enough that even if there was any kind of usable evidence at one point, it’s probably ruined now.”

  Nathan’s body looked even worse than it had on the beach. His skin stretched tight around the bloating, discolored from decomposition. Across his chest and stomach were several deep and ragged puncture wounds.

  Charlie pointed to these as he spoke, “He was stabbed over thirty times, though this cut here…” He pointed to a laceration on the left side of the neck below the jawline. “This is probably what killed him. Looks like the knife might have hit the carotid, which would have caused him to bleed out pretty quickly, within minutes. From the lack of defensive wounds…” He lifted one arm and pointed to a few small cuts on his forearm and hand. “It doesn’t look like he put up much of a fight, which makes me think the carotid was hit early on, maybe even the first cut.”

  “So obviously, this wasn’t a drowning.” Brett’s pulse quickened.

  Charlie lowered Nathan’s arm back onto the table and reached for a small electric saw waiting on a nearby tray. “We’ll be able to confirm everything once we crack him open and examine the lungs and other organs, but yes. I’d bet you a thirty-year Glenfiddich and a steak dinner that Mr. Andress here was dead before he ever hit the water.”

  Chapter 8

  Clara shimmied into her wetsuit, stretched a swim cap over her hair, and stood a moment at the end of the aging dock, staring down into steel-colored water. A light rain rippled the surface. In the distance, fishing boats motored through the channel, passing in front of round velvet islands, shadowed blue and hazy with fog. The horizon itself looked to be breathing with each cresting wave.

  Typically when she swam at Deadman’s Point, at least one other person was using the park, either fishing or walking a dog or drinking coffee on a bench. Monday morning, there was no one. A ribbon of yellow police tape fluttered in the breeze, and her mother’s voice scolded her. Never swim alone. But Marshall didn’t swim. Even if he did, he was at work right now. And Elizabeth was at school. And Clara didn’t know anyone else who was a strong enough swimmer to brave the currents and waves and chill of the bay. Most of the women she knew paddled in the shallow end of the community pool, too afraid of getting their hair wet.

  Clara had taken to the water slowly as a child, afraid of the way it slid over her skin, how it seemed to be a thing alive, wanting to devour her. Once she learned first how to keep her head above water, then how to hold her breath and tame her fear beneath the surface, she couldn’t get enough. She’d been on the swim team in high school and her freshman year of college, and when that ended, she continued her thrice-weekly swims into adulthood. She swam even when she was pregnant. First, with Elizabeth and later with her second child, Lily. The water made her feel impossibly light, and the rhythmic nature helped her relax. She loved swimming in the bay best of all. Here the rest of the world disappeared. Here she could be alone with her body, her strength, the darkness swirling beneath.

  She snapped her goggles in place and slid into the water, treading a moment before kicking out, taking a few strokes until she was well away from the dock. She sucked in a deep breath and dove. Down and down through that first icy, heat-sucking bite, the cold making her muscles clench. Deeper, until the cold was an afterthought, the water against her body warm again because of the suit. Even deeper, until the light from the surface faded to black. Through her goggles, she searched for shapes in the murky water and saw only her hands, bright twin stars pushing her into the dark. Down and down until her lungs began to scream. Still, she propelled herself deeper, fighting against the buoyancy of the wetsuit until the ache in her chest consumed her, and she was only pain, only her body. She twisted, kicked, and thrashed to the surface, breaking through the waves with a gasp.

  That first suck of air spun her dizzy. She treaded water a moment, her eyes closed, breathing, just breathing, the terror of near-drowning leaving her body in a series of ecstatic tingles. Then she began to swim toward the no-wake buoy. Her body skimmed the surface, her legs and arms finding their rhythm quickly and propelling her across the bay in the direction of islands she would never reach. They were too far away for her to even think about swimming to.

  When she reached the buoy, she turned parallel to the shore and swam until the land rose to cliffs, then she turned again and headed back to the dock.

  Beneath her, the water seemed endless, a deep and unf
athomable swirl of black and blue streaked with pale daylight. It was shallower than it appeared. Dive down twenty feet, less in some spots, and she’d touch bottom. Silt and sand, crabs and stones, discarded boots and cans, detritus of other people’s lives, so many things forgotten, all of it swirling, shifting with the currents. She tried not to think about bodies floating beneath her in the dark.

  Accelerating her stroke and returning her focus to her form—left, right, left, breathe—Clara reached the dock in record time.

  Shivering, she peeled out of her wetsuit and tugged on sweatpants and a sweatshirt.

  Above the dock, a seagull struggled to stay aloft in a sudden gust of wind. Head tucked, he beat his wings furiously for a few seconds, then turned and allowed himself to be blown inland. The rain was really coming down now, no longer a gentle mist, but a steady sheet of water that pelted Clara as she ran to her car.

  * * *

  Back home, Clara took her time under the hot spray of the showerhead, scrubbing the thin layer of bay water scum from her body. When she was clean, she stepped out of the shower and wiped steam from the mirror with a towel. Her narrow face was framed by damp, dirty-blond tresses. Her eyes swam gray today, swirled with blue. A new wrinkle was forming between her plucked eyebrows. She pressed it flat with her finger, but it sprang back.

  She moved her hands to her soft belly, ran her fingers over her stretch marks. The twenty pounds she gained when she was pregnant with Lily clung to her even though Lily was gone. It didn’t seem fair to have the weight, but no baby—nothing to show for the new shape her body had taken over the past year.

  Lily had been a surprise, but one they were all excited about, unexpected but wanted, so very wanted. She and Marshall had tried years ago to have a second child with no success. So they stopped trying, deciding to simply be grateful for the child they did have, for Elizabeth, their perfect, beautiful Elizabeth. And then a miracle, a new baby, their entire lives changed. But just as they were starting to get used to her, she was gone.

  Three months. They’d had three months of watching Lily sleep, feeding her in the middle of the night, stroking fingers down soft pudgy cheeks, three months of memories to cherish. Three months for Marshall and Elizabeth, but it was longer for Clara, who had carried her, nurtured her, given her life. Marshall tried to draw a silver lining around their grief, saying at least they had time together, however brief. But to Clara, no amount of time would have been enough, and she felt the loss as a hollow ache carved from the very center of her.

  She dried and curled her hair, dressed in dark slacks and a lemon chiffon blouse, and went downstairs to make herself a cup of coffee.

  She was alone in the house and grateful for the silence and space to breathe. Elizabeth was at school. Marshall was either working at his downtown office or out showing houses to clients.

  His father had started Trudeau Realty over thirty years ago, and Marshall began working there as an agent shortly after he and Clara got married and moved back to Crestwood at the end of summer 1969. Clara was three months pregnant with Elizabeth at the time and madly in love, planning their happily ever after. Marshall was a natural at sales and quickly built up a healthy client list, earning the realty company more money than his father ever had. Robert Trudeau happily started working less and eventually retired completely. The transition from father to son was seamless, and to no one’s surprise, the business continued to grow.

  After Marshall took over Trudeau Realtors, he hired more agents and started listing commercial properties. He had yet to earn a commission on any of his commercial accounts, but Clara knew it would happen soon enough. Marshall was a striver. He always had been. In an earlier version of his life, he made other plans for himself, had bigger dreams, ideas of being a high-powered attorney on the East Coast. But Marshall was also a man who understood about responsibility and what it meant to put family first. So when Clara came to him fourteen years ago as he was packing his dorm room, preparing for a cross-country trip to start Harvard in the fall, when she came and told him she was pregnant, he changed his plans. For her, for Elizabeth.

  All these years later, Marshall never said a word about what might have been. Because he was a good man, a good person, better than most. Better than her.

  Clara carried her coffee into the living room and turned on the television. She flipped through channels until she found a local morning show broadcasting out of Seattle. A guest gave tips on decorating for Halloween. In the next segment, a columnist discussed the upcoming Presidential Election. The polls were still showing Reagan as the projected winner. He’d done well in last night’s debate. There was nothing about Nathan Andress.

  The phone rang. Clara flinched, spilling coffee over the edge of her cup and burning her fingers. She hurried into the kitchen, flicking her hand in the air, reaching for a towel and then the receiver. She’d barely gotten out the word hello before a woman’s voice, prim and annoyed, said, “Mrs. Trudeau?”

  “This is she.”

  “This is Ms. London over at Crestwood High.”

  Because Clara was trying to give Elizabeth more space, she hadn’t been volunteering as much at the high school. Not the way she’d volunteered at Elizabeth’s elementary and middle schools. Because of this, Clara didn’t know the high school principal very well, despite having met her a few times in passing.

  “I’m calling about Elizabeth,” Ms. London said.

  Clara’s grip on the receiver tightened. She leaned against the counter to steady herself. “What happened? Is everything okay?”

  Ever since last October, when she’d found Lily in her crib not breathing, Clara felt like she was teetering on the edge of a cliff, waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

  “Elizabeth is fine,” Ms. London said.

  Clara released a rush of air.

  “But we need you to come and get her.”

  “Is she sick?”

  Elizabeth had been quiet at breakfast this morning, picking at her toast and eggs, hardly eating anything.

  “She got into a fight,” Ms. London said.

  The words surprised Clara into silence. Not her sweet Elizabeth. Her straight-A student with perfect attendance, the girl who excelled at everything and had plenty of friends, and parents who loved her, and grandparents who doted, and no reason at all to get into fights.

  “Mrs. Trudeau?”

  “Yes,” Clara said in a breathless rush. “I’ll be right there.”

  * * *

  The word ‘fight’ turned out to be a bit of an exaggeration. According to Ms. London, Elizabeth had dumped a can of soda over the head of a junior girl named Kimmy Darling. Upset about her expensive leather jacket probably being ruined, Kimmy had shoved Elizabeth. Elizabeth pushed back and then punched Kimmy in the nose. At least, Ms. London called it a punch, but nothing was broken. Kimmy’s nose didn’t even start bleeding. To Clara, the whole thing seemed to be more of a spat and certainly not justification for suspending her daughter.

  “She deserved it,” Elizabeth said as she buckled her seatbelt.

  Clara steered the car from the school parking lot.

  “Why don’t you tell me what happened, then?” She tried to keep her voice calm. “Start from the beginning.”

  “It won’t change anything,” Elizabeth said. “I’m still suspended.”

  “For a day. It’s not the end of the world.” Clara gave her daughter what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Besides, despite what Ms. London says, I believe there are two sides to every story. And I want to hear yours.”

  Elizabeth stared out the window. She was wearing her hair down today, brushed smooth, with soft fly-aways at her temples. A curtain of hair swung around her face, but it wasn’t enough to hide the furtive brush of her fingers as she wiped away tears.

  “Oh sweetheart,” Clara whispered and reached to take her hand.

  Elizabeth shifted in her seat, pressing her body against the door as far from her mother a
s she could get.

  Whatever happened this morning between Elizabeth and Kimmy, Clara was sure it had been much more complicated than Ms. London implied. The principal blamed Elizabeth for the incident, claiming the initial act of pouring soda had been unprovoked, which, of course, was ridiculous. Elizabeth took after her father in personality, too, not just looks. Gentle souls, both of them. Marshall couldn’t even smash a spider. Whenever he found one in the house, he trapped it in a jar and released it to the backyard. Elizabeth did the same. Unprovoked wasn’t her style. So when Elizabeth said that Kimmy deserved to be doused in soda and punched in the nose, Clara believed her.

  The rest of the ride home was a silent one. Once inside, Clara offered to make Elizabeth hot cocoa, hoping to extract more details of the fight. Elizabeth turned her down and retreated to her bedroom.

  Clara called Marshall at the office. “I think you should come home,” she said after telling him about what happened at school. “She’ll talk to you.”

  * * *

  Even as a baby, Elizabeth had been a daddy’s girl. If she was fussy and Clara picked her up, she would carry on with her screaming and thrashing. But if Marshall attended to her, Elizabeth settled into perfect contentment immediately. Magic powers, Clara used to tease him. As a toddler, too, whenever Elizabeth was hurt or scared, it was Marshall she ran to, Marshall who knew best how to kiss away boo-boos and scare monsters from under the bed.

  Clara sat on the couch in the living room, her face tilted toward the ceiling, listening to the deep murmur of her husband’s voice and the answering response of her daughter. She couldn’t make out any of the words, but at least Elizabeth was finally talking to someone.

  A long time passed. Clara went into the kitchen for a glass of water, then returned to the couch. She turned the television on, muted it, and flipped impatiently through the channels. Finally, she heard the bedroom door click shut. Marshall came down the stairs into the living room, sinking onto the couch beside her with a heavy sigh.