The Night Is Alive koh-10

by Heather Graham

  Abby stared at him. “Oh, no! All right—maybe. But they could’ve gone off a rowboat or...or an oil tanker just as easily.”

  “Yes,” Malachi said, “they could have. But how likely is that?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve known Dirk most of my life. This is his livelihood. Why would he suddenly go insane and start killing people off his ship—especially without any of us seeing a change in him?”

  “No one ever really knows another human being,” Malachi said simply.

  “Oh, I think I would’ve noticed bodies popping up in my city over the years!”

  “People sometimes crack, Ms. Anderson. Strain, pressure. All the same, no one completely understands the human brain. It’s the most wonderful computer in the world—but just like a computer it can short-circuit. And I didn’t say your friend was the killer. I merely thought it prudent to investigate. Under the circumstances.”

  “And you knew I was on that ship.”

  “I’m not trying to fight you, Ms. Anderson. I’m not trying to go against you. Look!” he said with exasperation. “I’m here because you wrote to Jackson Crow. I’m here to help you.”

  “If you’re going to stalk me, you can quit calling me Ms. Anderson. It’s Abby,” she said. “And—”

  She broke off suddenly, blue eyes growing large as saucers as she stared past him.

  “Abby?” he said.

  She didn’t respond. She was still staring.

  “Helen?” she whispered, her voice thick.

  Malachi spun around to see where she was pointing.

  She was looking at the water, to the far side of the dock. They’d done a good job in the past years, cleaning up the river, but it was impossible to stop a certain amount of natural growth and unnatural garbage from cresting the water and drifting up against the embankment.

  There was sea grass or fungus, a plastic soda bottle someone had tossed away and a few cigarette butts. Oil slick covered the water right at the docks, creating little curlicues of blue and purple on the water.

  And caught there, just by one of the pilings for the dock, was a body.

  Facedown, it appeared to be a woman—long strands of river-sodden hair fanned out from the head. And it appeared that she’d just washed up.

  On the slim chance that she might be alive, Malachi took his phone out of his pocket and let it fall on the deck before he dove into the river. Surfacing by the body, he quickly turned her over.

  It was indeed a woman. That was all he could really tell as he looked at her face.

  And she was dead. River life had already been eating at her flesh. The tip of her nose was gone and her flesh was icy cold and a grotesque shade of gray.

  He looked up the five or six feet from the water to where Abby stood on the dock. She was almost as gray as the corpse.

  “Call 9-1-1,” he told her.

  Despite her pallor, she was functioning. “I already did.”

  “Is it Helen?” he asked her.

  “I wouldn’t begin to know,” she said, “she doesn’t even look...real.”

  * * *

  An hour later, the corpse was in an ambulance bound for the morgue, crime scene techs were scouring the water and the embankment, and police divers had been dispatched to see if any evidence might remain in the water. Shaken, Dirk had canceled his afternoon and evening pirate cruises, rescheduling or refunding the money of those who’d bought tickets. Abby sat with Malachi Gordon—who had cast off all vestiges of a costume—at a desk in police headquarters.

  She liked Malachi’s former partner from the get-go.

  David Caswell’s desk was surrounded by others. There was a fair amount of activity at the station. A hooker was arguing with her arresting officer and two other cops were trying to deal with a junkie on a bad trip.

  David had arrived at the dock soon after the initial response team had cordoned off the area and plucked Malachi and the corpse from the water. About six-one, sandy-haired, green-eyed, he was serious without being somber, smart and probing without being aggressive or demanding. Abby thought he had to be in his early thirties. He spoke with a slow, smooth Southern accent that matched his steadfast but easy manner.

  Maybe he didn’t have to be demanding; he knew he’d get a straight story from Malachi, no matter what the story—and there really wasn’t much of it.

  “Your statements are being typed up. You can sign them and get out of here for now,” Caswell told them. “I figure you want to attend the autopsy?” he asked Malachi.

  Malachi, hands clasped in front of him, nodded.

  “It’ll be scheduled for later today. I’ll call you when I know the exact time. Before I let you go, can we run through what happened? Ms. Anderson...” He paused, looking at Abby, and smiled. “Or is it Agent Anderson?”

  She smiled. “I just realized it is. Agent Anderson. I am official. But please call me Abby.”

  “Okay, Abby. So you were working on your friend’s pirate boat because his usual actress is the young lady reported as missing. Helen Long.” He studied her. It wasn’t that costumes and pageantry didn’t abound in Savannah. But it could also be a very conservative, old Southern city. She was hardly dressed as a respectable young local in her plumed hat, frock coat, breeches and boots.

  “Yes, I was being his wench for today. He’s very upset. Dirk is a great employer. He provides sleeping space when his people need it. He takes on part-time help so his employees can go to school if they choose. He really cares about Helen,” Abby said.

  “But...he couldn’t say that the girl we found in the water was Helen, right?”

  “No. I couldn’t tell you, either,” Abby added. “And I knew her. I’d met her several times,” she said. “I don’t think it was Helen. But I can’t be sure. The body...” Her voice trailed off. She had to be better about things like this; she’d been through an autopsy, for God’s sake. She’d passed the academy with flying colors.

  “Hey,” Malachi said, looking over at her. “No matter how long you chase the bad guys, death can still tear you up. And if you get to where it doesn’t...then you need to reassess what you’re doing.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” she said huskily.

  “So you were working on the ship, the ship came back in to berth, you were walking down the dock and you just happened to stop and see the body,” Caswell said.

  “I was behind her. I’d called out to her,” Malachi explained. “It was while we were standing there talking that Abby saw the body and...”

  “And you dove in,” Caswell finished.

  Malachi raised his hands. “We could only see her from the top. She was facedown, but the pirate ship and some small boats had just come in, so—I doubted it—but...she might have been alive. Better to try than to find out you might have saved someone.”

  “Always,” David murmured. “Now...this may change things,” he said, leaning toward them. “The powers that be wanted to handle the situation on their own, but now with another murder...I think they’ll ask for federal help, if you want to give the right people a heads-up.”

  Malachi nodded in acknowledgment. “Anything else you can tell us?”

  “When you sign the statements, I’ll give you a copy of the notes I’ve compiled. Then do me a favor and get out of here. I don’t want any resentment if we do go official—or if we don’t. You know how cops can be—I don’t want them to think the feds were snooping around before they were asked in. Some officers take it to mean they’re being judged, that they weren’t considered competent at their jobs and therefore the federal government had to step in. It’s not conducive to constructive work and everyone does need to work together.”

  “What lines of investigation are you working on right now?” Malachi asked.

  “Searching for Helen? We’ve got her computer and we’re following up on the online dating angle. That was Peters’s case,” he said, and hesitated. “It might be mine now. We’ve gone through the cell phone records on the others, tried to figure out if there w
as someone they were meeting. We’re retracing their steps. And we’re still waiting for lab reports from Forensics, although the autopsy procedures have been completed on Ruth Seymour, Rupert Holloway and Felicia Shepherd.”

  “Do you have any suspects?” Malachi asked.

  “No—not a one. We have our tech guys working on tracing the men Helen Long met through the online dating service, as I said. That’s it. We don’t have anything solid. Ruth Seymour checked into her B and B, and no one remembers seeing her after. She was a tourist, of course, and wouldn’t be known by locals, but we’ve had her picture all over. Same with Rupert Holloway. He was due at a meeting at a restaurant on the riverfront. He never made it. Felicia Shepherd left her apartment, presumably to go to class. She said goodbye to her roommate—and that was it.”

  “They disappeared on foot, right?”

  “Yes. Felicia’s car was in her parking space at the complex, Rupert Holloway’s was in the garage at the hotel, Ruth Seymour’s car was in the drive at the B and B.”

  Ten minutes later they left the station. They were in Malachi’s car heading back toward the Dragonslayer. He drove an Explorer, and while the interior was clean, it looked as if he’d driven on some rough roads.

  “So what now?” Abby said, flipping through her files.

  “First, I’m getting dry clothes.”

  “Oh!” She’d forgotten that he must be sodden; he hadn’t had anything other than a towel provided by one of the crime scene techs. “Yes, you must be miserably wet.”

  “I’m almost dry but I feel like my clothes are glued to my skin. If you don’t mind, we’ll stop by my hotel. I’ll only be a minute.”

  “Where are you staying?” she asked.

  “The 17hundred90 Inn and Restaurant,” he replied. “Hey, it’s supposed to be one of the most haunted in Savannah.”

  Abby nodded. “I love the bar area and the restaurant. There’s a great fireplace—nice to sit around on a chilly night. The house was actually built in 1820, but that was a disastrous year for the city. A fire wiped out half of it and an epidemic of yellow fever killed whole families, so I guess someone liked 1790 better and used that year to name the place. The ghost of Anna haunts it, you know.”

  “Anna, who threw herself from the window when her lover deserted her,” Malachi said. “In my room—204. Hey, I knew I was staying down here. Might as well go for an intriguing room.”

  “Have you seen Anna?”

  “No, not yet,” he told her. “Well, other than the fact that the owners have a fantastic sense of joining in with the city fun. There’s a mannequin of her in the window. I pass her every time I come in and out of the room.”

  “The tour guides love it when they go by,” Abby agreed.

  Malachi managed to find parking quickly. Abby went into the bar while he walked up to his room. As she entered, she realized that she was still in pirate attire—a number of stares came her way, and before she could get far, a couple of children asked to have a picture taken with her. She complied and finally entered the bar. A friend of hers was bartending and laughed as she explained that she hadn’t had time to change. She noticed that a lot of people were talking about the situation in the city in hushed voices. The media was broadcasting the fact that another body had been found by the river.

  Abby ordered a cup of tea to sip while she waited. Locals frequented the bar and met visitors to the city there.

  She didn’t particularly want to become involved in a conversation right now and took her tea to one of the plush chairs near the fireplace, the folder with notes from David in her hand. When she looked through them, she discovered the autopsy reports on all but the newest victim. The women, she saw, had engaged in sexual activity before their deaths, but whether it had been coerced or consenting, the M.E. had not been able to determine. The bodies had been too compromised. No fluids had been recovered, so DNA matches from semen wouldn’t be possible.

  She frowned, reading that. If a serial killer was a rapist as well, it seemed strange that he’d chosen a male victim. She leafed through the next report, and learned that the male victim, Rupert Holloway, hadn’t shown any signs of sexual assault.

  But if her grandfather had been a victim of the same killer, was he surprised by him in the tunnel to the point of having a heart attack? Or perhaps forced to move quickly in an attempt to escape and that had brought it on?

  She looked up. Malachi had reappeared. He’d evidently taken a shower because his dark hair was damp and slicked back. She noted the clean scent that emanated from him and the color of his eyes and the way he stood. And, as she’d told herself before, he could certainly appear intimidating.

  He was wearing jeans, a tailored shirt and a lightweight taupe jacket. She saw that he wore a shoulder holster and suspected that he was seldom without his weapon. She was without hers. Pirate wenches didn’t run around with Glocks. But in the days to come, she had to remember that she was an agent, which meant having her weapon available at all times. She’d asked for help that had turned out to be Malachi, and if she wanted to carry her weight, she had to behave like an agent.

  He could disguise himself, too. First, he’d caught her unaware from out of the shadows. Then she’d spoken to him on the ship and not even known who he was!

  “Ready,” he said lightly. “I’m assuming you might want to change? But maybe not. That pirate garb is quite fetching.”

  She took a last sip of her tea and rose. She was glad she was fairly tall; in the pirate boots, she didn’t feel short against his height. Abby wasn’t sure why that mattered. But it did, probably because she felt that she’d been taken in by him a few times. Of course, maybe he really hadn’t meant to make her feel like a fool. Maybe he’d just accomplished the feat by accident.

  “I think I will give up the pirate attire for now,” she said. “Shall we go back to the Dragonslayer?”

  During the short drive, Malachi asked Abby if she’d seen anything in the files to draw her attention. She told him what she’d read, and then realized that he must have known the cause of death—and the fact that the women had engaged in sex, which was most likely not consensual. He would also know that the man had not been molested. After all, he’d spent an hour with his detective friend.

  “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” she asked.

  “If there are two killers?” Malachi asked, glancing over at her. “I don’t know. My guess is that the murders are being done by the same person. The disposal of the bodies is what makes me think so.”

  “Yeah, I agree,” Abby said thoughtfully. “And cause of death—drowning—is the same in each case.”

  When they arrived at the Dragonslayer, Dirk Johansen was at the bar with Bootsie and Aldous. He’d obviously had a drink to calm his nerves.

  Macy met her at the door. “He’s pretty upset,” she murmured. “But then, from what I understand, you found the body. And it might be Helen Long!”

  “I don’t think it’s Helen,” Abby said softly. She saw that Macy was studying Malachi. “Hello, there. You were at the funeral, right?”

  Abby made the introductions. “Macy, this is Malachi Gordon. Malachi, Macy Sterling.”

  “How do you do, and yes, I was here yesterday,” Malachi told her. “I’m a friend of a friend of Abby’s at the agency.”

  “Oh, oh, oh!” Macy said. “A fed.”

  “Technically, I’m more of a fed than he is,” Abby couldn’t resist pointing out. A smile of amusement glimmered on Malachi’s face. He didn’t say a word. She sensed that he wasn’t being polite, he really didn’t care if he was an agent or a detective or an investigator. He was interested in the job, not the title.

  “Well, we’re glad you’re here,” Macy said, shaking his hand. Macy liked him, Abby thought. Or, at least, admired his appearance. She had that look she wore when she found a man attractive.

  “Thank you,” Malachi said, bowing slightly.

  “I’m going up to change,” Abby announced. “Malachi, come on up and
you can wait in Gus’s office.”

  “It’s your office now,” Macy said.

  “It will always be Gus’s office,” Abby said. Macy seemed a little stricken and Abby quickly added with a smile, “Okay, let’s call it Gus’s and my office. How about that?”

  Macy smiled.

  Abby strode over to the bar. Aldous glanced at her and nodded at Dirk, who was staring down into his drink, then shook his head sadly. Abby set a hand on Dirk’s shoulder. “Dirk?”

  Dirk looked up at her. “That could be Helen,” he said. “That could be Helen. That blond hair... Helen has blond hair that streams around her like that.”

  “Dirk, you couldn’t really tell if the hair was blond or not,” Abby told him. “The woman we found was light-haired, but...I know Helen, Dirk. I don’t think it was her. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  “I’ve been trying to contact her family,” he said. “The police have been trying.... I have no idea what to say to them, but I’ve got a reprieve. They’re on safari in Kenya. It’ll be another week before they can be reached. Oh, Lord—I pray we find her, alive, before then.”

  Malachi’s phone rang and he excused himself to answer it.

  “This is horrible, so horrible,” Dirk moaned as Abby tried to comfort him.

  Malachi came back over to them. “That was Detective Caswell,” he said. “The medical examiner’s office has the young woman cleaned up. He says she’s still pretty rough to look at, but they’ve gotten all the river gunk off her and he wants you to come down and see if you recognize her. I told him Abby could probably come make the same identification. He suggested you both come.”

  “I’ll change first,” Abby said.

  “I’ll go.” Dirk’s voice broke. “She worked for me. I owe her.”

  Aldous and Bootsie each set a hand on his shoulders. They reminded Abby of the Three Musketeers—one for all, and all for one. It must be nice to have such close and steadfast friends. She didn’t lack friends but a friendship like theirs, like the one they’d shared with Gus, was pretty special.