Dead in the Water

by Annelise Ryan

  I feel waterlogged and creeped out, and I can’t wait to get into some dry clothes. I change in the trailer and getting out of the diving gear helps some, but my fingers are wrinkled and white, and I can’t get the smell of the lake water out of my nose or hair—but, I remind myself, it’s still a better state than I was in last evening after sewing Ms. Abernathy back together.

  When I emerge from the trailer, I see the news van has left. Alison approaches me, with a look of concern on her face. “Do you think this is a random thing, or do you think it might have something to do with Hal’s job?”

  “I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I hope it’s the former.”

  “How much can I reveal in the paper?” she asks. “An edition comes out tomorrow.”

  I sigh, frowning. “I don’t know if the connection between Hal and this scene has been made by the other agencies,” I tell her. “And we don’t have official IDs on either victim yet.”

  Alison cocks her head to the side and gives me an exasperated look. “Come on, Mattie. You and I both know who the victims are.”

  “But until the official IDs are made, the families won’t be notified,” I remind her. “Let’s not cause too much emotional chaos.”

  Alison sighs and rolls her eyes at me. “Can I at least mention there might be a connection between the two deaths?”

  “Check with Hurley. He might be willing to let you say the police are investigating a possible connection between the two.” It’s not an answer, but it’s enough to make Alison’s expression brighten, and she hurries over to Hurley. Judging from the happy look she has when she leaves him and heads back to her car, I’m guessing he agreed.

  After helping to unload Tina’s body from the sled into a hearse provided by the CassKit sisters, Hurley and I follow it back to the morgue. Hurley helps me check the body in and wheel it into the giant cooled storage room. Then we go looking for Otto. We find him in the dissection room, standing next to a table where Hal’s body is already laid out. Hal is still fully clothed, his opaque eyes staring up at the ceiling, his skin the pale white of a fish’s belly.

  I glance at my watch and see it’s already after five. I need to call Desi and tell her I’m going to be late. Then I realize I haven’t heard anything from Dom or Izzy all day. I check my phone to see if I missed a call—the phone spent a lot of time hanging in my pants pocket in the trailer—but there’s nothing. I think about Matthew, and then about Juliana, and I have an overwhelming urge to hug and hold those tiny, warm bodies, so full of blood and life and simple, smiling, innocent happiness.

  “What’s the status?” I ask Otto.

  “Someone should be here in about thirty minutes. I called Madison and asked them to send someone, since the Milwaukee people are still tied up on the interstate and likely will be for hours.”

  “I put Tina’s body in the fridge. I checked her in and did the necessary paperwork, but I didn’t print her, get any vitreous fluid, or X-ray her at all.”

  “That’s fine. You go on home. You look like you could use a meal and a hot shower.”

  “That I could,” I admitted. “Have you heard any word on Izzy?”

  “Oh, yes,” Otto said, giving himself a slap on the forehead. “I’m glad you asked. I almost forgot. Dom called and said he’s doing great and they are going to discharge him first thing in the morning. He asked if you could bring his daughter by the house sometime after six. He’ll be home by then and he said he plans to head back to Madison in the morning to bring Izzy home.”

  “Can do,” I say. While I adore Juliana, just thinking about caring for two kids for the rest of the evening leaves me feeling exhausted. No doubt the reality of it would have been much worse.

  As Hurley and I bid Otto a good night and leave the morgue, I take out my phone and call my sister. “Hey, Desi. How are the kids doing?”

  “They’re fine. You can leave them here anytime you want. We’ve had a fun day.”

  “Wish I could say the same.”

  “Uh-oh, a rough one?”

  “Very.”

  “It’s not Izzy, is it?”

  “No, he’s fine. Apparently, he’s going to be discharged in the morning.”

  “Oh, good. So it’s something to do with a case, then?”

  “It is. I don’t want to go into detail over the phone. I’m getting ready to leave the office and should be there in ten minutes.”

  “Take your time. You can leave both kids here all night if you want.”

  “It’s very kind and a little insane of you to offer, but I think Dom wants to have Juliana home with him. And I miss my little guy.”

  “He’s missed you, too. He’s pointed to the door and said ‘Mama come,’ at least ten times today.”

  “Aw, how sweet,” I say, fighting a sudden, inexplicable urge to cry.

  “Don’t let it go to your head,” Desi cautions. “He asked about Dada as many times as he did Mama, maybe more.”

  I look over at Hurley and smile. “Yeah, the kid’s a bit of a daddy’s boy,” I say with a wink. “See you soon.”

  I disconnect the call and tell Hurley what Desi told me. He looks pleased, but also sad. “What’s wrong?” I ask him.

  “I want nothing more than to go home and spend some time with my kids, both of them,” he says. “But I’m going to be at it all night long.”

  Such are the vagaries of both of our jobs. There is no nine-to-five standard. People die whenever and wherever.

  “I can help you out, once I get Matthew fed and to bed. Emily can stay home with him tonight. I can’t do much in the office right now anyway.”

  “Speaking of which,” Hurley says with a frown, “we’re going to have to look into Hal’s desk space, and any cases he was working on.”

  I nod slowly, the full implications of Hal’s death dawning on me. Had some case we’d worked in our office led to his murder? I wrack my brain thinking back on the cases we’ve handled since Hal joined us. He and I often shared cases and duties, so if something he worked was connected to his death, then I might be connected to it as well.

  I look at Hurley and say, “You have to eat at some point, even if you work all night. Why don’t I get Matthew home, figure something out for dinner, and then call you when we’re ready to sit down. That way, you can come and join us.”

  “I can manage that,” Hurley says with a grateful smile. But the smile fades quickly. “You aren’t going to cook, are you?”

  My cooking skills, or rather the lack thereof, are well known to all who know me. It’s not that I can’t cook; I just don’t have the patience for doing it well and right. I’ve made an effort since Matthew’s birth, and in the past year and a half, I’ve cooked more meals than I had in all of my thirty-five years before that. But even Matthew, whose appetite is as healthy and undiscriminating as my own, has been known to turn his nose up at my offerings. Worse yet, my dog, Hoover, named for his ability to suck up food, has even passed on some of my offerings. Last night’s boxed mac and cheese with hot dogs is one of the few things I’ve mastered. It’s my signature meal. I’m the kind of cook that would make Gordon Ramsay pop an aneurysm.

  “No,” I assure Hurley. “I’m thinking I’ll get some takeout from Pesto Change-o. Do you want your usual?”

  “Sounds good.” He gives me a kiss—a quick peck on the lips—and without another word, he turns and leaves. I watch him walk away, admiring the sight of his retreating backside.

  I make my way down to the underground garage, hop in my hearse, and arrive at my sister’s house in just under ten minutes. Matthew is in the living room with his cousin Erika, the two of them reclining on a beanbag chair. Erika is reading Dr. Seuss’s One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. It’s Matthew’s all-time favorite, so much so that I have the entire book memorized from reading it to him so often. As much as he loves the book, he loves his mama more. As soon as he sees me, he scrambles out of the beanbag chair and runs over to me.

  “Me up,” he pleads, extending h
is arms, and I oblige him, giving him a tight hug.

  “Hi, Aunt Mattie,” Erika says. “Mom’s in the kitchen with Juliana. How was your day?”

  “It was okay,” I say, a bold-faced lie. Erika senses this and scrunches her face at me. “My bullshit detector is going off,” she says, cocking her head to the side. “Want to talk about it?”

  “Can’t, at least not yet,” I say. “And are you allowed to say ‘bullshit’?”

  “Absolutely not,” she says with an evil smile. “You won’t tell on me, will you?”

  “Not if you promise to keep your language clean when you’re around the little guy here.”

  “Oh, right.” She claps a hand over her mouth and utters a muffled “Sorry.”

  I carry Matthew out to the kitchen, where I find my sister feeding turkey and rice baby food to Juliana, who is propped up in a baby seat on top of the counter.

  “Almost done here,” Desi says. She spoons some more of the concoction into Juliana’s eager mouth and eyes me with a sidelong glance. “Anything you can tell me?”

  “I can tell you some basics, because I’m sure it’s going to be on the evening news. My coworker Hal Dawson was killed today.”

  Desi’s mouth falls open and she drops the spoon into the bowl. “Oh, no,” she says, giving me a sympathetic look. “What happened? Was he in an accident of some sort?”

  I shake my head, debating how much to reveal. I don’t know yet how much information will be released on the news, but plenty of people saw Hal’s body come out of the water today. Despite our best efforts to keep the crowd at a distance and keep the body covered, given the prevalence of phone cameras these days—not to mention the drone Alison told us about—I have no doubt someone, somewhere, recognized Hal and saw that his throat was injured. What they won’t know is how that injury occurred.

  My sister is one of those rare birds that can actually keep a secret, an uncommon trait in a small town where gossip and insider knowledge is a highly valued commodity. However, her husband, Lucien, is a local attorney who specializes in defense. On the off chance he might end up representing whoever killed Hal, I don’t want him to be privy to any insider knowledge ahead of time. And I don’t want to put my sister in the position of having to keep secrets from her husband. Their marriage has gone through a rough patch in the not-so-distant past, and I don’t want to complicate whatever repairs are in place.

  “I can’t say any more, at least not yet,” I tell her.

  She accepts this with an indifferent shrug. “You’ll tell me when you can,” she says, understanding my position.

  “How have the kids been?” I ask, eager to change the subject.

  “Good as gold.” She picks up her dropped spoon, scoops some more of the baby food mixture onto it, and offers it to Juliana, who makes a face and turns her head.

  “Looks like the princess here is done,” she says, setting the spoon back down and wiping Juliana’s messy face with a washcloth. Juliana clearly hates this; she squirms and fusses and then begins to cry. Desi scoops her out of the seat, holds her over her shoulder, and starts bouncing her. Juliana is instantly consoled, making me, not for the first time, marvel at my sister’s mothering instincts and abilities. Desi was born to mothering, whereas there are days when I feel like I was dragged into it, kicking and screaming.

  It takes me half an hour to package up the kids and all the paraphernalia that goes with them, and then load everything and everyone into the hearse. Lucien drives up just as I’m giving my sister a hug good-bye; to avoid any questioning from him, I hastily climb behind the wheel, give him a little wave of acknowledgment, and drive away.

  CHAPTER 14

  My next stop is Izzy and Dom’s house and I’m glad to see Dom is home. He comes outside to the concrete area between their house and the cottage to help me unload Juliana and her stuff. Sylvie wanders out, too, pushing her walker ahead of her.

  “There’s my girl,” Dom says, taking Juliana from my arms and kissing her on the cheek. Juliana coos and smiles at him, making Dom beam.

  “About time my granddaughter came home,” Sylvie grumbles with a telling glance at her watch.

  “Sorry, I had a long day,” I say. “How’s Izzy doing?”

  “He’s cranky and complaining about the care, the food, the accommodations . . . all of it,” Dom says with a roll of his eyes. But he’s also smiling.

  “Ah, so he’s definitely on the mend,” I say, returning the smile. A grumpy, complaining Izzy sounds like the good old Izzy we both know and love as opposed to the quiet, frightened Izzy I saw the other day. “I hear he’s being released in the morning. Did you two have a chance to talk things over?”

  Dom nods. “We have a ways to go yet, but we made some definite progress.”

  Sylvie lets out one of her harrumphs and clucks her tongue.

  I’m tempted to give Sylvie a chastising look, but I know it would be a wasted use of my facial muscles. The woman can’t be shamed or embarrassed, and she has no interest in political correctness or social politeness.

  “Desi is watching Matthew for me again tomorrow and she said she’d be happy to keep Juliana, too,” I say to Dom.

  “That’s okay. I’m going to bring her with me to the hospital. But thanks for taking her last night.”

  “Anytime. She’s an angel.”

  “Yes, she is,” he says, giving her another big kiss on the cheek.

  I grab the diaper bag from the car and hand it to Dom. Then I take Juliana’s car seat out and set it in the garage. “Desi just finished feeding Juliana, but she didn’t give her a bottle yet.”

  “Got it. Thanks.”

  “If it’s okay, I’ll give you a call tomorrow afternoon after you get Izzy home and settled.”

  “That will be fine. Thanks again, Mattie.” Dom turns and heads inside, and after a moment of hesitation, Sylvie toddles along behind him.

  I get in my car and call Emily to make sure she’s home and ask her what she wants to eat. Then I call Pesto Change-o—a number I have on speed dial—and order dinner before heading home to drop Matthew off.

  As soon as we enter the house, Matthew releases my hand and runs toward the kitchen, where his sister is sitting at the table, doing something on her laptop.

  “Memmy!” Matthew yells doing his funny waddle run. As he approaches the doorway between the kitchen and living room, I see Rubbish hunkered down on the back of the couch by the doorway. I know what’s about to happen, but I’m a split second too slow in trying to warn Matthew or distract Rubbish. The cat leaps off the back of the couch just as Matthew runs past, hitting him in the side of the head. Matthew staggers sideways, a look of surprise on his face, and then tumbles to the floor. The cat dashes between my legs, does a sliding turn at the base of the stairs, and runs up the steps.

  Emily and I both burst out laughing. Matthew, who is still stunned and not sure what happened, pouts. He picks himself up from the floor and continues his journey, arriving at Emily with his arms extended, doing his standard “Me up.” Emily, still laughing, scoops him into her arms, gives him a big kiss on the cheek, and says, “How’s my favorite brother doing today?”

  Cat attack already forgotten, Matthew smiles up at his sister and says, “Cookie.” That’s a word he learned very early on—not surprising, given who his mother is.

  “Not until after dinner,” I admonish, and Matthew sticks out his lower lip, points his finger at my face, and says, “Mama bad.”

  This makes both Emily and me laugh. “I have to go pick up dinner,” I tell her as Matthew squirms out of her arms and crawls under the table to give Hoover a hug. “Are you planning on staying home tonight?”

  “Yeah, why? Need me to babysit?”

  “If you don’t mind. Your dad and I picked up a big case today and there’s a lot of stuff to do. He’ll be home for dinner, but after that, he’ll probably be working until very late. I thought I’d give him a hand if you can stay home with Matthew for a few hours.”

 
“No problem.”

  Matthew, still under the table, his head resting on Hoover’s belly, says, “Hooba cookie.”

  “Aw, he wants a cookie for Hoover,” Emily says, getting up from the table.

  “Don’t fall for it,” I tell her, giving my son a sly look. “Matthew will eat a dog cookie, just like he eats a human one.”

  I leave Matthew in Emily’s hands and head for Pesto Change-o to pick up our meal. I call Hurley on the way back, to let him know the food is ready. By the time I get home, Emily has the kitchen table—which seems to be a gathering place for all kinds of paraphernalia, such as mail, purses, laptops, diaper bags, dog treats, and the occasional dirty dish—cleared and ready to go. Hurley arrives a few minutes later and we manage to pretend for the next half hour that we’re a normal family sitting down to dinner. Though I’m dying to ask Hurley about the investigation, the two of us steer the conversation in other directions in deference to the kids. It turns out to be for naught.

  “When are you going to tell me about your coworker?” Emily asks.

  I nearly choke on a piece of sausage I’ve just stuffed in my mouth, and I take the time to chew and think about my answer.

  “I saw it on the news,” Emily says as I’m stalling. “They said someone was found dead in the river, and there was a picture of the dead man taken by someone with a drone camera. They tentatively identified the victim as Hal. And then they said there was another body found in the lake near a boat. They showed footage from some flyover news copter and from the shore, though the shore footage just showed a bunch of police tape and the boat off in the distance. But the overhead pictures made it clear something bad happened, because there were cops everywhere and blood on the boat. They said the second victim appeared to be a woman, but they didn’t identify her. And they said the two bodies might be connected, because the registration number on the boat identified it as belonging to Harold Dawson.”

  So much for keeping things under wraps. I imagine Alison will be annoyed that the TV news people were able to dig up that much information, but it should help ease any doubts Hurley might have had about letting Alison print the same information in tomorrow’s paper.