Unleashed (Blake Brier Thrillers Book 2)
Page 25
Of course, Fuller knew all of this. It had been in every book that he was required to read for his promotional exams. But Hopkins couldn’t help but use the real-world scenario as a teaching aid. Things like this didn’t happen often and, accident or not, it would likely be the most useful experience Fuller will have had to date.
Hopkins completed several circles with the final lap being only fifteen feet from the bowrider. He slowed the boat to a crawl. As they passed the back, they got their first close-up look at the deceased.
“Aw, that’s sick,” Fuller said. “What a horrible way to die.”
Hopkins couldn’t think of a truer statement. The damage to the poor girl’s face was catastrophic. A blade of the propeller was buried deep into her skull where her nose and eyes would have been. The motor, when tilted, had lifted her body halfway out of the water and her thin, delicate arms dangled as if she were pushing herself up by an imaginary ledge, hidden below the waterline.
Hopkins completed the circle, then came around to the port side. He tossed a line to Fuller, who lashed the police boat to the side of the bowrider, such that the back of the RIB jutted out ten feet past the transom of its counterpart.
“Take some pictures of the interior from here,” Hopkins instructed. “Then jump on and take more. Be careful not to disturb anything. And get a picture of the inside of that cooler. I’ll raise Paul and let him know we’re ready for him.”
Fuller set out to complete his task as Hopkins retrieved his radio. Before he could call, he noticed that Russo was already motoring toward him. He crouched down and leaned over, getting as close as he could to the victim without falling in.
“What were you doing here?” Hopkins whispered.
Based on her petite frame, long hair and feminine clothing, it was clear that the victim was a female. How old she was, that was another story. The natural postmortem processes had modeled her skin and she had already begun to bloat. More so than he would have expected. Hopkins wondered if being half submerged in water had somehow accelerated decomposition.
The Coast Guard vessel arrived and set up in the opposite configuration. The three boats tied together created an open-ended box around the victim. Hopkins was satisfied that the configuration would provide some shielding from the nosy residents that had come out of their homes along the shore to gawk.
Russo zipped up his wetsuit and slid into the water. He was able to stand on the bottom with his head and a sliver of his shoulders above the water.
“Ready for me to pull her loose?” Russo said.
“Yeah, go ahead. Then Charlie and I will help you pull her up here.” Hopkins waved to Fuller. “Charlie, get some shots while he frees her from the prop.”
Russo moved in close, with a pair of neoprene diving gloves, he grasped the girl’s head on either side and pulled.
“She’s stuck,” Russo said. “Her hair is all wrapped around the prop. I’m going to have to cut it free. Frank, grab me a pair of scissors.”
One of the other two guardsman handed Russo the scissors. He cut away a clump and held it out toward Hopkins.
“Charlie,” Hopkins said, “grab a bunch of paper bags from under the seat. And a sharpie if we have one. I want to bag each one of these clumps individually. Number the bags sequentially and put the time on them.”
“On it,” Fuller said.
Hopkins pulled two pairs of rubber gloves from one of his pants’ cargo pockets. He put on a pair and tossed the other to Fuller.
Fuller put on the gloves, reached over and took the first clump of hair from Russo, who’s slack facial expression gave away his impatience.
Russo continued cutting. On the fourth cut, before anyone was prepared for it, the weight of the body pulled itself free with a grotesque suction sound and a splash.
“Okay, see if you can lift her up a bit. Charlie, give me a hand.”
Russo reached under the girl and lifted her as if performing a military press. Hopkins and Fuller guided her into the boat and laid her on her back.
“Oh my god.” Fuller blurted.
“This was no accident,” Hopkins said.
The thin fabric of the girl’s shirt was torn and tattered, exposing most of her chest, including one of her breasts. A dozen half-inch long stab wounds dotted her torso. Stranger still, the fingers of her right hand appeared to be missing, and the portion of her hand that remained was tightly bandaged.
“Looks like you got yourself a murder,” Paul said. “You up for this?”
Hopkins was in no mood, especially not now. “Thanks for your help Paul, we’ve got it from here.”
“Always glad to help,” Russo hoisted himself out of the water and unzipped his suit.
“If you guys don’t mind holding the perimeter until we can collect the evidence off of the boat and get Sea Tow out here, I’d appreciate it,” Hopkins said.
“Sure thing.” Russo untied and the crew set off to join their colleagues.
“I had a feeling this girl was in the water for more than just a couple of hours,” Hopkins said. “She didn’t swim into the prop; she was dumped somewhere else and washed up here. Those kids will be relieved. As much as you can be about someone being stabbed to death.”
Fuller grabbed the camera and snapped a few shots of the body. Hopkins lifted the seat and pulled out a small flexible ruler. “When you take closeups of the wounds, make sure you put the scale in the picture. Closeups can be deceiving without a reference.” He laid the piece of plastic on the victim’s chest, next to the top-most wound.
“What do you think she was stabbed with? It looks like something real thin. Almost like a screwdriver, or something like that,” Fuller said.
“Not necessarily. When someone’s stabbed, the skin stretches and then closes back up. The wound always looks smaller than the instrument that caused it.” Hopkins said.
“Ah, ya learn something new every day. So, what do we do now? If this girl has been dead for a little while, someone would have reported her missing. And we did get that missing— “
“I know, Charlie. I was thinking the same thing.”
***
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About the Aut
hor
L.T. Ryan is a USA Today and international bestselling author. The new age of publishing offered L.T. the opportunity to blend his passions for creating, marketing, and technology to reach audiences with his popular Jack Noble series.
Living in central Virginia with his wife, the youngest of his three daughters, and their three dogs, L.T. enjoys staring out his window at the trees and mountains while he should be writing, as well as reading, hiking, running, and playing with gadgets. See what he’s up to at http://ltryan.com.
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