Page 82 of Water's Edge

“What’s your name?”

“Bart, Detective Carpenter. Deputy Bart Johnson. You spoke at the academy last year and I was in your homicide class.”

I remember being forced to do the class by Sheriff Gray. He usually did those types of things, but he was busy that day. Probably playing Candy Crush on his computer.

“Bart, do you think you can get that picture for me before I leave?”

“I can get it right now,” he says, unzipping his Tyvek suit down to his waist. He reaches inside and pulls out a long, narrow rod.

“It’s for taking selfies with a cell phone,” he says. “I keep one just in case I have to look on top of things I can’t reach.”

Finally, I think.A good use for those insufferable selfie sticks.

He expands the rod to thirty inches. He reaches back inside his coveralls and pulls out his cell phone. He walks around the tree, getting different angles, and shows me the video.

“Stop here,” I say.

He does.

“What’s that look like to you?”

The video is of the backside of the tree trunk. He expands the picture to zoom in.

“There’s your symbol, ma’am.”

The all-seeing eye.

It’s here.

I have him send the video to my phone. I open it and can’t tell if the rope rubbed the bark significantly or not.

“When you get the body down, can you take more pictures of the limb and the knots? And of that symbol?”

“I’ll send everything to you, ma’am.”

This tech isn’t any older than I am, but he makes me feel old.

“Ma’am” is like “marm,” as in “school marm,” a prim and prudish spinster.

I return to the beach. The boat is standing by, and Ronnie has found another big rock to perch on and watch as Crime Scene does their thing.

“Joey,” I say to the tech, “when Bart gets the body down, can you check the dead man’s clothing for a knife?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I want to tell him to stop calling me “ma’am,” but my phone rings.

It’s Sheriff Gray.

“Is it your guy? Boyd?”

“Yeah,” I say. “He’s hanging in a tree.”

“Murder or suicide?”

Yet to be determined, but I say what I think.

“It looks like he hanged himself,” I reply, with a perceptible touch of sarcasm.

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