Page 9 of Water's Edge

“And she didn’t fall from the top of the cliff unless she was running about forty miles an hour before she jumped,” I add.

“How long do you think she’s been here, ma’am?” he asks.

“Long enough to be dead,” I say, and immediately regret being smart with him. “We’ll have to wait for the coroner.”

I trace a way to move from rock to rock and maybe get down to the body, and I go for it. I slip only once and bang a knee. That’s going to leave a bruise. I’m on the gravelly, sandy shoreline now. Ten feet from the body. Her legs are pointed inland. She had to be brought in by boat. Pulled up into the rocks. Dumped. Posed. The tide has erased any drag marks in the sand. The body is at least fifteen, twenty feet from the water, but she has been pulled in between some rocks large enough to hide her body from the water. If Boyd hadn’t climbed down the cliff and spotted her, it might have been some time before she was found.

“Damn,” Davis says, and I turn toward him.

“What?” My heart is pumping a little.

“I ran out of film,” Davis says.

“That’s a digital camera. Stop fooling around.”

“Sorry, ma’am.”

He doesn’t sound sorry, but I forgive him. It’s the first time he’s ever shown any type of humor. He’s usually so focused and eager to please that I want him to loosen up. Humor is law enforcement’s way of pushing emotion away so you can function under pressure. I wonder what is stressing Davis out. He has worked horrible scenes with me before and seemed okay. I would ask him, but I don’t want to see another grown man cry today. I had that earlier with the fire marshal.

As I look over the body, I wonder how she got there. Maybe she was kidnapped, beaten, taken on a boat to be dumped at sea. Then she jumped overboard and ended up here. She would have had to have been pretty desperate to do something like that. I don’t even want to step out into the cold water.

The more I look at the position of the body, the more I see a dump site. She was brought here by someone.

I’m punching the sheriff’s number into my phone to update him when my phone rings. I answer.

“This is Nan. I’ve been trying to call you for half an hour.”

Nan is an administrative assistant, not my boss. Not anyone’s boss, for that matter. Even so, she acts like one.

“Sorry, Nan. The reception is sketchy here. I was just getting ready to call Sheriff Gray to tell him there are body parts everywhere and… oh, crap!”

“What?”

I say with a wicked grin, “I just stepped on a finger. At least, I think it’s a finger. Or maybe it’s a small—”

“I don’t want to hear,” Nan says. “I just want to tell you that a state patrolman named MacDonald has been calling and asking for your phone number.”

“Did you give it to him?”

“I didn’t think I should. I told him I’d pass the message on to you. Do you want his number?”

“Yes.”

She provides the number.

“Is the sheriff done with the Gamble family?” I ask.

“I can go ask him.”

I know she’s lying. She knows everything about everybody. Except me. “Never mind. Tell him to call me,” I say. I disconnect before I yell at her. I don’t know if she’s really stupid or if she’s just trying to get my goat.

I call Mac.

“I hear your Marine Patrol is coming here.”

“In a while,” I say. “Where are you?”

“I’m with my car. Do you need me to stay?”

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