Page 80 of Water's Edge

I’m not sure if he’s talking about the boat or Ronnie. I move along the side of the cabin, grab one of the handholds and plant my feet as best I can. I find myself slung back against the side of the cabin as the twin 150-horsepower engines power up.

I’m all but certain he’s just showing off.

As we get closer to the scene, I can see white-clad Crime Scene techs. The captain drops anchor and lowers a rubber raft over the side. He hangs a ladder on the railing. Ronnie and I are able to make our way into the raft. A pair of plastic oars are in the raft, but Ronnie has picked up a coil of rope that is tied to the front of the raft. She yells for one of the techs and then tosses the line to him. The tech pulls us up onto the beach. Ronnie is off the raft first and comes back with a heavy rock and places it on the coiled rope.

“There,” she says. “Now it won’t float away.”

She makes it so easy for me to hate her. On the other hand, I love having someone around who knows how to do this kind of stuff.

The Crime Scene tech says the coroner is stuck on an arson with fatality case in another part of the county and they’ll remove the body after processing the scene.

“We’re just starting,” he says, motioning around with a wave of his arm. “There’s no need to string caution tape. Skunk is uninhabited.”

I look around. Large basalt boulders form a barrier on the southern tip of the little island; the rest is forest and beaches. The tide might have washed away any footprints.

“Hey, Detective Carpenter.”

It’s one of the techs coming out of the tall, weather matted brush inland.

“You might want to see this.”

I weave my way through the rocks that litter the beach. The tech yells for me to move to my left and come straight at him. I take two steps to my left and walk into the brush. It’s higher than my waist, and blackberry brambles pull at my jacket. I’m grateful for the heavy work pants. I stop, button my jacket, and hold my arms up to keep them out of the worst of it. As I approach a wooded area, there is a shallow incline where the brush thins out. The tech leads me up into the trees several yards and stops.

My eyes follow his gaze.

I see it immediately.

The body has its back to us and is turning with the breeze to face us. Boyd is wearing the same tattered clothes. One scuffed tan army boot is off, and a dingy sock shows beneath the cuff of faded jeans. His head is tilted far to the left and down, neck stretched from the weight, hanging from a length of yellow nylon climbing rope. Long, curly, greasy black hair hangs over the left side of his face. His tongue looks like a black stopper has been corkscrewed into his mouth.

It isn’t the real Robbie Boyd, but it is the man who identified himself as such.

The tech looks at me, then back at the body.

“There’s something in his hand,” he says.

I squint a little. In the right hand, a piece of white, red, and black cloth is just barely visible.

I look back the way we came and can see a narrow path in the brush where someone trampled parts of it down from the body to the beach. I scan the body once more. The rope was thrown over a low-hanging limb about ten feet off the ground, then tied around the trunk of the tree. I can’t see the knot at the neck with the head canted, but I know it’s there.

“Rock-climbing rope,” I say.

The tech nods.

I work my way back to the beach, where another tech is chatting up Ronnie. They are both smiling, and the tech has a notebook out and is writing something down.

I approach and the tech suddenly becomes busy and Ronnie looks away.

“Who found her?” I ask.

Even from this distance I can see the victim is a younger woman in the age range of the other victims, maybe a little younger. The body is lying faceup, legs spread wide, arms stretched out to each side, with the back of the head in a notch between two big rocks, making the face clearly visible. A redhead.

Just like the others.

Blood has run down the inside of the legs, and her crotch is covered in it. There are large bruises along the side of one leg and binding marks on the wrists and ankles and a wider mark around the neck.

“Joey said Roy found her,” Ronnie says.

“Captain Martin?” I ask.

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