Page 12 of Lime Gelatin and Other Monsters
“Ma’am?” Kyle’s rhythm was shot all to hell by that question.
“You two look like you’re barely out of school.”
Not at all flustered, Vikash gave her a hint of a smile. “Which one is older, ma’am?”
She snorted. “You are, obviously.”
“No, ma’am.” Vikash pointed with this pen, already out with this notebook at the ready. “Officer Monroe is. It’s hard to judge sometimes.”
“Huh. Well, I guess you’ll have to do.”
“We appreciate the vote of confidence,” Kyle said, hoping the sarcasm hadn’t leaked out through his ears. “You told dispatch you saw some suspicious activity?”
She nodded, lips pursed as she waved around the building to the far side, away from the sun-drenched gazebo. “It was this morning. Fog was still sitting on the banks like it does sometimes. But down there—” She pointed to a spot on the bank. “That’s where he was, digging in the mud.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“Hell no.” Her short-cropped silver hair glinted in the sun as she tilted her head at Kyle. “Do I look like I know people who go digging around in river muck?”
“Um, no, ma’am.” Kyle cleared his throat, trying desperately to get his interviewing feet back under him. “Can you describe him, please?”
“Couldn’t see much. Couldn’t really say how tall he was since he was down there. Had a black knit hat on. Looked like a white boy to me.”
“What else did you notice, ma’am?” Vikash asked while he scribbled in his notepad.
For Vikash, she pursed her lips, thinking. “He was wearing one of those Eagles jackets.”
“The green nylon kind?” Kyle asked and snapped his mouth shut when she glared at him.
“No.” Theyou foolwas implied, she didn’t even have to say it. “Don’t interrupt. It was one of those, what do you call the damn things? Varsity jackets. The wool with the leather sleeves. Those things. It was black. The wool part. Had an eagle patch on the front.”
Vikash stopped scribbling. “This was early in the morning. Why did you wait to report it?”
She shrugged. “Didn’t think much of it. I yelled at him and he took off. Down the bank, then up by the museum. Didn’t see anything down there, so I got on with my day until one of the girls said something about murders along the river here. And it got me thinking.”
Kyle shut up since she had taken such an obvious dislike to him, but he gestured with his head toward the river. Vikash, bless him, caught on right away.
“Has anyone been down there to take a look, ma’am?”
“Not yet, no.”
Vikash flipped his notebook shut and tucked it back into his shirt pocket as he leaned out over the railing. “Bit steep. We could go around.”
“Should be a line in the trunk,” Kyle said, his ego stinging a bit from being treated like a teenager in front of Vikash. If he was honest with himself, it was the in front of Vikash part that stung, and if it made him want to do something stupidly macho, that was understandable. Right?
After a long stare down his perfect, regal nose, Vikash let out a barely audible sigh and strode back to the squad car. He returned with the nylon line and a completely expressionless face. He wrapped one end behind his back, let the other drop over the railing and nodded to Kyle.
“Just warn me when you’re coming back up.”
Kyle hesitated. The drop-off looked suddenly steeper and higher up. Not that he was going to kill himself falling into river mud. Probably. “You sure?”
“I can hold you.”
Was that…?No. Vikash meant exactly what he said. Kyle clambered over the railing and used the rope to steady himself on the way down. It still wasn’t a pleasant descent through the weeds and muck, but he managed not to face-plant. With Mrs. Kerns shouting directions, he squelched farther down the bank until he found a spot where the weeds had been disturbed. A quick glance around didn’t provide a rock or piece of broken plastic to dig with, but a good-sized stick was poking up out of the mud just at the waterline.
“Longer arms…would be good…about now…” Kyle snagged the end and yanked at it, clutching at the rope when he overbalanced and flinging mud everywhere when the stick pulled free with an obsceneslorp. Yes. Mrs. Kerns was laughing at him. He would just have to ignore that.
With the stick as an impromptu probe, he dug at the churned up spot in the weeds, trying not to think too hard about what he might find. A corner of plastic soon protruded from the muck and Kyle pulled a yellow marker from his pocket to indicate the spot. The river mud released his foot sullenly, hanging on for all it was worth as he reached forward, and Kyle gritted his teeth as his forward boot sank ankle-deep into the ooze.
