Page 5 of Half the Summer's Night
“Who did this to you, Mr. Nielson?” I breathe out.
He doesn’t answer.
I take a picture of theR, even though I know Sheriff Kaplan won’t give a shit. He was the one person who opposed my appointment to the county coroner position, and I know damn well it’s because of what happened when I was sixteen. Taking this to him will do nothing. But I’ll still include it in my report, and I’ll add the information to my own research.
Because I don’t care if Kaplan thinks I’m some hysterical teenage girl instead of an adult woman with the training and education to do my job. It’s clear to me that all these accidental deaths in Rosado aren’t accidental at all. I think there’s a killer stalking along our windswept beachfront.
And I think he’s trying to send a message.
I sticka red pin in my map of Rosado County, right along the beachfront where the Palm Breeze Hotel is located. It has a little flag on it, too, with the letterR.
Then I step back and look at everything, my arms crossed tight over my chest. There are nineteen pins total, all scattered across Rosado. Seven of them are red, each with its own letter attached. Seven bodies that came into my examination room with a tiny letter carved somewhere on them.
Right now, they spell outYOURDAR.And with the way they’re arranged on the map, it’s really more likeYOUR DAR.
I rub my hands over my arms, chasing away the chill in the office next to my examination room, where I’ve set up my makeshift investigation. The air is always chilly in here, but Idon’t think it’s just the AC that’s making my skin prickle with goosebumps.
The first marked body showed up about a month after my coroner appointment. It had been a tourist death, a college student here for spring break. He’d been drinking all day and took a Jet Ski out on the water after dark. They found his body lying in the surf the next morning, cuts across his face and his lungs filled with water. An accident, obviously.
But I still found that tiny, intentionalY, freshly carved into the skin of his hip. After death.
Kaplan told me I was being absurd.I don’t know how they do things up in Virginia, he said.But you need to keep this foolishness out of your reports if you wantthiscommunity to take you seriously.
He stressed the wordthis, as if Rosado weren’t my community, too.
The worst part was that I could tell Uncle Vic agreed with him, even if he wouldn’t come out and say it. He just told me I shouldn’t rock the boat, not if I wanted to hold on to my position. That people here have long memories. So I set it aside.
Until another accidental death came in, a few months later. A car collision on the beach highway. And I found a tiny carvedOon the woman’s wrist.
And they keep happening, these marked deaths. All of them get ruled as accidents. All of themlooklike accidents in every way except for those tiny letters carved into the victim’s skin.
I started mapping them after Uncle Vic died. I’m sure my grief had something to do with it—I was drowning in it, and I don’t have friends here in Rosado. My parents don’t talk to me anymore. All I had was him, and then he was gone.
That was also around the time I started looking into strange deaths from before I came back. I found twelve that seemed similar to the ones with the carved letters—tourists, usually,or people passing through. All had been ruled accidents or suicides by the authorities. All were gruesome, though. Bloody. Disturbing.
I couldn’t say it was a particularly scientific process, identifying them and throwing them up on the map. Just a hunch. A sense that they belonged with the others. I added the location of those accidents to my map, too, marking them with white pins instead of red.
I slump back against my wall, studying the map, trying to find a pattern. The red pins, with their accompanying letters, string along like Christmas lights. Or like a sentence.
YOUR DAR?—
Your darling? Your darkness? Your Darwin? Possibilities buzz through my head, but none of them actually tell me anything.
I think of poor Mr. Nielson, currently resting in his cubby in the cold locker. I’m sure the sheriff’s department has already told his family that there was an accident, and my report will only corroborate that. Because Ididn’tsee any sign that he was killed, other than that cruel, viciousR. A calling card from a killer who knows how to make his deaths look unintentional.
It’s not fair. Not to the victims. Not to the families. And I know I’m not really helping them, pinning these deaths to this map. I just wish I had something more, something substantial. Something that even Kaplan couldn’t ignore.
I step closer to the map, sweeping my gaze over the locations of the marked deaths for the millionth time. They seem random, too, although they do run more or less parallel to the water, as if the killer is using the shoreline as a ruler. I’ve gone to the locations before, but they’re usually isolated. An empty parking lot. A boarded-up gas station. A back road. That sort of thing.
There is one thing that’s different, though. This is the first time one of the deaths has been in such a public place. A hotelis swarming with people, especially this time of year. Maybe someone saw something.
My breath quickens. Do I have the guts to investigate on my own? Kaplan will be furious if he hears I’ve been sniffing around during my off hours, but it’s not like he can reallydoanything about it. He doesn’t fucking employ me. The county does.
And I do know Palm Breeze Hotel well. It’s one of the prettier ones on the beachfront, and when I walk the beach during the off-season, I usually make sure to pass it by. It was built back in the ‘60s, and it still has that midcentury charm, with its white stucco walls and cerulean trim. Plus, unlike most of the newer hotels, the owner is from Rosado. He still lives here, too, from what I understand. So he might be more willing to help.
I duck out of the office, my breath quickening in my chest as I close and lock up the door. Am I really going to do this?
Yes, I am. I owe it to Mr. Nielson. To all of the other victims.
