Мэри Эндрюс - The Newcomer

She shook her head.

“Okay, then. I need you to stretch out here with your feet together. I’m gonna wrap this chain around your ankles, then your middle, then your shoulders. It’s kinda damp and rusty, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”

The sun had slid even lower in the deepening purple sky and the wind picked up again, making whitecaps on the water’s surface. Letty crawled onto the bow and assumed the position. Joe worked quickly, winding the chain around her body. She felt the dread and nausea rise in her throat as he worked his way toward her torso, and she arched her back to let him slip the wet metal links beneath her body.

“Almost done,” he said. She turned her head and saw that he was kneeling beside her. “Try and breathe out of your mouth. It’s fixing to get ugly now.” He lifted the lid of the bucket and she gasped as the fetid smell of dead fish assaulted her nostrils.

“I’m sorry, but this was the best I could do on such short notice,” Joe said, as he dipped a rag into the bucket and brought it out, dripping with deep red blood. “Probably best if you close your eyes so you don’t see what happens next. And keep breathing through your nose.”

She did as he suggested, and flinched as she felt him dabbing her forehead, cheeks, and neck with the bloody rag. She heard the sound of liquid pouring from the bucket and gagged out loud as she felt the wet fish blood seeping into her hair and the collar of her shirt.

He patted her shoulder again. “Almost done, Letty.” Her eyelids fluttered open and she saw the flare of a match lighting and saw him touch it to the tip of a cigar. “What are you doing?”

When the cigar had burned down half an inch, he pinched the flame with his forefingers, then, holding the cigar in his left hand, he tipped his right pinky finger into the ash, then delicately tapped it onto her forehead and right shoulder.

“Bullet holes,” he said.

“Not too shabby,” Vikki said, leaning over to inspect. “But to be completely convincing, we could use some brain tissue.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “I’ll tell Wingfield I did the deed in a dark alley, then moved the body to the boat. Like any self-respecting hit man would.”

“Could you two quit admiring your handiwork and take the damned picture before I pass out from the smell?” Letty said, gritting her teeth.

“Turn your head to the side,” the FBI agent ordered. She held out her phone and began clicking the shutter, moving slowly around Letty’s body, photographing it from a dozen different angles.

“All done,” she said, after what seemed like an eternity to Letty.

Joe worked quickly, freeing her from the chains. She sat up and moved from the bow to the bench seat Vikki had vacated. He handed her a clean wet towel with the Murmuring Surf’s logo stamped in green on the hem. She wiped her face, neck and hands.

“Here,” he said, holding up another towel. “I can get the back of your hair.”

“Yes, please,” she said, desperate to remove the smell from her body. He blotted the blood from her hair, then took the used towels and mopped the blood from the boat’s bow. He raised the bucket and tossed the remains of the bloody fish into the water, then leaned over the gunwale, filled the bucket with water, and splashed it around the bow three more times before he was satisfied that the last traces of the gore were gone. Then he put the used towels in the bucket, replaced the lid, and stowed the extra anchor and chain in one of the front lockers.

“All done,” he announced.

“Oh my God,” Vikki cried, pointing to the water’s surface a few yards from the Pathfinder. The water boiled and a trio of dorsal fins circled the floating fish remains.

“Quick. Take a picture,” Joe said. “It’s the pièce de résistance.”

The agent clicked the shutter six more times. “Got it. Wingfield will really get off on a shark feeding frenzy.”

Letty choked back the bile rising in her throat. “Now can we please go home?”

As soon as the sun set they heard the rumble of thunder. The temperature plummeted by what felt like ten degrees, the wind picked up even more, and the rain began, huge, cold droplets.

“Let’s run for shore,” Joe announced, as he scrambled to raise the anchors.

“Yes, let’s,” Vikki Hill agreed.

The rain slashed at their faces as the Pathfinder plowed through the rising waves. Vikki huddled, wet, shivering, and thoroughly miserable, in the stern of the boat. “Come on up here and get behind the windshield,” Joe beckoned.

Letty edged closer beside him in the pilot’s seat, and the three of them crowded in behind the console’s windshield as the boat rose and buckled back down. “Oh God,” Vikki moaned. “Just get me back on dry land and I’ll never leave again.”

“Are you gonna puke again?” Joe asked, peering through the rain-splattered windshield. “Don’t puke on my GPS, okay?”

She nodded wordlessly and squeezed her eyes shut. “I can’t watch.”

Ten minutes passed and then the Pathfinder’s running lights illuminated the looming boat launch. Joe nosed the boat forward until it was parallel with the dock. He jumped onto the dock and tied the boat to cleats at the bow and the stern.

“Hey Letty. I’m gonna jump out and back the trailer down. You guys can go get in the truck too. I’ll take it from here.”

He reached a hand down and helped Vikki and then Letty onto the dock, and they ran, splashing, through the rain.

“Okay,” he said, ten minutes later, as he climbed behind the steering wheel. “Who wants to go get dinner? I’m starved.”

Letty shuddered and cut her eyes toward Vikki Hill, whose head rested on Letty’s shoulder, her mouth open, softly snoring. “I think her Dramamine finally kicked in,” she murmured. “I can’t think about anything—especially food. I just want a hot shower. And maybe a good stiff drink.”

Joe reached under the seat and pulled out a pint bottle of Knob Creek. He passed it to Letty. She took a swig, swished it around in her mouth, then felt the slow, comforting burn as the bourbon trickled down her throat.

He pulled the boat slowly away from the launch, then casually stretched his free arm over her back, resting his hand lightly on her damp shoulder. She nestled closer to his side. “Let’s go home.”

39

Friday Night

“MAYA IS SOUND ASLEEP,” AVA reported, when Letty unlocked the door to her unit. “I fed her some supper, and we read some stories, and then she took herself to bed.”

“Thanks again for watching her,” Letty said. “I’m headed for the shower.”

Ava wrinkled her nose. “Good idea. No offense, but you smell like the bottom of a bait bucket.”

When she emerged from the bathroom, dressed in clean, dry clothes, Ava was gone, but Letty found Joe and Vikki Hill sitting in the dining area, with a half-full bottle of red wine and a cardboard pizza box on the table.

“Sorry for the intrusion, but we really need to get these photos sent off to Wingfield,” Joe said. He gestured at the box. “Want some?”

“No thanks. I’m just going to have some hot tea and toast.”

“How quaint,” Vikki said. “Like something from an Agatha Christie novel.”

Letty shrugged. “My grandmother used to fix me tea and cinnamon toast when I was upset or anxious. It calms me down.”

“I find Xanax calms me down,” Vikki said. “But I had to quit.”

Letty brought her mug of tea over to the table and stood, looking down at the screen of Vikki’s phone.

One glance at the gruesome images was enough. She sat at the opposite end of the table and nibbled at a slice of toast.

“This one,” Vikki said, passing the phone to Joe. “Good work. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d swear she was dead in this one. And I’ve seen a lot of murder scenes in my time.”