Shirlee McCoy - The Lawman's Legacy

Had she found the body?

“That’s Merry’s car,” Aiden said as Douglas got out of the SUV. Gulls screamed, their haunting cries mixing with crashing waves as Douglas made his way along the path to the cliff.

Large boulders and smaller rocks jutted from dark soil. The briny scent of the bay carried on the cold wind that blew across the bluff. All of it felt familiar and homey and right, but nothing was right about the day or Douglas’s reason for being at the lighthouse.

Up ahead, a woman stood near the edge of the cliff, strawberry blond hair whipping in the wind, shoulders hunched against the cold.

Definitely Merry.

There was no mistaking her hair, her ultra-feminine curves, or the way his stomach clenched, his senses springing to life when he saw her.

Two lunch dates. That’s all it had taken to convince him that Merry was a woman worth knowing better. He’d looked into her eyes, listened to her laughter and imagined doing the same over and over again in the weeks and years to come.

Two dates.

And, then she’d broken things off.

It’s just not working out.

That’s what she’d said, but she’d refused to look in his eyes when she’d said it, refused to tell him what part of their time together hadn’t worked for her.

Because it had all worked for him.

She stepped closer to the cliff’s unstable edge, and his heart lurched.

“Merry!” he called out, but she didn’t seem to hear over the crashing waves and screaming gulls. He ran forward and snagged her coat, yanking her away from the crumbling earth before it could give way.

She screamed, turning around, her fist aiming for his nose and coming a little too close for comfort.

“Hey, calm down!” He sidestepped another blow, grabbing her hands before she could swing again. They trembled in his grip, the fine tremors making Douglas ease his grip, smooth the skin of her knuckles.

“Douglas! Thank goodness you’re here. Olivia is…” Her voice trailed off as if she couldn’t bear to speak the words, and he had no doubt she really believed Olivia was lying at the base of the cliffs. But it was a hundred feet down to the rocks and water. A hundred feet could make identifying someone difficult.

“Stay here. I’ll take a look.”

Please, God, don’t let it be her.

The prayer whispered through his mind as he approached the cliff edge, looked below at the rocks and crashing waves.

A body sprawled facedown on slick rock. Arms and legs splayed. Blond hair soaked and trailing into foamy puddles. Even from a distance, Douglas recognized the small frame and delicate line of the neck.

Olivia.

For sure.

Dead.

For sure.

His father stepped up beside him, tensing as he looked at Olivia’s body. “It’s her.”

“Yeah. I’m afraid so.”

“We need to be the first to examine the body. If she fell, fine. If she didn’t, we need to know what happened. I’ll get the climbing gear.” Aiden hurried away, not giving Douglas time to respond.

If she fell.

The words seemed to hang in the air. The other possibilities hovering with them.

If she hadn’t fallen…

“We were supposed to meet for lunch,” Merry said, and Douglas wasn’t sure if she was speaking to him or to herself.

He turned, studying her pale, pretty face, searching her dark, hollow eyes. Haunted. That’s how she looked. How she always looked. Despite her smile, despite her easy laughter, there were always shadows in her eyes. He’d noticed them before he’d asked her to lunch, had wanted to find out what caused them, but Merry had shut him out. “Were you here looking for her?”

“Yes. She was late, and she didn’t answer her phone. I got worried and came to make sure she was okay. I thought maybe she’d overslept or her car hadn’t started. I never thought…” She shook her head.

“You went to her apartment first?”

“Yes. The door was unlocked, and I walked inside. Checked her bedroom. She wasn’t there. She loves the bluff and looking out over the bay. I thought maybe she’d come here and lost track of time, so I came to check. I don’t know what made me look down. Maybe just a feeling that things weren’t right. Do you think she fell?”

“I won’t know until I get down there. For now, I’m going to assume that’s what happened. Unless you know something that makes you think differently.”

She hesitated, her dark gaze skittering away. “I don’t.”

Lying?

Maybe. Or maybe she was still in shock, still trying to wrap her mind around Olivia’s death. He couldn’t blame her if she was. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He’d seen Olivia the previous day, pushing Charles’s twins in a double stroller, a smile on her face.

He shoved the image away.

He needed to focus on the job. There’d be time to mourn later.

He scanned the ground near the cliff, looking for signs of a struggle, some clue that would help put together a picture of what had happened. No footprints, but a few feet away, the earth seemed scuffed. Nearby, a black shoe lay near a clump of winter-brown foliage, and he crouched nearby. Woman’s sneaker with green shoelaces.

“It’s Olivia’s.” Merry crouched beside him, reached out. He snagged her hand before she could grab the sneaker, felt the tension beneath smooth skin.

“We need to leave it for the evidence team.”

“Evidence of what?” she asked, tugging her hand away and tucking it into the pocket of her coat. Her cheeks were red from cold, her breath coming out in quick puffs that hung in the icy air.

“Of whatever happened here.”

“You ready to go down, Douglas?” Douglas’s older brother, Ryan, approached, climbing gear flung over his shoulder, his face hard. Deputy chief of police, he’d earned his title through hard work and commitment to the job. Keira and Owen were right behind him, Aiden taking up the rear. Every Fitzgerald police officer was in attendance, but there was nothing they could do for Olivia. Nothing but recover her body, notify her next of kin and see that she had a proper burial.

“I’m ready.” He slid into the gear as Merry watched, her body so tense and tight he thought she might break.

“Why don’t you wait near your car, Merry? I have a few questions I’d like to ask when I’m finished here.”

“Sure.” She seemed relieved by his suggestion, happy to be allowed to leave the cliff. He watched as she ran toward the cottage, her hair flying wild behind her.

“She seems upset,” Keira said.

“She and Olivia were pretty chummy, so that’s not surprising,” Ryan responded as he helped Douglas hook into the harness. “Ready, bro?”

“Ready.”

“Take the camera down with you. The way those waves are crashing, we could lose evidence quickly.” His brother Owen, a detective with the police department, handed him a camera, and Douglas tucked it into his pocket.

“Will do.” Icy spray seeped through his uniform as he rappelled down the slick rock.

Olivia’s body lay a few feet away, water lapping at her hand and seeping over the surface of the boulder under her. He snapped photos quickly, gulls screaming overhead as he worked, his mind separating fact from emotion.

Olivia. Living, breathing, laughing Olivia.

Dead.

It was his job to chronicle the scene. Make sure nothing was missed. He couldn’t let sorrow cloud his vision or his objectivity.

Blood stained the blond hair at the back of Olivia’s skull, and he snapped a picture.

Bruised cheek.

Snap.

Arms and legs splayed.

Snap.

Bruises on one wrist that might have been finger marks.

Snap.

He frowned, studying the angle of Olivia’s head and neck. She lay facedown, but the wound was to the back of her head, the skin behind her ear broken. A deadly blow, for sure. He snapped a close-up of the wound and glanced up, trying to imagine a way that she might have fallen and slammed the back of her head into the face of the cliff. Pounding waves had carved a shallow hollow beneath the bluff, and it would have been difficult for anyone to fall into the rock wall. Didn’t mean it hadn’t happened, though.