Reichs, Kathy - Fatal Voyage

Millions of drops cascaded off the roof and the porch. They bit into the lawn, met up, and coursed in channels between the blades of grass. They formed a river in the gutter above my head. Wind slapped leaves against the wall and my legs, sent others twirling across the ground. It carried the scent of wet earth and wood, of numberless creatures hunkered into burrows and nests.

Shivering, I waited it out, my back against the stucco, hands under armpits. I watched drops bead a spiderweb, build, then bow the fibers. Its maker watched too, a small brown bundle on an outer filament.

Islands were born. Continental plates shifted. A score of species disappeared from the planet forever.

Suddenly my cell phone shrilled, the sound so unexpected I almost jumped from the porch.

I clicked on.

“No comment!” I shrieked, expecting another reporter.

Lightning shot straight to the treetops. Thunder snapped.

“Where the hell are you?” said Lucy Crowe.

“The storm came up quickly.”

“You're outside?”

“Are you back in Bryson City?”

“I'm still out at Fontana Lake. Do you want to ring me when you've gotten inside?”

“That could be a while.” I had no intention of telling her why.

Crowe spoke to someone else, came back on the line.

“Afraid I've got more bad news for you.”

I heard voices in the background, then the crackle of a police radio.

“Looks like we've found Primrose Hobbs.”

WHILE I WAS MEETING WITH OUR ESTEEMED LIEUTENANT GOVERnor and friends, the owners of a marina were finding a body.

As was their custom, Glenn and Irene Boynton rose at dawn and dealt with the morning rush, renting equipment, selling bait, filling coolers with ice, sandwiches, and canned drinks. When Irene went to check on a bass boat returned late the previous day, an odd rippling drew her to the end of the dock. Peering into the water, the woman was terrified to see two lidless eyes staring back.

Following Crowe's directions, I found Fontana Lake, then the narrow dirt track leading to the marina. The rain had tapered off, though the leaves overhead were still dripping. I wound through puddles toward the lake, my tires throwing up a spray of mud and water.

As the marina came into view, I saw a wrecker, an ambulance, and a pair of police cruisers bathing a parking area in oscillating red, blue, and yellow light. The marina stretched along the shore on the lot's far side. It consisted of a dilapidated rental office–gas station–general store, with narrow wooden piers jutting into the water at both ends. A wind sock fluttered from a corner of the building, its bright colors jauntily snapping in the breeze, jarringly at odds with the grim scene on the ground below.

A deputy was interviewing a couple in jean shorts and windbreakers on the southernmost pier. Their bodies were tense, their faces the color of pale putty.

Crowe stood on the office steps talking to Tommy Albright, a hospital pathologist who occasionally did autopsies for the medical examiner. Albright was wrinkled and scrawny, with sparse white hair combed straight across his crown. He'd been making Y-incisions since the Precambrian, but I'd never worked with him.

Albright watched me approach then held out a hand.

We shook. I nodded to Crowe.

“I understand you knew the victim.”

Albright tipped his head in the direction of the ambulance. The doors stood open, revealing a shiny white pouch lying on a collapsible gurney. Bulges told me the body bag was already occupied.

“We pulled her out just before the storm broke. Are you willing to try a quick visual?”

“Yes.”

No! I didn't want to do this. Didn't want to be here. Didn't want to identify Primrose Hobbs's lifeless body.

We walked to the ambulance and climbed in back. Even with the doors open the smell was noticeable. I swallowed hard.

Albright unzipped the bag and the odor rolled over us, a nauseating cocktail of stagnant mud, seaweed, lake creatures, and putrefying tissue.

“I'd guess she was in the water two or three days. She's not scavenged too badly.”

Holding my breath, I looked into the bag.

It was Primrose Hobbs, but it wasn't. Her face was bloated, her lips swollen like those of a tropical fish in an aquarium. The dark skin had sloughed in patches, revealing the pale underside of her epidermis, and giving her body a mottled appearance. Fish or eels had devoured her eyelids, and nibbled her forehead, cheeks, and nose.

“Won't be too much problem with cause,” said Albright. “Course, Tyrell will want a full autopsy.”

Primrose's wrists were wrapped with electrical tape, and I could see a thin wire embedded in her neck.

I tasted bile, swallowed hard.

“Garroted?”

He nodded. “Bastard wrapped the line around her throat, then tightened it in back with some kind of tool. Very effective in cutting off the windpipe.”

I placed a hand over my nose and mouth and leaned in. Jagged lines scored the flesh on one side of Primrose's neck, scratched by her nails as she clawed for life with her bound hands.

“It's her,” I said, lunging from the ambulance. I needed air. Miles and oceans of fresh air.

Hurrying to the far end of the unoccupied pier, I stood a moment, arms wrapped around my middle. A boat whined in the distance, grew loud, receded. Waves lapped below my feet. Frogs croaked from the weeds lining the shore. Life continued, oblivious to the death of one of its creatures.

I thought about Primrose, pictured her hobbling out to our final meeting in the morgue parking lot. A sixty-two-year-old black woman with a nursing degree, a weight problem, proficiency at cards, and a fondness for rhubarb crumble. There. I did know something about my friend.

My chest gave a series of heaves.

Steady.

I pulled a ragged breath.

Think.

What could Primrose have done, known, or seen that could have brought such violence down on her? Was she killed because of her involvement with me?

Another tremor. I gulped air.

Or was I magnifying my own role? Was her death random? We Americans are the world's leading producers of homicide. Was Primrose Hobbs bound and strangled for nothing more than her car? That made no sense. Not the garroting and the duct tape. This was a planned murder and she was the intended victim. But why?

Hearing doors slam, I turned. The attendants were climbing into the front of the ambulance. Seconds later, the engine revved, and the vehicle crawled up the dirt road.

Good-bye, old friend. If I brought you to this, please, please, forgive me. My lower lip trembled, and I bit down hard.

You will not cry. But why not? Why hold back tears of mourning for a good and gentle person?

I looked out across the lake. The sky was clearing, and the pines on the far shore stood out blue-black against the first pink rays of dusk. I recalled something else.

Primrose Hobbs loved sunsets. I gazed at the sunset and wept until I felt angry. Beyond angry. I felt a hot, red rage burning inside me.

Bridle it, Brennan. Use it.

Vowing to find answers, I drew a deep breath and walked up the pier to rejoin Crowe and Albright.

“What did she drive?” I asked.

Crowe consulted a spiral pad.

“Blue Honda Civic. Ninety-four. North Carolina plates.”

“It's not parked at the Riverbank Inn.”

Crowe looked at me strangely.

“Car could be on its way to Saudi Arabia by now,” said Albright.

“I told you that the victim was helping me with my investigation.”

“I'll want to talk to you about that.” Crowe.