by Andrew Mayne
Ruiz turns to Macon. “Will you get a copy of her driver’s license and contact information?”
“Do we need the suit?” Macon asks, pointing to my dive suit, which I forgot I’m still wearing.
“I think we’re okay,” Ruiz replies.
This comes as a relief. If he thought I’d killed the woman, he’d want it as evidence.
“Where are you parked?” asks Macon.
I point to my Explorer on the side of the road behind a row of bushes. “There.”
He glances at the truck, then back to the water, probably noticing what I did: it’s not visible from the road.
Ruiz returns to the other cops while Macon walks me to my truck.
“Let’s be careful,” he says, pointing to a muddy patch.
Forensic techs are already cordoning off the area so they can try to get footprints and tire tracks. Hopefully it’ll be enough to find the killer if they already have leads. Hopefully.
At my Explorer, Macon waits while I rummage through my backpack. Half the contents are already spilled on the floor. I’d dumped it out when I raced back to get my phone to call 911.
“Here you go,” I say as I pull my wallet from the pile, then freeze.
Something is wrong.
“McPherson?” Macon asks. “You okay?”
I turn my wallet toward him so he can see the spot where I keep my driver’s license.
It’s empty.
“Shit . . . ,” he says. “You don’t seem like the kind of person to forget that.”
I shake my head.
No, I’m not.
Macon shouts to the group of detectives. “Ruiz!”
He comes running over to us. “What’s up?”
I show him my empty wallet. His cop brain figures it out quickly.
“He took your license.”
I nod.
The killer knows who I am.
The killer knows where I live.
CHAPTER THREE
DOCK LINE
When I think of my father, I think of sharks, and oddly enough, it relaxes me. Right now, he’s sitting on the stern of his boat with a concerned look on his face, and I’m the one trying to calm him.
My earliest memories are of Dad teaching me to swim. My most vivid is my first time snorkeling in the ocean.
I was six, and we were paddling over a shallow wreck, the Copenhagen, off the coast of Pompano Beach. I was still adjusting to the taste of salt water and the burning sensation it made in my nose when I didn’t clear it properly while my older brothers free dived down to touch the ship’s rusted anchor.
That’s when I saw the hammerhead shark. My mind’s eye remembers it being twenty feet long. In reality it was probably less than half that.
I’d seen more schools of beautiful fish than I could count, but this was something else . . . something alien.
I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to react. My brothers had been teasing me, calling me Shark Bait. Sharks were scary and mysterious. I looked to Dad to see how I should respond.
He had a broad smile on his face and gave me the okay sign.
I smiled back. From then on, I never feared sharks or anything else in the water. Respected them, yes, but did not fear. If Dad wasn’t worried, then I didn’t need to be.
Of course, I hadn’t been thinking about the scar on his leg left by an angry bull shark. Or the dotted welts on his forearm from a sea anemone. They seemed more like tattoos than physical proof that the ocean isn’t a petting zoo.
Being a cop and a student on a college campus that doesn’t have a criminal-justice program, I’m looked upon as a bit of a curiosity. I’m often asked if my father was law enforcement as well.
Usually, I simply answer, “No.” If they don’t recognize my last name, then explaining that Dad’s a treasure hunter who spent our last dime in his crazy pursuit is more effort than it’s worth.
I’d hold a grudge against Dad like my brothers do if I didn’t love him so much.
I’ll never forget the look Harris, my oldest brother, gave Dad when his Mustang was repossessed because we could no longer afford the car payments. The fury, the hate.
I was only nine, but the expression on my dad’s face broke my heart. He was a lousy businessman, and his quixotic ambitions caused us plenty of suffering, but never for a moment did I doubt how much he loved us.
Money came and went, but Dad showered us with love.
I realized that I cared more about the people around me than about going to private school in North Miami or living in a house with more rooms than extended relatives. All that mattered was my family and the water.
After leaving the crime scene, I drove straight over to talk to Dad. He was sitting with Robbie Jr., my thirteen-year-old nephew, in the tiny kitchen on his boat, repairing a sonar system—one of the ways he makes money nowadays.
Robbie bolted around the table to give me a hug while Dad looked up from a circuit board and asked if I was the one who’d pulled the body from the water. I was confused until I saw the small television perched on the counter with the volume muted. Local news had been teasing a six o’clock report about a possible murder victim found in Palm Beach.
Dad and I went up on deck, and I gave him a quick summary while Robbie worked belowdecks.
The lights of the Fort Lauderdale skyline twinkle in the background as Dad peels the label from his beer bottle, something I’ve seen him do a thousand times when he’s stressed. It’s a habit I picked up too.
Some of my best memories were made on the stern of one of Dad’s boats talking to him while the waves gently rocked us.
His boat, the appropriately named Fortune’s Fool, is docked off the Intracoastal behind a large, one-story house that belongs to Freddie Kleinman, a physician who owns a chain of medical clinics. He’s an old friend of Dad’s who helps him by investing small sums in expeditions and letting Dad dock here rent-free when he can’t afford the marina.
“You were in the water when the girl was killed?” Dad asks.
“Yeah. I was about fifteen feet down.”
“In a canal?” Leave it to my father to get hung up on a hydrological detail.
“It’s an old sinkhole that got absorbed by an oxbow.”
He nods. “How did Nadia react?”
I still haven’t told him the part about not having my dive partner there or the fact that my driver’s license is missing. “I was alone.”
His face turns cross. “What have I told you about doing that?”
I point to the row of oxygen cylinders and the single regulator near his legs. “You do it.”
“That’s different,” he says. “You’re . . . you’re a mother.”
I laugh. “And you’re a father. And a grandfather.”
“It’s not the same.” He pauses for a moment. “You’re all grown.”
“Uh-huh. That’s it. Great comeback.” I flick my bottle cap at him.
He catches it midair. It’s a family game I learned before I could talk. He makes a theatrical sigh. “My daughter the solo-diving police officer who pulls corpses and assault rifles from the water. If I’d known having daughters would be this stressful, I’d have only had sons.”
“Daughters aren’t all bad,” I reply, thinking of Jackie.
“The runt? She’s too smart for her own good.” Runt is his pet name for her. It’s a joke because she’s the tallest girl in her class and can outrun the boys.
“Hard to believe she’s a McPherson,” I add.
“Even harder to believe who her father is,” Dad shoots back.
My father and Jackie’s father, Run—aka Scott, his given name—have what you’d call a complicated relationship. Half the time Dad’s dive buddies with Run; the other half he’s harping on him for not making me an honest woman—even though the choice wasn’t his.
Dad’s worried look returns. “So, they killed this girl while you were underwater?”
“Yep.”
“And they don’t know who she is?”<
br />
“Nope. Although . . .” I stop myself.
“What?”
It’s been nagging at me since I pulled her from the water. “There’s something familiar about her. And not like someone I just saw once. Like she was a friend of a friend.”
“That’s depressing,” Dad replies. “No idea who?”
I shake my head. “I’m sure they’ll ID her soon. I’ll ask around tomorrow at the office.”
I know he’s imagining if this had happened to me. It’s instinctive. I’m not sure if I should tell him the other part. My stomach’s in knots, but that’s the reason I came here.
“There’s something else you should know . . .”
“Last time you told me that, you were pregnant.”
I remember his reaction—the same broad smile he gave me when we saw the hammerhead. Putting me at ease. Mom, on the other hand, was ready to kill Run and then drive me and his dead body to the justice of the peace.
“Whoever killed this woman knows who I am,” I say flatly.
He cocks his head. “Because of the police report?”
“No. Because he went into my truck and stole my driver’s license.”
Dad’s face turns vacant as he tries to process this. “Why?”
“I don’t know. In case I saw something. It’s not a big deal. It’s just a thing.”
This is hitting him hard. “But he has to know you’re a cop by now, right?”
“Probably.”
Dad looks at the loose hoodie I’m wearing. “You have your gun on you?”
“Yep.” I took it out of the lockbox in my truck, and I’ve kept it near me since I left the crime scene. I don’t feel as though I’m in immediate danger, but it seemed like the smart thing to do.
“It’s going to be fine,” I say, mostly trying to assure myself.
“Are you positive he took it?”
I nod. “Right now, a forensic tech is dusting my truck for prints. I got a ride here from a friend at the Broward Sheriff’s Office.”
“BSO? I thought this was in Palm Beach?”
“It was. There were a lot of cops there.” I shake my head. “Something weird going on. Nobody would tell me anything.”
I think that has me more worried than anything else.
“I need a favor, Dad.” This is the part that kills me. “I’m going to ask Run if he can take Jackie for a few more days. I’d like you to keep an eye on her too.”
This week is my turn, but we’ve always been pretty relaxed about it, mostly going along with what Jackie wants.
Dad’s eyes narrow as he realizes what’s been tearing me up. It’s not only that I might have a psychopath after me.
It’s that the address on my license is my daughter’s address too.
CHAPTER FOUR
CHIEF
Police Chief Katherine Roche motions me into a chair in her office, then shuts the door behind us. I can tell this is going to be serious. When she closes the door, it usually means someone’s going to get chewed out or fired.
I think I’m on safe ground in that regard. The last person she let go, Stephen Halperin, was a chronic alcoholic who refused treatment. Chief Kate, as we call her, went above and beyond to try to keep him in line, but his addiction was too severe. I also secretly suspect he had a problem taking orders from a Haitian American woman with a Queens accent.
Through the window by the door, I catch a glance of Carla Esmeralda pretending to type a report as she gives me an arched eyebrow. She knows something, but she’s not about to clue me in on anything.
Chief Kate takes her chair and stares at me for a moment. Photos of her two sons flank her from the bookshelf. Daniel is an aircraft mechanic at Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood Airport, and Arnold is working on a graduate degree in international finance in New York.
Chief Kate and her husband, a retired postal worker, are rightly proud of their children, and I sometimes feel like a part of the extended Roche family when she sticks her neck out for me—even going so far as to argue before the Lauderdale Shores City Council that my position is essential, as questionable as that sometimes seems.
“So you decided to go looking for bodies in your off-duty hours?” she asks.
“Not exactly. I was trying to get some extra credit with my archaeology professor. Paleo-Indian stuff,” I reply.
“You thought about bringing doughnuts to class instead?”
“Fair point.”
“Well?” she asks after a long moment waiting for me to add details.
“Well . . . I don’t know anything else,” I reply, not sure where she wants me to take the conversation. I called her from the crime scene yesterday and told her what happened.
“Anybody come talk to you?” she asks.
It’s only nine a.m., so it seems a little odd that she’d be asking that. “No. Not yet. I expect I’ll get asked to go back up to Palm Beach and make a statement.”
“I expect,” she replies but draws the sentence out a bit, implying something.
I turn back over my shoulder. Carla is still pretending to work on her report while keeping an eye on our conversation. Something is definitely going on.
“Chief? Is there something I should know?”
“How’s that archaeology thing going?” she asks.
“Good . . .” What’s she getting at?
“Kind of like being a cop? Looking for clues, asking questions?”
“Um, yeah . . .” I sit up in my seat, paying close attention, as if someone’s going to pop out of a filing cabinet with an explanation.
“Where do archaeologists make most of their interesting finds?”
“Er, the ground?”
Chief Kate’s starting to make me question my own sanity.
“Yes, but where?”
“Trash piles. Midden heaps. That kind of thing.”
“Right,” she says eagerly. “The trash.” Her gaze flicks briefly to her plastic wastebasket.
It takes me a little longer to realize I should take a look. At first glance I don’t understand what she’s going on about, but then I see it: two empty Starbucks coffee cups.
The trash is taken out each night by Octavio, our custodian. We all get our coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts or Lester’s Diner—which means that the chief had at least two visitors before I got here . . . visitors who probably told her not to tell me why they were here. Which could mean they were anything from district attorneys to feds.
Knowing Chief Kate, she told them she’d do whatever she damned well pleased but settled for not offering up the information. Meaning, she wouldn’t lie to me if I asked.
So I ask. “Have any visitors?”
“Funny you should ask that,” she says with an eye roll. “I had two DEA agents up from Miami pay a visit. They asked a lot of questions about you.”
“And the murder?”
“Yes. Specifically, they wanted to know if you knew the woman.” She pauses for a beat, waiting for me to jump in.
“I was up all night asking that same question.” I leave out the part about keeping my gun under my pillow, worrying that every rock of my houseboat was the killer stepping on board to finish me off.
“And?”
I shrug. “Someone vaguely familiar, like a waitress you say hello to, then forget. DEA?” I add after thinking about that part. “Why is the Drug Enforcement Agency interested in the murder of a Jane Doe where there were no drugs on the scene?” I answer my own question: “Because they think it may have been drug related due to the way she was killed.” This sinks in. “So the DEA thinks this is some kind of drug hit? A hit man with a similar MO?”
“That’s the worrisome part, Sloan. They asked me about you for thirty minutes. The killer never came up.”
“Whoa.” My pulse starts to race. “They don’t think I did it?”
“I have no idea what they think other than they were suspicious about you being there at the exact time of the homicide.” Her voice trails off a bit, suggesting that she’
s a little curious about that too.
“Well, I didn’t know I needed to coordinate my dives with narco-murder dumping schedules.” No laugh from the chief. “They really didn’t say anything about a killer?” I ask. This is hard for me to accept.
“Nope. I suspect that he may be a known person to them, or at least they have a strong suspicion of who he could be.”
I think this over. “So they’re wondering why a police diver was already in the same water.”
“Basically. I told them you were good people, all that. Which of course just made them suspicious of me.”
I throw a small shrug at the bullpen, where Carla’s still watching. “And her?”
“They talked to her too. I overheard them asking if you had any boyfriends or trips to exotic locations.”
“Don’t I wish,” I groan. “So now what?”
“If you are into something you shouldn’t be, now is the perfect time to skip the country with your Colombian drug-dealer boyfriend.”
“And if I’m not?”
“Just keep doing what you’re doing. They’re chasing down leads—let them chase. It probably won’t go beyond them asking some more questions before they move on.”
“Still, though,” I say. “What about the killer?” I hesitate for a moment, weighing whether to tell Kate about the driver’s license. For some reason I feel ashamed about that, but after a moment of introspection, reason wins out over irrational guilt, and I fill her in on that tiny detail.
“Yikes,” she replies. “And I’m sure you’re mostly worried about Jackie.”
My stomach twists. “Yeah. I asked Run to take her for a few more days. I said I had some work stuff.”
She nods. I can tell she’s taking this seriously, because she doesn’t use the opportunity to give me a jab about Run, whom she jokingly refers to as “that trust-fund redneck of yours.”
“If it helps, Walter and I are happy to have her over. In the meantime, I’ll call over to Biscayne and BSO and make sure they send some patrols by the house and her school.”
I want to say that she doesn’t need to go to so much trouble, but the protective mother voice that appeared in my head the moment I first looked in Jackie’s eyes convinces me otherwise.
