The Royal Bahamas Police Force launched a search and rescue operation yesterday for two Keller Corporation employees, Dr. Ronald James and Dr. Sarah Irvine. The two researchers checked out a boat from Wrecker’s Marina on Saturday afternoon and were reported overdue when the boat failed to return on Sunday night. The couple had stated that they would be camping on Eagle Cay, about five miles north of St. Angela’s. There has been no contact with them since they left St. Angela’s on Saturday afternoon. The boat they rented was found on Eagle Cay but there has been no sign of the couple. Calm conditions have aided the rescue effort thus far, and continued mild weather is expected through Thursday afternoon when thunderstorms may develop.
Dr. Natalie Franklin finished reading the article and continued eating her shrimp salad sandwich. At 29 years old, she was the youngest of five doctors on St. Angela’s Island. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she had moved to the Bahamas after graduating from family practice residency. Being black, she was often mistaken for a native Bahamian until she would open her mouth and be pegged as an American. She had also accepted the responsibilities of being the Medical Examiner for St. Angela’s Island, so she had a professional interest in this story. She let out a long sigh.
“I hope they find them alive,” she said to herself, but she knew it was unlikely. It had been too long. The searchers should have found them by now. So she wasn’t surprised when several hours later she found herself climbing aboard the marine ambulance, a 19-foot rigid-hull inflatable with twin outboards. She slung her gear on board and waved hello to Inspector Sam Perry. She had worked with him a handful of times before and liked him.
“Inspector Perry?” she said as they pulled away from the dock.
“Yes, doctor?”
“Where, exactly, are we going?”
“Eagle Cay. It’s about five miles north.”
“I see.” She expected him to say more, but he just stood there, looking forward over the console that housed the steering wheel. Two uniformed officers stood in the bow, holding onto the rails like sentinels.
“So, can you tell me more about what’s going on?”
“Sorry. I don’t know much. Ronald James and Sarah Irvine were researchers from Keller’s genetics division. They rented a boat from Mick Letort at Wrecker’s and went to Eagle Cay on Saturday, and their boat was found on the beach there, intact without any signs of trouble. Their bodies were much harder to find. They somehow wound up in a cave at the edge of the water. We had assumed they got drunk and drowned and we’ve been searching the water and the beaches. No one expected them to be inside a cave.”
“Do we know how they died?”
“Uh, no,” he said, “You see, they were found an hour ago by some search and rescue volunteers who were pretty shook up. They were about to call off the search so everyone else had already gone home when someone spotted some footprints going in to the cave. It was dark and I don’t think they got a good look at the bodies. I really don’t know what we’re going to find in there.”
“Might they still be alive?”
“I doubt it—the man I spoke with said there were lots of flies buzzing around them.”
“I see,” Natalie said. She stopped to think about what she was doing, and she wasn’t too pleased. She knew that the limestone caves of the Bahamas could be dangerous. Even experienced, well-equipped cave explorers sometimes died in them. She sighed and tried to put it out of her mind.
The boat was fast and they arrived on the beach in no time. Inspector Sam Perry beached the boat and everyone climbed out. “For now let’s just go see what we’re dealing with,” Natalie said. “We can come back for more equipment later when we know what we’ll need.” She slung a medical kit over her shoulder and tucked a digital camera into her pocket.
“It’s over that hill,” one of the two officers said. As they were hiking, they introduced themselves. Their names were Robert and Sean. Natalie couldn’t help thinking that they were very young- practically teenagers- but she was glad to have them along. They moved quickly and it took them five minutes to get to the top of the rocky embankment that formed the bulk of the coral atoll. The island was small, and Natalie wondered why it had taken so long to find the bodies until Sean pointed to a 50-foot cliff ahead of them.
“There it is,” he said. She looked and saw the rock face dropping away into the sea.
“Where?” she asked.
“It’s at the bottom of that cliff. It gets some water at high tide. Looks like it’s almost high tide, too. We can hike to the top and then go down the backside. Come on.”
Soon they were on top of the cliff. The sun had set but there was still plenty of orange and yellow clinging to the horizon. Under different circumstances it would have been a beautiful place to be. Natalie stopped to admire the view.
As a doctor, she had dealt with death many times before. She had never gotten queasy cutting into her cadaver in medical school. She had seen death come violently to young patients and peacefully to old ones. But somehow, she already knew that this would be different.
They moved down the path quickly and soon found themselves on the sand in front of the cave. The three men looked at Natalie expectantly and she said nothing as she ducked her head inside, holding a flashlight in front of her and shouldering the medical bag. Despite herself, her adrenaline was up and the flashlight shook. The light revealed a sandy-bottomed cave with white shells littering the floor. She saw bits of brownish-red mud that could have been bloodstains. The cave’s low ceiling was made of slimy gray-green rock with a few stalactites hanging down. Several flies buzzed through the air. The cave was not very deep and she smelled the bodies before she saw them.
Even though she had been expecting the worst, Natalie was still shocked. Ronald’s head was at an obscene angle, with a gaping, jagged hole in the front of his neck. This wound had clearly been the source of the dried blood covering his body. Several crabs still clambered over his pelvis and torso, and Natalie thought that larger animals might have been scavenging his corpse.
“Inspector Perry?”
“Right here, doctor.”
“I want you and your men to back out of the cave. Try to walk in your own footsteps as you go. I’m going to start taking pictures. This is now a murder investigation.”
“Yeah…” he was clearly shocked, too. “Of course, doctor. I’ll go call the Chief and we’ll see if we can get a forensics team out here.”
“Inspector?”
“Yes?”
“Could you get the rest of my equipment from the boat?”
“Sure,” he said as he sighed and rubbed his eyes. Neither of them had been expecting such a horrific scene.
“Thank you,” she said. She didn’t particularly want Perry to leave just then, but she had a job to do. She willed the flashlight beam to go back over the dead bodies.
Sarah Irvine was not far from Ronald James. They were both naked. The upper half of her body was crammed into a crack in the cave wall, with two large rocks on top of her torso. Natalie couldn’t imagine why the body had been positioned like that. The right ankle had clearly been broken, as it was swollen and deformed.
Natalie could not see Sarah Irvine’s head. Now she felt she needed to see the woman’s face. She stepped up on one of the rocks and leaned her head very slowly into the crack in the wall. She had to readjust her position, balancing on one foot, leaning over the bloody, mutilated corpse, mindful that, should she slip, she would fall right on top of it.
She nearly toppled over as a fly buzzed around her head, but she kept calm as she finally got a view of the dead women’s face. Sarah had her mouth open, but her face was, like Ronald’s, fairly well preserved. And, like Ronald, there was a bloody gash in her throat—although Natalie could see that it wasn’t nearly as big as the one in Ronald’s throat.
She snapped a couple of photos and stepped off the rock. She had seen enough. She moved away a bit and sat down to rest. Perry and the two officers would be back soon, and they
would call in a forensics team from Nassau that would collect evidence.
She heard voices outside the cave again. They were back already. She took a deep breath, stood up and backed out of the cave, trying to step in her own footprints.
“Dr. Franklin?”
“Yes?”
Three flashlights blinded her momentarily.
“We’ve brought everything you need,” said Sean. They were carrying a large floodlight, a forensics kit, body bags, and two seven-foot-long backboards of the type used by paramedics.
“Did you take all the pictures you need?” asked Robert.
“Um, no, actually, I’m not done.”
“I talked to Chief Davis,” said Inspector Perry, “And, well, he says we’re on our own.”
It took her a moment to register what Perry was saying.
“What? Are you joking? We can’t just take these bodies to the morgue. What about forensics?”
“I know. I asked him for a forensics team from Nassau. He said ‘No way.’”
“Look, Inspector Perry. I’m a family doctor. I work in a medical clinic. Occasionally, as part of my coroner job, I go out and pick up a body when someone on the island dies. I’m not a detective, and I haven’t the slightest idea how to investigate a murder.”
“I know. But you don’t understand. I already talked to the Chief. He doesn’t change his mind. Ever. Trust me, it’s no use trying to argue with him. Now, I know this isn’t ideal, but I’ve worked plenty of murder scenes. Before I came to St. Angela’s I was a homicide detective in Kansas City.”
“What about forensics?” Natalie said.
“I know,” Perry replied, “we should have a real forensics team out here. I do have some forensics training… but it’s St. Angela’s, and, like it or not… we’re on our own.”
Natalie realized that he was right. Technically speaking, the responsibility for investigating suspicious deaths fell entirely to her.
“You want us to set up the floodlight?” asked Robert.
“I think,” she said slowly, “it would be better if I did it myself. That way we’ll be less likely to disturb any evidence. I’ll go in there, set up the floodlight, and continue taking pictures while you stand guard out here. For all we know, whoever did this is still around.” Sean and Robert glanced at one another.
“All right,” said Perry, “I’ll start going through the forensics kit so we can start taking samples when you’re finished.”
“Okay.” She grabbed the equipment. She entered the cave again and set the floodlight down. In the dark she had trouble finding the power switch. To her relief, the floodlight finally came humming to life, illuminating every dark corner of the cave. She turned around to look at the bodies again.
That’s when she saw it. In the blinding light it had nowhere to hide anymore. In a dark recess of the cave, not far from where Natalie had sat down earlier, was another body.
22
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www.RaymondFinkle.com
The Armageddon Prophecy Page 20
