DEAD GONE a gripping crime thriller full of twists

by T. J. Brearton

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Research into the die-off of the mangrove points to early construction. Nineteen-thirties construction, particularly the development of route ninety-two.” She seemed comfortable talking about the reserve in this way.

  “Reserve or Preserve? What’s the difference?”

  Susan smiled. “Potato, potato. It’s protected land, managed to preserve its flora and fauna.”

  “Is this the kind of stuff you talk about on your kayak tours?”

  Susan shrugged, and her smile waned. “Sometimes. Depends on the guests, you know, what they show their interest in. Some like to spot wildlife, some like the exercise, or just the peace and quiet.”

  “What about the guests this morning?”

  “Joe and Linda?”

  “Do they have any . . . political interest in the reserve?”

  “Joe contributed to the first phase of the die-off research project. Permits, engineering and design, site surveys, excavation and fill removal. Working with the Reisen Group has brought this project international attention. The mangrove system has been in danger, but it’s getting better.”

  “You said he was a contributor . . .” Tom swatted at more mosquitos. “You mean financially.”

  “A donor. Yes. They come at least twice a year to go kayaking with me.”

  “And they were the only ones touring with you today? Is that usually the case?”

  “Oh no, I can have groups up to ten people. Ten’s my limit. But the sunrise tour, not a lot of people are up and ready to go that time of day.”

  “You always come this same route for the sunrise tour?”

  “Yes, pretty much.”

  “And this is the way you came this morning.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have more tours scheduled today? Other types of tours, afternoon, sunset, anything like that?”

  She made a glum face and Tom noticed her eyes were ringed red. For someone who spent her life outdoors, she was pale. “I did. I’ve cancelled the whole week. Agent Blythe recommended it.”

  Tom understood. He thought if anything, though, Paddle Creek Tours would now experience an uptick. Once word got out that a body had been found among the mangrove, people would show their usual perverse interest in such things.

  Tom spotted a group of pink birds wading on stick legs. “Flamingos?”

  “Roseate Spoonbills,” Libby corrected him.

  Ramirez said, “They like these freshwater wetlands.”

  “Freshwater? I thought this was fed by the ocean?”

  “It is. The waters are brackish,” Ramirez explained. “That’s a mixture of salt and freshwater. So we get these wetlands, those yellow-green seagrasses you see over there.”

  Ramirez and Susan Libby were both eager to display their knowledge, Tom thought. Almost competing a little.

  Tom glanced at Dr. Ward, sitting alone at the bow, his back turned, pulling on a pair of rubber pants that went up to his chest. Then Tom watched the birds again, dipping their long bills in the water. The birds moved away as the boat neared, and one by one they slipped into the grass, their pink feathers disappearing.

  “And what about those?” asked Tom, pointing up.

  High in the sky, a group of dark shapes circled, looking like something prehistoric.

  “Turkey buzzards,” Ramirez said. “They’re attracted by the body.”

  * * *

  The trees arched over the water, forming a canopy. Stopper Creek was a tunnel of mangrove, bushy on top, with one contiguous tangle of roots beneath, giving the whole thing the look of a picture from a scary children’s book.

  Tom thought he caught the first glimpse of something — a pale fleshy color floating just above the surface. Susan Libby had fallen silent beside him, her hands in her lap. Ward was stretched forward, watching. Tom felt his stomach roll and his pulse quicken. He closed his eyes for just a moment and took another deep breath.

  “What about the tide?”

  Ramirez said, “Well, we’re in April. So we’re at about an eleven-hour cycle. At oh-five-hundred, tide was up 0.64 meters. By eleven-thirty, it will be down 0.35 meters, then at seventeen hundred hours, back up 0.82 meters.”

  Tom wrote it down, the numbers blurring in his mind, and tried to visualize it. The water rose up and fell away by less than a meter, was the gist. “Any current in through here?”

  “A little. Ebb and flow with the tide, no real current.”

  “Could the body have drifted? Or do you think it . . . you know, is this where she died?” Tom leaned away as a branch scraped the side of the boat with a low shriek.

  “We don’t know it’s a she yet.” Tom turned his head as Ward spoke up for the first time.

  The divers reached the body first. Ramirez slowed the tiny motor, then clicked it off. He stood, too abruptly for Tom’s liking, and picked up an oar.

  “Be careful with that,” Ward said. It was as if the man had eyes in the back of his head. The boat drifted, veering toward the vegetation. There was a gentle thump as they made contact with the mangrove roots. The roots further slowed the boat, squalling against the metal.

  The three divers broke the surface, one at a time, keeping back from the body, floating around it in a semicircle. Tom strained for a better look. Despite his clumsiness, he rose to his feet, stooped over so he could hold onto the bench. He saw that Ward had also pulled on a pair of latex gloves.

  The boat inched closer. A diver stabilized them and, standing, revealed the creek to be almost chest-deep. He gave Ward a thumbs-up and Ward eased into the water. The diver controlled the boat, bringing it right alongside the medical examiner and the floating body.

  The body was face down. As Libby had said, there was a lot of hair. One floating arm was starkly visible. Tom could already see signs of decay. He wasn’t a doctor, but he knew flesh wasn’t supposed to look like that, bluish and saggy, rippling slightly with the water. The other arm was caught in the mangrove roots. The legs drifted beneath the surface, just vague shapes. The dead person was wearing blue shorts and a white T-shirt. The camera clicked as Mills took pictures.

  Ward turned to one of the divers. “Is it caught up?”

  The diver nodded, then held up a finger before slipping beneath the surface. They all waited for a moment, and Tom slapped at a mosquito stinging the back of his neck. He was sweating in all the humidity, his sunglasses slipping on his nose. He’d seen dead bodies before, but not like this. The body seemed to pull on him like a weight. His chest felt heavy, and as he leaned over the boat to watch, he felt like he was losing his balance.

  He caught his sunglasses before they could splash into the water. No one seemed to notice. Susan Libby was looking off in the other direction. Apparently she’d seen enough. Ramirez was watching the activity, his mouth twitching beneath his thick black mustache. He held onto a mangrove branch. Between him and the diver, they kept the boat steady.

  The diver broke the surface and pulled the regulator from her mouth. “The legs are free. Just that right arm kind of jammed up in there.”

  “Okay,” Ward said. “Let’s see if we can pull it free. I need to roll it over.”

  “Yep, roger.”

  Ward took the body by the free arm. Then he encircled his arm around its waist. The female diver came from behind, found the legs, and lifted them up toward the surface. Then Ward started to gingerly work the body back and forth. Tom watched the hair swishing as agitated water slopped against the mangrove roots. A bird called from somewhere close by, and Tom caught the scent of something awful, like rotten eggs. His stomach lurched again.

  Ward stopped, holding up a hand. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” The diver ceased. Mills took more photographs while Ward carefully worked his way between the body and the roots.

  Tom looked around. There would be no latent fingerprints to lift from the bristling mangroves, no blood spatters to examine on a wall or floor. The entirety of the forensics team for this scene, besides the divers, was
able to fit in one small boat.

  Ward succeeded in removing the impediment and freeing the second arm. “Got it.” He and the diver carefully pulled at the body again. It floated freely a moment, then started to sink. Tom thought the body was going to go under, disappear into the murky brown water, but then it bobbed back.

  “Okay.” Ward pressed his fingers into the body’s upper back, then paused to observe the reaction. Tom couldn’t see what happened. Then Ward raised a gloved hand toward Mills and made a small gesture with his fingers. She pulled a tape recorder from the duffel bag, clicked it on and held it for Ward to speak into.

  “This is Dr. Alan Ward. April 23, 8.16 a.m. Body located in Rookery Bay, Stopper Creek, about fifteen meters in from open water, fifty meters from the Rookery Channel.” He studied the body and then continued. “Water has replaced the air in the lungs, buoyancy now is from the methane, hydrogen sulfide, and carbon dioxide in the gut and chest cavity.”

  Tom noticed Susan Libby was still looking away, growing paler by the second, wringing her hands in her lap. He touched her shoulder. She startled, then gave him a slight smile. Tom returned his attention to Ward.

  “At this point the body does appear to be female. All appendages are intact. The clothing is slightly deteriorated, the flesh does not discolor to the touch. Livor mortis — this is not a refloat. Epidermis of hands and feet swollen, bleached and wrinkled. Only moderate liquefaction of tissues, the beginnings of maceration, early putrefaction. Going to test algor mortis, then bag the hands and get samples.”

  Ward held out his hand and Mills passed him an instrument. It took Tom a moment to realize it was a special kind of thermometer. Ward waded toward the midsection of the body and stuck the thermometer between the buttocks. Tom looked away. He wasn’t disgusted as much as he felt humiliated for the person.

  “Body temp has normalized to water temp. Preliminary estimate is that the body has been in the water for three to five days. Death is confirmed.”

  Ward looked at Tom for the first time, and Tom nodded. He wanted to speak, but his mouth wasn’t working. Ward went right back to the body. “Let’s turn her over.”

  Mills clicked off the recorder and put it in her pocket. She brought the camera up to her eye. Ward and the diver got in position to roll the body. Tom watched, riveted, his heart pumping, the sweat pouring down the sides of his head.

  With Ward at the shoulders and the female diver at the feet, another diver helped with the midsection. They rolled the body like an animal on a spit. Tom felt his skin pricking hot around his ears and neck as her face emerged. It had been molested by something in the water — fish, maybe. The skin hanging, the lips eaten off, the eyes completely gone. Tom wanted to look away, but didn’t.

  The air suddenly smelled worse, the sulfuric egg-stink of hydrogen chloride accompanied by the sound of gas escaping the victim’s ruined mouth. Tom covered his nose with his hand.

  “Oh, God,” someone said. The boat vibrated as Susan Libby grabbed at herself. Tom moved to comfort her again, but stopped. He had to see this. He had to see all of it.

  Mills snapped more pictures of the body as the female diver turned her head. The diver holding the corpse’s midsection arched his back to get his face away.

  Ward merely continued with the examination, allowing Mills to take her pictures before she pulled out the recorder again.

  Tom heard the thudding of a helicopter in the distance, a welcome diversion from the horror at hand, but he realized what it could mean: the media had learned about the body and were on their way.

  “Gross evidence of cellular degeneration,” Ward said. “Putrefaction in warm water is slower, but there is a salt content at the location, hastening the process. Facial maceration is likely due to fish or Crustacea. Three to five days remains the preliminary estimate for time of death.” He looked up at Tom again, but Tom didn’t think the medical examiner was really seeing him, he seemed to be thinking about something. “Younger bodies putrefy more rapidly, older bodies more slowly . . .”

  Ward was seeking to determine the age of the dead person. Tom looked the body over, avoiding the face. He thought the arms and legs and midsection were consistent with someone in their mid-twenties. Then something caught his eye.

  “Tattoo, there.” Tom took his hand from his nose and pointed. “Inner forearm.”

  Ward took the arm, turned it outward slightly. Mills snapped some fresh shots. Tom squinted down, mosquitos really swarming his head now. The tattoo was a simple butterfly. Filled in black, like a silhouette. No bigger than an actual butterfly, or thereabouts.

  He felt some relief. With a scene as challenging as this one, a body with an unrecognizable face, and no readily apparent cause of death, a tattoo was somewhere to start. Something that felt more in line with his skill set. Of course, according to Blythe, he was only here to observe.

  “The decedent has a small tattoo on the right inner forearm, shaped like a butterfly,” Ward said into the recorder. Mills had taken to both tasks now, holding the recorder in one hand while continuing to photograph with the other.

  “Any more of them?” Tom asked. The body was so close he could reach out and touch it if he wanted — and he felt a strange compulsion to do so. Familiar. Tracing back to his boyhood, and the open casket. Standing beside Nick, who’d swatted his hand when Tom reached in . . .

  “Don’t see any,” the female diver said, inspecting for tattoos.

  The helicopter was getting louder, drawing closer. Tom doubted the media would have a pinpoint location — they were just doing a sweep. For now, the team was concealed by the mangrove tunnel. Tom looked up and saw the buzzards had flown off.

  “Alright,” Ward said with finality.

  Mills opened the duffel and pulled out a black plastic body bag. She laid it out along the bottom of the boat, between two benches. Tom had been so fixated on other things it only registered with him fully now that they were taking the corpse back with them.

  Susan Libby looked shrunken. Tom got closer to her, their legs touching.

  “They’re going to put the body in the boat with us.”

  “I know.” She was welling up. “Don’t they have to do more, though? Look for more, I don’t know — clues?”

  “They do. It’s best to take the body into evidence. Can you tell me more about Rookery Bay? Give me the basics.”

  She sat up a little and straightened her hat. “Well, this is one hundred thousand acres of pristine, subtropical forested estuary.” The words rolled off her tongue, but without any joy.

  Ward gave the divers instructions on hoisting the body. Someone climbed into the boat. Tom focused on Libby, kept her distracted.

  “That’s a lot of acreage.”

  “A lot. But it’s only a start. Mangrove is dying by Marco Island. It’s a muddy moonscape of leafless trees over there. Smells just like this. Like rotten eggs.” She turned to look toward the body but Tom diverted her attention.

  “All of this is mangrove? This estuary?”

  “Well seventy thousand acres is the surface area of the open water. Forty thousand acres is primarily mangrove, fresh to brackish water wetlands, upland habitats.”

  “About how deep is the water?”

  “The average is one meter.”

  “So when the tide is low . . .”

  “You see lots of the bottom. When the tide is dead low, that’s when the tricolored heron comes to gather minnows. The water flows out, and whole oyster beds are exposed. You can see the white ibis — beautiful bird! And little willets, and they’ll be hunting through the exposed bed, looking for any crustaceans.”

  “Could someone walk to this spot, in Stopper Creek?”

  “No, I don’t think so . . .”

  But she didn’t sound sure. Instead she got back to what she was good at, and pointed to the mangrove roots. “You can see those barnacles hanging to dry, even on high tide.”

  Tom noticed a bluish-white substance that resembled popcorn clinging to
the roots. He smiled at Susan Libby, who carried on talking as they loaded the body in the boat.

  * * *

  The ride back to the beach was even hotter, the sun shining down full-blast, the water sparkling. Two divers stayed behind, searching for personal effects, trace evidence, anything resembling a weapon, any signs of struggle in the mangrove — trampled roots, blood, something. The pulsing of the helicopter had faded, but Tom knew the press would be back.

  He had to step over the body bag to get closer to Ward. Ward was cleaning his glasses, gazing over the water.

  “So what do you think?” Tom asked.

  Ward put his glasses back on. “I need to do a complete histological examination before I can provide any more information.”

  “Anything strike you, though? Just off the cuff.”

  Now the pathologist looked at Tom somberly. “Well, I don’t know if ‘off-the-cuff’ helps you.”

  “It might.”

  “You’re new.”

  Tom decided not to take offense. “I am new, yes. I understand how this scene is challenging. I’m not asking you to draw and conclusions you don’t feel comfortable with.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  Tom let it go. He climbed over the body and back to his bench. He was feeling more confident now moving around in the boat. At least that was something.

  Ward called over, “I can’t even tell you if trace evidence at the scene is consistent with the death having occurred in that location.”

  Tom twisted around to face him. Maybe Ward wasn’t priggish, maybe he was just frustrated. Tom realized the pathologist had a point, too — the water was moving all the time.

  They passed into open water where fish were jumping into the air, flashing like lures in the sun. “Mullet,” said Susan Libby. Tom watched the fish in their awkward ballet. Katie Mills looked up, too, then returned to previewing the pictures on her digital camera.

  Ramirez steered the boat into the next creek and the mangrove tunnel draped them in striped shadows.