USUALLY I DO MY raking further down along the flats, but the wind was bad that day, so I figured I’d stay in the cove, closer to the bridge. Wasn’t having much luck. I was just lighting a cigarette when I saw it. Something lying on the beach, tangled up in a bunch of seaweed. Too far away to see clear.
First thing I think is maybe it’s more of that medical waste that keeps washing up lately. Last month I raked up a shitload of surgical gloves and what-have-you. Bloody rags, used hypodermic needles, plastic tubes, you wouldn’t believe the stuff they dump these days. Which is why, when I got closer, and I spotted her hand sticking out, I thought to myself: Oh, great. Looks like now when they amputate someone’s arm, they just toss it off the side of a boat, waiting for us clammers to rake it up. This is probably where they throw the dead babies from over at the abortion clinic too. I know for a fact I seen someone’s appendix one time.
Only it wasn’t a cut-off arm. There was a whole body attached, and a nice one too, or used to be.
I didn’t recognize her right away from the pictures they’d been having on the news. I don’t care who it is, nobody looks too pretty after they been bobbing around in the Atlantic ten, twelve days. But then I remembered hearing on the news about how everyone’s looking for this TV reporter that’s out on bail, awaiting trial for planning her husband’s murder. And you got her mother on saying, “I know my daughter would never run away. There must have been foul play.” And the guy’s old man saying, “This proves she did it. They never should’ve gave her bail.” Ten days, that’s all you been hearing is, Where’s Suzanne Maretto? Looks like I found her.
She still had most of her clothes on. Her shoes were gone naturally, but she still had on panty hose. There was a lot of seaweed and what-have-you tangled in her hair, but you could still tell she was a blonde. Her eyes were open. Blue.
Now some people I know, if they spotted that wedding ring she was wearing, they would’ve took it. We’re talking a big diamond here. Not that it would’ve been easy getting it. You’d have had to cut off the finger.
Me, I just laid my jacket over her face, keep the sea gulls from pecking at her anymore, and went for the cops.