Adam pulled his car into the nearest cross street, parking on a yellow line and walking the rest of the way up the beach. It wasn’t hard to find the scene. Emergency vehicles crowded the shoreline. A pop-up tent had already been set up over the spot where the body came ashore. The only thing missing was yellow crime scene tape fluttering in the heavy breeze, and Adam wondered if that was on its way.
He’d left Julia back in Atlantic City. Bad enough he’d brought her to the scene of another death, no point in linking her any more than she already was.
Despite the crowds of vehicles and people, sounds from the crime scene were barely audible from the back of the beach. As Adam approached, no voices carried over the pounding of the surf. Only the scent of salt water and seaweed filled the air. It could almost have been a family gathering if not for the flashing blue and red lights that cavorted along the waves of the sand as he walked toward them.
The team in place worked efficiently. Adam recognized the familiar motions as the body was lifted off the ground, all on-site evidence having already been collected. At least he was in time to see if he could identify the body. It would take a lot longer for the evidence, from the scene and from the body, to be collected and analyzed.
Out to sea, the water sparkled brilliantly, but behind him as he walked, gray clouds loomed. He looked over his shoulder and saw the bundle of clouds rolling across the sky, each bulging out as if being pushed from behind by an invisible breath, tumbling across each other in their race to get out to sea. The sky behind them was dark. Threatening.
The team working down the beach presumably saw the weather moving in and were working fast. An afternoon storm would obliterate anything that might be left to be found. Though Adam suspected there wasn’t that much to begin with. A uniformed officer stopped him when he was still thirty feet away from the scene, but Adam produced his ID and the officer escorted him to the detective in charge on scene.
“What’s Philly PD’s interest in this?”
“Like they said when you called, the victim’s involved in an ongoing homicide investigation.”
The man nodded, eyeing Adam warily. “They didn’t say they were sending anyone down.”
“They didn’t. I happened to be in AC. A day off.”
“So are you back on the clock now?”
Adam shook his head. “Completely unofficial. I’m not even lead on the homicide.” Only a slight bending of the truth. “My partner, Pete Lawler, called to let me know about this.”
“Yeah, that’s who I spoke to.” The detective’s shoulders lowered and the creases left his forehead. He gestured to the body, now wrapped in a thick black plastic bag, about to be loaded into the waiting ambulance.
“Wanna look?”
Adam nodded mutely.
The zipper was old, rusty from too much use in the salty air. It stuck a couple of times as one of the techs pulled it down from the top, the tech cursing with each delay. A grating sound accompanied the movement. Adam fleetingly wondered what it would be like to be on the inside of that bag, zipped in. He shook his head.
The sides of the bag were finally pulled apart and Adam leaned forward. The face was only partially bloated, its skin a Technicolor Rorschach test in pink and white and green. Adam knew enough about drowning to know the man couldn’t have been in the water more than a day, probably less. He would have deteriorated a lot more after that. As it was, he was easily recognizable.
Matt Thompson would be disappointed. He’d lost his prime suspect. And now Adam had to figure out who had killed Ian Heyward. And why.