Jenner climbed the concrete barrier and scrambled down the embankment. It was an unpaved feeder road, a place where people from the Reaches came to drink beer and fish for bluegill and turtles.
He recognized the deputy from a motor vehicle accident out on Pelican Alley the week before.
They shook hands. “Nash, right?”
“Hi, doc.” Nash glanced at Jenner’s sweaty Pixies T-shirt and worn Nike shorts, and grinned. “Good thing you were in the neighborhood.”
Jenner joined the deputy and the park ranger at the bank, and peered into the water. He could see the car clearly—a light-colored, late-model compact. The boom slowly pulled up. The cable snapped taut, then the car trunk lurched visibly under the water. The hoist whined away as the car rose, the rear bumper finally breaking the surface in a rush of eddies.
The grinding turned to a howl as the car continued to rise, now tipped vertical. The diver abruptly raised a flat palm; the driver killed the winch.
Beneath the canal’s shivering surface, Jenner saw the diver smash the window repeatedly until it was riven by a web of fracture lines. He pushed in the shattered window, then shoved off, kicking away from the car.
He swam to the bank, and, aided by his partner, climbed the rope ladder up onto dry land. He sat down heavily on a flat log.
Jenner and the park ranger watched him catch his breath. She turned to Jenner and said, “Excuse me, doctor? Were you at the visitor center over at Magic Bend Park yesterday?”
He nodded. “My day off.”
She held out a hand. “Deb Putnam.” She had a no-nonsense grip, and a pistol on her hip.
The diver had dropped his weight belt and was unstrapping his harness. Jenner approached him.
“So, what can you see, deputy?”
“You’re the ME?” He blew into his regulator a couple of times, then slipped the harness off his back and eased the tank to the ground. “Doctor…?”
Nash said, “Dr. Jenner. Doc, my partner here is Norris.”
They shook hands. Norris took the Mountain Dew the ranger offered, popped the top, and chugged it down in big gulps. He breathed out, and grinned. “Thanks, Deb.”
She tipped her baseball cap back, and Jenner saw she was pretty. Tan, blue-eyed and freckly, blond ponytail—a real Florida girl.
Norris turned back to Jenner. “Well, doc, we’ve got a big ole swelled-up sonuvagun in there, floating around in the driver’s compartment.”
“Is the body intact?”
“It’s really murky down there—I can’t hardly see him through the window. Best I can tell, he’s by himself.” He shook his head. “Don’t see any damage to the car, though. Windshield’s intact.”
He took another swig of soda. Jenner said, “Why did the tow-truck operator stop? With the hoist, I mean?”
Nash jerked his thumb toward the car. “Tell the truth, this truck’s a little bit small for this. That car is just a two-ton bucket holding another ton of water, doc. Norris will go back in, unroll the windows so it can drain right as it comes up.”
“Why didn’t you just break all the windows?”
Norris shrugged. “You should try breaking tempered glass underwater some time.”
He stood. “Most likely just another drunk driver—we fish a few out every summer. Welcome to Port Fontaine, doc!”
He finished the last of the soda and crushed the can, then tossed it to the ranger with a belch. “Recycle this, Deb.”
“Norris?” She smiled sweetly, fluidly lifting her hand, one finger raised toward him.
She held on to the can.
Smirking, Norris stepped to the edge, jumped into the canal, and swam to the car. He pulled the mask down over his face, took a deep breath, then dipped down to wiggle into the broken window. It was a snug fit, and Jenner saw why he’d shed his tank.
Nash said, “So, doc, you’re from New York, right? Port Fontaine’s going to bore the heck out of you—no one ever dies here but old folks or drunk drivers.”
He thought for a couple of seconds, then added, “And then, mebbe two, three times a year, we get a stabbing up in Bel Arbre—you been there yet?”
Jenner shook his head. “What’s Bel Arbre? A prison?”
“Ha, no!” He mused for a second, then his face assumed an expression so thoughtful it bordered on soulful. “Although I guess in a way, you could say that—Bel Arbre is where the migrant workers live, about forty miles north of here. Mexicans, mostly. Dirt-poor. Guatemalans. A few Haitians. People from Peru. Mostly illegals, but unless there’s trouble, we don’t interfere—who’d pick the strawberries if we got rid of the illegals?”
He grinned brightly.
There was a yell from below; Norris had both rear windows down. The hoist began to grind, and the car—a generic sedan, a Ford or maybe a Hyundai, the color of cream gone bad—slowly began to rise.
Deb Putnam leaned against the cruiser next to Nash, the two of them idly watching Jenner over on the bank.
She said, “Hey, Tom, the doc looks familiar…”
Nash leaned in to her excitedly. “Those college girl murders in New York this winter? Doc Jenner is the one that killed the guy.”
“Oh my gosh!” She stared at Jenner, remembering the crimes. “That was horrible.”
Then she remembered the aftermath. “Didn’t he end up dating one of the victims?”
“Yep. Big fuss about that—she was, like, sixteen.” Nash grinned at her slyly.
Deb rolled her eyes. “She was in college, Tom! She had to be at least eighteen.”
“Whatever. He’s single now—want me to tell him you’re available?”
“No, thanks.” She laughed, and looked Jenner over. “Although, maybe I’ll tell him myself…”
Jenner sat on the bank and watched the car slowly rise, waiting to see the body.
His first dead body in a vehicle case had also been in Florida, back in Miami, when Marty Roburn was his boss.
A young doctor, taking his brand-new Saab convertible for a test run on the Don Shula Expressway, made the mistake of flipping off the wrong car; Crime Scene counted thirty-two bullet holes in the side panels, and Jenner counted seventeen more in the doctor.
They towed the car into the mortuary garage just before dark, the shroud-covered victim still strapped to his seat. The doctor’s father was a deputy police chief in Miami Beach, and the body arrived with a retinue of detectives and uniformed cops. The detectives crowded Jenner as he tried to examine the body, peppering him with questions, and getting testy when he finally stopped answering.
Then a voice boomed out, “Officers! Step away from that damn car! Step away from that damn ME! Give the boy some room to breathe, for Christ’s sake!”
There was some shuffling of feet, and Jenner looked up to see Marty in his vest and weathered fisherman’s hat, the madras plaid band bristling with lures, trolling rods at his feet in a green Frabill case. It was a Wednesday, and every Wednesday Marty took his boat out to go sunset-fishing for mahi-mahi and kingfish.
He laid a hand on Jenner’s shoulder and announced, “The doctor needs room! You’re slowing him down; everyone out except for one detective and one uniform.”
For almost six hours, Marty stayed with Jenner, watching him work. He nodded approvingly from time to time, and a couple of times leaned in to suggest a technique, but mostly he just sat back and let Jenner get on with his case.
Afterward, they went for a Blizzard at a Dairy Queen by the Miami River. At midnight, they were sitting at a picnic table by the oily water, sweating in the heat and humidity, Marty going on and on about casting and lures, Jenner, exhausted, nodding occasionally.
Then Marty squinted at Jenner. He took a big draft of his Blizzard, and said, “Can you keep a secret, Jenner?”
They walked back to his car. Marty’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary was approaching, he explained, and he’d had a jeweler make something special. “Bobbie knows I got her something, and it’s driving her nuts! She’s tearing the house apart, but she’s not going to find it…”
He leaned forward, reaching deep under the dashboard to feel along the steering column; his eyes lit up and, with a flourish, he produced a small white cardboard box.
“It’s my own design.” He spilled the contents onto his palm: there were two platinum fish hooks, each on a fine chain. Marty fiddled with them for a second, then showed Jenner that the two hooks fit together to form a heart, the point where the barbs met hidden by a large diamond. The plain hook, he explained, was for him, the one with the diamond for Bobbie.
“Doc.”
Jenner looked up. The car was mostly out of the canal, the passenger compartment draining quickly as water gushed from the open windows. A huge gray mass of sodden clothing and slippery, pale flesh was plastered down against the front window, now just above the water.
The crane motor shrilled as the car rose faster, and then it was clear, swaying slightly over the canal, water sieving from the hood and radiator.
They waited on the bank for the car to drain.