Dangerous to Touch

“What are you looking at?” he asked, feeling surly.

“Nothing interesting,” she said, smothering a laugh.

Lacy had never been on the scene for a floater, he recalled, wondering if she’d lose her breakfast when they unwrapped the soggy package.

He pulled the jumpsuit over his shorts and covered his hands with gloves to protect the scene from being compromised with trace. As he lowered himself into the lagoon, he winced at the temperature. It might be hot as hell outside, but Agua Hedionda was as cold as the Pacific, a chilly sixty-five degrees.

“Make sure it’s what we think it is,” Stokes ordered.

The oblong shape, wrapped up like a mummy in a green plastic tarp, lurked just below the surface. Grimacing, he wrapped his arms around it in a macabre embrace. When he squeezed experimentally, he felt the give of flesh and slender, feminine curves.

“It’s a woman.”

“Well, don’t yank on it,” Stokes said, as if he would. “Reach under there and see if something’s weighing it down.”

Bodies did sink on their own, and came up several days later, depending on the temperature. This one had either been dumped recently, weighed down, or both. Following the rope tied around the body’s midsection, he pulled gently, feeling tension.

He was going to have to duck under to investigate. Holding his breath, he followed the rope to its anchor.

“Cinder block,” he said when he resurfaced, trying not to smell or taste the water. “And half-inch rope. Hemp, maybe.”

“Cut it,” she said, giving him a razor knife.

He did, but the body didn’t rise.

“Fresh,” she said, nodding with satisfaction.

It was awkward, but he managed to heft the body onto the shore without doing too much damage to it, himself, or the crime scene. Even covered in dark plastic, it was plain to see that the corpse was a slight woman, about the size of Candace Hegel.

When the M.E. cut the tarp away from her face, befouled water gushed out.

Because she hadn’t been there long, and the lagoon was cold, the effects of decomposition were minimal. Enough to discolor her complexion, but not so much that her body was bloated or her skin sloughing off, which would have made sight identification difficult.

In life, Candace Hegel had been a pretty woman. In death, with a greenish tinge to her face, particles of brown algae clinging to her skin and tiny surfperch burrowing into the delicate tissues, she was hideous.

Marc’s stomach clenched, and he felt an unmanageable hatred for whoever would defile a woman this way.

Stokes narrowed her shrewd eyes at him, so he quickly blanked his expression. She’d dealt with his overenthusiastic pursuits of justice before, and didn’t consider it sound police work. Officers were not supposed to get emotionally involved.

Detective Lacy, on the other side of Stokes, was doing an admirable job of suppressing her nausea.

“Wrap it all up,” the M.E. said. “I’ll cut the rest of the tarp away on the table.”

“I want that cinder block,” Stokes said as they loaded the body into the van.

“Of course you do,” he muttered.

“What was that?”

“Right away, I said.”

It was no easy task. He could only lift the block a few feet at a time, drop it a little closer to shore and come back to surface for air. By the time he passed it off to CSI, he’d inhaled, swallowed and sputtered about a pint of Agua Hedionda.

“You’ll need a hepatitis vaccine,” Stokes said as he climbed out.

Lying on his back on the dusty gravel bank, shuddering with cold and panting from exertion, Marc prayed he wouldn’t be the one to lose his breakfast instead of Lacy.

After a hot shower and a hotter cup of coffee, Sidney was feeling warm and toasty. It was a muggy day, cloudy and warm, the thick marine layer overhead trapping the earth’s heat like a thermal blanket. By the time she reached the kennel she was sweating.

Mondays were always busy, so work kept her body, if not her mind, occupied most of the morning. She had several pickups scheduled for later that afternoon, and any dog that stayed more than three days got a complimentary bath. Time spent in close confinement tended to emphasize the “doggy” smell, and she didn’t like to send home stinky pets.

She’d just finished her last bath when the phone rang. “Pacific Pet Hotel,” she answered crisply.

“Sidney.” It was Bill. “You’ve got to come get this dog.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Trying to rip everyone’s face off.”

“What about the family?”

“They want him boarded until the owner is…found. Candace Hegel lived alone, and the dog isn’t used to men, obviously. None of her friends or relatives have female-only households.”

She glanced up at the clock. Almost lunchtime. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

At Vincent Veterinary Clinic, Sidney parked next to the employee’s entrance and let herself in. Standing on the other side of the door were Bill, Detective Lacy and Lieutenant Cruz.

She froze dead in her tracks.

“Miss Morrow,” Lieutenant Cruz said in greeting, an avaricious gleam in his brown eyes.

Her gaze darted to Bill, who had assumed a defensive posture. “You told,” she accused.

“They have a warrant for your arrest, Sid. I had no other choice.”

Feeling cornered and betrayed, she began to back away.

Lieutenant Cruz reached out and clamped his hand around her wrist. “Do you see bars in your future?”

She struggled against him, but he held tight. A woman’s ravaged face flashed before her, slimy things squirming in the soft tissues. Just like in her dream, a brackish taste filled her mouth and the smell of blood flooded her nostrils, strangling her, drowning her.

Examining her strange expression, he released her arm.

“I’m going to be sick,” she said, rushing to the nearest bathroom. She fell to her knees as the contents of her stomach came up, not swamp water or blood, as she almost expected, but the pulpy remnants of an orange she’d eaten for lunch in her truck on the way over.

With nothing more to purge, she dry heaved quietly, tears burning in her eyes, citric acid stinging her throat. When she was finished, Lieutenant Cruz handed her some wet paper towels.

“Thanks,” she said in a hoarse whisper, wiping her face.