Jack had been too late, and Lacey could see on his face that he was taking it hard. A former cop, he had a driving desire to save the world. But this woman had been long past saving. Lacey and Jack stood back from the scene at the hot tub, watching the two local policemen decide what to do with the dead bride on the flagstones. The woman’s legs were partially covered by her wedding dress, and a veil trailed from her hair back into the tub.
Seaport was a small town. Extremely small. The two cops seemed stunned to have a body on their hands. Lacey eyed the bruising around the dead woman’s neck; this was a possible homicide.
Where was the groom?
She and Jack had spent several minutes alone with the woman. Jack had hauled the body out of the hot tub and was doing chest compressions by the time Lacey arrived, her cell phone connected to 911. She’d known at once that there was no hope, but Jack’s training and optimistic nature had pushed him to try. After being assured the police were on their way, she’d run to the front desk to alert the staff. At six in the morning, there was one clerk at the desk, a girl whose name tag said “Jessica.” She’d called the manager at home and started to follow Lacey to the scene, but halted when she saw the dead body in a dress and veil.
“I’ll get something to cover her up with,” Jessica said, backing up with her gaze locked on the white flesh.
“Get some sheets. We don’t want to cover her, but we can block your guests’ views,” Lacey said, scanning the balconies of the rooms surrounding the pool. No curious eyes met hers.
Jessica froze. She couldn’t be more than twenty years old. “We can’t leave a body by the pool.”
Lacey pointed at the front-desk area. “Go get the sheets.”
Jessica shakily nodded, turned, and dashed away.
Lacey had pulled some chairs into position to block any direct view from the hotel rooms. She knew enough about a crime scene to not throw something over the victim before police had arrived. Yes, she would love to give the woman some dignity, but once she’d seen the marks on her neck and exchanged a knowing glance with Jack, she knew they had to preserve any possible evidence.
If they hadn’t destroyed it already.
The first cop to arrive, Mathews, had given Jack a bit of a hard time for pulling the body out of the hot tub. Jack had flushed and snapped, “If you’d been in that tub, would you want me to blow some air in your lungs or worry about where I stepped?”
The cop had shut up.
Now, Lacey and Jack simply watched. Mathews and the second cop, Garcia, seemed to struggle to get their thoughts in order. Jack had to prompt them to secure the scene.
“Never seen a dead body before,” Lacey heard Mathews whisper under his breath.
She wished she could say the same. As a forensic specialist for the state of Oregon, she dealt with death on a daily basis. Her role usually came late in an investigation, after the remains had been cleaned, and she had simply bone and teeth to deal with, but there had been plenty of cases where she’d had to look directly into the mouth of death in its original setting. She was skilled at ignoring the smells of decay and keeping her focus where she was comfortable: the teeth.
Sometimes she was the last hope for identification. Finding a positive match in the dental records was the highlight of her job. Attaching a name to a Jane Doe. Usually her cases were comparisons. Someone already had an idea of who the body was, and the medical examiner could locate dental records. But sometimes the cases were complete mysteries, turned over to her and the forensic anthropologist to uncover clues to the identity.
She studied the body sprawled out on the flagstones. The woman had long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. Lacey couldn’t guess her age. Water and death tend to distort a person’s features, and fortunately, the woman’s veil covered the upper half of her face. Lacey was amazed that Jack had even tried CPR.
“It’s my job,” he’d muttered after she’d pulled him away from the body, begging him to stop.
It wasn’t his job. It hadn’t been in a long time. Jack had walked away from the police force after being shot and watching the pregnant woman he’d been trying to protect die before his eyes. Apparently you could quit being a cop, but you couldn’t take the cop instincts out of the man.
Even though the body in the hot tub had been facedown in the water when Lacey had spotted it from her balcony, the purpling of her skin on her calves told Lacey the woman had been on her back for a period of time after death.
Had she died in the tub and then eventually rolled over? That was a question for the medical examiner.
“Who are they going to send out here?” Jack whispered.
She knew Jack was asking which pathologist the medical examiner’s office would send to process the scene. This town was a good three hours from the main Portland office where she worked.
“I don’t know. Probably someone from the county office, since it’s closer.”
“Her legs are really bruised,” Mathews commented to the other cop. “Do you think she was hit by a car and then dumped in the hot tub?” Garcia shrugged his shoulders.
Lacey tried not to choke.
A new male voice spoke up. “That’s lividity. Blood pools where gravity pulls it once the heart can no longer circulate it. She was on her back for some time after death.”
Jack spun around. “Terry?” He shook the big man’s hand and slapped him on the shoulder. The newcomer was dressed in jeans, but had a badge attached to his belt. He was the size of a linebacker.
“Jack Harper! How come dead bodies turn up whenever you’re around?” asked Terry.
Lacey’s jaw dropped, stunned that someone could be so insensitive to Jack’s past, but Jack laughed it off and turned to Lacey.
“Do you remember Terry Schoenfeld? He responded the morning they found the skeleton of that Co-Ed Slayer victim on one of my properties, and before that we were on the Lakeview force together. We go way back.”
Lacey faintly remembered the big cop from their only meeting one day last winter. That was the same day she’d met Jack. She’d been on the job. Called to a snowy recovery site to examine the dental work of the skeleton.
Jack turned back to Terry. “What are you doing out here?” He gestured to the badge and squinted at it. “You decided Lakeview wasn’t a small enough police department, so you transferred to Seaport?”
“The wife grew up here and always wanted to move back. She loves the ocean. When I saw they had a chief of police position open, I applied,” Terry answered. “Money’s about the same, but the workload is a lot lighter even with the increased responsibility.”
“You’re the chief?” Jack’s eyes lit up. “Congrats.”
“I have been for ten days. Thanks for bringing the first murder in two decades to my town.” Terry moved his focus back to the body, and his demeanor changed at the sad sight. “Ah, damn it,” he whispered.
“Lacey spotted her from our balcony,” Jack said, gesturing toward their oceanfront suite. “I ran down and hauled her out. Tried compressions, but she was long gone.” He swallowed hard. “She was floating on her stomach when I found her.”
Terry nodded, his gaze still on the dead woman. He moved closer and squatted next to the body. He pulled a pen out of his pocket, using it to carefully move the wet veil covering the top half of her face.
“Holy shit!” exclaimed Mathews. “That’s Patty Marino.”