Chapter TWO
Detective Jennifer Diane Duncan rolled over in her bed and snuggled down a little farther under the light blanket. The sound of a powerboat on the bay floated gently through the morning air, reminding her that she lived in a paradise. Daylight was seeping through the window blinds, but she didn’t have to get up. It was her day off, and she planned nothing more adventuresome than a trip to the Publix Market on Avenue of the Flowers at mid-key. She’d invited Matt Royal and Jock Algren for dinner that evening and she had to feed them something other than wine and beer. She yawned and settled a little deeper into her blanket, the air-conditioning cooling the room to a comfortable sleeping temperature.
The sharp wail of a siren brought her upright in the bed. It was a police siren, a different tone than that of the paramedics and firefighters. The sound was coming from the bay just outside her windows. Either the Coast Guard or one of the police agencies. Some sort of emergency on the water.
She got out of bed and padded to the sunporch of her condo overlooking Sarasota Bay. She grabbed the binoculars from a table and scanned to the south. She saw the blue lights flashing on a boat coming at speed, running north on the Intracoastal. As the vessel got closer, she recognized it as the Longboat Key police boat. She watched as it came off plane and moved toward another boat that was dead in the water. What was going on?
She moved the glasses a bit, searching the area around the boats. Nothing. Then she spotted something in the water. She was too far away to make it out. A dead manatee, perhaps, or a dolphin. But why the siren, the urgency? That only came when a human being was involved. She raised the binoculars to look at the island across the lagoon from where she lived, scanning, trying to see if anything was there, her cop instincts, honed by fifteen years in the business, telling her that something was wrong out on the water. She could see the object floating near the boat, but nothing more. Still, the siren and the police boat added an ominous feel to the scene, and her internal alarm bells were clanging loudly.
J.D. put down the binoculars, rubbed her eyes, and went to the bathroom. She shucked the T-shirt she had slept in and stepped into the shower. She knew from experience that she wouldn’t be going to Publix that day.
She was stepping out of the shower when her phone rang. The expected call. She answered. It was Deputy Chief of Police Martin Sharkey. He’d been running the night crew of late, going on patrol, enjoying himself. It beat the paper pushing that had come with the rank.
“J.D., you up?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a body in the water off Sister Key.”
“Yeah. I saw it.”
“You saw it?”
“Yes. From my sunporch. Anything suspicious about it?”
“Yeah. Dennis says there’s a bullet hole in the back of her head.”
“Her?”
“Definitely a woman. The body’s nude. When you’re ready, call Dennis on his cell, and he’ll run over and pick you up at your dock.”
“I’ll meet him there in ten minutes. Can you call him while I get dressed?”
“Sure.”
“And, Martin, put a total blackout on this one. At least until we can talk. I don’t want a bunch of gawkers.”