“Hey, Joe. You okay?” They shook hands, but it was very obvious Joe wasn’t okay.
I hurried up beside Jack, automatically checking Joe’s color and wanting to grab his wrist and check his pulse. His skin wasn’t a good hue and he was clammy with sweat. And his eyes were dilated to the point they looked more demon than human.
“Why don’t you sit down,” I said. I didn’t give him a choice. I grabbed him, discretely checking his racing pulse, and led him to one of the white rocking chairs. “Jack, maybe some water?”
“No, no,” Joe said, pulling from my grasp. “There is no time. I came right away. You must both come with me.”
Jack’s eyebrows rose, but there was no other expression on his face. Jack was a hell of a poker player, and unless you knew him well it was impossible to know what he was thinking half the time. I knew him better than anyone, and I still hardly knew what he was thinking. But part of Jack’s job as a sheriff was to be a politician. He knew how to win people over, calm them down, and be compassionate when the time called for it. It’s what had made him such a great street cop and commander too. And it’s what made him an exceptional sheriff.
“The body is still very fresh. Still warm.” He nudged us both in the back to get us going and he headed back down the stairs.
“Wait a second,” I said. Things were starting to come into focus, but I needed a little more clarity just to be sure. “You’ve got a body you need us to look at? A dead body?”
“Yes, yes. Very dead. Very murdered. Things like that don’t happen here. We don’t know what to do. You are experts, so you come do it for us. Yes?”
I looked at Jack in question and I could see the resignation in his sigh. All we’d wanted—needed—was a break from our day-to-day lives and the horrors that often plagued us both.
“We’ll come,” Jack finally said. “Let us change clothes and you can take us to the scene.”
There was no escape from the dead.
Chapter Three
The island was only a couple of miles in either direction, and Joe maneuvered the bright yellow Jeep off the main road and down one of the cobbled narrow side streets. We sped between brightly colored houses, each connected to the next, and laundry lines hung from the balconies of the apartments overhead.
The streets were full of bike traffic and people going back and forth from the outdoor market, carrying baskets of fruit and other goods, but Joe just beeped the horn and kept speeding through the melee.
I hung onto the roll bar with one hand and Jack’s thigh with the other as we bumped along and watched people get out of our way at the last possible second. The engine was loud, so Joe had to yell to be heard.
“It’s been about an hour since it was reported,” he said. “The phone lines have been down on the island today and cell service isn’t the most reliable, so they had to come get me and bring me to the scene. And then I had to find you.”
I closed my eyes as our wheels drove up on the sidewalk and scattered a bunch of chickens. I wasn’t an overly religious person, but I started saying every prayer I could think of. The women in my family had a tendency to die young and tragically, and I was hoping to break that streak, though it didn’t feel like I was going to be successful at it.
“Father Fernando found the body in the church courtyard between masses,” Joe continued. “I’ve never been a mainland cop, but I know enough to know the scene is not how you would like it. Mass is well attended and you can imagine everyone’s curiosity. And Father Fernando isn’t one to think that outside help is needed in matters like these, so he wasn’t exactly worried about preserving the scene.”
I winced, knowing we were already playing with a stacked deck. I didn’t have a useable lab or hardly any resources at hand that I’d normally take with me, so a contaminated crime scene and a reluctant priest were the least of our worries.
Jack pushed his sunglasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “No one noticed the body when the earlier Mass let out?”
“It wasn’t there before or directly after the three o’clock service.” Joe maneuvered a sharp turn and barely avoided hitting a flower cart. He beeped the horn and waved and didn’t look back. Apparently everyone was used to Joe’s driving. “The courtyard is located between the clergy house and the church, and parishioners use the front entrance of the church for the five o’clock Mass, so the courtyard area in back is always clear. Father Fernando and Father DeCosta were coming from their quarters to hear confession when they noticed the body. Father Barthe heard the commotion and came out to join them soon after.”
“Is the victim a local or a tourist?”
“A local. Leon Stein.”