The Body in the Boat Read online

  “It goes great with anything.” She grinned. “Next time.”

  He nodded, his gaze lingering on her a half-second longer than usual. “Next time.”

  Ella stared into the deep waters again as her stomach fluttered. A bird called from deep in the forest, the sound carrying across the cool water as Jonas reel in a healthy-looking fish.

  “What’s in this lake, anyway? I keep meaning to ask.” Her feet searched for more space in front of her.

  “Oh, a few rainbow trouts, largemouth bass, a couple other kinds of bass… some catfish. Fortunately, it had just been re-stocked before the first flash. It became a great source of food during those rough, beginning months.”

  She watched him row, his muscles pulling at his trench coat, his straw hat dipping with each bend of his head. Most of the town’s people assimilated to different clothing from different eras, swapping with each other when their tastes or waistlines changed. It wasn’t uncommon to see a woman in a prairie dress and bonnet with a hoodie added to the ensemble. But she had yet to see him branch out in the fashion department in the two and a half weeks she’d known him.

  She listed her head, trying to picture him in an outfit contemporary to her.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  “Nothing.” She burrowed herself further into her own pullover sweatshirt. They’d nearly reached the boat. After drawing in a breath, she said lightly, “Hey, Will, did you ever map out the town’s boundary?”

  His expression clouded as he dipped his head, hiding underneath his hat. “Probably not in the sense you’re thinking. In my first year here, I took some of the professor’s equipment and sensors and walked around taking readings. I recorded them in some notebooks.”

  “Could I see them sometime?”

  “Sure, I guess. They won’t tell you much. I’ve been over and over the data.”

  Ella nodded her thanks, opting to drop the topic for now. It obviously pained him. Discreetly, she slipped her phone out of the kangaroo pocket on her sweatshirt and added, make boundary map, to her memo app.

  Will brought Stewart’s boat into a gentle glide that nudged into Will’s rowboat. As he positioned them alongside the anchored boat, Ella leaned over the side and gasped.

  Three inches of water in the boat lined the bottom of the boat. Crumpled between the two benches, Stan’s glassy eyes stared at the sky, mouth agape as if caught in an eternal silent scream. He was dead.

  CHAPTER 5

  “TELL me again what you did when you discovered the body?” Sheriff Chapman’s steady gaze bore holes through Ella.

  “I touched it. Well, not really touched so much as poked.”

  Beside her, Will held up two fingers.

  “Twice,” she added. “I poked it twice.” It had been hard to tear her gaze away from Stan’s purple, bloated body. Now, all she wanted to do was pour bleach over her eyes.

  “And why did you touch it?”

  “Not touched, poked. To be sure he was dead.”

  The sheriff glanced at the ground as if searching for something, patience probably. “Didn’t you say he was blue and purple and, what was it?”

  “Inflated like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade float. Yes. But that doesn’t always mean a person’s dead.”

  “It don’t? They change the way of death where you come from? You know a single person who’s looked like that and still been alive?”

  Ella made noises with her mouth and searched the dusty recesses of her memory. “Well, there was that girl from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Or is it Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? I always get them confused. One’s the movie. One’s the book. Then, of course, the remake of the movie was named after the book—for clarity’s sake—so I guess it could be both?”

  Chapman stared at her so long she thought he’d had a stroke.

  “Stan was dead,” Will said, coming to her rescue.

  “Probably,” Ella added.

  “You shouted at him, asking if he was dead, El.”

  She snapped her fingers. “Babies! Aren’t babies born all purple or blue? Shriveled like little raisins? Or am I thinking of kittens?”

  As opposed to a minute ago, the sheriff didn’t look at her when he said, “What time did you see the boat in the middle of the lake last night?”

  “It was definitely babies,” Ella muttered under her breath. Louder she said, “Again. It was around midnight. Might help if you took notes. That’s what most cops do.”

  Sheriff Chapman sighed so hard his handlebar mustache quivered.

  They stood on the dock, the sun dancing jewels of light across the lake in sharp contrast to the disturbing scene somewhere in the center. Pauline, the town’s doctor turned coroner, had used a skiff to putter out to the accident site.

  Ella watched the small, round speck that was Pauline, made larger by her coat of pockets packed full with odds and ends, lean over the side of the skiff to inspect the body in Will’s boat. The skiff teetered, threatening to throw the woman overboard at any moment.

  With Kay’s death, it had seared her heart. She’d watched the woman die in front of her. Also, Kay had been kind and was close to Will. With Stan, Ella found herself detached as if watching the scene unfold from afar.

  “I find it strange that this is the second body you’ve come across in less than a month of being here.” The frontier lawman studied her from beneath his cowboy hat. His skin was a map, a testament of hard years chasing outlaws, sun, and dust.

  “So do I. And just between you and me, I’m not really fond of it.”

  He grunted something in response and rubbed a hand along a jaw covered in gray stubble. She noted for the first time since she’d met him that his mustache drooped and his eyes sagged with fatigue, a chink in his stoic armor.

  Will seemed to notice as well because he asked, “You okay, Sheriff?”

  “All-overish, but alight. Six is the thorn in my side. I’m fixing to serve my own form of justice on him soon if he doesn’t mind his.” He scanned the horizon. “You know, this country isn’t entirely uninhabitable. It wouldn’t be too cruel to leave him here.”

  The glint in his eyes said he was warming to the idea of leaving the outlaw behind in the next flash.

  “Aren’t those supposed to be temporary holding cells? Can’t the town just build a prison? ” While Ella spoke, her eyes remained fixed on Pauline, who now had one leg in Will’s boat and the other still in the skiff. They were edging apart at a rate that made the coroner do the splits in slow motion.

  Chapman nodded. “They are—or were from what I’ve been told. I’ve been meaning to bring it up at a town meeting, but it’s just not in our budget. And this,” he motioned a weathered hand at the two boats, “is something I don’t have time for.”

  “Sounds like you need a deputy.” He blinked at her. “Oh, no. I wasn’t offering.”

  “Good, ‘cause I need help making things better—not worse. I’d hate to see the body count if you worked for me.”

  “Well, considering I helped solve Kay’s murder—you’re welcome, by the way—maybe you should want me to work for you.”

  Chapman rolled his body around to check on Pauline’s progress. She’d somehow managed to get both feet in Will’s boat and was currently digging through her pockets.

  “Worst part is, I might have to let Six out soon.”

  Ella turned sharply. “What? You’re going to free Six?”

  It felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped on her. The sheriff had warned her he couldn’t keep the outlaw locked up for long, but she’d expected at least a couple of months.

  The air hummed as Pauline fired up the motor on the skiff, and she aimed for the docks, towing Will’s boat behind it. Ella momentarily forgot about Six, wondering how the woman had managed to get back into the skiff so quickly. The two boats crept their way to the dock at a pace that suggested the rowboat was either very heavy or Pauline was in no rush.

  Chapman tipped his hat back with a lazy ha
nd, exposing more of his face. There was actually a trace of regret and an even fainter hint of empathy in his expression.

  “Yeah, can’t keep him. All I could charge him with was burglary.”

  “What about attempted murder?” Will sputtered. “He tried to kill Ella.”

  “Still can’t prove that.” He sighed. “Look, I want him behind bars as much as you do—no. More than you do. But when I’m the law around here, it gets a bit murky, a bit hard to enforce things. I gotta keep the peace.”

  Ella stared at him, trying to figure him out. In one breath, he was the renegade sheriff who took the law into his own hands wild West style, while in the very next breath, he followed it to the letter.

  The roar of the motor carried across the water and reached a crescendo before Pauline maneuvered and cut the throttle. She threw Chapman the dock line for Will’s boat then moored the skiff herself.

  Both Ella and Will edged forward. The smell punched her in the face, causing her to try to breathe through her mouth.

  Without meaning to, she glanced at Stan and quickly turned her head to the side. He looked very un-mole-like at the moment. Some guilt bubbled to the surface for the way she’d treated him during their one and only encounter.

  “Any idea yet why he died?” she asked Pauline. Chapman’s eyes lingered on Ella a long moment before he fixed them on the coroner.

  “My preliminary findings are he drowned.”

  The air stilled. They shuffled their feet, no one speaking.

  The awkwardness seemed to go unnoticed by Pauline. She rooted through a couple of hip pockets before producing a shriveled orange. Her face puckered, but she tested the skin with a fingernail before it went back into a different pocket.

  “Drowned?” Chapman asked.

  “How’s that?” Pauline squinted at him as if forgetting he was there.

  “You said he drowned.”

  “Did I?” She glanced back at Stan. “Oh, right. Yes. That’s what it appears to be at the moment.”

  The sheriff tugged off his derby hat, ran a grizzled hand over his gray hair, and slipped it back on. “Mr. Tanner drowned in a few inches of water in the middle of a lake?”

  The coroner shrugged. “Like I said, preliminary findings. I’ll know more later.”

  “Is it possible to drown in that much water?” Will peered at his reflection in the bottom of the rowboat, most of it obscured by the body.

  Pauline shrugged.

  “Maybe he had a heart attack and keeled over,” Ella suggested. “Then drowned.”

  “Seems plausible,” Pauline said.

  Chapman turned to Ella. “You’re certain there was only one person in the boat?”

  “Positive.” She held his gaze, but when he looked away, she bit her lip. She’d only glimpsed the figure a couple of times during flashes of lighting. What if she was wrong?

  “Alright. As of right now, I’m ruling this an accident.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He rounded on Ella, his holster creaking with the movement. “You telling me how to do my job?”

  “What? No. It’s just that—”

  “Not every dead body is a homicide.”

  “I know. But isn’t it a bit suspicious that out of all the people to have died, it was Stan? There were a lot of angry people at that meeting. Couldn’t someone, I don’t know, driven another boat out there, drowned him, then returned?”

  “You confessing?”

  Ella pressed her lips together. The last thing she wanted was to be a suspect again for another homicide.

  The lowered to a crouch beside Will’s rowboat, and Ella could swear she heard his joints creak. “What time you say you saw the boat?”

  “Again, a little after midnight.”

  Chapman’s long arm reached into the boat and pulled up a bloated limb.

  Pauline hissed and said under her breath. “How many times do I have to tell him to wear gloves?”

  Tilting his head, Chapman twisted Stan’s arm, focusing on his wrist. “Watch stopped at 12:07.”

  A chill crept up Ella’s spine. Stan had died within minutes of her seeing him.

  “And you said his—or Will’s—was the only boat, right?”

  She nodded.

  Using both hands, the sheriff placed them on his knees and stood. “Until I have evidence to suggest otherwise, Stan’s death was an accident deserving of anyone stupid enough to be out in the middle of a lake during that storm.”

  He said to Pauline, “let me know what you find. I’ll send someone to help you with the body.” He brushed the brim of his hat then sauntered down the dock.

  “You know,” Ella said to no one in particular, “I think he’s starting to like me.” She didn’t have to look over to know Will was staring at her. “Yep. Besties, just you wait and see.”

  “Look,” Pauline said, “seems unlikely it wasn’t an accident. But if it was intentional, I’ll probably find defensive wounds of some kind.”

  Ella wondered how the coroner could make out anything when Stan’s entire body looked like a bruised banana.

  To her horror, her stomach growled as if the morbid picture had piqued her appetite. That’s what she got for skipping breakfast.

  “Could you pull DNA? Or will the rain have washed it away?”

  One of Pauline’s weedy eyebrows rose.

  “I watched a lot of TV before coming here.”

  “Ah. I’m from Galveston, Texas, 1993. To think of the advancements in forensics you must’ve seen.” Pauline stared wistfully at the distant horizon for at least five Mississippis. Ella cleared her throat. “What was I going to say? Oh. I took samples from his nails, just in case. But the problem is analyzing it without the proper equipment.” She waved her hands around. “Our resources are next to nil, not to mention severely limited by technology. No chromatography equipment. No blood gas analyzer. Heck, thanks to the professor, I have a microscope. You and I are discussing things that haven’t been invented yet for most of these people.”

  She’d already told Ella most of this before, but she’d been two sheets to the wind at the time. Since Ella was partially responsible for that, she pretended like this was all new information.

  Her hand flew to her forehead then ripped out her phone. “Crap! I’m late for work.”

  She waved a goodbye then sprinted towards the bank.

  “Oh, Ella?” Pauline called. “I’ve been meaning to ask. Are boy bands still a thing?”

  CHAPTER 6

  ELLA panted as she tore through the back door of the diner. Horatio looked up from the fryer beneath a sheen of sweat. “Well, thanks for showing up.”

  The clock showed she was nearly an hour late. “I…sorry…Will…boat…” Her chest heaved between each word. She was as winded as Flo after a flight of stairs.

  “Alright, alright. Take a minute to catch your breath.” Grease popped behind him as watched her with a worried expression.

  The diner door swung in, and Wink strolled into the kitchen in her own gingham waitress uniform, a scarf tied around her head like Rosie the Riveter and a Smurfette rolled into one.

  “Ella? You okay?” She ran some tap water into a glass and shoved it in front of Ella’s face.

  “Don’t you run all the time?” Horatio raised a heavy eyebrow. “Did someone chase you all the way around Lake Drive?”

  Ella gulped the water then wiped her arm over her mouth. “When I realized what time it was, I ran from the lake, changed, then came straight here. I’m sorry I’m late.” She looked at Wink. “I—Stan’s dead.”

  The large kitchen began to fill with the scent of a burning carnival. Horatio jumped to the waffle iron, letting out a string of words in Italian, and picked at the charred bits. He turned his head to the side, still listening to the conversation.

  Wink stared at Ella. “Dead? You sure?”

  “Yeah. I made sure.” She refrained from admitting she poked the body based on how Will and Chapman had reacted. Apparently, that was frowned
upon.

  She gave a hurried recount of finding Stan’s body in Will’s boat, including the bit about seeing him alive in the middle of the lake during the storm.

  “And Pauline says he drowned?” Horatio dumped a misshapen piece of charcoal into the trash.

  “There was no mistaking it.” Ella squeezed her eyes and tried to push out the image of the bloated, bruised body. “But that was just her preliminary findings. Whether there’s more to it or not, she couldn’t say. Chapman thinks it’s an accident.”

  “Can’t say as I’ve ever heard of an adult drowning in just a few inches of water,” Wink said.

  A commotion from inside the diner interrupted their conversation. Ella was the first to reach the swinging door. After leaping into the diner, she skidded to a halt, trying to make sense of the war zone around her.

  Chester sat on top of the soda fountain, chittering loudly in a blue button-down shirt, not unlike one she’d seen Sheriff Chapman wear often, complete with a gold star over the chest akin to a badge. His petite front paws shoveled bits of vanilla custard crème Brûlée French toast into his mouth, crumbs and syrup falling all over his “uniform.”

  A woman with dark hair and traditional Japanese clothing that looked like they’d come straight from a museum pointed and yelled in Japanese at the squirrel. Ella apologized profusely, trying to calm her down, while behind her, Wink lectured Chester and tried to grapple the partially eaten French toast from him.

  “I’m sorry again,” Ella said, coaxing the woman back to her booth.

  “You get down here right now! You’re in big trouble, mister!”

  Ella didn’t bother looking back at the soda fountain. “He’s usually so well behaved.”

  “Why are you always so naughty? What’s gotten into you?”

  Ella cleared her throat and raised her voice over Wink’s. “We’ll bring out a new meal, free of charge. Was that the morning special?” They’d stopped serving it twenty minutes before, but she wasn’t about to mention that. Even if she had to twist Horatio’s or Wink’s ear off, they’d make another batch.