Trusting Viktor (A Cleo Cooper Mystery) (7 page)

Detective Myers nodded. “Ma’am.”

Somehow I didn’t think these guys were here about the policeman’s ball. “Gentlemen,” I said, “Let’s go inside, out of this hot sun.”

SEVEN

Having declined my offer
of iced tea, my visitors sat sedately at the kitchen table. It was lean Pierce who spoke first. “Ms. Cooper, we hate to bother you on a Sunday, but we’re investigating the body of a John Doe that washed up on the beach on Thursday. We have reason to believe the man could be a crew member from a ship that’s presently working off our coast”—Pierce paused to pull a small spiral notebook from his back pocket and check it, then added—“the
Magellan
. We spoke to company officials at their base of operations.”

He looked at Myers, who chimed in obligingly. “We talked to the guy that’s in charge of all the employees coming and going out there—”

“The site manager, Duncan Powell?” I interrupted.

Pierce checked his notes. “Right,” he said. “He met us at the port.”

Myers continued. “He confirmed that a crew member from one of the subcontractor firms on the ship didn’t show up for work on Wednesday. They’re looking into it, meaning they’re making sure he didn’t hop a helicopter or one of the supply boats without letting anyone know. He said that while that is highly unlikely and against the ship’s rules, it’s not impossible. So we’re letting them cover all their bases before they release the name of this individual. Which seems a good way to avoid wild goose chases.”

He paused. “However, Mr. Powell also gave us a list of six people who visited the ship the day before they discovered the missing crew member. You were on it and he mentioned you were spending the summer in Morehead. Naturally, since you’re local, we thought we’d start with you, hoping you might be able to answer a few questions that would aid in our investigation.”

Considering the situation and how precarious my role in it might be, answering questions for detectives was not high on my list of things I ought to do. Still, they were here now and it seemed best to at least sound forthcoming, so I said, “Of course. How can I help?”

“First, what’s your specific business on board?”

“Basically, I’m consulting, but I’m also invested through a private equity group.”

Now Myers pulled out his notebook as well. Both men jotted for a moment, then he asked, “How long were you there?”

“From mid-morning on Tuesday until the next morning. We had to stay over longer than anticipated due to high winds and severe thunderstorms.”

Myers seemed to be comparing what I said to notes he’d taken earlier. “Did anything unusual happen while you were there?”

“Like what?”

“I’m asking you just to think back. We’ll be interested in anything that caught your attention, however small. Say, for instance, any … unpleasantness on board among crew members?”

Now, I’m not squeamish about lying when necessary, but I have a preference for creative parsing of words. Carefully I said, “No. I didn’t get any bad vibes from any crew members and I didn’t see any fights.” This was sailing a bit close to the wind, I realized.

“So, when you say you didn’t
see
a fight … what do you mean?” This, from Pierce.

Oh dear, this wasn’t going well at all. “Uh, that I didn’t see one.”

Pierce was less a fool than I’d thought him. “So you
heard
one, maybe?

“Kinda.” I was aware I was squirming. Not only could this screw up my attempt to handle things on my own, but now I was beginning to wonder if
I
could be in trouble. Maybe I needed a lawyer. The problem was, I’d seen enough episodes of
Law & Order
to know that lawyering up meant you were probably guilty of something. Which I wasn’t, and I didn’t want to be perceived in such a way. Therefore, I decided now might be a good time to explain what happened. I told them in short concise sentences what I remembered about the attack. I ended by emphasizing that I had no way of knowing whether the man who attacked me was the same man who washed up on Atlantic Beach.

Their response: dumbfounded gawking.

Pierce was first to break the silence. “Why didn’t you report this
immediately
?”

“I told you. I fainted. I wasn’t conscious
immediately.
Besides, it is not in my nature to whine and complain. What good would it do? I couldn’t identify the man. It was dark, it happened quickly. I didn’t see him …” I paused but then decided against mentioning the slew of shipboard rules I’d broken wandering about on my own in the middle of the night.

“How did you get to your room?”

“Again,” I replied patiently, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t have any impression of the assailant at all?”

“Other than he was big, hairy, and very strong, no.”

“Is there anything or anyone who would help verify your story? Did you go to a doctor?” Meyers asked.

Verify my story? Now I was losing patience. “I told you. I wasn’t raped. I was just bruised,” I said, lifting my hair on the right side and exposing the fading yellow bruise. I pulled up my capris and stretched open the neck of my T-shirt, exposing what was left of the discoloration on my shoulder and thigh.

“Hold it there for a moment, please.” Myers took out his iPhone and snapped a quick succession of pictures.

I hadn’t even told them I’d almost instantly taken myself and my assorted injuries, not to mention my shock and trauma, across state lines to Pennsylvania. But that could wait.

Pierce chewed a hangnail, then said, “Where are the clothes you had on that night?”

“In the laundry room,” I said. “Still at the bottom of the chute, I guess. I’ll go get them.” My companions jumped up to follow me.

I opened the narrow door to the chute and looked down. Except for one hand towel, there were no dirty clothes. Turning back to face the detectives who were peering so closely over my shoulder we practically butted heads, I said with relief, “I guess my daughter washed everything. It’s one of my rules. You live here, you pitch in.” The thought of having to hand my undergarments over to these two guys was actually very creepy.

They both shook their heads and Myers, scowling, put pen to notebook. “Describe your outfit.” I did as he asked, remembering to mention that the undershirt I wore home was not mine. Since I hadn’t been wearing it during the attack, however, they weren’t interested in it. On the walk back to the kitchen, Pierce asked, “You said you fought back, slapping, scratching, kicking, right?”

“Yes.”

“You think you inflicted any damage? Maybe a black eye, a fat lip?”

I looked down at my hands. “Reasoning tells me my knuckles don’t look like I made any serious contact, plus my nails aren’t broken or chipped. I don’t know. I guess it’s possible I could have scratched him …”

The detectives exchanged glances. Myers nodded as if reading Pierce’s mind. Pierce said, “I hate to ask, Ms. Cooper, but would you be willing to drive over to Chapel Hill and look at the body?”

“It was in the water for several days, but nothing chewed on it,” Myers reassured me. “Now that it’s in the cooler, decomp’s arrested. It won’t be too bad.”

My face must have conveyed my distaste.

“The ME won’t get to him for a few days, and I’d like you to look at the scratches on his face,” Pierce said. “What I’m thinking is, maybe looking at them and his overall size and appearance, it would jog your memory. You’d possibly be able to establish him as your attacker. That would aid us not only in identifying him, but also in piecing together what happened to him.”

Thinking it wouldn’t be wise to refuse whatever they requested, I agreed to meet them at the medical examiner’s office the next morning at ten thirty.

I walked them out to their car. Pierce opened his door and put one foot inside. Myers stood at the passenger-side door directing a steady gaze at me over the roof of the car. Pierce said, “I’ll be honest with you, Ms. Cooper, there are large holes in your story.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. But I chose to reply by saying simply, “There are large holes in my memory, Detective.”

Some things never change, and Chapel Hill and the endless construction on the highways leading there and the University of North Carolina’s campus streets are no exception. After making several detours around massive holes outlined with orange cones and workers leaning on rakes and shovels, I finally found, albeit a little late, the medical examiner’s office just before the appointed time the next morning. Not a part of the campus I’d frequented as a student all those years ago.

You know how most detective novels have a scene at the ME’s office, a.k.a. the morgue? Well, this one smelled just as the novels said it would. It took more than a few minutes of stalling at the entrance before I was able to deal with the stench of something rotten overlaid by the heavy, cloying smells of formaldehyde and disinfectant.

Pierce had told me where to meet him, so I made my way down the long tiled halls, following the overhead directional signs. He was waiting for me outside a surprisingly normal-looking office door, talking on his cell. Myers wasn’t with him. He held the phone against the lapel of his lightweight navy sports jacket as I approached. “Go on in,” he told me. “An assistant is waiting to show you the body. I’ll be right there.”

No, thanks, I’ll be fine. You don’t need to go with me. I mean, I look at dead bodies all the time
.

Tentatively I pushed the door open and stepped inside a large room with industrial tile floors and white walls. The door swooshed closed behind me, trapping me in the stark space. I stood blinking in the blue-white florescent light, surrounded by vaults that I knew contained bodies. Jeez. Were they all occupied? Two stainless-steel autopsy tables complete with wash-down hoses, cameras, and suspended microphones stood silently on either side of the room, awaiting their next customers.

“You Miz Cleo Cooper?” asked the only other person—well,
live
person—in the room, a young Asian man wearing a stiff white lab coat. He stood across the room in front of the wall of vaults, his dark hair slicked back. His name badge read
Larry Tan
.

“Yes. I’m here to make an identification—”

“Over here please, ma’am,” he said impatiently, sliding out a sheet-draped body.

I took a position opposite him, the body between us. I looked down, took a deep breath, nodded, and … Larry Tan’s iPhone rang. Incredibly, he actually answered it, holding up one finger as if that made it okay. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m here, dude, hold on,” he said, flipping the sheet from the face of the corpse and retreating to the far corner of the room, where he continued his conversation.

My first thought: who knew Smurfs got to be this big? My second was that besides the blue skin, he was in remarkably good shape for a dead person who’d been floating in the Atlantic Ocean for several days. At least his face was, and Lord knows I didn’t want to know if the rest of him was intact. I could tell he was a very tall, heavyset man. He had long black hair, heavy facial stubble, and thick lips.

What caught my attention the most, however, were three long scratches on his left cheek. Pulling the sheet back just slightly from under his chin with two soon-to-be-scrubbed-clean fingers, I noted that they extended to his neck. Gingerly I lifted the sheet enough to expose his arm and hand. Just as I expected: very hairy, and his hands were huge. I let the sheet drop back in place and stood quietly beside.

I had every reason to believe this was my attacker, and yet, I couldn’t be sure. I had gotten no sudden insight, no flash of clarity at seeing some feature I’d blanked out.

Atop the corpse’s ankles rested a large manila envelope and a clear plastic bag with a drawstring. John Doe’s clothes were folded in the plastic bag, but I couldn’t see what was in the envelope. I looked to Tan. He was still in the corner, his back to me, engrossed in conversation. The buddy he was talking to must have been a real comic because the guy’s shoulders were shaking with laughter, “Get out, man! Twenty feet? Just a two-liter diet soda and a Mentos?”

Good grief. Not wanting to interrupt their critical professional exchange, I decided it would be all right to open the envelope, which revealed only a cheap, drugstore watch.

There was something about the watch. I lifted it from the envelope. It had a link bracelet band in some type of polished silver metal, dented and scratched. I laid it against the scratches of my arm. It could have been what made them—hard to tell—but there followed no sudden burst of clarity. Well, maybe a little twinge of it, a flashback of trying to pull loose from a vise-like grip. Then I noticed something lodged between two of the links of the band that sent chills down my spine.

“Don’t touch that!” Detective Sergeant Pierce commanded, banging the door open.

I jumped like a startled rabbit. The watch slipped from my fingers and dropped back into the envelope.

“Sorry,” I managed to squeak.

“That’s police property.” His expression was disapproving as he glared in Tan’s direction, then shouted, “Hey!”

Tan spun around, slapped his phone shut, and visibly paled. “Sir?” he croaked.

“What the hell are you doing way over there? Bodies are
never
to be viewed unattended!”

“Well, the exterior preliminary is over. Samples have been taken and the body’s been thoroughly photographed, so I thought—”

“You thought you’d just change the rules to fit your social life?”

Tan grimaced but wisely chose not to respond.

“I’ll be filing a report on you,” Pierce said, then turned to me.

I wordlessly handed him the envelope, and he pulled out the watch. “Huh. I didn’t notice this when I first examined the body on the beach.” He removed a pair of tweezers from the pocket of his khakis along with an evidence bag, then pulled a small scrap of bright orange fabric from the underside of the watchband. It was no bigger than half a dime, but I was pretty sure the moment I saw it that I’d seen the fabric before. The bright orange hibiscus on Bud’s lucky shirt flashed before my eyes.