Dark Water Under the Bridge Read online

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Margie warned.

  “Yes… well, we’ve had some vandalism over time, and it takes the city time to get around to fixing it. Our little park isn’t exactly high on their priorities list. There are probably buildings downtown they are more interested in. City Hall. The new library. You know, they’ll get their security fixed a lot faster than us.”

  “How long has it been out of service?”

  “Well… a while,” he admitted, unwilling to put a time estimate on it.

  “Get me what you can.” However much that was. She was gathering from his reluctance that there wasn’t going to be very much at all. Would they at least have something showing who had been in the parking lot during the hours before the woman’s body was found?

  “I am sorry,” Finkle apologized. “There is more coverage inside the education center. We have some very valuable displays, so we want to keep them protected…”

  “Yeah. That makes sense,” Margie said flatly. Not because she was feeling gracious. She could see that they had not prioritized the security of the park itself. The indoor footage was not likely to help them much unless the woman and her killer had been in the education center before she had been killed, which Margie thought was unlikely.

  She pulled out her phone and thumbed through the photos, including the ones that Dr. Galt had texted to her just a few minutes earlier. The victim was wearing a semiformal blouse and slacks, not a t-shirt or other casual wear. She suspected it might be the uniform worn by the education center staff. The ones who didn’t dress quite as formally as Finkle.

  “I’d like you to see if you can identify the victim for me,” she said slowly. “Do you think you’re up to looking at a picture?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Margie didn’t show it to him. “You need to be prepared. I am going to show you a picture of the dead woman’s face.”

  He nodded impatiently. The two hands with the death grip on each other stayed intertwined, and he leaned forward, waiting for Margie to show him the picture.

  “You need to understand what the water does to bodies,” Margie warned. “There hasn’t been a lot of animal or insect predation yet, but her face will seem quite swollen. It may be difficult to recognize her.”

  “I want to help in any way I can.”

  Margie waited for a few seconds longer, then finally turned the phone around to show it to Finkle. He stared at it without expression for a long few seconds. Margie expected him to shake his head and tell her that no, he didn’t have a clue who it was.

  Finkle turned away from her and, for a moment, Margie thought he was going to unlock one of the doors to the education center and take her inside. But that wasn’t why he was turning away from her.

  He staggered a couple of feet away and threw up. Margie took a couple of small, discreet steps back. It was a few minutes before Finkle regained control of himself. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and turned back to her, looking miserable.

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  “Okay. Thank you for giving it a try.” Margie hesitated. “Why don’t you go on in, get yourself together and have a glass of water or cup of coffee and, when you’re ready for me, let me know.” She handed him one of her business cards. “Just give me a quick call or shoot me a text when you’re ready.”

  “I’m sorry…”

  Margie waved the apology away. “No. It’s a shock, and you weren’t prepared to see that. You’re certainly not the first guy to react that way.”

  “It’s not like it is on TV, or seeing a picture in the paper.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  He nodded and wiped his mouth again. “I’ll just be a few minutes, then,” he said, and walked away from her, heading for the education center.

  Margie didn’t need to supervise the technicians as they gathered their evidence for Dr. Galt as he prepared the body for transport. She was the most senior law enforcement officer on the scene, but they had much more training than she did in handling evidence and they knew what they were doing. After the medical examiner’s van drove away, Margie stood watching the forensic team searching through the garbage cans. The whole process included taking pictures of the garbage cans before they were touched and laying everything out on a plastic sheet. Harvesting one layer of trash from the can at a time as if it were an archaeological dig. They needed to be able to say exactly which layer anything suspicious had come from.

  Detective Cruz arrived. Margie gave him a brief update. They stayed outside the yellow tape at the bank of the creek and around the garbage cans. As far as Margie knew, they hadn’t found any footprints that would be helpful.

  Of course not. That would have been too easy.

  “No ID yet?” Cruz asked.

  “No. Hopefully, they’ll find her wallet or purse in one of the garbages, or drag this part of the stream to see if it was dumped here with her.”

  Cruz looked up and down the waterway at the area that had been taped off, and seemed satisfied with it.

  “What have you found out about the water system?” he asked. “Was she killed here? Dumped here? Or was she dumped somewhere else and the water carried her downstream?”

  Margie breathed shallowly.

  “I assume she was just dumped here. The water doesn’t seem to have much of a current. I guess we’ll hear more from the medical examiner. I’m waiting for this guy,” she motioned to the education center, “to pull himself together so he can answer some questions about how she got there, what else we need to know about all of this… water.”

  Looking upstream, she saw a floating dock, where several children sat examining the contents of buckets of water scooped out of the stream. Her stomach turned over queasily.

  Cruz looked at her, then at the children. “What’s wrong? You think they’re going to dip something out of the water that’s evidence in the case? The woman’s wallet or fingers or something?”

  “She still had her fingers,” Margie protested.

  “Well, the way you were looking at them…”

  “I just… I’m worried about them being out there. It doesn’t look safe.”

  Cruz looked at them again.

  Margie tried to keep her tone casual. “They’re kneeling on the edge. The adults are several meters away. If one of the kids went in…”

  “It would probably scare them. But as you say, there isn’t any noticeable current. And there is a lifesaver right there that their dad could throw to them and one of those rescue hooks to pull them in.”

  “Oh, is there?” Margie pretended that made it okay. “I didn’t see that. Right.”

  He gave her a quizzical look but didn’t pursue it. “So… what’s with the monument on top of the hill? Is that some kind of memorial?”

  “I didn’t go to the top yet, but I guess it’s some kind of art installation. There are actually three monoliths and some berms. I’m afraid it’s a bit highbrow for me. I don’t really get it.”

  “Doubt if there’s anything to get. I’m not much of a modern art guy myself.” Cruz looked at the garbage can the forensic techs were currently going through, and the screens still up at the water’s edge. “Tell you what, why don’t we go up for a look?”

  Margie agreed. She didn’t want to get in the way of the investigation. They wouldn’t think much of her if she ended up messing with any of the evidence.

  She and Cruz walked down a gravel path along the river, then up the small hill to gaze at the art installation. Tall grasses and wildflowers grew beside the trail.

  “Well… I still don’t get it,” Cruz admitted, staring up at the monoliths.

  “Me neither.”

  They looked down at the crime scene. Margie realized that from their elevated position, she could see over the screens. They should have used a tent. At least it had still been early morning and there hadn’t been a bunch of kids or their mothers at the top of the hill, hysterical because they had seen the dead, drowned body of a wom
an on the other side of the screens.

  Chapter Four

  Whoops,” Margie murmured, looking at the screens. There was nothing to see anymore, so it was too late to do anything about it. But the next time, she would remember to look up at possible vantage points.

  Cruz chuckled through his mask. “Glad we didn’t end up in trouble over that. Let’s go down to the dock.”

  The ‘we’ was generous, since Margie had been the one in charge of the scene and Cruz hadn’t even been there when the screens were set up. Margie walked down the hill with him, and then along the path to where the children were dipping minnows out of the stream into their buckets. Cruz stepped confidently from the land onto the gray plastic cells that formed the little dock. Margie stayed back on the path. Cruz walked up to the edge where the children were and started a conversation with them. The father stood close to Margie, a tall, sandy-haired man. He looked at Margie.

  “You’re police?”

  “Yes. Detective Patenaude. My partner there is Detective Cruz.”

  “What’s going on here?”

  Margie knew he would find out eventually anyway. And he wasn’t likely to be calling any reporters.

  “There’s been a death.”

  “A murder?” he asked immediately.

  “That hasn’t yet been determined.”

  The man looked toward the screens. “I don’t think too many people just come out here and die of natural causes. It isn’t like it’s a swimming hole or the ocean.”

  Margie shrugged and didn’t agree or disagree. “How long ago did you and the kids get here?”

  “Oh, about twenty minutes ago. We’re homeschoolers,” he explained, “this is a really good hands-on activity. They like the education center, but the best part is getting out here and playing in the water.”

  “Sounds like fun.” Margie smiled, but she didn’t go out on the dock. She let Cruz talk to the children. He seemed to be enjoying himself. Her queasiness returned when he leaned out over the edge to look into the dark water. “So you didn’t see anything unusual when you arrived today? Anything that seems different or out of place?”

  “Just you guys. Normally it’s pretty quiet this early in the morning. A few people out getting exercise. Walking, running, biking. Sometimes we see other homeschoolers out here, but most families don’t get out until later in the day.”

  Margie looked around, her eyes sharp for anything in the area that didn’t belong or might have been dropped by the killer. It was pretty clean, no garbage blowing around. But the water was murky. She couldn’t see down into it. It was impossible to tell how deep it might be out at the edge of the dock where the children were or what might be under the water.

  “Are they safe over there? Should they be wearing life jackets?”

  “No, they’re here all the time,” he told her with a tolerant smile. One of those parents who thought she was overprotective and nothing bad would ever happen to his kids. But he hadn’t seen the things that she had. “They know what they’re doing, and I’m here if anything happens. Which it won’t.”

  But before she and Cruz had approached, he’d been looking down at his phone. Reading his email? A text from his wife? Facebook? His eyes had not been on the children, even though he should have been showing more caution than usual with his awareness of the police presence.

  “You haven’t had anything unusual happen around here the last few days? People around who you don’t know and who don’t look like they belong? Arguments? Smells or sounds that were out of place?”

  “No.” His brows came down in a frown. “You don’t mean that a dead body has been here for a few days, do you? I would think that someone would have noticed that.”

  “We’re still in the very preliminary stages of investigation. We can’t make any assumptions.”

  “Well… no, I haven’t seen anything unusual. It’s just been normal.”

  “Thanks. Can I get your contact information in case I think of something else I need to ask you?”

  He was hesitant. “I said I don’t know anything. I don’t know why you would need to ask me any other questions.”

  “You never know when I might need the insights of someone familiar with the park. You can’t beat the knowledge and insights of someone who has boots on the ground.” Margie laid it on as thickly as she dared.

  The man looked pleased. “Yes, of course. I guess that makes sense. And we really know our way around here. If you have any questions about the wetlands, my kids probably know more than the teachers in the education center, they’ve been here so much.”

  Chapter Five

  Margie waited until Cruz was finished talking to the children, and looked toward the education center to let him know that she wanted to go there next. He walked back over the dock, making the floats bounce up and down in the water as he moved over it. The kids laughed in delight.

  “Find anything out from the dad?” he asked once they were a distance away.

  “No. Got his information just in case, but I don’t think he knows anything helpful. How about the kids?”

  “Good kids. Really into the wetlands thing. They could tell you all kinds of things about how these different features filter stormwater naturally. But anything about how a body got in the creek? No.”

  “As long as it’s not their mom.”

  “I think someone might have mentioned if they were missing her.” Cruz agreed dryly.

  “I want to see if the head guy here, Finkle, is ready to talk to us yet. He was a little bit… wobbly after seeing a picture of the dead woman.”

  “Yes, I can see how he might be. You thought it was a good idea to show it to him?”

  “I thought it might be someone who worked here. Went out for lunch and never came back… something like that.”

  “And did he know her?”

  “Didn’t recognize her. But drowning victims bloat up so much…”

  He nodded. “Still could have been an employee.”

  “Hopefully, he’s settled down enough to talk now. I want to get security video from him, and any information he can provide on how things work around here. Whether she was dumped there or washed down from somewhere else…” Margie trailed off. She started walking around the building.

  Cruz held out his hand to stop her. “We don’t have to go all the way around the far side of the building. We can get to the front doors from this side. Just over the catwalks. They go all the way around.”

  Margie looked at the catwalks over the deep, dark water. “I think I’d rather go around the other way.”

  “This is more convenient, and we’ve already seen the other side. Come on.” Cruz strode toward the nearest walkway. He paused to look back after a minute. “Come on, Patenaude. You afraid of heights?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s go, then.”

  Margie looked for a reasonable excuse. She wanted to check on the techs out by the creek again. She thought they might have missed a garbage can in the corner of the building. She wanted to check under the unusual playground equipment to make sure nothing had been dumped there. But they would all have sounded like fake excuses. Which they were.

  She dragged her feet after Cruz. He made it look so easy. He was very casual as he stepped from the gravel path to a small grillwork bridge. To Margie, it was nearly as bad as the pictures she had seen of the glass lookout over the Grand Canyon. Why couldn’t it at least have been concrete? Why did it have to be something with holes in it?

  She forced herself to walk over the bridge and followed him onto one of the boardwalks that hugged the building. They weren’t actually boards, but were fully concrete and shouldn’t have been a problem for her like the grillwork. However, the railing along the side was an open mesh or grill that she could see through to the still, dark, bottomless water. She grasped the top rail, and it was all she could do to keep from gripping it like a drowning man. She just steadied herself, tried to keep vertigo from kicking in and making her stumble or f
all. It was like her worst nightmare, the thought of falling into the dark water in the pool beneath her.

  Cruz looked back a couple of times, but kept going, not stopping to help or harass her. They climbed a metal flight of stairs to go up to the second level. Farther from the water, but a longer distance to fall if she went over the edge. She didn’t know if it was better or worse. Finally, Margie managed to make it around the walkway to the building’s front entrance where Cruz was waiting. He raised his brows. Margie couldn’t see his mouth under the mask, but it didn’t look like he was laughing at her.

  “You are afraid of heights.”

  “No.” She looked down at the black glassy surface. “Water.”

  “You’re afraid of water?”

  Margie tried to shrug it off. “Everyone is afraid of something. That just happens to be mine.”

  “You were really struggling to get over there.”

  “Yes.” She waited for him to laugh and tease her about it.

  “Good for you. You kept going and you did it.”

  Margie stared at him, surprised at the response. She hadn’t expected any kind of understanding. He was a tough cop. And he came from the Philippines. An island. Surrounded by water. He had probably been in the water every day of his life before immigrating to Canada. It was as natural for him as breathing.

  “I have kids,” Cruz said, turning toward the doors and pressing a call button. “My youngest, Alejandro, he has anxiety. He’s afraid of a lot of things. The doctor says that the only way for him to get over the fears is to push through them. Willingly expose himself to them and push through. Like climbing a hill.” He gestured at the hill with the monoliths on top of it. “Eventually, the anxiety peaks, and your body will start to relax and recover.”

  “Yeah. That’s what they say. Avoidance just makes it worse. But avoidance sounds much more attractive.”

  His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I’m sure it does. But you were brave and went ahead and did it anyway. And you survived.”