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“Oh, oh, oh!” Macy said. “A fed. ”
“Technically, I’m more of a fed than he is,” Abby couldn’t resist pointing out. A smile of amusement glimmered on Malachi’s face. He didn’t say a word. She sensed that he wasn’t being polite, he really didn’t care if he was an agent or a detective or an investigator. He was interested in the job, not the title.
“Well, we’re glad you’re here,” Macy said, shaking his hand. Macy liked him, Abby thought. Or, at least, admired his appearance. She had that look she wore when she found a man attractive.
“Thank you,” Malachi said, bowing slightly.
“I’m going up to change,” Abby announced. “Malachi, come on up and you can wait in Gus’s office. ”
“It’s your office now,” Macy said.
“It will always be Gus’s office,” Abby said. Macy seemed a little stricken and Abby quickly added with a smile, “Okay, let’s call it Gus’s and my office. How about that?”
Macy smiled.
Abby strode over to the bar. Aldous glanced at her and nodded at Dirk, who was staring down into his drink, then shook his head sadly. Abby set a hand on Dirk’s shoulder. “Dirk?”
Dirk looked up at her. “That could be Helen,” he said. “That could be Helen. That blond hair. . . Helen has blond hair that streams around her like that. ”
“Dirk, you couldn’t really tell if the hair was blond or not,” Abby told him. “The woman we found was light-haired, but. . . I know Helen, Dirk. I don’t think it was her. I wouldn’t lie to you. ”
“I’ve been trying to contact her family,” he said. “The police have been trying. . . . I have no idea what to say to them, but I’ve got a reprieve. They’re on safari in Kenya. It’ll be another week before they can be reached. Oh, Lord—I pray we find her, alive, before then. ”
Malachi’s phone rang and he excused himself to answer it.
“This is horrible, so horrible,” Dirk moaned as Abby tried to comfort him.
Malachi came back over to them. “That was Detective Caswell,” he said. “The medical examiner’s office has the young woman cleaned up. He says she’s still pretty rough to look at, but they’ve gotten all the river gunk off her and he wants you to come down and see if you recognize her. I told him Abby could probably come make the same identification. He suggested you both come. ”
“I’ll change first,” Abby said.
“I’ll go. ” Dirk’s voice broke. “She worked for me. I owe her. ”
Aldous and Bootsie each set a hand on his shoulders. They reminded Abby of the Three Musketeers—one for all, and all for one. It must be nice to have such close and steadfast friends. She didn’t lack friends but a friendship like theirs, like the one they’d shared with Gus, was pretty special.
“Be right back. ” She ran up the stairs, stopping to throw the file folder of notes David Caswell had given them into the bottom drawer of Gus’s desk. Something made her hide it beneath a stack of other papers.
She paused, looking around the room. “Blue?” She waited. “Gus?” she said hopefully.
But she spoke to the air.
Leaving the office, she hurried to her own room to dress. She put on one of her white tailored blouses and lightweight blue pantsuits. She was going to the morgue. It felt important to dress properly.
* * *
Malachi found a perch on the bar stool next to Bootsie. Sullivan asked if he wanted anything; he decided that if he was going to sit there commiserating with the tavern’s intriguing trio of barflies, he should have a drink so he ordered a light beer.
“Sad business,” he said. “But, Dirk, this might not be Helen. Abby doesn’t seem to think it is. Still, it’ll be best to know for sure. ”
Bootsie turned to him. “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, you can hope the girl just went off on a whirlwind romance, but. . . ”
“Helen was responsible,” Dirk said. He lifted his glass. “Ah, Helen. ”
Dirk might be a little too far gone to recognize anyone, Malachi thought.
“Dirk, did Ms. Long have any tattoos or birthmarks? Anything that might help if her face is too. . . damaged?”
“Damaged?” Aldous repeated with a shudder.
“Um,” Dirk said thoughtfully. “She, uh, did say she had a tattoo. But she never said what it was—or where it was. She liked to tease her pirate cast mates aboard the Black Swan. Make them guess. They were a phenomenal group of young people to work with—Helen, Jack and Blake. They got along so well. ” He shook his head. “Blake had a major crush on Helen. She liked him well enough, but said she wouldn’t date anyone she worked with. Would that she had!”
“We don’t know that it’s Helen,” Malachi repeated.
“And if it’s not—then where is Helen?” Aldous asked. He stared at Malachi and, in turn, Malachi stared at him. He was definitely unique and hard to miss, a big, powerful man with his shiny head and gold earring.
“Hopefully, alive and well somewhere,” Malachi said. He gave Aldous a smile. “Sir, do you work on the pirate ship now and then? You’ve certainly got the look. ”
“Hereditary baldness,” Aldous told him. “Sometimes—say, around St. Patrick’s Day—the city gets crazy busy and then I work with my friend here. ”
“You’re a captain, as well, though? Different kind of ship, if I remember our conversation from before,” Malachi said.
“My family’s been in the shipping trade for generations. We were bringing goods back and forth from the Old World before the colonies became a nation. I own Brentwood Shipping. We have ships all over the world. My dad was old school. I started work as a deckhand on a nine-hundred-and-six-foot container vessel. I’ve sailed on almost everything known to man, but these days, I mostly use my little fishing boat. She’s a thirty-three-foot Boston whaler with a fine cabin and a galley. I can take her out for a few days on my own when I feel I need the water beneath me. But, yeah, there’s fun in playing a pirate. I’m still on the company board, but I already put in my time. Now, I do the world a favor and give people jobs to keep the company afloat. ”
“That’s a good thing. We all need jobs,” Malachi said.
“What about you? You spend a lot of time on the water?” Bootsie asked.
“I spent some time with friends on shrimp boats down in Louisiana,” he answered. “And I’ve been on a cruise—does that count?”
Dirk managed a smile. “Hardly! You’ve got to have the wheel in your hands, really feel the power of the water, even on a river. Feel the wind whip around when you aren’t sure you can fight your way back to the docks. Now that’s being on the water. ”
“Hear, hear!” Bootsie shouted as he thumped the bar with his fist.
“Then you gentlemen have it all over me,” Malachi said, smiling. “What about you, Bootsie?”
“Hey, I’m living on borrowed time here. I’m nearly as old as Gus! But, yeah, give me a chance and I’ll be a pirate!”
Just then Abby came back down the steps, out of her pirate attire. She was now in a customary business suit, the kind worn by agents running all over Quantico and D. C. But there was no way to tone down her beauty or inner vitality. It might have been her coloring—or it might’ve been that she had a passion for life. She had dearly loved Gus; that was plain. But she loved her city, too. She’d made that clear when she’d told him so enthusiastically about the inn where he was staying.
She looked at him, then looked at the beer in front of him. He’d barely touched it. He raised his glass and saluted her, showing her that only a few sips were gone.
“Want me to drive?” she whispered, coming up beside him.
“I think I’m fine. ”
“You shouldn’t think. You should know. ”
“I swear—two sips. ”
“I’ll drive,” she said. “Dirk, let’s do this, okay?”
They walked outside and Malachi headed for his SUV. Sh
e was headed to the parking lot. She frowned at him, and he grinned and lifted his hands. “Okay. ”
Amused, he followed her and Dirk to the car, choosing to take the backseat.
“Hey, big man, you can take the front,” Dirk said.
“It’s all right. I fold well. And we’re not going that far. ”
When they reached the coroner’s office, Malachi found that David was there, waiting for them.
“Dr. Tierney has the case,” he told them. “He wants someone to come in, rather than just viewing the remains on the screen. She’s really ripped up. An identification might take some time if we have to go through dental records or DNA. ”
“You okay, Dirk? You can do this?” he asked the man.
“I can go in alone, Dirk,” Abby said.
Dirk shook his head and squared his shoulders. They were led down a hallway and into a pristine autopsy room. The smell of chemicals was strong, but as they approached the gurney, so was the smell of death.
Tierney was a man of about fifty, medium in height and weight, with brown eyes, huge spectacles that made them appear bigger and a mask over his mouth and nose.
“We’re ready,” David said.
Tierney lifted the sheet that covered the corpse.
Malachi found himself thinking that the poor girl now resembled something that might have been created for the final scene of a horror movie—a mermaid beaten and destroyed or some other creature brought low. He shivered, remembering what he’d felt when he’d turned her over in the water and realized that hope had been gone for some time. She’d hit a propeller somewhere in the river, it seemed, since chunks of her flesh were gone. Her face had been attacked by fish and crabs. Very little remained of her nose or lips.
He wondered if even the girl’s mother would recognize her.
“Oh, God!” Dirk exclaimed, and turned away.