Seeds of Evidence (9781426770838) (2 page)

“Right,” Kit said, “and identification from those teenagers. And photos of the body. Do you have a camera?”

“You want photos with or without the ghost crab nibbling at his ear?” the creepy guy joked.

Kit glared at him. “Just get the camera.”

The onshore breeze stiffened a bit, sending a spray of saltwater over the scene as a breaker crashed onto the beach. Kit
licked her lips, tasting the salt. “Until the ME gets here, we'll need to secure the scene.”

“It's July and in an hour I'm going to have a beach full of vacationers. You're not expecting me to provide staff longterm, are you?” Ramsfeld said.

“If you could spare one person until they get here, I'd appreciate it.” Kit hoped against hope it wouldn't be the man, who returned with a small digital camera in hand.

Ramsfeld shot her a look, then she turned to her blonde staff member. “Pat, you stay with her. Joe and I need to get back to work.”

Kit took all the pictures she thought she'd need. Then, waiting for the ME van, she listened to Pat complain about the way things had changed on the job since Brenda Ramsfeld had become their chief. After a while, even Pat wearied of that talk and wandered off, climbing the dunes in search of shade. After she left, Kit had only the sand and surf and sun and one dead little boy to keep her company.

She sat on a piece of driftwood, watching the tide come into her beloved Assateague. A barrier island off the coast of Virginia, Assateague cradled its smaller sister island, Chincoteague, in the crook of its arm, protecting the humans who lived there from the brunt of the ocean's force. Kit had been coming to the area since she was a child, drawn by her love for her grandmother who lived there.

Kit had been on the wild, wind-swept island in the fall when snow geese by the thousands gathered on brackish ponds, honking and calling, and in the winter, when the wind whipped up sea foam and deposited it in mounds well beyond the dunes. She'd been there in the spring, when migrating birds came again, so many different kinds she couldn't keep track of
them, and the Sika deer fawned, and the wild ponies gave birth to their foals. And in the summer, when long days on the beach called her to an eternal perspective, the timeless pounding of the waves and the endless vista reminded her that her temporal troubles were but a passing phase.

She needed to hear that reminder again. That was why she'd come.

The medical examiner, Dr. Scarborough, was a fifty-something, burly man with snow-white hair and a brusque, businesslike manner. His eyes widened slightly when he saw Kit dressed in a bathing suit and shorts, and she felt her face grow warm. Thankfully, he didn't say anything.

She watched while he took pictures with a digital camera, and then snapped on gloves and gently examined the body while dictating into a digital recorder. His assistant, a young, thin man dressed in khaki pants and a white shirt, looked on.

When he finished, Dr. Scarborough stood up and faced Kit, fixing his piercing blue eyes on her. “The boy was strangled. Autopsy will tell us whether that killed him or he drowned.”

Kit's gut clenched. “How long ago?”

“As much as thirty-six hours.”

“That long?”

“Cold salt water preserves the body. Again, the autopsy will narrow it down.” The ME looked down at the boy again. “I see no other injuries, except for a few sea-life nibbles. He didn't bleed out.”

“Why is he so gray?”

“All his blood has gone to the center of his body.” Scarborough pulled off his gloves. “My preliminary finding: homicide by strangulation, twenty to thirty-six hours ago.”

Kit drove to her rental cottage. Scarborough's words tumbled over and over through her mind. Someone murdered the boy. Strangled him. Sometime in the last thirty-six hours.

Who would kill a little boy in that way? By strangling him? She tried to imagine it. A mother? She couldn't see a mother wrapping a cord around a child's neck and choking him until he died. A mother's boyfriend? Much more likely.

So why didn't she protect him? Kit knew the answer to that without thinking. All too often women were too emotionally dependent on their men to protect their kids.

She showered, spread an aloe-based cream that smelled like coconut over her sunburn, then dressed in work clothes—khaki pants, a white shirt with a small, stand-up collar, and a Navy blue blazer, necessary, even in summer, to cover her gun. While she laced her highlighted, light brown hair into a French braid, her mind worked hard, calculating how she would sell her involvement in the case to her boss.

Sweat moistened her hand as she pressed her cell phone to her ear. At her boss's gruff “Hello,” she described finding the child on the beach.

“I thought you were on vacation,” Steve Gould responded.

“Yes, sir, but I think this warrants our attention.”

“Why?”

“I think we're the best agency to investigate it.”

“One kid? Who cares about one kid?”

She knew he meant that the FBI generally got involved in more complex cases. “If he were kidnapped, we'd care.”

“He's not. He's dead.”

“Yes, sir, but . . . but his body . . . his body was found on a federal reservation. We can assert jurisdiction.”

“We don't want to.”

“I want to.”

Kit heard him sigh.

“Why, McGovern? Just tell me why.”

Kit squeezed her eyes shut and pictured the little boy on the beach. She realized she was trembling. Why did she care so much? “It's all about justice, sir. Somebody wrapped something around this little boy's neck and choked him until he died. Who did it? We have the best resources to figure that out. Otherwise . . . otherwise I can almost guarantee this'll become a cold case.”

She could hear Steve tapping on his desk. “This is the way you want to spend your vacation?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” he grumbled. “Call the Assistant U.S. Attorney. If he won't prosecute, then drop it,” he ordered her. “Otherwise, you have two weeks to convince me you're not wasting our resources.”

As she hung up the phone, Kit wondered if her new boss was naturally tough or if he had heard the rumors about her. She was not a loose cannon! She didn't care what her old supervisor said.

Kit drove to a vacation-property rental office in town. The agent, Connie Jester, was Kit's friend, Chincoteague born and bred, a sixth-generation islander who knew every native, transient, and come-here who had wandered over the high, arched bridge and ended up settling down. Her position made her a pipeline for a rich storehouse of information.

Kit told Connie about the body on the beach. “Well,” the redhead responded, “that makes sense. When I heard the FBI was involved, I knew it had to be you. But aren't you supposed to be on vacation?”

Kit shrugged. “I can't just ignore a dead child.” Momentarily, in her mind's eye she saw faces, Honduran faces, Salvadoran faces, faces from an adoption website. “Connie, what can you tell me about the local Latino community?”

“Oh, they come in at times, big groups of them, going over to the beach. Families, mostly, although there always seems to be a bunch of unattached young men.”

“Where do they stay?”

“Most of 'em are day-trippers. When they do stay, they either camp or pile people in a motel room.” Connie's blue eyes flashed. “You know, there are a lot of migrant workers on the peninsula, picking tomatoes and melons, green beans. Some of 'em stay on, working in the poultry processing plants or picking crabs. A few try their hand at making a living on the water, but that's something few natives can do, much less newcomers.”

“Is it likely they'd go out on a charter boat?”

“Have you checked those prices lately?”

Kit bit her lip, buying time to think. In all the years she'd been coming to Chincoteague, she'd never been out on a fishing boat, never seen Assateague from the ocean. “Who's the commander of the Coast Guard station now?”

“Well, that would be Rick Sellers. Nice guy. From New York, but a nice guy, anyway.”

Kit wrote his name down. “If a child disappeared, why wouldn't somebody report it?” she mused out loud.

“Running drugs,” Connie suggested. “Either that or illegal. Nobody's gonna raise a flag when they're doing something wrong.”

That made sense. Kit heard the sound of the office's door opening.

“Here's David O'Connor,” Connie said. “He's a D.C. cop. Y'all ought to get along just fine.”

Kit looked up. Coming in the door was the thirty-something man from the beach.

The man grinned as their eyes met.

“David took your grandmother's house for six whole months,” Connie said. “That's why I couldn't give it to you.”

Six months, Kit thought? What was he doing on Chincoteague for six months?

“It's a great place,” he said.

Kit felt the color rising in her face. Her grandmother's house was now a rental property. She wished she had the money to buy it.

Connie smiled at him. “Kit here's a Fed.”

“I met her this morning.” Amusement crinkled the corners of his eyes.

“Why were you up on the beach so early?” Kit asked.

“You don't surf, do you?”

She blinked, put off by the response.

“Low tide came at 8:16,” he explained. “That's the best time to surf. The waves break farther out, and they're bigger. I drove over to the island at six, hiked up a ways, surfed until low tide, hiked farther north, surfed some more, and was walking back when I saw you.” He flashed another smile. “FBI, right?”

How did he know?

“I could tell by the suit,” he joked.

Embarrassment sent blood rushing to her face. Kit struggled to regroup. “Not too many cops get six months off. You must be a special case.” She lifted her chin. “I'll need your contact information.”

“I was surprised you didn't ask for it before.” David motioned to Connie who handed him a pen and he scrawled a phone number on the back of one of her business cards, then gave it to Kit.