face as she walked down the pier. The air was salty and balmy. She tightened her jacket around her waist so it wouldn’t fly open. Ramirez was having a difficult time with the intense gusts, which kept messing up his perfectly combed hair.
Docks jutted out at perpendicular angles on one side of the pier, and each dock was filled with boats. Boats were also lined on the other side of the pier: motorboats, expensive sailing vessels, and tremendous yachts.
A separate dock formed a T shape with the end of the pier. A single mid-sized white yacht was anchored in the middle of it. O’Malley, the other captain, and two officers talked while a forensics team scoured the boat and took pictures.
O’Malley sported the same gruff look as always: dyed black hair cut short, and a face that looked like he might have been a boxer in a former life, scrunched and wrinkled. Eyes were squinted from the wind and he seemed upset.
“She’s here now,” he said. “Give her a shot.”
The other captain had a regal, stately quality about him: graying hair, lean face, and an imperious glance below a furrowed brow. He stood much taller than O’Malley and appeared slightly befuddled that O’Malley, or anyone outside of his team, would encroach on his territory.
Avery nodded to everyone.
“What’s up, Captain?”
“Is this a party or what?” Ramirez smiled.
“Wipe that smile off your face,” the stately captain spit. “This is a crime scene, young man, and I expect you to treat it as such.”
“Avery, Ramirez, this is Captain Holt of the A7. He was gracious enough to – ”
“Gracious my ass!” he snapped. “I don’t know what kind of show the mayor is running, but if he thinks he can just walk all over my division, he has another think coming. I respect you, O’Malley. We’ve known each other a long time, but this is unprecedented and you know it. How would you feel if I walked over to the A1 and started to bark orders?”
“No one is taking over anything,” O’Malley said. “You think I like this? We have enough work on our own side. The mayor called both of us, didn’t he? I had a whole different day planned, Will, so don’t act like this is me trying to make a power play.”
Avery and Ramirez shared a look.
“What’s the situation?” Avery asked.
“Call came in this morning,” Holt said and motioned to the yacht. “Woman found dead on that boat. She’s been identified as a local bookseller. Owns a spiritual bookshop over on Sumner Street and has for the last fifteen years. No record on her. Nothing outwardly suspicious about her.”
“Except for the way she was murdered.” O’Malley took over. “Captain Holt here was having breakfast with the mayor when the call came in. The mayor decided he wanted to come down and see it for himself.”
“The first thing he says is ‘Why don’t we get Avery Black on this case,’” Holt concluded with dagger-eyes at Avery.
O’Malley tried to ease the situation.
“That’s not what you told me, Will. You said your guys came in, they didn’t understand what they were looking at, and so the mayor suggested you ask someone who’s had some experience in this kind of thing.”
“Either way,” Holt snarled and pompously lifted his chin.
“Go take a look,” O’Malley said and pointed to the yacht. “See what you can find. If she comes up empty,” he added to Holt, “we’ll be on our way. Does that seem fair?”
Holt stomped off toward his two other detectives.
“Those two are from his homicide squad,” O’Malley indicated. “Don’t look at them. Don’t talk to them. Don’t ruffle any feathers. This is a very delicate political situation. Just keep your mouth shut and tell me what you see.”
Ramirez practically gushed as they walked up to the large yacht.
“This is one sweet ride,” he said. “Looks like a Sea Ray 58 Sedan Bridge. Double decker. Gives you shade up top, AC inside.”
Avery was impressed.
“How do you know all that?” she asked.
“I like to fish.” He shrugged. “Never fished on anything like this before, but a man can dream, right? I should take you out on my boat sometime.”
Avery had never truly enjoyed the sea. Beaches, sometimes; lakes, absolutely; but sailboats and motor vessels far out on the ocean? Panic attacks. She’d been born and raised on flat land, and the thought of being out on the bobbing, crashing tides, with no idea what might be lurking just beneath the waves, made her mind go to dark places.
As Avery and Ramirez passed by and prepared to board the boat, Holt and his two detectives ignored them. A photographer at the bow snapped one last picture and signaled to Holt. He made his way along the gunwale on the starboard side and wiggled his eyebrows at Avery. “You’ll never look at a yacht the same way again,” he joked.
A silver stepladder led to the ship’s side. Avery climbed up, placed her palms on the black windows, and shimmied toward the front.
A middle-aged, saintly looking woman with wild red hair had been positioned on the front of the ship, just before the bow sidelights. She lay scrunched up on her side, facing east, with her hands gripped to her knees and her head down. If she’d been sitting upright she might have appeared asleep. She was completely naked, and the only visible wound was the dark line around her neck. He snapped it, Avery thought.
What made the victim stand out, beyond the nudity and the public display of her death, was the shadow she cast. The sun was up in the east. Her body was slightly angled upward, and it produced a mirror image of her scrunched form in a long, warped shadow.
“Fuck me,” Ramirez whispered.
As Avery did when she was cleaning surfaces in her home, she got down low and glanced at the ship’s bow. The shadow was either a coincidence or a meaningful sign by the killer, and if he’d left one sign, he might have left another. She moved from one side of the ship to the other.
In the glare of the sun, on the white surface of the ship’s bow, right above the woman’s head, between her body and her shadow, Avery spotted a star. Someone had used their finger to draw a star, either in spit or saltwater.
Ramirez called down to O’Malley.
“What did forensics say?”
“Found some hairs on the body. Could be from a carpet. The other team is still over at the apartment.”
“What apartment?”
“The woman’s apartment,” O’Malley called up. “We believe she was abducted from there. No prints anywhere. Guy might have been wearing gloves. How he transferred her here, to a very visible dock, without anyone seeing, we don’t know. He blacked out some of the marina cameras here. Must have been done right before the murder. She was possibly killed last night. Body seems unmolested, but the coroner has to give the final say.”
Holt scoffed at nothing.
“This is a waste
