he could even record her name.
“You saw his face?”
“No, but not wit’ ’dem clothes. Nudding on him but a plaid jacket, pants, and running shoes. You don’t go out to sea like that.”
“Maybe he was on the land.”
“What? And swam 250 kilometres out to sea? Some trick, that!”
He laughed and asked her name. “Liz Parsons. My dad’s the skipper. Me and my brothers crews for him when we’re not in school. But we’ll all tell you the same. This time of year, none of us locals would be wearing thin clothes like that. Don’t keep the wind out at all. Most likely a tourist. You check whale-watching tours, I bet you’ll find someone fell overboard.”
Chris suspected those had already been checked, but he nodded appreciatively. “Good idea, Liz. What can you tell me about the area he was snagged?”
“It’s prime shrimp waters, about 250 kilometres northeast of St. Anthony. Also has lots of other ground fish. It’s about a hundred metres deep ’dere, but I can’t tell you if we caught ’im on the bottom or in between. We didn’t know he was ’dere until we hauled the net aboard.”
Chris cast about for more questions. He knew nothing about the sea or the behaviour of bodies within it. The closest he’d come was Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories, where fishermen and unlucky tourists were occasionally caught out in a deadly storm. He knew that in fresh, warm water lakes, bodies sank to the bottom immediately and began to rise again after about a week as they bloated with gas. But the salt water and frigid temperatures of the North Atlantic could change all that.
“Is it possible to guess — say, from the prevailing winds or the current — what direction he likely came from?”
“Labrador current comes down the coast,” she said, gesturing with her arms, “and the gulf current comes up the strait, so it can be tricky, but mostly easterly. So he could be from anywhere on the coast of Labrador to the open North Atlantic.”
“Did you see any other boats around the area of your net?”
She snorted. “We was out there four days, towed miles with that net. That’s prime fishing, so lots of boats going to and fro. But none of them hires on townies wearing running shoes and plaid jackets.”
“Did you see any non-fishing boats?”
“You sees all kinds of t’ings. Trawlers, tankers, even cruise ships. And I don’t spend all my days peering out to sea. I’m down in the hold sometimes too.”
“Come on, Liz. You know what I mean. Anything odd? Suspicious? It would be a big help to our investigation.”
The flattery worked. She shrugged in her nonchalant way, but narrowed her eyes as if thinking. While he waited, a vehicle turned off the road onto the pier to the murmur of the crowd, and the guard constable moved his cruiser to allow it access. Chris watched as it drove along the pier and pulled up beside the boat. A man climbed out, carrying a small suitcase. The medical examiner, Chris hoped. Liz watched him too, as he disappeared on board and then turned to Chris with a shrug.
“Maybe a couple of sailing yachts I was surprised to see out that far, some offshore trawlers.”
Chris felt a quiver of interest. “Did they have names? Numbers?”
“Couldn’t see.”
“Would you recognize them if you saw them again?”
“Maybe.” She pointed to the large ship moored in front of her father’s boat. “Could be that one, but I couldn’t make out the name. Lots of ships from places I never heard of. If it floats, that’s all that matters.”
The cabin door of the boat opened and Corporal Biggs stuck his head out. “Hey, Tymko!” he shouted. “You got a decent camera on you?”
Chris nodded. “In my truck.”
“You any good with it? Low light and all?”
Chris was already moving, after a hasty thank you to Liz. Within two minutes he was up on the deck, fighting off the stench of fish as he stared at the seething ball of shrimp and netting that was still suspended from the frame above. Bits of foot and arms, and, incongruously, a vividly patterned jacket, were just visible amid the mass.
The doctor was already backing away, pressing his hand to his nose. “Put the biggest tarp you can find underneath, and we’ll empty the net on it. That way, if there are parts of him … ah … loose, we’ll get them all. Then use the hoist to move the whole thing off the boat. Once you get the tarp down on the pier, I’ll have a better look.”
Both the skipper and Biggs went in search of a tarp, leaving Chris alone with the body. He circled it, photographing it from all angles and scrutinizing it for hints as to its identity. He wracked his brains. Would Phil wear such a brightly coloured jacket? Possibly. Many of his clothes had been bought in Asia or Africa. The one visible running shoe was filthy and frayed, providing little protection or comfort.
Chris had just finished photographing when the men arrived back, hauling a large tarp, which they unfolded beneath the net. Chris watched in fascination as they worked the pulleys and tugged the net onto the centre.
“Try to release it slowly,” the medical examiner said. “I don’t want any fingers or toes going flying off the edge.”
A complicated-looking knot held the ball in place. Once released, the bottom of the net burst open, spilling its contents of wriggling pink shrimp all over the tarp. Then came the body, jackknifing open from the ball onto the tarp, its limbs hitting the metal floor with a clunk. Chris had switched to video to capture the whole process, pausing only briefly when the head snapped back and long strands of coarse black hair fell back from the face. He raced forward for a close look at the perfectly preserved face, the Roman nose, high cheekbones, and sunken, nibbled eyes.
Not Phil! He nearly cheered aloud.
“That poor bastard’s been down there no time at all,” said the skipper. “The sea critters have barely started their dinner.”
Corporal Biggs poked the foot gingerly. “Not much rigor mortis, either. Of course, the sea is damn cold. We’ll let the boys in St. John’s figure out —”
He stopped in surprise when a length of thick yellow rope came into view through the cascade of shrimp, one end of it peeking out from the waist of the coloured jacket. A second later the rest of the rope plunged through.
They all stared as a stone anchor crashed to the tarp with a thud.
Chapter Eight
Within seconds, Corporal Biggs was on the phone to the RCMP Major Crimes Unit in Corner Brook for advice on how to proceed. Judging from his tense, red face, Chris suspected Biggs had never faced a murder investigation in which the trail of blood did not lead straight to the perpetrator in the next room.
It was remotely possible that the deceased had not been murdered but had died instead from some misadventure or illness on the boat, and his companions had attempted a primitive burial at sea. If so, of course, they should have reported the death the moment they landed ashore. That was Biggs’s first question to Corner
