Sea Witch (25 page)

excitement, the elemental’s impotent rage. “But I can make you wish you

had.”

* * * *

Fog shrouded the beach and clung to the rocks like a thin film of

tears. The trees rose against the dawn like the black masts of pirate ships,

silent and threatening. The gray waves whispered and mourned.

Artist Lisa Stewart fingered the plastic bags in her hoodie pockets,

dutifully grabbed when she left the cottage with Buster and Brownie.

Most people slept in on their vacations. But morning was the best time for

the dogs, the only time Lisa could risk letting them run free on the beach.

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Buster raced up and down in joyous swoops and bursts of speed.

Brownie sniffed along the water’s edge at whatever the tide had left

behind. Rock weed. Mussels. Limpets.

Gull droppings.

A big white bird with a yellow head and a cruel, curved beak stood

in the shallows, cocking a blue-ringed eye at the dogs. Lisa caught her

breath. She’d never seen a gull that size.

Buster bounded out of the mist, pink tongue dripping. The bird

screeched and lifted off, its black-tipped wings beating the air. Barking,

Buster charged down the beach after it.

Lisa grinned. But as long minutes passed with no sign of the dog, her

smile faded.

She whistled and lengthened her stride, Brownie trotting at her heel.

Her sneakers crunched and slid on shingle and shale. Her breath rasped.

The smell of the ocean, life, death, and decay, hung heavy in the damp

air.

There
. Relief washed over her.

Wasn’t that—yes, there was Buster, inching toward the shallows on

his belly, completely ignoring the big white bird perched only yards

away. His big dark eyes fixed on a rounded lump that rose from the wet

shore like a dark jewel on a belt of beaten silver, its reflection staining the

gritty beach, bleeding into the retreating water.

“Buster!”

Brownie whined and pressed trembling against her leg. The bird

squawked and launched heavily into the still air.

Buster’s hips wriggled. His top knot quivered. A wave rushed in and

faded away, stirring the rusty seaweed clumped along one side of the

rock.

Lisa frowned. Not a rock. A dolphin beached by the tide? She

tightened her grip on the leash and took a step closer. A seal? Or . . .

Her stomach plunged. She pressed her shaking fingers to her mouth.

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A body.

* * * *

In her dreams, the heavens wept blood and the oceans blazed.

Margred struggled to breathe.

Pain sprang at her out of the dark—brutal, insulting, slamming her

onto the rocks. Her palms burned. Fire exploded in her head. In her

knees. She tried to cry out, but the fire stole her voice, eating the soft

tissue of tongue and palette, searing her throat.

Margred tossed, her breathing harsh, her heart racing. She was

burning, drying, drying up . . .

She moaned and opened her eyes.

Gray dawn licked at the edges of the window shade, the paneled

walls, the row of books by Bradford and Conan Doyle. On the shelf

below sat a picture of the child Caleb with Lucy on his lap.

Caleb. She was in Caleb’s room.

And Lucy—all grown up now—hovered in the doorway, wearing an

apologetic expression and a green T-shirt with the word CLIPPERS

across her breasts. The shadow of Margred’s dream clouded the younger

girl’s eyes.

Margred struggled from the shrouds of sleep. Something about the

veiled depths of those eyes . . .

Lucy blinked. “Sorry to wake you.” She held out her cell phone. Her

eyes were bright and shallow again as sunlight on the sea. Warm, green

eyes. Caleb’s eyes. “It’s Caleb. He wants to talk with you.”

Margred sat up, sticky with sweat, and fumbled with the phone.

“Hello?”

“Maggie.”

Her heart gave a foolish skip. “Yes?”

“You’re all right.”

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“Ye-es.”

Why wouldn’t she be?

But she was troubled by her dream, bothered by whatever she had

seen or imagined in Lucy’s eyes. She looked again at Lucy.

Lucy shrugged.

“What is going on?” Margred asked.

“I don’t know yet.” Caleb’s deep voice was hard. Flat. “I’m on my

way to find out. Stay put, okay?”

She appreciated his concern when he was so obviously preoccupied.

But she resisted his assumption he could tell her what to do.

“I have work at ten,” she said.

“Tell Antonia you can’t make it. Somebody may be by later to talk

to you.”

“Then he can talk to me at Antonia’s.”

She heard his indrawn breath. “When they get there—”

They
?

“Tell them the truth. As much as you can.”

Maggie bit her lip in vexation. What
truth
? He didn’t want her truth.

As much as you can
? Or as much as Caleb and his mysterious “they”

could accept?

“Caleb—”

“I’ve got to go,” he said, still in that abrupt, official voice. “Maggie.”

She waited, her heart racing, her fingers curled around the phone,

willing him to dispel the darkness cast by her dream with the light of his

reason, his warm, strong, steady heart.

207

“Take care of yourself,” he said, and disconnected.

The beach boiled with activity.

A temporary command post had been set up under the trees on the

headland until the scene could be released and the whole police circus

moved to the common room at the community center. Which would

inconvenience a lot of islanders and piss off Antonia, but the mayor was

the least of Caleb’s worries now.

The medical examiner had come and gone, transporting the body to

his office in Augusta. No bloated drowning victim this time. This woman

had died recently. Violently.

Even Caleb, hardened by war and accustomed to death, had been

shaken by the condition of her torn and naked body. The nature of her

wounds.

The webbing between her toes.

But he couldn’t dwell on the victim’s feet. He couldn’t think about

Maggie. He’d reacted according to his training, calming the hysterical

dog owner, notifying CID, securing the scene.

And then he stood by while they took over.

One of the state cops had accompanied the medical examiner to the

mainland. By Caleb’s count, that still left five detectives from CID, three

techs from the Evidence Response Team, ten members of the Maine

warden service performing a meticulous search of the surrounding woods

and slopes, and a dive team searching for evidence offshore.

The mist had burned off. Caleb squinted against the glare, watching

the sergeant in the shadows confer with his detectives.

God, he wanted a cigarette. His hands fisted uselessly in his pockets.

He needed something to
do
.

This was his island. His responsibility. But this wasn’t his case.

Outside of Portland, homicides in Maine belonged to the state. In the

past, in the city, Caleb had worked Major Crimes. But here and now, all

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he could do was stand outside the crime scene tape with his thumb up his

ass as the experts did their jobs.

He paced, getting sweatier and more frustrated as the sun crawled

overhead, cutting the hill in light and shadow. The flat blue ocean

mocked the bustle on shore, the turmoil inside him.

In his mind, he saw Maggie sticking out her pretty bare foot.

“
Explain this
.”

“
What
?”

“
My toes are webbed
.” She’d wiggled them to prove it.

“
They’re still toes
,” he’d told her. “
Not fins or flippers. I need more

from you than that
.”

His brain reeled. His gut twisted. How much more did he need?

Two violent attacks. Both on the beach.

Two women. Both with webbed feet.

My God,
Maggie . .
.

Sam Reynolds and one of the female detectives peeled away from

the knot under the trees and strolled through ankle-deep weeds toward

Caleb.

Caleb stood at attention and watched them come. Reynolds

massaged his mustache. “Got a minute?”

“As many as you need.”

The state guy nodded toward his companion. “You’ve met Detective

Hall.”

Unlike the female cops on TV, Evelyn Hall was gray and plain,

weathered as a barn and thirty pounds overweight. She had a fisherman’s

grip and a farmer’s tan.

“Detective,” he acknowledged.

209

“Evelyn.” Her smile was more polite than friendly. Maybe it was a

turf thing. Or maybe it was a gender thing. The state bureau was almost

half and half, male and female. But Caleb bet any female state detective

was used to the boys in local law enforcement giving her a hard time.

“Our sergeant was wondering if we could sit down and discuss the case.”

Caleb lifted his brows. “This case?”

Reynolds cleared his throat. “There’s a good chance the same person

committed both attacks. At least until we have the identity of the murder

victim, the key to the crime is probably the first assault.”

“So you’re taking over my case.”

Maggie’s
case.

“We’re incorporating the two investigations. The sergeant

understands you have experience with this place and the people.”

“I have experience in homicide, too.”

“We’re not in Portland anymore, Toto,” Hall said. “We have a dead

naked woman at a tourist resort. The lieutenant’s making this case a top

priority.”

“Too bad he didn’t feel that way when I was asking for Maggie’s lab

results five days ago.”

Or this murder might have been avoided
. The unspoken implication

echoed between them.

“Look, you’ll still have a role in the investigation,” Reynolds said.

Caleb narrowed his eyes. “A role.”

Reynolds shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”

“I can show you the report,” Caleb said. “Back at my office. ”

His turf.

Reynolds nodded, conceding home field advantage. “We’ll need

copies,” the detective said. “Notes, sketches, interviews—”

210

“There’s a machine in the office,” Caleb replied evenly. “You can

copy whatever you want.”

“We appreciate that,” Hall said. “Right now, all we have to go on is

the body.”

Caleb’s mind flashed back to purpling flesh and white-edged

wounds and naked toes . . .

He controlled his face. His voice. “How soon can the ME conduct

the autopsy?”

“Usually? Tomorrow morning,” Reynolds said. “But the lieutenant is

pushing for this afternoon. We need ID.”

“Get me a photo,” Caleb said.

“You want to put it out in the media?” Hall asked.

“If we have to. First I want to show it to Maggie—the first victim,”

Caleb said. “See if she recognizes her.”

“We can do that,” Reynolds said.

Caleb’s jaw tightened. Not his case, he reminded himself. But—

“I can go with you,” he said. “She knows me.”

“We don’t want to take up your time,” Reynolds said.

“You have an objection to our talking to her alone?” Hall asked.

“No objection,” Caleb said while frustration ate a hole in his gut.

It wasn’t his job to object. And what the hell else could he say?

He could tell them Maggie thought she was a mermaid and

completely destroy her credibility.

Or he could tell them he was beginning to believe her and

completely destroy his.

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“Does she remember anything yet?” Reynolds asked. “Did she see

anything?”

“
I did not see him at all
,” Maggie had said, her cheeks flushed, her

eyes dark and earnest. “
But it was not Dylan
.”

“
How can you be sure
?”

“
It was a demon
.”

Fuck
. That would go over about as well as her mermaid theory.

Caleb forced his jaw to unlock. “She doesn’t remember. I think she

doesn’t want to remember. Sometimes she . . . imagines things.”

“She lies.”

The memory of Maggie’s wide dark eyes and earnest voice rose like

a ghost to accuse him.

“No,” Caleb said firmly. “She believes what she’s saying. She just.”

“
I am not sick. Or stupid
.”

She had webbed toes.

“She’s confused,” he said.

Reynolds and Hall exchanged a look.

“Maybe seeing what this guy did to somebody else will help clear

her mind,” Reynolds said.

Maybe, Caleb thought. Or maybe it would convince her she

shouldn’t trust anybody.

Including him.

The two detectives flanked Margred, one on the ugly brown couch

and one by the Hunters’ living room fireplace.

Tell them the truth
?

212

They would never believe her. Caleb had not believed her.