A strong bitter wind blew off of Conner Lake bringing with it another moment of snow flurries. Two patrol officers sat in their car, each sipping on a Styrofoam cup of coffee. They were waiting for a detective from “Murder Squad”. A body had been washed up along the shoreline of the lake and was discovered by a couple of kids who were passed curfew and was taking the worn trail around Conner Lake as a shortcut. The body was that of a girl that had been missing for a few weeks, Meredith Call. Officer Rodriguez grasped his cup in both hands trying to use the heat from it to warm his fingers. The heat was out in the patrol car again.
“Who’spose to be showing for this kid?”
His partner, a tall brunette by the name of Linda Carmichael, shrugged. She sat her cup in the cup holder that hung off of the window.
“I haven’t got a clue. All I was told was for us to wait here and there would be two detectives coming shortly.”
“We’ve been waiting for an hour. How long does it take for these detectives to find the place? It’s the only lake in the whole town.” Rodriguez was getting antsy and ready to get back on the beat which consisted of driving up and down Main, the only street in Benton Ridge.
“Calm down, Mikey, you know these guys have to come in out of Lincolnton. It takes at least an hour for that and than they have to ride around until they find the place cause you know old Harrold is on the desk tonight and he can’t give directions for nothing.”
This brought a laugh from both of them. Amidst their laughter a light tap was coming from the driver’s side window of the cruiser. Rodriguez rolled the window down and a man dressed in a black overcoat, gloves and a stocking hat stood before him. Another man ,dressed somewhat the same, stood a few feet behind him.
“You Officer’s Rodriguez and Carmichael?”
Rodriguez was naturally defensive,
“Yea, who’s asking?”
“I’m Detective McKeen and that unhappy character behind me is my partner, Detective McCabe. We’re from Major Case.”
Without apologizing for his attitude, Officer Rodriguez pointed directly in front of him.
“The girl’s down there. You can’t miss her. She’s been washed up pretty far onto the shore.”
McKeen, looked in the direction the Hispanic officer pointed,
“You’re not getting out?”
Carmichael spoke this time,
“Don’t mind Rodriguez, here, he gets grumpy when he’s cold.”
She opened the door and stepped out,
“I’ll show you were she’s at.”
Rodriguez didn’t bother to follow suit. He rolled the window back up and went back to sipping his coffee. Carmichael was a tall woman, 5’9”, but McKeen towered over her like she was only 5 foot or it just seemed that way to her. The man must have been at 6’4” or 6’5”. His partner, McCabe, Linda remembered him saying, stayed behind watching her and Rodriguez’s cruiser.
“Your partner, he’s not a talkative sort?”
She was trying to make small talk.
“He talks when he needs to. I mostly do the talking, he does the thinking.”, a small chuckle from McKeen filled the moment. Carmichael didn’t respond.
“It was a joke, Officer. Lighten up some.”
She was cold and didn’t feel the situation warranted a light mood. Carmichael stopped walking when they had got a few feet from the body.
“She’s right over there. Do you have a flashlight? It’s as black as pitch out there.”
McKeen looked over to the area and it was covered with low lying cedar branches. He would have to get on the ground. McKeen hated having to get on the ground.
“Yea, I’ve got a little Maglight somewhere in my coat.”
He begun searching through his pockets and eventually found what he was looking for. McKeen turned the light on and moved towards the area.
“I’ll be here if you need a hand, Detective.”
Carmichael had never dealt with a dead body before in her six year career. Benton Ridge was quiet town and everyone got along so something like the body of a sixteen year old girl washing up from Connor Lake was just too much for her to handle at one time. McKeen knew this and so he continued conversation with her as he looked around the scene.
“How long you been a cop, Carmichael?”
“Six years.”
“You’ve never seen a dead body before, huh?”
Carmichael wished that it was Rodriguez down here instead of her. McKeen could sense that, too.
“That partner of yours, Rodriguez, he’s more scared of being down here than you are. I noticed how he didn’t even volunteer to come along with you. He’s never seen a dead body before, either, I suppose?”
Carmichael could hear branches snapping and the big detective trying to keep from sliding down into the lake.
“Yea, he was in the war?”
McKeen stopped what he was doing and looked back towards her even though he knew she couldn’t see him.
“The Iraqi war?”
“Yea, he just got out of the Marines a few months back.” Carmichael didn’t like talking about her partner behind his back. She had seen his temper too many times to know better.
“Yea, I was in Desert Storm myself. Special Forces. Not a pretty site, war is. I lost some friends during that war and than this war comes along and I lost a whole lot more.” He remembered his brother, Danial, who was killed a few months into the war. He was only 20.
“It doesn’t bother you that young people are over there dying for something that we have yet to figure out?”
So Carmichael was one of those people.
“It’s their job. It’s what they signed up to do. They knew there was a chance that they would be needed in time of war. My brother died, you know, over in Iraq. He was Special Forces, too. He knew that he was fighting for the freedom of the Iraqis, so yes, I, myself have figured out why we are over there fighting.”
Carmichael didn’t want any part of this conversation. She had her views and knew others had their views. As long as her views were respected, she respected others views.
“Did you know this girl, Carmichael?”
McKeen was crawling back out from the underbrush, with the little light in his mouth, that was why his question sounded distorted.
“Meredith Call was a good friend of my little sister. Lisa didn’t have a clue were Meredith could have went. She didn’t seem to think that there could be a reason for her to be dead.”
McKeen stood up and brushed the dirt from his hands, knees, and coat. He shivered.
“Man, it must have dropped a few more degrees. That wind sure isn’t helping at all, is it?”
Carmichael didn’t notice how quickly the detective changed subjects. She turned to go back to the police cruiser when McKeen caught her by the arm.
“Myself and McCabe will need to talk to your sister so we can find out what exactly it is she knows and what it is she ain’t saying.”
Carmichael pulled free from his light grasp.
Leave a Comment
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
