Three
The drive to the scene isn’t a long one. We cross over the narrow causeway to Indian Island and a second causeway to Marrowstone Island. I turn left on State Route 116, which is also Flagler Road. Every now and then a cut through the thickets of ferns and old cedars reveals the sun reflecting off the waters of the bay. It reminds me of my little brother, Hayden. In Port Orchard we lived not far from a little creek, where he would look for salamanders. He was seven. I was fifteen or sixteen. I read A Tale of Two Cities for English class. Charles Dickens said what I was feeling about those times in Port Orchard. “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” There’s enough time and distance from those days that I choose to remember the good. The bad is too painful. Hayden remembers only the worst of days and my screw-ups. He has little contact with me, and that is more painful than the memories.
Mystery Bay is to our left, the state park straight ahead. I see a sign for the boat ramp and slow down. A state patrol car is parked several hundred feet down the road with the emergency lights on. In front of it is one of our Sheriff’s Office vehicles.
Further down is a relic: a red or oxidized brown Ford Pinto.
A young man, teens, early twenties, stands behind the deputy’s cruiser, one arm wrapped around his chest, his free hand twisting the hair of a skimpy beard and stuffing the end in his mouth. His hair is long and black and curly and looks like it hadn’t been washed in… well possibly, ever. He wears camouflage army boots with the laces tied so loosely, I can’t imagine how they stay on his feet. His faded jeans are cuffed and tattered.
The trooper’s corfam dress shoes are dirt- and mud-free. So very shiny. If I’d been inclined, I could use the toes for a mirror. There’s not a fleck of lint or dust on his sharp-enough-to-cut-you pressed trousers. I look at the statie’s name badge: MacDonald.
“Your deputy is down with the body,” he says flatly. “No need for both of us to get dirty. Besides, one of us had to stay up here to keep the road closed to civilians.”
I glance at the pair of cruisers with their emergency lights flashing and then return my gaze to him. I want to say that I would have totally missed the police cars with the Christmas lights going and driven right past. But since I have a trainee with me, I shift gears.
“That’s what I figured. Good thinking.” I give him “the look” so he knows he didn’t pull a fast one on me. To my pleasant surprise I hear my trainee giggle.
Maybe she’ll be okay.
“Is that the person that found the body?” she asks.
The young man stopped twisting his beard long enough to offer his hand. He says nothing and I don’t take the hand. I doubt anyone would.
Trooper MacDonald speaks up. “This is Mr. Boyd.”
I nod. “I’ll need a statement from you, Mr. Boyd. Why were you down there?”
I didn’t see a boat trailer or any fishing gear. He isn’t dressed for anything outdoorsy.
He appears surprised by the question. I half expect him to ask if he is a suspect and then invoke his rights. To which I might respond that he has no rights until he becomes a suspect. The truth is everyone is a suspect until they’re not. I have learned that from experience. He doesn’t disappoint.
“I’m not a suspect, am I?”
“Absolutely not,” I lie.
He looks skeptical. “On TV the person to find the body is always a suspect.”
That was also true in real life.
“That’s TV, Mr. Boyd.”
“Robbie,” he says. “My name’s Robbie. I go to school at Olympic College. I’m taking criminal justice.”
“Great choice,” I tell him. “So you know how this goes. Tell me: why were you down there?”
He stuffs some of his scraggly mustache in his mouth and chews on it.
Gag.
“I heard about this place from a friend at school,” he finally says. “I don’t have to give you her name, do I?”
“No,” I say.
Not right this minute, anyway, I think. I’ll let him tell me all he knows and then I’ll get the name out of him.
“Okay,” he starts. “I was looking for a new hiking trail. I’m parked right over there.” He turns and points at the Pinto as if I hadn’t noticed it or it might have mysteriously moved. “I’m a hiker and a rock climber. I was looking for some cliffs. I’m very strong.”
“I can see that.” He looks all skin and bones in his grimy T-shirt and well-worn jeans and hiking boots.
He smiles and warms to me. Everyone does. I can charm when I need to.
“So,” he goes on, “I headed down to the bay—to the boat ramp, I mean—and I started looking for a trail.”
He stops a beat.
“This isn’t going to be on the news, is it? I’m supposed to be in class. I skipped a test and told them I was sick.”
It’s going to be in a full-length movie if you keep asking stupid questions, I think.
“I don’t think your name will come up,” I say.
He seems a little disappointed, so I pivot again. “But I can’t promise the news media won’t track you down.”
He brightens a little. That was the correct response.
“Well, I guess if I have to talk to them…”
“Finish telling your story,” I say.
“Okay, so I walk that way”—he points—“and I come to a place where I found a trail. I went into the trees and followed it a bit and that’s when I found the place.”
Ronnie interjects: “What place?”
“The rocks,” he says. “I’m a rock climber. You ever been rock climbing?”
She shakes her head.
I want to shake her for interrupting the interview.
“Mr. Boyd,” I say, “you found the body. Can you tell us about that?”
“Okay. Sorry. I just really like rock climbing.”
I gave him a stern look. I am running out of patience.
“Anyway, I came up to the little cliff, bluff, whatever.” Boyd has warmed to the subject. “It was only, like, thirty feet high, but it was sheer, man. I mean, it was straight down: ‘Do not pass GO, do not collect $200,’ if you know what I mean.”
He gives other expressions of this stupidity and I let him talk until he runs out of “likes” and “you knows” and appears to be wrung dry as far as skirting the subject.
“I was going to climb down. I left my climbing gear back in the car, but it looked like I could make it. Then I saw I didn’t have to. Someone left a perfectly good rope tied off to a tree. It was coiled up and I almost tripped over it. I pitched it over, checked the knot, and over I went.”
“The body,” Ronnie says.
I can see she is getting impatient too.
Good girl.
“So I got down to the bottom and there’s a bunch of big rocks and a tiny strip of sandy beach. I pulled on the rope to make sure I could climb back up. I didn’t want to fall down in those rocks. Some of them are sharp. Anyway, I was about to climb back up and I saw what looked like a foot sticking out between the rocks. I couldn’t see any way to get to this beach except by climbing down. I thought maybe the person had fallen off the cliff. At the same time I wondered how they could have, ’cause the rope was coiled up at the top of the cliff.”