Full Fathom Five - The Homicide Files (A Lincoln Munroe Novella, #1)

enough to hold onto the side of the boat.

  “Teams,” I said, “anything of interest?”

  “Two-Delta. We’ve got a school of whitefish checking us out. Want me to see if I can get a couple for dinner?”

  Good to see the radio was being put to professional use.

  “Yeah, but I haven’t eaten since breakfast. We may need half a dozen.” I think that was one of Bravo team.

  “I’ll take one.” Kara.

  “Ten-Four, seven it is.”

  I really hoped he wasn’t kidding and could grab a couple. There was nothing like a fresh whitefish cooked over a campfire. But if that didn’t happen, at least there were a few good restaurants in town.

  I spent another fifteen minutes searching the area for anything out of the ordinary, but all I found was century-old debris. The same went for Travis and the other teams.

  Nothing.

  All we had was a body, a missing knife and a few zebra mussels which had been untimely ripped from their perch on an ancient chain.

  We were out of time. Due to our depth, we had limited time before we needed to start our ascent. And we had to go up slowly.

  “One-Alpha to all teams. We’re good to surface.”

  I double-checked the evidence line where Travis had tied it to the dive belt of the deceased. A boy scout couldn’t have tied a better knot. “One-Echo, the body is secured to the evidence line. Just need to maneuver him out of the wreck. Three sharp tugs and start bringing him up slowly.”

  “Ten-four One-Alpha.”

  “Repeat, slowly. Copy?”

  “Ten-four.”

  Surfacing too fast could cause dissolved gases in the body to form bubbles that could cause everything from severe joint pain to paralysis and even death—it was known as decompression sickness or ‘the bends’.

  The body was beginning its decomposition, greatly slowed due to the cold water, and gas was already being released inside the body. My fear may have been unfounded, but it was there. If we raised the body too fast, could it burst?

  I’d heard of bodies exploding after spending a long time submerged, the gases building up inside the body until the pressure was too much. I wasn’t going to take any risk of that happening.

  It was a slow ascent, but well worth it when I surfaced to Hotshot trying to help get the body onto the second police boat. It wasn’t a pretty picture, and I felt awful for finding even the slightest degree of humour in it, but there he was, lips blue, teeth chattering as he tried to push the body into the boat while the others pulled.

  I was back on the dive boat about five minutes before he made it back onto his. He looked exhausted. But a little exercise was probably good for him.

  “Rank sure can be a bitch, eh?”

  A look of realization appeared on his face and a glare that could have melted steel shot my way.

  “You stup—”

  “Stupendous detective? Why thank you. That is what you were going to say, right? Wouldn’t want an insubordination charge, now would we?”

  He muttered something under his breath and turned away from me, likely using every swear word he knew multiple times. I smiled then moved the board over to the other ship. It was an easy crossing and took me right to the body.

  The latex gloves slid easily onto my cold, shrunken hands. I started my investigation, removing the regulator from the dead man’s mouth. A trail of white foam followed it out. Looking inside, there was more within his now open mouth. There was a tinge of red in the white, evidence of bleeding in the lungs.

  He drowned. There was really no other way to explain that froth and foam in the mouth. But how can you drown with a scuba regulator in your mouth?

  You can’t. You can asphyxiate if you run out of air but not drown. He could have panicked, taken his regulator out and drowned but the fact that it was back in meant someone else was there.

  I looked at his tank again, still showing 1000psi. That was a lot of leftover air—he would’ve had plenty of time left. The tank itself looked fine, showed no signs of tampering. I took hold of the valve and turned it, expecting to hear a rush of air releasing.

  Nothing.

  The tank was empty.

  I tapped the gauge a few times and it stayed stuck at 1000psi. It had been tampered with.

  Murder. Plain and simple.

  There was a pocket on the breast of his wetsuit. Please be a dive licence, please be a dive licence.

  I unzipped the pocket and reached in, finding the thin piece of plastic I was looking for. Well, not exactly the one I was looking for, but just as good if not better. A lot of divers carry a laminated card with their names, dates of birth, contact information and medical information on it.

  In case of emergencies. Or murder.

  “Lester Earles. May 7th, 1959. From Toronto. Says here he has no medical conditions, but allergic to penicillin. No photo though. We’ll need to verify this, but it’s a good start.”

  I looked around to see that Travis was already on the radio. If we had a mugshot for Lester it would be perfect—if not, all we needed to do was pull up his driver’s licence photo and compare it to the body. Of course, these were things that had to wait until we made it ashore.

  “Take the body to the closest morgue, ASAP, have the coroner tag the body and seal the freezer, then meet us back at the detachment.” An evidence seal across the door meant it couldn’t be opened again without breaking the seal. Kind of like putting tape across a door to see if anyone opens it.

  His partner, a quiet individual, nodded politely and gave a “yes sir” before heading to the helm. The nearest hospital was in Lion’s Head, about a third of the way down the Bruce Peninsula. It wouldn’t be the best ride with a body on board.

  I crossed back over to the dive boat then took the plank and put it on the other side. A few more cautious steps brought me back onto my original boat.

  “Might as well go by boat,” I shouted. “The hospital is pretty much right on the water.”

  “Yes, Sir,” the quiet one said as he turned to the south and pulled away.

   

   

  Forty-five minutes later I was warm, dry and starving. Everyone else had gone back to the detachment or home, depending on their shifts. Travis and a couple of others had been called in on a day off, so I couldn’t blame them for leaving as soon as they’d written their statements and duty book notes.

  It was down to just Kara and I and a choice of restaurant.

  “What’s good?”

  I laughed. “Do you like fish?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then all of it. Personally, I like Craigie’s. It’s not much from the outside but the fish and chips are great and it’s right on the harbour. Unless you want to try the famous Tobermory Fish Taco.”

  Kara just about choked on the coffee she was drinking.

  “The what?”

  “See the blue and yellow building up the hill? The Fish and Chip Place, kind of Tobey’s equivalent of fast food instead of a sit down. The fish taco is their specialty and, damn, is it good.”

  “Maybe next time. Craigie’s sounds good… doesn’t look that nice though.”

  “It does inside. Apparently it’s been around since the thirties.” I looked down at my slight paunch, stuck it out, put my hands on either side and gave it as much of a bounce as I could. “I hope I look that good at eighty.”

  Kara shook her head a few times. “A strange point, but valid… I think.”

  Within ten minutes we were treated to a steaming mug of coffee for Kara and a green tea for myself, two platters of fish and chips each large enough to feed a platoon and a side serving of coleslaw. The food never disappointed and although the price was a little higher than you might pay back home, the fish couldn’t be fresher and the ambience of the town made it well worth the extra couple of dollars.

  Not that it mattered. The dinner would be expensed, one of the benefits of being called away to work elsewhere.

  We finished dinner quickly,
a day on (or in) the water with no food since breakfast had us setting into it like a pack of wolves. The plates were cleaned, completely, which surprised me, considering Kara was a bit of a lightweight compared to me—a self-professed champion eater. But she held her own.

  A short, but loud belch escaped her lips and a brilliant red flush filled her face after that. A couple of the other diners looked our way as Kara covered her mouth and apologized for what had slipped out.

  I worked my stomach, swallowed a few gulps of air and prepped. Soon after, I let one out that was Krakatoa to Kara’s Mauna Loa, to the gasps and laughter of the other patrons.

  “Thought I’d take the heat off of you,” I said to her, watching her trying to contain her laughter, tears starting to roll down her cheeks.

  “That… was… disgusting,” she said between laughs.

  “Probably should settle up and get out of here—before we get a noise complaint.”

  The waitress had already made the same decision and had the bill at the table within seconds. I handed her my credit card and a couple of minutes later, with an extra tip for putting up with us, we were out the door.

  The town was beginning to fall asleep, the sun lowering to the horizon. Not everywhere was quiet, though. The Crow’s Nest, another well-known fish and chips place and pub was still going and would probably have some live music starting up shortly. The same went for Shipwreck Lee’s across the street. Both had outdoor patios that tended to get a little packed during prime dive season.

  We opted for the quieter route as I showed Kara through the town, heading up the hill south of Little Tub to The Sweet Factory, another Tobermory mainstay, and its assortment of