Dangerous to Touch. Jill Sorenson

For a city whose residents were spoiled by high seventies most of the year, it was damn near intolerable.

      Deputy Chief Stokes and a handful of homicide officers were milling around the gravel pull-out on Pacific Coast Highway near Agua Hedionda Lagoon. Literally translated as “stinking water,” the lagoon separated downtown Oceanside from uptown Carlsbad, educated from underprivileged, rich from poor.

      Driving along PCH through O’side, one could encounter almost any kind of vice, from prostitution and drugs to adult bookstores and sleazy strip joints. Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, on the northern border of town, supplied plenty of young male clients for the burgeoning sex industry. It could also be responsible, in a roundabout way, for the number of homeless vets on the city streets.

      For all its shortcomings, Oceanside was still a nice place to live. The inland hills were speckled with single family homes and quiet communities. The beaches attracted hundreds of thousands of tourists every year, so they were clean and well-maintained. Stretches of flat white sand weren’t the best venue for illicit activities, so most of the dregs of society stuck to the heavy brush near the San Luis Rey River, which offered less interference and more cover.

      Carlsbad, on the other hand, didn’t have a seedy area. Or a middle-class area, for that matter. The rivalry between the two cities was pronounced, from high school sports to police divisions. With better funding at their disposal, Carlsbad usually came out on top.

      Behind a police line at the edge of the water, a suited representative from Carlsbad PD was arguing with Deputy Chief Stokes over turf. The lagoon belonged to them, so they laid claim to the body floating in its murky depths. Stokes was adamant that whoever tossed the tarp-wrapped package into the lagoon had been standing on the gravel pull-out along the highway, clearly Oceanside’s territory. The Coast Guard was obliged to oversee the handling of any human remains found in coastal waters, so they were also on site, and the lagoon was part of a wilderness preserve, so State Parks was there, too.

      They could debate all morning over recovery issues, but the body was under the county medical examiner’s jurisdiction until after the autopsy. Stokes talked the good doctor into working with Oceanside’s homicide unit instead of Carlsbad’s, citing the distinct possibility that the victim was local resident Candace Hegel.

      The killer’s first victim, Anika Groene, had been found in water as well.

      Finally the M.E. ordered the retrieval, after a consultation with an E.P.A. affiliate about algae levels and possible impact to the endangered water fowl.

      Stokes leveled her evil eye on him. “Get in there, Cruz.”

      Marc looked down at the opaque surface with trepidation. First dogs, now stinking water. He wasn’t queasy about dead bodies, having seen more than his fair share, but water-logged flesh was particularly gruesome, and Agua Hedionda was dark and stagnant.

      No telling what was down there.

      Stokes shoved white Tyvek coveralls at his chest, indicating the issue wasn’t open for discussion, and he walked to his car to change. No way was he ruining a perfectly good suit with marsh muck. Grabbing a pair of basketball shorts from the trunk, he stripped right there on the side of the road while Lacy watched.

      “What are you looking at?” he asked, feeling surly.

      “Nothing interesting,” she said, smothering a laugh.

      Lacy had never been on the scene for a floater, he recalled, wondering if she’d lose her breakfast when they unwrapped the soggy package.

      He pulled the jumpsuit over his shorts and covered his hands with gloves to protect the scene from being compromised with trace. As he lowered himself into the lagoon, he winced at the temperature. It might be hot as hell outside, but Agua Hedionda was as cold as the Pacific, a chilly sixty-five degrees.

      “Make sure it’s what we think it is,” Stokes ordered.

      The oblong shape, wrapped up like a mummy in a green plastic tarp, lurked just below the surface. Grimacing, he wrapped his arms around it in a macabre embrace. When he squeezed experimentally, he felt the give of flesh and slender, feminine curves.

      “It’s a woman.”

      “Well, don’t yank on it,” Stokes said, as if he would. “Reach under there and see if something’s weighing it down.”

      Bodies did sink on their own, and came up several days later, depending on the temperature. This one had either been dumped recently, weighed down, or both. Following the rope tied around the body’s midsection, he pulled gently, feeling tension.

      He was going to have to duck under to investigate. Holding his breath, he followed the rope to its anchor.

      “Cinder block,” he said when he resurfaced, trying not to smell or taste the water. “And half-inch rope. Hemp, maybe.”

      “Cut it,” she said, giving him a razor knife.

      He did, but the body didn’t rise.

      “Fresh,” she said, nodding with satisfaction.

      It was awkward, but he managed to heft the body onto the shore without doing too much damage to it, himself, or the crime scene. Even covered in dark plastic, it was plain to see that the corpse was a slight woman, about the size of Candace Hegel.

      When the M.E. cut the tarp away from her face, befouled water gushed out.

      Because she hadn’t been there long, and the lagoon was cold, the effects of decomposition were minimal. Enough to discolor her complexion, but not so much that her body was bloated or her skin sloughing off, which would have made sight identification difficult.

      In life, Candace Hegel had been a pretty woman. In death, with a greenish tinge to her face, particles of brown algae clinging to her skin and tiny surfperch burrowing into the delicate tissues, she was hideous.

      Marc’s stomach clenched, and he felt an unmanageable hatred for whoever would defile a woman this way.

      Stokes narrowed her shrewd eyes at him, so he quickly blanked his expression. She’d dealt with his overenthusiastic pursuits of justice before, and didn’t consider it sound police work. Officers were not supposed to get emotionally involved.

      Detective Lacy, on the other side of Stokes, was doing an admirable job of suppressing her nausea.

      “Wrap it all up,” the M.E. said. “I’ll cut the rest of the tarp away on the table.”

      “I want that cinder block,” Stokes said as they loaded the body into the van.

      “Of course you do,” he muttered.

      “What was that?”

      “Right away, I said.”

      It was no easy task. He could only lift the block a few feet at a time, drop it a little closer to shore and come back to surface for air. By the time he passed it off to CSI, he’d inhaled, swallowed and sputtered about a pint of Agua Hedionda.

      “You’ll need a hepatitis vaccine,” Stokes said as he climbed out.

      Lying on his back on the dusty gravel bank, shuddering with cold and panting from exertion, Marc prayed he wouldn’t be the one to lose his breakfast instead of Lacy.

      After a hot shower and a hotter cup of coffee, Sidney was feeling warm and toasty. It was a muggy day, cloudy and warm, the thick marine layer overhead trapping the earth’s heat like a thermal blanket. By the time she reached the kennel she was sweating.

      Mondays were always busy, so work kept her body, if not her mind, occupied most of the morning. She had several pickups scheduled for later that afternoon, and any dog that stayed more than three days got a complimentary bath. Time spent in close confinement tended to emphasize the “doggy” smell, and she didn’t like to send home stinky pets.

      She’d just finished her last bath when the phone rang. “Pacific Pet Hotel,” she answered crisply.

      “Sidney.”