I shrugged. "She was upset.”
"You think she was telling the truth, or was she under some kind of duress?"
"She definitely looked like she was on the verge of a meltdown.”
I forwarded the link to Isabella and asked her to take a look at it. We didn't have the budget to keep a behavioral analyst on staff at the county. Isabella had plenty of contacts, and I knew she’d find someone credible to evaluate the clip.
My phone buzzed with a call from the sheriff. "I need you and that nitwit to get down here ASAP.”
"What's going on?”
"We've got another one.”
11
We met the sheriff at the station, hopped into his patrol boat, and headed out to sea. The twin outboards howled, spitting a frothy wake as the boat sliced through the sapphire swells. The morning sun glimmered the water, and a cool breeze blew across the bow. It was the start of another nice day. But things would turn ugly soon.
We caught up with a small fishing boat and pulled alongside. The steel-hulled 42-foot trawler had a faded black hull that was charcoal gray now. The once arctic white wheelhouse was yellowed like the filter on a Marlboro. Wind, rain, and saltwater had bubbled and cracked the paint, streaking it with stains of rust. The permanent smell of fish guts infused the deck. TheLucky Lurewasn’t going to win any beauty contests, but she got the job done.
Gulls hung on the breeze, looking to snatch tasty morsels.
We boarded the trawler, along with the medical examiner and the forensic team.
The weathered crew loitered on the deck with sunburned faces and scraggly hair. More than a few days of stubble lined their chins. These were hardened men who worked for a living, their faces lined and weary from a life in the sun.
Caught up in one of the nets, the mangled body of a man in his late 30s lay on the deck. He had shaggy dark hair, milky brown eyes, and a trimmed dark beard. Judging by what was left of him, he had kept himself in pretty good shape. But the chunk from his torso resembled the wounds Whisper Williams had sustained.
There was no mistaking that we were dealing with another shark attack.
The skipper wore a white cap. A smoldering cigar dangled from his thin lips, staining his gray beard yellow. His eyes were as blue as calving glaciers. "We pulled him aboard like that. Called you boys. Haven't touched the remains. Looks like you've got a real problem on your hands. That's two in less than a week.”
He'd obviously been keeping up with the news.
Dietrich snapped photos, and the camera flashes bounced off the deck.
The boat pitched and rolled with the swells.
The victim’s skin was pale gray and sloughing. The critters hadn't gotten to his hazy eyes yet. The skin on his hands hadn't de-gloved either, but it probably wouldn't have taken much longer. The shredded remains of his clothes clung to his body.
The smell soured my nose—and that was on top of the fish guts.
"How long?" I asked Brenda as she huddled over the remains.
"Hard to say. Maybe a day or two. I'll know more when I get him back to the lab.”
She fished a wallet from his back pocket and handed it to me.
I opened the soggy leather billfold and found his driver's license. "Andrew Holt.”
"Bite radius is similar to the first victim," Brenda said. "I'm not sure what we’re dealing with, but it's big and aggressive.”
We interviewed the deckhands and the captain and took names and contact information.
Brenda and her crew bagged the body and transferred the remains to the sheriff's patrol boat.
"I don't like this," the sheriff said at the helm, the engines roaring.
"I don't like it, either," I replied.
