Flight (The Texas Murder Files #2) - Laura Griffin Page 0,3
anything like that.” She was adamant. “I didn’t hear anyone or see anyone until I got back to the marina and asked the guy at the bait shop for help.” She turned to look at Randy, who was smoking another cigarette and talking with McDeere. “That guy there, with the beard.”
“So you didn’t have a cell phone out there with you?” Joel asked.
“Not on the kayak, no. I keep it locked in the console of my Jeep.”
“All right. And when you arrived here, did you see any other cars in the lot?”
She shook her head. “I was the first one.”
“Any other boats? Fishermen?”
“No.”
“What about pedestrians? Dog walkers?” He nodded at the marshland between the marina and the nature center. “Some people use the trails in the morning.”
“There was no one out when I first got here. At least, not that I saw. Only person I noticed was a cyclist on the highway. He was riding along the shoulder.”
That caught Joel’s interest. “Where, exactly?”
She blew out a sigh. “He was on a bike about fifty yards north of the turnoff for the marina. He was heading north. I described him to McDeere. He had on a light-colored T-shirt and a baseball cap. I remember noticing because he should have been wearing a helmet, especially riding in the dark like that.”
Joel cast a glance at McDeere, who was watching him now with a look Joel couldn’t read. He had no doubt the officer would have taken all this down. A former Marine, McDeere was thorough and paid attention to details. It was one of the things Joel liked about working with him.
“As I said, I gave all this to the officer already.”
Joel looked at the witness. Her cheeks were still pink, and she seemed antsy. Like she was itching to leave. She glanced over Joel’s shoulder, and her brow furrowed.
Joel turned to see the ME’s van swinging into the lot, followed by a white SUV. Both vehicles pulled into spaces near the bait shop. The door to the SUV opened, and Bollinger hopped out.
Joel checked his watch. Almost an hour since the chief had called the county for a crime scene investigator. Joel gritted his teeth.
“Detective? Is that all right?”
He shifted his attention back to the witness. Those caramel-colored eyes looked worried now.
“Ma’am?”
“I need to head out. I’m late for something.” She nodded toward the bait shop. “If you have any more follow-ups, your officer there has all my contact information. And he gave me his card.”
Joel didn’t want to let her go, but he didn’t have a reason to keep her here, either. The boats were pulling in, and Joel wanted to get a look at everything before the ME’s people started.
“Let me see that card,” he said.
She hesitated a moment before pulling a card from her bra and handing it over. Joel took out a pen and wrote on the back.
“That’s my mobile,” he said. “Call me if you remember anything else.”
“All right.”
“Thank you for your time today.”
“No problem.”
She stepped around him to open the Jeep, and Joel moved out of the way.
Bollinger was still with his vehicle, zipping into his white Tyvek suit. Meanwhile, the boats had docked, and Emmet was securing the canoe to a cleat.
Thunder rumbled, and Joel glanced at the sky just in time to catch the first fat raindrops. He looked at the canoe that held two dead young people, along with any forensic evidence he hoped to recover. All of it was going to get drenched.
Joel started for the dock.
“Detective?”
He turned around. Miranda wore a rain jacket now with a hood that covered her head. Wherever she was going, she was about to get soaked.
“Make sure they bag her hands,” she told him.
“What’s that?”
“The female victim,” she said. “She’s holding a feather. You don’t want it getting lost in transport, so tell your CSI to make sure to bag her hands.”
CHAPTER
TWO
Miranda pulled off the highway onto the gravel road. Swerving around potholes, she approached the weathered wooden beach house she’d come to call home.
The place was gray, like today’s sky. It looked small and dilapidated compared to houses in the nearby subdivision, where homeowners picked from a selection of pre-approved colors in a cheery Caribbean palette. Miranda had gathered these details at the neighborhood’s sales office during her first week on the island. She’d also learned that if she’d been in the market for a house—which she wasn’t—the pastel-colored bungalows were well out of her price range.