CHAPTER TWO
May grabbed her purse from her desk and raced out of the office, hot on Jack’s heels. A body at the lake?
The memory of her recent case flashed into her mind. A serial killer had captured young women, holding them locked away before killing them and dumping them in the lake.
May had solved that case, which had been brutal and terrifying. Now, the news of another body made her blood chill.
Perhaps it was a drowning, an accident, death by misadventure. Sad though that would be, at least it would mean that someone hadn’t taken someone else’s life.
Such things rarely happened in this quiet town, but as May knew all too well, evil could lurk anywhere.
She could see from the grim set of Sheriff Jack’s mouth that he felt the same as he climbed into his cruiser. May jumped in the passenger side and they sped away. The early morning traffic, such as it was, had already dissipated and May knew they wouldn’t need to turn on the siren for this short drive.
“Do they know what happened? Are the circumstances suspicious?” May asked.
“The coroner is on site now. It’s not in Fairshore itself. This is a couple of miles away. I believe it’s not far from the site of that new hotel.”
“Oh, the Lakeside Heights?” May frowned. Anything to do with Lakeside Heights was going to be bad news, she just knew it.
The hotel had recently been built, despite numerous objections, on the road between Fairshore and the neighboring town to the east, Chestnut Hill.
“Yes, that one.” Jack’s tone told her he felt the same.
Construction of the hotel had wrapped up a few months ago, and May had been inundated with complaints during the process. It seemed that one or other of the surrounding police had been called out there on a daily basis.
If it wasn’t violation of the stipulated building times, it was noise issues, trucks using roads that weren’t up to their weight limit, building rubble being illegally dumped, or accidents on the road that the builders had failed to report.
On the first night of the opening party, which had been a few weeks ago, May had been called there twice. Once, it was because of a fight in the parking lot, and once because of a drunk and disorderly person.
She had wondered if there would be any more of these incidents in the future.
And now, apparently, there was a dead body near this site.
Could it be related to the construction? To the huge amount of fuss that had been made during it? May knew tempers had flared, and locals had been seriously angry about this new development.
She felt a tingling of fear as she saw the lake come into view. It was scenic, a massive expanse of calm water, fringed by wood and grassland. Beautiful though it was, May didn’t like it at all. The memories of Lauren’s disappearance were too intense. She never went near the lake unless she had to.
There was the hotel, its bulk cutting into the skyline ahead of them. And there, beyond it, May saw the flashing blue and red lights that signaled where emergency services were stopped. It was near the old pier, which was a quirky wooden structure full of character that had been in the area for decades and was a well-loved landmark. Of course, she understood the hotel planned to demolish it during the second phase of their build.
She climbed out of the car and hurried over. A scuba diver was surfacing from beneath the lake’s blue, lapping surface. He waded to shore.
“I can’t see anything else down there. No other bodies, and no other items or possessions,” he said.
That voice was familiar, May thought in surprise.
Wading further out of the lake, the tall, lean diver made his way over to them and May saw that it was none other than Deputy Owen Lovell, her investigation partner.
“Owen!” she exclaimed. “You’re a diver?”
“Yes,” he admitted, with a sheepish grin, shaking water out of his short, dark hair. “I did a course in my teens and I’ve kept up to date ever since.”
“I had no idea!” she said.
Thirty-year-old Owen had joined the police two years ago, quitting the accounting firm he’d worked for to pursue a career that made more of a difference. A year ago he’d transferred to May’s precinct and been assigned as her partner.
She’d been surprised a few times in the past year by his talents in unexpected directions. This was definitely one of them.
“The victim was stuck under the jetty. I think a current lodged him there. He was fully clothed, wearing a business suit, and had his shoes on.” Owen sounded serious.
“Who saw him?” May asked.
“A fisherman and his son who arrived in the early morning. They noticed something that looked suspicious in the water and called the police immediately. They then went back home. The father didn’t want his son to wait around if it was a body.”
May exchanged a glance with Jack. Who was this fully dressed, mysteriously drowned man?
They paced over to the knot of people surrounding the recovered body.
Immediately, May recognized the pathologist Andy Baker. He was examining the body.
He stood up and turned to them, and she could already see on his face that this was not going to be a routine drowning. If the victim being fully clothed hadn’t clued her, Andy’s expression did.
“I’m afraid we might have foul play here,” he said. “I’m not sure as yet, but we must be prepared for the possibility.”
May’s heart sped up.
First things first, she told herself.
“Do we have an ID on the victim?” she asked.
“Yes, we do,” Andy said. “He’s Danny Charter. The hotel’s architect. He had ID on his person, in his wallet. And his vehicle is parked near the road.”
May glanced around.