The rescue boat was halfway to the landing on the other side of the river where an ambulance waited to take the body to the morgue. Jerod gave me the okay sign and I returned it, although everything did not feel okay at all. Air rushed as we deflated our BCs, and we dipped back under water the color of old pennies.
There was a ladder leading from the river to the dive platform, and then another to the pier. My legs trembled as I climbed, for I was not as strong as Jerod and Ki Soo, who moved in all their gear as if it weighed the same as skin.
But I got out of my BC and tank myself and did not ask for help. A police cruiser rumbled near my car, and someone was towing Eddings’ johnboat across the river to the landing. Identity would have to be verified, but I had no doubt.
“So what do you think?” a voice overhead suddenly asked.
I looked up to find Captain Green standing next to a tall, slender man on the pier. Green was apparently now feeling charitable, and reached down to help. “Here,” he said.
“Hand me your tank.”
“I won’t know a thing until I examine him,” I said as I lifted it up, then the other gear. “Thanks. The johnboat with the hose and everything else should go straight to the morgue,” I added.
“Really? What are you going to do with it?” he asked.
“The hookah gets an autopsy, too.”
“You’re going to want to rinse your stuff really good,” the slender man said to me as if he knew more than Jacques Cousteau, and his voice was familiar. “There’s a lot of oil and rust in there.”
“There certainly is,” I agreed, climbing up to the pier.
“I’m Detective Roche,” he then said, and he was oddly dressed in jeans and an old letter jacket. “I heard you say his hose was caught on something?”
“I did, and I’m wondering when you heard me say that.”
I was on the pier now and not at all looking forward to carrying my dirty, wet gear back to my car.
“Of course, we monitored the recovery of the body.” It was Green who spoke. “Detective Roche and I were listening inside the building.”
I remembered Ki Soo’s warning to me and I glanced at the platform below where he and Jerod were working on their own gear.
“The hose was snagged,” I answered. “But I can’t tell you when that happened. Maybe before his death, maybe after.”
Roche didn’t seem all that interested as he continued to stare at me in a manner that made me self-aware. He was very young and almost pretty, with delicate features, generous lips and short curly dark hair. But I did not like his eyes, and thought they were invasive and smug. I pulled off my hood and ran my fingers through my slippery hair, and he watched as I unzipped my wet suit and pulled the top of it down to my hips. The last layer was my dive skin, and water trapped between it and my flesh was chilling quickly. Soon I would be unbearably cold. Already, my fingernails were blue.
“One of the rescuers tells me his face looks really red,” the captain said as I tied the wet suit’s sleeves around my waist. “I’m wondering if that means anything.”
“Cold livor,” I replied.
He looked expectantly at me.
“Bodies exposed to the cold get bright pink,” I said as I began to shiver.
“I see. So it doesn’t-”
“No,” I cut him off, because I was too uncomfortable to listen to them. “It doesn’t necessarily mean anything”.
Look, is there a ladies’ room so I can get out of these wet things?” I cast about and saw nothing promising.
“Over there.” Green pointed at a small trailer near the administration building. “Would you like Detective Roche to accompany you and show you where everything is?”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Hopefully, it’s not locked,” Green added.
That would be my luck, I thought. But it wasn’t, and it was awful, with only toilet and sink, and nothing seemed to have been cleaned in recent history. A door leading to the men’s room on the other side was secured by a two by-four with padlock and chain, as if one gender or the other were very worried about privacy.