Chapter 1
I don’t find a dead body every time I take Mal—my bichon-poo puppy—for a walk. Really. In fact, it had only happened once. But finding dead people had begun to be a theme for me since I returned to Mackinac Island to run the Historic McMurphy Hotel and Fudge Shop. It was no surprise to anyone that I had 9-1-1 on speed dial on my cell phone.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?” I could tell it was Charlene on the phone. She worked long hours. In fact, so many hours I had begun to think she was a workaholic like me.
“Hi, Charlene,” I said as brightly as possible. Water dripped down the side of my face and I wiped it away.
“Allie McMurphy, is that you?” she asked.
“Yes, it’s me,” I replied, and tried to slow my heavy breathing. I was soaked and my muscles shook from the stress of dragging a deadweight up, out of the water, and over the three-foot marina wall.
“Who’s dead now?” Charlene asked. I think she was kidding. I wasn’t.
“I’m not quite sure,” I said as I stared down at the purplish face of the woman I had just pulled from the lake. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but it was hard to tell. People looked different when they were dead.
“But there
is
a dead person,” Charlene stated. “Seriously?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” I said. “Can you contact Rex?” Officer Rex Manning was my go-to guy whenever I found trouble—which seemed to be often.
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the marina off Main Street, near the coffee shop.”
“No, Allie, it’s yacht race week. A dead body in the marina would be disastrous.”
“Well, I didn’t put it there,” I said, and stifled a shiver. Yacht racing happened a couple times on Mackinac Island. This was the first of the season and people were gearing up for the influx of boaters and boat enthusiasts. In fact, just yesterday I was at the yacht club with my best friend, Jenn Christensen, helping to coordinate an event.
Jenn was the event planner, not me, but I went along for support—and because I was doing everything I could to gain access into Mackinac Island society. Small business was about community, and I was working hard to become a part of the tight-knit community that was Mackinac Island.
“Rex is on his way,” Charlene said, “along with a crew of first responders. Are you sure the person is dead?”
I noted the pallor of her skin and that her open eyes looked blue. A shiver took me. It was a cool morning. The sun had just started to come up when I had begun the walk; and now that I was soaked through, the wind felt cold against my skin. “I think she’s been dead awhile.”
“Okay,” Charlene said. “I’ll stay with you until Rex gets there.”
“Thanks,” I said, brushing my currently seaweed-like strands of hair out of my face. Mal was having a good time sniffing the girl I’d managed to drag mostly onto the grassy knoll in front of the marina. I hugged my lake-water-soaked, legging-covered knees to my equally soaked shirtdress-covered body. “Mal, come here.” I snagged my dog away from the dead girl and held Mal to me. Her warm little body was a comfort. It was still early. The first ferries had yet to arrive with their boatload of tourists. It was quiet. Some of the maids and groundskeepers had started their walk from the workers’ quarters to the hotels to start their day. The shops would not open for at least another hour and a half.
“Your puppy is with you?” Charlene asked. “Is there anyone else nearby?”
I looked around. “No,” I said. “The marina is pretty quiet. Mal alerted me there was something in the water. As soon as I saw the woman, I jumped in to save her, but it was too late. She really is quite cold and stiff.”
“She’s most likely in rigor,” Charlene said. “I never thought I’d ever say that out loud in my life. But I’ve been brushing up on my dead-body terminology a lot since you moved here.”
I winced at the tone of her voice. “Like I said, Mal found her,” I said, then looked at my puppy. Mal was nearly six months old now and wagged her little stub tail at the sound of her name. “She has a good nose.”
“You two are quite the pair,” Charlene said. The first time I ever called 9-1-1, Charlene had not believed me. She thought I was a prank caller. Now all I had to do was say my name and she assumed the worst. In fact everyone on the island assumed the worst. “What were you doing near the marina?” she asked.
“Mal needed her morning walk and I wanted to see the yachts that are coming in for this weekend’s race,” I said. A glance over my shoulder showed me that the marina was full of large sailing boats. Some people had begun to stir on the boats. A gentleman in shorts and a T-shirt came out on his deck with a coffee cup in hand. I watched as he stretched and looked at the lake, then do a slow turn. I shivered when he did a double take at the sight of me and Mal and the pale bloated body of a woman wearing a bright blue-and-orange, color-blocked dress. Her feet were bare. She had painted her toenails robin’s egg blue. “A guy on his yacht spotted us,” I told Charlene, and then waved at the guy, who stared with his mouth wide open. I suppose seeing a dead body first thing in the morning would be a bit of a shock for anyone.
“Don’t let him get close,” she warned. “We don’t need a crowd messing up the crime scene.”
In the distance I heard the siren of the ambulance. The state-of-the-art ambulance and fire truck were the only motor vehicles allowed on the island. Otherwise, transportation on the island that time forgot was limited to horse and carriage, bicycle or foot traffic.
“Is everything okay down there?” the man hollered from the deck of his yacht.
“Things are under control,” I called back, and pointed at my cell phone. “I’ve called nine-one-one.”
“What happened?” Police Officer Rex Manning had pulled up on his bike, hit the kickstand, and walked up, carefully placing one foot in front of the other toward me. Mal, of course, having no respect for possible crime scene evidence, wiggled out of my embrace and raced up to greet Rex with a twirl and a nose bump. Rex absently petted Mal as he walked to where I sat next to the body.
“I pulled her out of the water,” I said, and shivered again. “I tried pushing water out of her lungs, but she was already gone.”
“Long gone from the looks of her,” he said as he squatted down beside me. “She was in the lake?” He didn’t look at me. Instead, he took a pen out of his pocket and lifted the hair away from her face. Rex wore his uniform well. He had the chest and shoulders of a man who worked out regularly at the gym. I always thought of him as having that action hero kind of look, with his shaved head and gorgeous eyes.
“Yes, she was in the water near the pier where the coffee shop is,” I said, and pointed toward the spot. “I didn’t see her at first. Mal pulled me to the edge, so I went to see what she was fussing about.”
“Your pup has a good nose for death,” Rex said. He frowned. “I think I know who this is.”
“Is that good or bad?” I asked, then bit down as my teeth started to chatter.
He glanced at me. “You need to get warm.” Standing, he waved down the EMTs. George Marron came down to where we were, carrying a blanket in one hand and a med kit in the other. “She might have hypothermia,” Rex said to George.
“I brought the blanket,” George said, draping it around my shoulders. “Whenever I get a call with Allie involved, I automatically bring a blanket.” George was a little taller than Rex and I were. He had high cheekbones, long black hair, which he wore in a braid down his back, and black eyes, which spoke of his Native American ancestors.
I huddled in the warmth. “I don’t think it’s shock this time,” I said with a touch of pride in my voice. “I’m soaked.”
“The water’s still cool this year,” George agreed. “Even for the middle of July.” He checked the pulse at my wrist. “Your lips and fingers are a little blue, but you’re right. You’re not in shock”
“I’m fine,” I said, smiling at him to reassure him that I didn’t need an exam, and huddled into the blanket. “Just wet.” My teeth chattered as if to emphasize my words.
Rex stood and waved the second EMT with the stretcher over toward the body. “You pulled her out of the water all by yourself?”
“Yes, mostly,” I said as Mal curled up in my lap. The woman’s legs still dangled over the retaining wall. “I didn’t have the strength to finish the job, I’m afraid. I wanted to get her far enough that I could try to push water out of her lungs and start CPR.”
“Okay, tell me exactly—step-by-step—what you did,” he said, his cop’s gaze noted all the details of the marina as it started to wake up. George and the other EMT pulled the body all the way over the retaining wall and rolled her onto the stretcher. A pair of gulls swooped by, squawking. Officer Charles Brown showed up and stayed near the road to keep the slowly gathering crowd back.
“I knew the yachts were coming in for race weekend, so I thought I’d take Mal for her morning walk down here. I saw the coffee shop was open. Frances told me that she likes the blueberry scones they serve, so I figured I’d stop in and pick up a few for the staff.”
“What time did you leave the McMurphy?” Rex asked.
“I finished my last batch of fudge around five forty-five
AM
. So, however long it takes to put Mal’s halter and leash on and then stroll down here.” The marina was across from the yacht club and the Island House hotel, about a half mile from the McMurphy on Main.
“So around six
AM
?”
“That sounds right,” I said, and hugged Mal. The puppy wanted to greet everyone and help the EMTs with the body. I, on the other hand, knew she’d be in the way, so I held her in my lap. “We walked down this way. I didn’t see anything unusual, just the boats and the sunrise. We walked the lower path here, near the retaining wall, and headed down the dock to the coffee shop. About halfway, Mal started barking and pulling me toward the water.”
“She must have smelled the body.”
“Something,” I agreed. “When I saw the girl floating, she was faceup. I thought maybe she was swimming. Then I noticed how pale she was. So I called out, but she didn’t answer.”
“And?”
“And I jumped in,” I said. “I didn’t think about it much. I thought she needed help, and I was a lifeguard in high school. Instinct kicked in. I put my arm around her torso and swam to the wall. When I could stand, I put my hands under her arms and pulled her over the wall. It’s harder than you’d think.”
His blue gaze twinkled. “I know. I’m still trying to picture how you did it.”
“Honestly? I sat on the wall and grabbed her and pulled. When I got her up high enough, I scooted back. I was able to bring her far enough onto the grass that I knew she had solid earth beneath her. Then I used my palms to push water out of her lungs, but it didn’t help.”
“She was long dead.”
“Yes,” I said, and pushed my slowly drying, cold, damp hair out of my face. “When I realized she was stiff, I took out my phone and called nine-one-one.”
He tilted his head and drew his eyebrows together. “Didn’t your cell phone get wet?”
“Yeah,” I said, lifting it up. “But it’s waterproof. You know, I’m pretty clumsy and have a tendency to answer my cell phone when I’m in the bathtub.”
“Yeah,” he said, and grinned. “I know.”
I felt the heat of embarrassment rush up my cheeks, but worked to ignore it. “So Jenn made me buy one of those waterproof cell phone covers. You can’t take your phone diving, but it will survive getting wet.” As I said, Jenn was my best friend. Thankfully, she had come up for the summer season to help me manage my first season at the McMurphy. Papa Liam, my grandfather, was supposed to be here to train me; but earlier this year, he’d gone nose down while playing cards at the senior center and they hadn’t been able to revive him. Jenn came up to fill the void. She was actually better at making friends on the island than I was. All in all, she took good care of me.
“Huh,” Rex said. “It’s a good thing, then, I guess.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Mal seems relatively dry,” Rex pointed out.
I made a face. “She didn’t follow me into the water. She stayed on the pier and barked. Then she raced over here when I managed to pull the girl up on land.”
“Smart dog.”
“Should we call Shane?” I asked. Shane Carpenter was the local CSI guy, who also happened to be dating Jenn. I liked to think that I was the one who introduced them. In fact, if the relationship worked out in the long run, I would claim that it was all my doing.
“Charlene already did. The body has clues,” Rex said. “He’ll want to know the water temperature and see what else is floating in the water. And he may need those clothes you’re wearing.”
“Oh, right,” I said, and glanced down at my dress and leggings. My white Keds were gray from water. “Wait, is it okay to move the body?” I pointed at the guy holding the stretcher. It was folded up so that you couldn’t see the wheels.
“You pulled her out of the water, so she has already been moved,” Rex pointed out. “I don’t want to leave her out here for gawkers.” Rex’s eyebrows were drawn together and his mouth rested in a flat line. Rex was a handsome man and had two ex-wives to prove it. His hands were large, square, and efficient as he did a simple check of the body. He motioned for the EMTs to bring over the stretcher. “You said she was faceup in the water?”
“Yes,” I said. “It seems weird, right? I mean, usually when you think of dead bodies in the water, you imagine them facedown.”
“Sure.” He eyed the surrounding area and made notes on his notepad. “Maybe she was dead when she hit the water and floated up.”
“Maybe.” I watched as they rolled the dead woman over carefully, inspecting her back for contusions or anything else that might tell us whether it was a simple drowning or something more sinister.
Gail Hall from the coffee shop walked down from the pier with her hands full of coffees in a paper carrier. “You guys look like you could use some strong coffee.” Mal stood on her hind legs to greet Gail. “Sorry, pup, no coffee for you.” She handed the first responders coffee as they stood around a moment to take in the scene. Then she sat down by me and patted Mal on the head with her free hand, while she handed me a coffee with her other hand. “I saw you jump into the lake,” she said as her brown eyes filled with concern. “You gave me quite a scare. I had no idea what you were doing. I thought maybe you’d finally had enough of island life. Then I figured I’d have to come out and get you.” She tilted her head. “I wasn’t looking forward to jumping into the lake myself, so I called nine-one-one.”