“Was Dane—?”
“Didn’t see him at all. And Mr. Eye-Patch isn’t exactly difficult to spot in a crowd.”
“Anyone still watching the boat?”
“Yes, but until we get a warrant…” Hitchcock shrugged.
“You know we’d be turned down again,” Lefebvre said. “Not enough to go on yet.”
“You sure your snitch said here?”
“Yes.” Lefebvre looked back toward the yacht, as if this conversation no longer interested him. Hitch bristled over the dismissal.
“Call came in anonymously?” he asked.
“He already told us it did,” Rosario said, impatient with Hitch’s mood. Hitch gave her a dark look, but she ignored it.
Lefebvre’s attention remained with the yacht. “Is that yacht moored legally?”
“What, you want to leave Homicide and join the Harbor Patrol?” Hitch asked.
Lefebvre turned to Rosario. “Is that yacht—”
“How the hell should we know?” Hitch interrupted.
“No,” she said. She turned to Hitch. “I like to sail,” she said, “but in case you’re wondering, no, I don’t want to join the Harbor Patrol, either.”
Lefebvre quickly hid a smile, but Hitch noticed his amusement. “You might end up working there anyway,” he snapped at his partner.
Lefebvre started walking down the dock, toward the yacht. Leaving Hitch behind, Rosario hurried to catch up with him. “Why are you so interested in it?” she asked.
“Rats with wings,” Lefebvre said.
“What?”
“Seagulls,” he said, walking a little faster. “They usually stay put for the evening, right?”
She then saw what he saw, that birds were gathering around the yacht. “Maybe the bait shop—”
“That’s what I noticed. The birds are ignoring the bait shop and going for something on the boat deck. And whoever’s belowdecks hasn’t come out to see what they’re interested in.”
She said that before they came close enough to see what was aboard.
First Lefebvre saw the blood and then the man lying not far from the hatch. “Call for backup,” he said. “Wait here on the dock.” He stepped aboard amid noisy birds and flies, shooing them off as he moved cautiously toward the body.
Hitch had the only radio. He was still sauntering along.
Rosario shouted to him to make the call.
Lefebvre quickly checked the victim — the body was cold. As he headed for the companionway, he saw Rosario stepping aboard. He sighed with exasperation. “Put your hands in your pockets and don’t step on any of the obvious pathways — or in the blood.”
“I know enough not to mess up a crime scene,” she said testily, but obediently put her hands in the pockets of her slacks. She stared at the dark, open gash on the victim’s throat and turned pale.
Lefebvre watched her, then said, “If you’re going to be sick—”
“I won’t be.”
He said nothing else to her; he had already turned to look down the companionway. He swore when he saw the girl’s body, then drew his gun and moved awkwardly down the steps, doing his best not to disturb the bloodstain patterns. Rosario took her own weapon out and came closer.
“Oh, no,” he heard her say. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”
More faintly, from the docks, Hitch’s voice. “Christ almighty!”
Rosario shouted, “Get on that radio, you fucking asshole! We’ve got at least two dead — one’s a kid.”
Lefebvre kept moving toward the battered door to the head. He pushed on it — it opened only a few inches; something heavy was on the other side. Through a narrow, splintered slit that had been hacked into the door, he saw more blood — and then the boy. Lefebvre quickly holstered his weapon, got down near the floor, then reached inside. He pushed in a little farther and touched skin — cool, but not the cold of the bodies behind him.
For one brief instant, the memory of the cooling skin of another young man flickered across his thoughts, but he closed his mind to it.
Not this time, he swore to himself. Not this time!
And in that moment felt a faint pulse.
He turned to Rosario and shouted, “Still alive! Get an ambulance here!”
Even as she began relaying this to Hitch, Lefebvre saw the ax. He grabbed it, and heedless of Rosario’s shout about prints, swung it hard but with precision, striking the wood near the upper hinges. With the fourth swing, the door began to give — he dropped the ax and turned, catching the door’s weight, slowing its outward fall. He gently lowered it, and with it, the boy.
