“I’m really sorry about the way this wrecked your vacation.”
“The kids are out of school for the rest of the week,” Mim said. “I was thinking, we could start smaller, maybe drive down to Whittier, go through the tunnel, eat at the Swiftwater if it’s open.”
“The Swiftwater?” Cutter said, not caring where they ate. He was just happy Mim was going to let her boys hang out with him again after everything that had happened.
“Yeah,” Mim said. “If that’s okay. I really like their rockfish and chips. And we could walk the docks and look at boats. The boys would love that.”
Looking at boats was Cutter’s weakness, and she knew it.
“Well,” Cutter said, testing the water. “My depth perception is going to be a little off for a few weeks with this eye thing. I just might walk off the pier into the water.”
Mim laughed, the way she’d laughed when they were sixteen.
“I think I can help you out with that.”
Epilogue
Anchorage PD patrol officers worked four ten-hour shifts per week. It was great if you had family, or hobbies, or wanted time off, but all Joe Bill Brackett could think about during those three days off was getting back to work. He’d only had two days on his own before his first weekend. There was overtime duty, but the senior guys scooped that up – and Officer Brackett was about as junior as you could get in the APD pecking order.
His first night back he got punched in the ear, talked a young woman out of jumping off the A-C Couplet onto the tracks, and Tased a guy on meth who wanted to fight – he didn’t intend on getting punched in the ear again.
All of that was exactly what he’d signed up for, but what he wanted to do was hunt down whoever was hacking up girls and dumping them into the ocean. He’d phoned the detectives three times over his weekend to check on status, until Sergeant Hopper called and told him to cool it in his no-nonsense Texas drawl.
It was raining now, but Brackett didn’t care. He was back at work, and life was good – but for one tiny detail.
Officer Fluke’s weekend usually only overlapped with his by one day, which was a blessing. Two shifts of that guy was a gut full. Unfortunately, Fluke had done a tour trade with another officer so he happened to be working.
And that worthless son of a bitch got the call.
A body off the Tony Knowles coastal trail near Bootlegger’s Cove.
The call was North, Brackett was assigned to South, but he didn’t care. He attached himself anyway.
Fluke waved him off over the air, but good old Sergeant Hopper countermanded him and told Brackett to “come ahead on.”
All the way down by O’Malley when the call came in, it took Brackett a few minutes to get there, windshield wipers thumping, water spraying around his tires. He prayed that he wouldn’t come across an accident on the way. He’d have to stop if that happened, giving Fluke far too much time to screw everything up. Brackett consoled himself when he realized Fluke wouldn’t likely want to be out of his car for very long in this downpour.
Nearly there, Brackett slowed to work his way through the neighborhoods below downtown Anchorage. He drove down O Street until he got to Nulbay Park, where he saw other patrol cars.
Sandra Jackson, the uniformed investigator, was already there, sitting behind the wheel of her white APD Impala. The light of her phone lit up her face.
Brackett killed his headlights and parked behind her, grabbing his raincoat.
She rolled down her window when he approached.
“Hey, Joe,” she said. Her expression was tight, grim.
“What do we have?” he asked.
She scrunched her nose, squinting, like her face hurt, then rubbed her eyes.
“Another girl,” she said at length. “Or a piece of one, anyway.”
“Shit,” Brackett whispered.
“I was on the phone with Homicide just now,” Jackson said. “We’re supposed to hold the scene until they get here. In other words, don’t go poking around and screw everything up.”
“Is Fluke down there?”
She shook her head. “Fortunately, he’s taken up a post under that awning, out of my way.”
“Same MO?” Brackett asked, not knowing what else to say. He wanted to go down there but didn’t want to piss off the homicide guys. They barely talked to him now.
She nodded. “Killer’s getting sloppy, though. I took a couple of photos before Homicide told me to back off, if you want to see.”
Brackett tried to sound nonchalant. “Sure.”
She motioned him around to the passenger side. “You’ll have to squish in by my MDT, but this way I can roll up my window.”
The inside of Officer Jackson’s car smelled so much better than his – like coffee and shampoo, where his smelled like… not that.
She passed him the phone as soon as he shut the door.
Brackett zoomed in to reveal a female foot, cut off just above the ankle. It was hard to tell from the photo, but the foot looked relatively fresh, like it hadn’t been in the water more than a day.
Jackson pointed at the phone. “Like I said. He’s getting sloppy.”
The rain picked up, battering the windshield.
Brackett enlarged the photo all the way to reveal a tiny gold ring around the index toe.
“And look at her nails,” Jackson said. “Each one is a different color. I guarantee you, somebody is gonna recognize this girl.”
Acknowledgements
The image of a lone deputy US marshal saving the day plays well in Hollywood or on the printed page, but I learned early in my law enforcement career it was better – and much safer – to ask for help.
And so it is with writing a novel.
As with every book, I spent hours talking, and in this case, walking, through the various man-tracking and fight scenes contained in Bone Rattle with my longtime friend and former partner in
