Page 36 of Lost Lake
She didn’t wait for him to argue. She turned and pushed the boathouse door fully open.
“Police. I’m coming in,” she announced.
The smell followed the door.
Even from where Gabe stood, it reached him. Thick, acrid. The nauseating smell bypassed rational thought entirely and went straight to something older and more instinctive. Despite the mask, it coated the back of his throat and made his eyes water. He controlled his gag reflex through sheer will.
He didn’t want to think about what it was like inside. What it was like for her.
He gave her three seconds. Then he moved to the doorway and stopped in the opening, one hand on the frame, and looked in.
The space was dim, the only light coming from El’s phone flashlight and the gray wash filtering through a high, cracked window. The metal railway ran down the center of the floor, old iron tracks, orange with rust, disappearing into the dark water at the far end. The cradle sat empty, its crossbars rusty with age. Fishing gear covered the walls in no particular order. Nets, rods, coiled rope, a pair of waders hanging from a nail.
And in shallow water between the tracks, a beige tarp unfolded, in the kind of deliberate spread someone had arranged rather than haphazardly left behind.
El stood over it, her back to him. She’d peeled back one corner and was looking down into the gap, her phone light aimed at whatever was beneath. Her free hand rested on her hip with the stillness of someone who had done this before and had learned to keep their body quiet even when nothing else was.
She heard him at the door. Turned and looked at him, and shook her head once. Not at him being there, just delivering the answer to the question they’d both been fighting off.
“Older male,” she said. “Shirt saturated in blood. Looks like a stab wound to the chest.”
He absorbed that.
“Another murder.” He paused. “Could it be Mason?”
“I’ve never seen him. No photograph to compare.” She shifted her gaze back to the tarp. “I can’t confirm identity yet.”
“How long has he been here?”
“Extensive insect activity, despite the cool temperature.” She studied the body another moment. “It all suggests he’s been here for some time, but I won’t guess further than that. Dr. Briggs will have to give us the timeframe.”
Gabe looked at the tarp, at the shape beneath the peeled-back corner. The smell pressed against the inside of his mask in steady rhythmic waves.
“We need a full search,” he said. “Both structures.”
“Yes.” She straightened, dropped the tarp, and switched off her flashlight. “Which makes the warrant even more critical than it was twenty minutes ago.” She was already thumbing her phone as she walked toward him. “Texting Massey for an update on that warrant. And I’ll do a quick property search to see if I can confirm H. H. Mason as the owner. If so, I’ll look him up on the DMV for a photo. If we can confirm his ID, it changes the shape of everything.”
Gabe stepped back from the doorway to let her out, and they walked the worn path back to the patrol car together without speaking. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was the particular quiet of two people each processing and waiting until they had something worth saying.
He got there first.
“If someone was willing to stab Mason,” he said, “then killing Kenna was nothing to them.” He paused. “And Lucy?—”
He didn’t finish it. He didn’t need to. El glanced at him sideways as they reached the vehicle, and the look on her face told him she’d already been chewing on the same thought.
She opened the driver’s door and reached for the computer mounted to the dash. “Let’s find out who he is first,” she said. “Then we figure out what it means.”
Another crime scene. Another murder. Another investigation. All under El’s authority, and she was already running on fumes. She’d hand this off to another homicide detective if she could, but she was the only homicide detective in the department. Thankfully, Ulrich had arrived on-site to help, and the Lost Lake Locators were on the job behind the scenes, too.
If not for them…
She shook her head, shoving the worry aside to focus on the scene.
Ulrich had joined Faye and her assistant at the boathouse, offering support as needed. Gabe remained in El’s vehicle, coordinating his team’s efforts for a deep dive on H.H. Mason and a search for the specialized zip ties used on Kenna. He also hoped to get updates on their progress.
El could examine the boathouse and house, but would have to wait to run a ViCAP search. She would love to start now on her vehicle’s computer, but like many small departments, without a robust electronic communications program, they had to restrict ViCAP access to an in-station computer only, for security reasons.
Faye nodded at Ulrich, then strode toward El with the determination El was coming to associate with her.
