by John White

Created on: April 09, 2010

Prayer Offerings

Chapter 1

What little waves there were lapped against the body, rocking it a few inches higher up the beach. Moonlight reflected off the stringy hair, but it was still difficult to tell whether she was a blonde or a light-haired brunette. Wet hair always seemed darker.

Sheriff Bode Keller waited patiently for the technician to finish her photo session. The evidence tech took her job seriously, ordering this part or that part of the body lifted or pushed aside as the bright flash lit up the otherwise dark beach.

“Deputy Ennis?” Keller nudged the tech’s shoulder with his stub. She turned and flinched at his touch. Sometimes he did it on purpose to get a reaction. He knew from her expression that the touch of his amputated right arm grossed her out more than her bloated model.

“Yes, sir—I’m sorry, sir. What is it?”

She still looked flustered. He had only talked to her once before, a few years earlier when he was still with the Port St. James police department. It was at the Windbreaker hotel crime scene where a dumbass spring breaker thought he could swan dive into the pool from a third story balcony. Eight tallboys and three Jell-o shots had clouded the boy’s thinking just enough to throw his aim off by a few feet.

“I was wondering, when you’re through, if we could flip the body over to make sure it’s not my ex-wife.”

Deputy Ennis looked like she had no damn clue to whether he was kidding or not. She backed away and smiled a nervous smile, possibly deciding if her new boss might just be serious after all.

“I’ll need to take some of the face and torso, sir. That is after she’s turned over, of course.”

“Of course,” Keller said. “Give me a hand.” He lifted his stub hoping she’d get the pun. She didn’t.

Keller used his good hand—hell, his only hand to pull on the corpse’s shoulder while Deputy Ennis grabbed the hips. He had no hopes that it really was his ex-wife. Marion was much heavier and less shapely than this woman although they might have been the same age. What he wanted to see was the expression on the woman’s face as it might give an idea of whether she fell off a boat or just walked out into the surf to end her misery. The lack of footprints leading to the Gulf hinted it was the former.

“Pull,” he said to Ennis. Together they rolled the woman onto her back.

“God.” Keller

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