Emily stands on the warped boards of the dock, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her jeans. A thin shroud of fog hangs over the land. The sulfur-tinged reek of mud is strong.
Floodlights have been set up and lashed to a pair of anchored boats. Water jostles through the barnacle-covered pilings, murmuring hollow and full of drips. Light from the floods slices down through the green water and turns it hazy. A raw cold wind blows in off the bay, smelling of crushed shells. Yellow crime scene tape flutters across the corner of the small parking lot. The channel is bordered by hummocks of wiry marsh grass and crime scene tape has been staked out and strung there, too. Caramel-colored seaweed drifts and turns in the silted depths.
Emily looks down at the water and imagines herself in waders. She feels the slippery rocks against the soles of her feet, their rough edges, her toes clenching against the current and languid seaweed brushing soft and tender against her thighs. Encased in cold green water, she tosses handfuls of hot pink petals. She rips them off the wild rose bushes and smells them, moving through the thick salty water, thinking of Ophelia: vibrant in her youth, mercurial in her beauty, drowned in her mad love.
The woman floats, limbs spread to the four points of the compass. The silver boundaries of the water’s surface undulate on her skin. Her hair spreads out in a dark corona, a curly mass adrift, tendrils weaving through dreamy currents. Her long skirt spreads out on the water’s surface. The topography of her face has softened past pleasure and sleep and settled into the ultimate surrender. Her half-opened eyes stare up at a cloudy sky. A deep gash crosses the top of her left breast, its edges pale and clean. Her white lips are parted. Bits of loosened fat drift beneath the surface, bumping and swirling like strands of milkweed fluff. Her long hands, upturned like cups. Narrow silver bangles encircle her wrists.
The cut is so neat, she thinks. Like surgery.
Three local officers stand in a loose murmuring knot behind her. They drink coffee, speaking with Hotch in low voices. Emily squats, wrapping her arms around her knees. Wisps of mist swirl across the water’s surface. Reflections from the floodlights dance across the pilings. She reaches out, brushes the water with her fingertips. Between thin darts of light she sees white ropes encircling the woman’s ankles, knots tied on the bangles.
“Nantucket CSU has thoroughly documented the scene,” says Hotch, walking up behind her. “All the photos are on their way to Garcia.”
“Did they photograph the rope around her ankles?” The distant sound of the sea whispers on the wind. Emily moves her hair behind her ears. “It’s tied to the bangles, too. Did you see that?”
“Yes. I’ve looked the photographs over myself.” He stares out over the marsh grass, turns around and glances at the van. “They did an exceptional job.”
Emily stands, folding her arms. “Now we’re just waiting for the medical examiner.”
“Uh huh.” He touches the center of her back. “There’s nothing more we can do here. We’re both tired.” His voice softens. “Come on. Let’s get out of here and go get some sleep.”
“It’s so neat.” Emily watches the water ripple between the woman’s floating breasts. “It’s like surgery.”
“We’ll have the autopsy report by tomorrow night.”
“He must have used some kind of tranquilizer. There are no defensive wounds, no signs of a struggle. Cause of death looks like…cardiac tamponade, judging by the position of the wound.”
Hotch hands her a pair of white nitrile gloves. “There’s more.”
Emily stands up. She snaps the gloves on. “What?”
Hotch beckons one of the crime scene technicians. She is holding a Ziploc bag in her gloved hand. Hotch gestures to Emily and the tech nods, handing it over. Emily opens the bag and pinches the paper between two fingers.
“It’s some kind of note,” he says. “A quote. I don’t recognize it and no one here does either.” Hotch points at the end of the dock. “It was found there, nailed to the piling.”
Emily lifts it out, opening it up. Her mouth dries out. It’s handwritten. Her heart pounds. Black ink, capital letters slanting hard to the right, narrow and well-formed; I know how tall the letters are, that they came out of a place of calm, and I can imagine the hand that made them. She struggles to calm her breath and holds the letter in tight fingers and reads it through twice. She shivers a little. She doesn’t recognize the text, but it feels familiar.
“So we’ve got a reference to a body in the water,” she says, folding the note back up and tucking it into the plastic bag. She hands it back to the tech, who drops it into a marked evidence bag. “Which seems too obvious, I mean we can see that part, right?” She shrugs, pulling the gloves off. “There’s probably more meaning to it than that but I have no idea.”
“Reid will look at it when he gets here.”
Emily lets out a deep breath. She nods. “Okay.”
Hotch thanks the local officers and the CSU team. Emily tosses her used gloves into a marked bin and nods and smiles to the CSU team as makes her way to the car. She climbs in, pulls the door closed against the chill wind, and starts the engine. She fiddles with the heat. Hotch climbs into the passenger side and she cranks the output up to full blast, directing the vents toward her knuckles. He fastens his seat belt.
“I feel ridiculous investigating a crime scene in jeans and sandals.” Emily looks over her shoulder, backing the car out of its parking slot. “And I’m freezing.”
“It is chilly.”
Emily brakes, shifts into drive, swings around, and rolls up the gravel road toward the main drag. “Yeah. Welcome to Nantucket.”
Hotch flashes a brief smile. “I wish I could’ve seen it under better circumstances.” He looks out the window. “What I’ve seen of it, though it’s been by night, looks beautiful.”
“If we lose the fog by morning, you’ll see. It really is beautiful.”
“Even if it’s the kind of place only old money can really love?”
“Yes.” Emily grins. “The locals love it too, and there’s no money involved there. After all, someone has to make sure everything’s still here when the summertime rolls back around and the season opens up.” She turns onto the main road and picks up speed. “Though that’s not really true. There’s a strong native population. A lot of it comes from old fishing families that have been here for generations. Nantucket’s kind of schizo that way.”
“Nantucket’s last murder happened in 2004.” Hotch looks at her. “You might remember it: Beth Lochtefeld, murdered in her cottage by her ex-boyfriend.”
“Yeah, I remember that case.” Emily keeps her eyes on the road. “It made it all the way to Dateline.”
“Prior to that, the last murder here happened in 1983.”
“Yeah, they’ll be talking about this one for years.” Emily glances in the rearview. “This place has no murder rate to speak of. Run the others by me again.”
“All right.” Hotch opens a briefcase and pulls out a folder. He flips it open. “Uh, Francine Oakley, age 35, she was a lawyer with a Virginia firm. She was discovered in Rock Creek Park, on the Washington D.C. side of the line, in the creek. The cause of death and signatures are the same.”
Emily glances at him. “Even the note?”
“No. Well…yes and no. There was a note found on a nearby rock, in the same type of plastic bag, with what appears to be the same handwriting, but the text is different. Francine’s note…” Hotch clears his throat. “Francine’s note reads ‘Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced.’” He shuffles through the papers. “There are scans of both notes included in the file, if you want to look them over when we get to the hotel.”
“And the second?”
Hotch clicks on the overhead light. “Carla Torres, age 29, a concierge from Corpus Christi.” He leans forward, tilting the folder toward the bulb’s glare. “She was found by the pool man at the Radisson Resort on South Padre Island. Her note was left floating alongside her in a half-inflated plastic bag.” He lets out a long breath. “All three women were found topless in water and all three were wearing skirts, though Francine still had her hose and heels on while the other two didn’t. All three women are olive-skinned brunettes with shoulder length hair or longer and all three share similar builds.”
Emily’s eyebrows twitch. “What are the dates?”
“Francine was found in the early morning of March 3 by a jogger crossing the bridge.” Hotch thumbs through the sheets of paper. “Carla was found the morning of April 1. Now we have Jane Doe, found here just after sunset by a local fisherman who came by after hours to pick up something he left on his boat.” His phone rings. He answers it, watching the bone white shoulder flow by. “Okay, great. I’ve got copies of the files with me. I have no idea how far we are from the hotel””
“About fifteen minutes.”
“Emily says about fifteen minutes. All right.” He hangs up. “The team has landed and they’re picking up cars. We’ll all arrive at the hotel at about the same time.” He looks at her. “Can you recommend food? Reid says he’s starving.”
“A lot of places close early around here. His best bet’s probably room service.”
Hotch leans his head on the seat. He closes his eyes. Emily can’t see his face but she reads his dropped eyelids in the lines of his body. She watches the road rush out of the darkness and imagines him: strong hands folded in his lap, knees loose, face smooth and neutral and tilted to the left, orange light from the street lamps chasing shadows across the planes of his face, running up the blade of his nose. He is not asleep but he looks asleep; the investigator is put to bed, his vulnerability shuttered. A hollow space opens up inside her, breathing hard. She thinks about touching him. She imagines the threads of his jeans and his smell, the traces of his skin trapped within them. Relic of his life, fetish of his skin, abrasive enough to rub away all the dark and slithery things. She yearns for the smell of him, the smoke of his metabolism, those worn threads filling her empty panting spirit. She doesn’t think it will be enough.
Somewhere on this island there is a bullet etched with my fingerprints. It is lying on the dirt, bearing oils in the shape of my skin. I’ll hunt it down, make it a talisman.
“We’ll be there soon,” she says.