Whispers Beyond the Veil by Jessica Estevao

Author:Jessica Estevao [Estevao, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-07-29T15:46:37+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

What do you think?” Frank Nichols asked as they bent over the body. “Pickpocket turned violent?”

“Perhaps. The fact that his watch is still with the body makes me wonder.” Yancey pointed at the fancy and obvious chain stretched over the dead man’s waistcoat. He began searching the victim’s pockets. Even after hours spent wicking salty moisture up from the sand, the fabric of the victim’s suit felt like money under Yancey’s fingers. He pulled out a billfold and flipped it open. Several five-dollar bills and a few ones still nestled inside. Finding nothing else besides a book of matches from the Sea Spray Hotel, he turned his attention to the wound. “Nasty gash in the skull.”

“It’s enough to put me off my feed,” Frank said. Frank’s appetite was legendary. It wasn’t surprising, though. His wife, Sadie, was Mrs. Doyle’s daughter and every bit the cook her mother was. Yancey found himself envying Frank more often than he liked, especially when they pulled out their lunch buckets.

“Have you located the weapon yet?”

“No, but I just arrived. From the depth of the wound it had to have been something pretty heavy.”

“Agreed. Have one of the other officers start scouring the area for it in case we are lucky and the murderer discarded the weapon here.”

“Will do.” Frank shouted to a skinny young man with a scanty mustache and sent him off with the order to search the beach for something bloody. Yancey looked down at the body stretched before him. He shook away thoughts of other times he had been in the presence of violent death and brought his attention back to the matter in front of him. The mist would make it more difficult to accurately record the position of the body, and the tide was still rising.

“Get one of the boys to fetch the photographer from up by the livery. Roust him from bed if you have to and get him down here to document this. Hurley’ll have all our hides if this isn’t cleared up before the pier opens.”

“You can’t want that guy Lydale,” Frank asked.

“He’s just trying to make a living like everyone else,” Yancey said, then straightened and brushed the damp sand from his knees.

“Yeah, but he does it on the backs of the dead.”

“Sometimes, so do we.” Yancey gestured at the body in front of them. “I want any help I can get. Speaking of which, who found the body?”

“They did.” Frank pointed to two figures whose details were obscured by the fog. Yancey patted his pocket for a notebook and a pencil as he started up the beach. The pair that discovered the body was sitting on the edge of the boardwalk. Before he reached them the chief loomed into view and intercepted his path.

“Yancey, have you gotten to the bottom of this mess yet?” Chief Hurley’s mustache drooped in the humidity. He pulled off his spectacles and wiped the mist from the lenses on a fine white handkerchief.

“I’ve only just arrived, sir. I’m about to question the people who discovered the body.

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