She didn’t move, but swept her light around the wooded area, searching for clues. “Do you often have bodies washing ashore?”
His lips thinned. “No. Before I came there was a drunk tourist who fell off his boat and hit his head on the way into the water. But that was over two years ago. This is the first homicide in the eighteen months since I’ve been here.”
Even one homicide in the small town of Crystal Lake seemed like too much. It took a minute for her to register what he’d said. He was relatively new to the area, just like she was. “Do you think the murder actually happened here?”
“I couldn’t see anything to indicate the crime had taken place here. The lake is spring-fed, so there is a slight current running north to south. To be honest, this could have happened anywhere.”
Not good news. It was always harder to find detailed evidence when a body has been moved. Even worse when the body was dumped in the water.
Interesting that this was the normal hangout place for the teens of Crystal Lake. If the crime had been committed elsewhere, had the killer chosen his spot on purpose, knowing the body would wash up here to be found quickly? Crystal Lake was several miles long and surrounded by woods. There had to be a zillion other places in the area to hide a body.
Fighting apprehension, she headed closer to the lake. A young female victim was lying on the bank, where the deputy had dragged her from the water. She flashed a light along the ground, seeing a mess of trampled footprints, more than just from the deputy, but she supposed if the kids were down here often, that wouldn’t be unusual.
As she moved closer, the scene became surreal. The water changed to a blacktop parking lot at the corner of Flannigan’s Irish pub. The young woman was lying at an awkward angle, the orange braided rope bright against her slim neck. Katie? No, it can’t be. Katie? Katie!
“Are you all right?”
The deep voice beside her snapped her back to the present and she drew an uneven breath, trying to focus on the matter at hand. Her victim, the girl in the water, was blonde, just like Katie. Megan moved closer, focusing on her face, realizing with dread that she remembered the girl. “Oh, no,” she whispered.
“What?” Luke Torretti followed beside her, careful not to disturb anything. “Do you know her?”
“Teagan,” she murmured, remembering the scene outside the diner. “No, that isn’t right, she called her friend Teagan. I don’t know this girl’s name.”
“Liza Campbell, an eighteen-year-old high school senior.” Sheriff Torretti’s tone was grim. “When did you see her last?”
“This afternoon, just before I ran into you outside Rose’s Café. She was heading down to the lake with a redhead named Teagan and they met up with a group of boys.” Megan took another step and almost went to her knees. The rope wrapped around the girl’s neck was badly faded, but in the light of her flashlight she would guess the original color had been red, pink or orange. Regardless of the color, it was polyurethane and braided.
Just like Katie’s.
Luke saw Megan sway and reached out to grab her. Her arm was slim yet strong beneath his fingers. It was the second time she’d appeared about ready to faint. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked her to come out here. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
His question snapped her out of the reverie she’d fallen into. Her shoulders stiffened. “I’m fine.” As if to prove it, she shrugged off his hand, lifted her camera and began taking pictures, pretending the brutal slaying of a young girl didn’t bother her.
He stayed close, just in case, watching her work. Crime scene experts were usually not squeamish when it came to violent death, but having heard about Megan O’Ryan’s history from Frank, he could understand what she was probably going through. Her younger sister had been strangled too. The similarities between the two crimes had to be difficult for her. Yet she approached the scene with cool professionalism, obviously stronger than her slim, petite frame looked.
She spent a lot of time looking around the area. She walked over to the fire ring not far off the lakeshore and bent to examine the ashes. “They’re still warm,” she murmured.
“I know.”
Nodding, she stood and went back down to the young girl’s body. “Rigor mortis has just set in, so I estimate the time of death is approximately within the past four hours.”
He agreed with her assessment and knew the warm ashes gave credence to her time frame. “I suppose the lake water washed away any evidence.”
“Maybe, maybe not. There’s still some mud embedded in the bottom of her running shoes. And I would recommend sending the faded rope around her neck to the lab. If the perp wasn’t wearing gloves, there might be skin cells in the fibers of the rope. We could get lucky.”
Luck wasn’t his strong suit, but he nodded. He wasn’t going to take any chances. Not with this. His first murder as interim sheriff.
Dawn was breaking over the horizon by the time the medical examiner left the scene, taking Liza’s shrouded body with him.
Megan came up beside him. “Liza didn’t die here. The dirt embedded in the bottom of her shoes has the consistency of clay. I can’t see anything around here except sandy dirt and a bit of moss.”
“So what do you recommend?” he asked.
She grimaced and shrugged. “It’s a long shot, but we could do a broader search, to see if there’s some other area around the lake where a scuffle might have taken place. Can you shut down access to the lake for a while?”
“We can shut down the public boat launch, but there are at least twenty-five dwellings surrounding the lake. I can send a few deputies out to ask everyone to stay off the lake, if you think it will help.”
“I think it would help. We need to start as soon as we have more light.”
“And what if she wasn’t killed close to the lake?” Luke couldn’t help but point out the obvious. “She could have been killed anywhere, there’s natural forest for miles around. Don’t you think your plan to search the entire lake is a bit extreme?”
“Extreme? Or inconvenient?” Her gaze bored into his. In the faint light he couldn’t tell what color her eyes were, but for the first time tonight, there was a fiery determination shooting daggers at him. “If she was your daughter, don’t you think a little inconvenience would be worth it to find her killer?”
Touché. As a cop he knew very well how family members of victims needed closure. She was right. He raised a hand in silent surrender. “Okay. I’ll approve overtime for every single deputy to help us search.” He’d better call the mayor too, because it was only a matter of time before both of their phones would be ringing from angry and worried citizens. Especially once they started questioning everyone, including the hordes of tourists.
“You’re going to want to question Liza’s friends, Teagan and the boys she went out to the lake with.”
He swallowed the spark of annoyance. He had asked for her help, so there was no point in complaining when she gave it to him. “Yeah. I know.” He could get the names of the boys from Teagan, no doubt, and Liza’s best friend was exactly the place he intended to start.
Megan hesitated. “I realize I shouldn’t make rash judgments, but there was one boy, lanky and tall, with long dark hair, dressed all in black, who seemed to be a loner, standing apart from the rest of the group.”
His breath froze in his throat at her description. Long dark hair? Lanky and tall? Loner? Sam?
Was she really describing his son?
Oblivious