“Come on. It’s dark out here. Where’s that?”
“Look straight out, perpendicular from the shore.”
Jack looked out over the dark water. A little to the left and then to the right. “You see anything, Junior?”
“A few boat lights. That’s it,” Ross said.
“You know where I am, Sure Thing?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, I have you pinpointed on the map from your phone signal. Her phone disappeared about five hundred yards out from where you’re standing.”
“If she was on a boat, it’s not there anymore,” Jack said as he paced along the water’s shore.
“Jack, the boat still has to be on the water. This is a big lake with lots of bays.” Ross reached for Jack’s phone. “Sure Thing, how many Marinas on this lake?”
“There are about a dozen.”
“That’s it, Jack. We need to check them out and see if we can figure out which boat went out earlier or see which comes in,” Ross said.
“Get us some help and let’s go. We’re so close,” Jack said.
“This is a bust, Jack. We’ve visited three marinas and no boat.”
Jack and Ross stood in the gravel parking lot under the humming lights and swatted at mosquitoes. “Let’s get in the car away from the bugs and call the Sheriff, see if they have any better news.”
Ross yawned while he spoke. “We need to get some sleep, Jack.”
Jack started the car, checked the air-conditioning was on, and called the Sheriff.
“Sheriff, this is Miller, we just finished visiting our third marina and we got nothing.”
“Nobody has anything yet,” Sheriff Looney replied. “Assuming they were on a boat, they either came ashore on private property, docked before we got around and snuck out, or they’re still out on the lake. I’ve got a couple of boats out on the water and we’ll keep patrolling the landings.”
“Thanks, Sheriff. Agent Fruen and I are going to get some sleep. Give me a call if you find anything,” Jack said and ended the call.
“Junior, why don’t you just come crash at my place and we can get right back on things in the morning.”
“Won’t your wife care?” Ross asked.
“She and the kids are staying with her parents for awhile.” Jack spun the wheels on the gravel and pulled out of the lot. “I’ve got a couple of spare beds right now.”
“Want to talk about it?” Ross asked.
“No, I just want to get some sleep and solve this case.”
The noise jerked Jack from his dream. He grabbed the alarm clock on the bedside table and hit the snooze. The noise didn’t stop. He peeked through his lids at the numbers on the clock. Five twenty-three. What the hell? He grabbed the phone. “Yeah?”
“Agent Miller?”
“Yeah.” Jack cleared his throat and tried again. “Yeah. Who’s this?”
“Agent Miller, this is Deputy Sheriff Looney.”
“Looney.” It felt like he just went to bed. Jack looked at the clock again to make sure what time it was.
“I think we got something you’ll want to see.”
Jack cleared his throat again. “You find the boat?”
“No. A fisherman found a body out on Lake Minnetonka. Young woman.”
“I can be there in forty-five, maybe thirty minutes.”
“Make your way to Deephaven, southeast end of the lake, and call me. I’ll talk you in from there. I’ll text you my number.”
“Right, I’ll be there soon. Thanks.” Jack hung up the phone and went into his son’s room. “Junior, get up.”
“Geez, Jack. Do you know what time it is?”
“Just got a call. They found a body out on Lake Minnetonka. We’re going to check it out. Back where we were last night. Leaving in ten minutes.”
Chapter 27
Vince was curled up on the passenger seat, nudging the Governor’s elbow.
“Shh, Vince.”
The Governor sat behind the wheel and looked out through the windshield. According to the list, Jack Miller lived in a house on the next block up from where he and Vince were parked. And the info said he was a regular morning runner. From their vantage point, he could see the house and one end of the alley that Jack might come out of when he drove to work. He didn’t know what he looked like, but Sandy had described him so he thought he would be able to pick him out.
A shade went up in an upstairs window of the house he was watching, grabbing his attention. Vince noticed the change in his master and sat up in his seat. The Governor scratched Vince’s neck. “Down, boy. Nothing to get excited about yet.” Vince groaned and settled down into the seat.
The Governor watched the house as he scratched Vince around the ears. The front door opened and a man stepped out wearing khakis and a polo shirt and looked up and down the street. “Doesn’t look like he’s dressed for a run this morning, Vince.” A second man stepped through the door. “Special Agent Fruen.” The Governor reached under the steering column and touched his car keys. He wouldn’t start his car until they had started theirs so as not to draw any attention.
The two agents walked down the sidewalk and got in the car parked at the curb. They pulled away quickly.
“Vince, they’re in a hurry to get somewhere.”
Chapter 28
Jack pulled to a stop outside of the police tape stretched across the driveway to the boat launch, rolled down his window, and slid his sunglasses down to the tip of his nose so the officer controlling access could see his eyes. He held his credentials out the window, facing away from him.
“Special Agents Miller and Fruen. They’re expecting us down there.” Jack jabbed his chin towards the lake where the ambulance and a couple of police cars were parked. “Can you let me in?” The officer lifted the tape so Jack could drive under it, onto the driveway, and down to the group of vehicles parked at the water’s edge.
Jack and Ross walked over to the group standing at the shore. A big bass fishing boat and a Sheriff’s water patrol boat were nosed in resting on the sand. A man of about sixty sat at the wheel of the bass boat. He had a tanned face with white strips extending back to his ear on either side of his head where the sunglass temples had protected his skin. A deputy was questioning him.
“Hi, Sheriff.” Jack shook his hand. “This is Special Agent Fruen.”
Ross stuck out his left hand, his right arm in a sling.
“You the one in the car accident?” the Sheriff asked.
Ross nodded.
“We keep meeting over dead bodies, Sheriff,” Jack said.
The sheriff was in uniform and beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. “It hasn’t been the best of circumstances. I wouldn’t normally have called you. We get a few drownings every summer. But with what happened at the bank I thought we should at least clue you in on anything happening out this way.”
“What do you have?” Jack asked.
The sheriff started walking towards the ambulance parked down by the water’s edge. Jack and Ross fell in step next to him. A black body bag lay on the stretcher in the heat of the morning sun.
“The man in the boat there, talking to my officer, went out to go fishing this morning. Was trolling this bay, casting for bass. Found this girl floating. She was dead. Called us on his cell phone and met us here.” They stopped next to the stretcher.
“We don’t know who she is. Just had a swimsuit on. Nobody has called to say she fell off a boat during a party last night. We’ll put out a story today on the news and see if anybody comes forward. That’s how it works, once in a while. Somebody wakes up the next morning with a hangover and a guilty conscious and gives us a call.” The sheriff stared at Jack and glanced at the body bag. “I think we’ve got a drowned party girl, but like I said, I just wanted to make sure you’re in the loop on anything that happens out here for a while.”
Jack dragged his palm over his forehead, back through his hair to get rid of the sweat that had formed since they got out of the car. “What do you think, Junior?”
“Let’s see who we’ve got here.”