The Gardens of Digby Green: Big Marsh
Ray zipped the body bag closed over the hollow-cheeked face of an aged veteran, who’d been found dead beneath a freeway overpass. He slid the bag from the autopsy table to a gurney and rolled that to the cooler wall. Opening door twenty-two, he transferred the corpse in.
As he was removing his gloves, Ray’s phone rang. “Coroner,” he said.
“Marquez here. Wilkinson, we need you to come to Big Marsh Park. One of the department’s SAR team was out here, not training his dog, but just walking it, and the animal alerted.”
Ray checked his watch. “I can be there in ten minutes,” he said, and ended the call. His hands trembled. Let the find not be my Rose.
Heart pounding, mouth dry, he drove the official van down Stony Island Avenue, into the park, grabbed a body bag from the supply in the bin, and strode down the overlook path nearest to the parking lot. Flies buzzed, and Ray grimaced as the breeze brought him the stench of decomposition. Marquez, the handler, and the dog were all there, observing as two officers waded into the reeds to recover the corpse.
His first glimpse of the body was of men’s basketball shoes. Ray relaxed. The victim wasn’t his Rose.
Then one officer stumbled and yelped. “What’s that?” From the murky water near his feet, up popped what, at first glance might have been mistaken for a mannequin limb, if the fingers on the hand had not sported a ring.
“Saponification,” Ray said. “Doesn’t happen often.” If something that revolting happened to Rose…he shook his head. Don’t even start thinking along those lines.
“What?” One cop said, as he heaved the fresher body out of the muck.
“It’s undergone a chemical change and turned into soap,” Ray said. The second cop promptly gagged.
Marquez sighed and phoned for the department dive team.
Ray trudged back to the van for a second body bag. As he opened the van door, he sobbed. Where was Rose? Kidnapped, trapped? If she couldn’t get away, or no one found her….
“Pull yourself together, Wilkinson. You’ve got clues to find when you get home.”
The Gardens of Digby Green is a serialized story that posts on Fridays.
Next week, part twenty-seven, Footage.
Find a link to purchase Heartland Treasures anthology here.
Ruth
Heidi Kortman