working with the police here? Is this part of an investigation?”
A chill snaked down Miranda’s spine. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you’re not the first investigator to come to me with a feather.”
“No?”
“A police detective brought me a feather last summer. He said he found it at the scene of a murder.”
CHAPTER
FIVE
The late-afternoon sun cast long shadows across the parking lot as Joel pulled into the marina. Nearing the water, he spotted an LBPD skiff in the bay alongside a boat that belonged to Lost Beach Fire and Rescue. Joel passed a pair of white vans and a couple of overdressed reporters who appeared to be setting up shots for the five-o’clock news.
He parked his pickup near a police unit and slid out. Randy stood in the shadow beside his bait shop, smoking a cigarette and eyeing the vans with suspicion. He waved Joel over.
“Hey.” Joel stepped into the shade. “How’s business today?”
“Shitty.” He blew out a stream of smoke and nodded at the reporters. “The buzzards are scarin’ off my customers. Any chance you can run ’em off?”
“They’re on a public road.”
“Hmph. That’s what they said, too.”
Joel looked at the reporters, then turned back to Randy. “They’ll pack up eventually. You see anything suspicious today? Anyone strange hanging around?”
“Nope.” He dropped his cigarette to the gravel and stepped on it. “I’ll call you if I do, though.”
“Thanks, Randy. Be good.”
Joel headed over to the blue tarp that had been erected near the dock and stepped over a swag of yellow tape that cordoned it off from the rest of the parking lot. He surveyed the plastic tubs that had been brought in to transport any evidence recovered by the diver. The tubs were empty except for a few crumpled beer cans and a barnacle-covered two-by-four—probably the same one Miranda had slashed her foot on yesterday.
Joel muttered a curse and turned to look at the water. Nicole was bringing in the skiff now, and he crossed the dock to meet her. She tossed him a line, and he crouched down to tie it to a cleat.
“How’s it going out there?” he asked.
“It’s freaking hot.”
Her nose was pink from the sun. She wore sand-colored tactical pants and a navy golf shirt, same as he did, but she had on black rubber boots and had spent some time traipsing around in the mud this afternoon.
“Any luck?” he asked.
“Yep.”
Joel gave her a hand as she stepped off the boat, and the excitement in her voice made him hopeful that his crap day was about to get better.
“You guys find a wallet or a purse?” he asked.
“No.” She wiped her hands on her pants and walked with him toward the tent. “Emmet’s brother found a slug, though.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. And he said it’s in good condition.” She stepped under the tent, peeling off her LBPD hat. She went straight for a cooler and popped open the lid.
Joel watched as she fished a bottle of water from the ice. They’d been searching for a slug at the crime scene ever since their examination of the canoe revealed a bullet hole, which explained why the canoe had been taking on water when the victims were discovered.
“Calvin’s been down there for hours with a metal detector,” she reported. “He said the silt is so soft, it’s almost like ballistic gel.”
Emmet’s younger brother Calvin was a new hire with the Lost Beach Fire and Rescue team, and prior to that he’d been a Navy SEAL. The man was not only an expert diver; he knew a lot about ballistics, too.
“So, the slug’s not mutilated,” Joel said.
“Nope.” She took a sip of water. “He said it has good markings, which means we can run it through the system.”
Even so, a match was a long shot. The federal firearms database contained records of the unique markings made by a gun when a bullet was fired. The database included bullets recovered from crime scenes and victims’ bodies, as well as test bullets fired from weapons seized by law enforcement. Problem was, running evidence could take months, and there was only a slim chance that the weapon used yesterday was in the database already.
“Why don’t you look excited?” Nicole asked.
“I am.”
“Uh-huh.” She set her water bottle down on the table. “I take it since you’re asking about a wallet, we didn’t get IDs at autopsy.”
“Nope.”
“Shit. He printed them and everything?”
“Yep. Neither has fingerprints in the system.”
“So, what did we get?”
“He ruled out suicide. No gunshot residue on their hands. So, we’re officially investigating a