“Any idea how deep the river is here?” the boat’s owner asked.
Mueller and Max considered that, and they figured around twenty feet. “Maybe some deeper. There are rapids about a mile down, but the current’s pretty calm here,” Max said. “If he’s here, we think he’s been in the water for at least twenty-four hours, most likely longer. Do we need to move downriver and look?”
“No, he should be close around here,” the guy said. “Bodies drop like stones when folks drown. They don’t usually drift until they float. We’ll start here. We can always move if we don’t find him.”
“We have dogs coming?” Max asked Mueller.
The boat guy gave him a sideways glance. “I’d call and tell them not to bother if you do,” he said.
Mueller nodded in agreement. “The water’s cold, Max. There won’t be any decomp going on this soon. No way for them to get a scent. As a matter of fact, the bacteria probably aren’t even growing yet in these water temps.” He turned back to the boatman. “Diver’s on his way.”
“Good. Him we can use,” the guy said. “I’ll get started.”
In Dallas, we would have had our own water recovery unit on the scene with a sonar unit that would have lit up with images of the bottom, a body showing up as bright red bumps. Out here in the sticks, we didn’t have access to such expensive high-tech equipment, and none of us wanted to wait for the state guys to fly or truck some in.
The first thing the boat guy did was set out a grid, to keep track of where he searched. He started at the point nearest the skid marks on the shore. He moved slowly, methodically, the hooks dragging on the rocky river bottom. At times, they snagged something and he backed up, waited, tried to lift whatever it was, but the object broke free. “A rock or something. Not for us,” he’d shout. “Don’t get your hopes up.”
He judged by touch. The rocks didn’t give way. Underwater, bodies were light. If they weren’t weighed down somehow or latched onto anything, just clipping onto clothes often would be enough to bring one up.
The diver arrived, pulled on his wetsuit, and joined the guy in the boat. We waited on the riverbank, anxious and wary. “Do you think we should call Doc Wiley, to be ready?” Max asked.
I shook my head. “Odds are we won’t find anything. This is a real long shot.”
The night grew darker and the temperatures dropped. We kept going, the buoy markers floating on the river, marking off each section as the grid expanded. At times, the boat overlapped areas it had already searched, its skipper intent on feeling what lay submerged in the water.
“This is torture,” I said to Max. He understood that I meant the waiting.
“It’s getting late. They may want to abandon this soon,” he whispered. “We may have to try again in the morning.”
I didn’t want to consider that.
The search continued, and the sky grew darker as the air turned colder. We had a few false alarms; we pulled up a tree limb and an old boot, but no luck. Finally, Max and I were talking about calling it a night when the boatman shouted: “I think we’ve got him!”
The diver disappeared under water that shone like ink in the moonlight. As he broke the surface again, we saw a head emerge with him; dark hair, a pale face with a pilgrim beard. They attached floats to the body, and the boat dragged it to the shore. By then, I’d put in a call for Doc Wiley.
We laid Myles Thompkins out on the brittle grass and turned the lights directly on him. His blue eyes were open. Something in the water had nibbled away at his eyelids and his lips, giving them a ruffled look. Otherwise, the body, as Mueller and the boat guy had predicted, showed no signs of decomp. His skin was wrinkled, especially on his hands. He had a bruise on his forehead.
It didn’t take long for Doc to arrive. He looked tired—had probably been about to head to bed when I called—and he trudged toward us limping. “Bursitis,” he said when I inquired. “My knee acts up off and on.”
He winced when he knelt to give Myles a once-over. There was a bloodless gash among the bruising on his forehead.