The Lawman's Legacy. Shirlee McCoy
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“It’s Olivia’s.” Merry crouched beside him, reached out. He snagged her hand before she could grab the sneaker, felt the tension beneath smooth skin.
“We need to leave it for the evidence team.”
“Evidence of what?” she asked, tugging her hand away and tucking it into the pocket of her coat. Her cheeks were red from cold, her breath coming out in quick puffs that hung in the icy air.
“Of whatever happened here.”
“You ready to go down, Douglas?” Douglas’s older brother, Ryan, approached, climbing gear flung over his shoulder, his face hard. Deputy chief of police, he’d earned his title through hard work and commitment to the job. Keira and Owen were right behind him, Aiden taking up the rear. Every Fitzgerald police officer was in attendance, but there was nothing they could do for Olivia. Nothing but recover her body, notify her next of kin and see that she had a proper burial.
“I’m ready.” He slid into the gear as Merry watched, her body so tense and tight he thought she might break.
“Why don’t you wait near your car, Merry? I have a few questions I’d like to ask when I’m finished here.”
“Sure.” She seemed relieved by his suggestion, happy to be allowed to leave the cliff. He watched as she ran toward the cottage, her hair flying wild behind her.
“She seems upset,” Keira said.
“She and Olivia were pretty chummy, so that’s not surprising,” Ryan responded as he helped Douglas hook into the harness. “Ready, bro?”
“Ready.”
“Take the camera down with you. The way those waves are crashing, we could lose evidence quickly.” His brother Owen, a detective with the police department, handed him a camera, and Douglas tucked it into his pocket.
“Will do.” Icy spray seeped through his uniform as he rappelled down the slick rock.
Olivia’s body lay a few feet away, water lapping at her hand and seeping over the surface of the boulder under her. He snapped photos quickly, gulls screaming overhead as he worked, his mind separating fact from emotion.
Olivia. Living, breathing, laughing Olivia.
Dead.
It was his job to chronicle the scene. Make sure nothing was missed. He couldn’t let sorrow cloud his vision or his objectivity.
Blood stained the blond hair at the back of Olivia’s skull, and he snapped a picture.
Bruised cheek.
Snap.
Arms and legs splayed.
Snap.
Bruises on one wrist that might have been finger marks.
Snap.
He frowned, studying the angle of Olivia’s head and neck. She lay facedown, but the wound was to the back of her head, the skin behind her ear broken. A deadly blow, for sure. He snapped a close-up of the wound and glanced up, trying to imagine a way that she might have fallen and slammed the back of her head into the face of the cliff. Pounding waves had carved a shallow hollow beneath the bluff, and it would have been difficult for anyone to fall into the rock wall. Didn’t mean it hadn’t happened, though.
He snapped a photo of the cliff’s edge. Snapped another of the scene, Olivia’s splayed body on dark gray rock. Nothing else but a fist-size rock that lay a foot from the remains. He crouched next to it, used his flashlight to turn the heavy stone. A few long strands of blond hair clung to it, glued on by dark clotted blood.
And he knew what he was dealing with.
Not a horrible tragic accident.
A murder.
TWO
Kindhearted, sweet Olivia. Gone.
It didn’t seem possible.
Couldn’t be true.
But no matter how much she wanted to wipe the image out of her mind, Merry couldn’t shake the picture of Olivia’s body lying lifeless as waves crashed just feet away. She rubbed her arms, but there was no easing the icy chill that had settled in her heart.
Sadness.
Anxiety.
Fear.
Heart-pounding, breath-stealing fear.
Her blood flowed cold with it, and she couldn’t shake that. No matter how hard she tried.
Police milled around the lighthouse grounds searching for clues that would help them figure out how Olivia had ended up at the base of the cliff. All Merry could do was stand still, stay quiet, pray that she didn’t call any undue attention to herself.
“Merry? Are you okay?” Keira Fitzgerald hurried toward her, black hair gleaming in the hazy sunlight. The youngest of the Fitzgerald police officers, Keira was the least intimidating of the group, but she was still an officer of the law. Not someone Merry wanted to spend more than a few minutes talking to. Better to talk to her than Douglas, though. Douglas who tempted Merry in a way no man ever had. Tempted her to say things she shouldn’t, believe in things she shouldn’t. She should never have agreed to have lunch with him once, let alone twice. But she had. She’d sat across the table from him, looked into his blue eyes and known how dangerous a game she was playing. Two shared meals, and she’d wanted to confess everything. So, she’d told him what she had to, that things weren’t working out, and she’d done her best to avoid him ever since.
“Are you okay?” Keira repeated, and she nodded.
“Fine. I just wish Olivia was, too.” Her voice broke, and she swallowed back tears.
“You and Olivia were close, weren’t you?”
“We were friends.”
“You were going to meet her for lunch?” Keira scribbled something in a small notebook, and Merry nodded.
“She had the day off, and my landlady offered to watch Tyler. We thought it would be the perfect opportunity to spend some time together without kids. Not that Olivia didn’t like being with the twins. She did, but…” She pressed her lips together, forced back the avalanche of words.
Short, simple, to the point. That’s what she needed to be when it came to dealing with the police.
“When was the last time you spoke to her?”
“Yesterday afternoon when we confirmed our plans.”
“Did you notice anything unusual during your conversation?”
“No.”
“She didn’t seem upset? Worried? Anxious?” Keira pressed, and the words shivered along Merry’s spine. Too many questions being asked about the tragedy, and there had to be a reason.
“No. Why?”
“What time did you arrive at the lighthouse?” Keira sidestepped the question.
“Twelve-thirty.”
“Did you see anything out of the ordinary?”
“What’s going on, Keira?”
“Look, we don’t want this spread around yet, but it looks like Olivia didn’t fall. The evidence suggests she was dead or unconscious before she hit the rocks.”
“She was murdered?” Merry’s heart jumped, her stomach churning.
“That’s what the evidence is pointing to.”
“Who would do such a thing?”
“That’s what we’re hoping you can help us with. Olivia arrived in town three months ago. Now she’s