The Girl Beneath the Sea (Underwater Investigation Unit #1)(7)

“Thanks,” I say, getting up.

“Oh . . .” She hesitates for a moment. “You should know, the dive you’re heading to?”

I nod.

“Detective Alameda mentioned that Miami-Dade brought in a consultant on the case. George Solar. I think you know him.”

Ice goes through my veins at the sound of that name. I know exactly who George Solar is: he’s the cop that sent Uncle Karl to prison and nearly put my father there too.

Growing up in a family full of sailors, we had no fouler curse word than the name of George Solar.

“I thought he retired,” I say calmly. Rumor had it he was forced out after some kind of internal affairs scandal.

“He did. They brought him in to consult.”

“Interesting,” I reply, failing to hide my anger.





CHAPTER FIVE

MUCK

The Seventy-Ninth Street Causeway is a low bridge that connects the middle of Miami Beach to the mainland. The small islands that dot the route are a mix of commercial real estate and suburbs. A half mile to the west of where I’m standing is the Pelican Harbor Seabird Sanctuary, where I once thought about working after a middle school field trip.

Watching rescuers pull a fishhook from one of the enormously beaked pelicans made me realize that these creatures weren’t just the fat buzzards of the sea I’d always thought them to be.

That notion changed a week later when a pelican gulped a mackerel I’d been reeling in after snapping my rod.

Nothing teaches you the laws of nature like a bird swooping in and eating your lunch. I bear no ill will toward the big birds, but I still harbor a slight grudge.

I’ve had porpoises steal bait off my hook, but they at least pop out of the water and throw you a playful taunt, which somehow makes the theft more tolerable. Pelicans are simply an ungrateful mouth on wings. Of course, I never tell my daughter, Jackie, that.

No pelicans in sight, and I’m already in my wet suit checking my tanks when Miami-Dade Lieutenant Cardiff and Officer Swanson pull up in an SUV. Both are wearing khakis and department polo shirts.

It’s nice to be at a crime scene where I’m not the center of attention. Each day is something new and different as a police recovery diver who gets loaned to different departments. It’s hard to keep track of all the faces, and the cases themselves tend to run together—which is why I’d probably make a horrible detective. My skill is finding things in the water.

I know this pair of detectives fairly well. Cardiff has what we refer to as the SICM—Standard-Issue Cop Mustache—while Swanson is clean shaven. I’ve pulled evidence, mainly guns, out of the water for them before. I think Swanson has a thing for me, but he’s too much of a straight arrow ever to say anything. Cardiff, on the other hand, throws the kind of glances that creep me out.

“McPherson,” says Cardiff, greeting me.

Today there’s something different about the way he’s staring at me. Not the usual leer. More hesitant, almost suspicious. I reach into my gear bag and feel an unfamiliar object and pull it out. It’s a handheld radio. I must have forgotten to give this back on a dive working with another department. I shove it back in, reminding myself to call around tomorrow and find out whom I boosted it from.

“Hello, gentlemen,” I say. “I read the report. But can you give me the CliffsNotes?”

Swanson pulls a map out of his case and lays it on the hood of their truck. “I was finishing up a call here at about ten p.m. when I saw a late-model Mercedes drive by real fast with no lights. I decided to follow, and when I got to the next light, he saw me and gunned it through the intersection. I chased him over the causeway but lost him in traffic. A patrol unit found the car ten minutes later in a CVS parking lot.”

“Any camera footage?” I ask.

“Parking lot. Not very good. Hispanic male between twenty and fifty,” he replies.

“Half of Miami,” mutters Cardiff. “Five minutes before Swanson saw the car, a witness put it at a shootout in the parking lot of the Carolina Bar.”

“Any other witnesses?”

“Only the waitress in the bar. The suspect and the victim all fled. We got some blood, but that’s all.”

“What makes you think the gun was tossed here?” I stare down the length of the bridge. It’s a good two hundred feet long. We have fairly accurate estimates for how far a gun is likely to be thrown, but that still leaves me a mighty wide search area.

“Because we didn’t find it in the car,” Cardiff replies. He kicks a toe at my underwater magnetometer. “We thought we’d send you out with that thing and you might find it.”

“Didn’t your diver try?”

“He spent about an hour,” says Swanson.

“This same exact area?”

“Are you trying to avoid going in or what?” Cardiff growls impatiently.

“I’m just trying to keep my search pattern from being something larger than the county.” This guy irritates me. Swanson I can handle.

They both look over my shoulder as an old blue pickup truck pulls onto the grass near the bridge entrance.

Damn. I’d almost forgotten about George Solar. I don’t know if it shows in my face, but I can feel my blood pressure rising.

I continue to check my gear, making sure my breathing regulator gets a fifth look, a totally unnecessary inspection, and do my best to pretend that George Solar being here is no big deal. With DEA asking questions about me this morning and Solar showing up now, I can’t help but feel a little paranoid.