Turtle Island Read Free

Rick was
surprised to see Leroy LaPortiere’s Volkswagen parked in the
temporary make shift car park, which in normal times was the picnic
area.
    He parked alongside and headed out, up a hill, over toward the
wetlands guided by a police officer's directions to where the body
had been found.
    LaPortiere was up to his thighs in water, wearing an overlarge
pair of fishermen’s waders. Rick recognised the tanned balding head
that belonged to his boss, Norman Frusco. Frusco was standing on
the drier bank by the marsh. Frusco waved recognition to
Rick.
    Rick acknowledged Frusco before shouting to Leroy. ‘Hey,
Leroy, mind the gators.’
    ‘Very funny, Rick. Why don't you get your black ass in
here?'
    ‘You know I can't swim, otherwise...’ Rick's sentence trailed
away, noticing that Leroy's attention was firmly on events behind
him.
    Rick turned to see a young white woman, late twenties he
guessed, dressed in a smart burgundy skirt and matching jacket,
white blouse and Wellington boots.
    Georgina O’Neil clumped over the brow of the hill and headed
straight toward Frusco.
    Her hand was outstretched to greet Frusco. Before she was
within range, they made contact. Her grip was firm and the shake
vigorous.
    ‘Captain Frusco.’ Georgina introduced herself. ‘Agent O’Neil.
My people informed you of my arrival.’ She said as matter of fact,
not debate.
    Her hair was jet black, stylishly cut but more for
practicality than fashion. In the field she had learned it paid to
be pragmatic rather than vain. Her eyes were blue and lit with
spirit, her skin Celtic white, inherited from her
Father.
    ‘Where's the body?’
    ‘Over by the bank.’ Frusco walked with Agent O’Neil down the
incline. ‘Did you have a pleasant journey down here Agent
O’Neil?’
    ‘To be honest, Captain, I can't stand planes they make me air
sick. I would have driven but for the need to be fresh at the
scene.’
    They stopped by the body, which was encased in a
bodybag.
    ‘I gotta warn you; fresh is not a word I would use to describe
the body.’ Frusco crouched down and unzipped the bag. He leaned
backwards as the aroma of decomposition wafted up.
    Agent O’Neil held her breath, and then exhaled before
breathing through her mouth. Some agents used tiger balm to keep
the stench of putrefaction at bay; Georgina would have too but for
an allergic reaction. The pungent aroma of rotting flesh permeated
in to the air. O’Neil could taste the corruption.
    ‘Where's the guy who found the body?’
    Frusco looked around, spotting the fisherman on the bank side.
‘He's over there…feeding the fish’
    O’Neil turned and saw the man spewing the contents of his
stomach directly into the river.
    ‘Lucky fish.’ O’Neil watched the heaving body of a man dressed
in fisherman’s garb with waders up to his chest. He wore an army
camouflage jacket open to the waist, exposing a matured beer belly
that strained the cotton material of his Budweiser tee
shirt.
    Rick moved down the bank side to talk with Leroy, some twenty
yards away from Frusco and O’Neil.
    ‘What do you make of that?’
    ‘F.B.I.’ Rick looked on as Agent O’Neil crouched down joining
Frusco; she hitched her skirt up slightly, allowing herself to
balance effortlessly.
    She eased the body bag open.
    ‘Phew! Quite a mess.’ A bloated, swollen head greeted her, his
skin was a grey, blue colour. The hair on his chest and around the
genital area was matted with algae. There was a large tear in the
stomach where the fisherman who found him had accidentally hooked
into, but there was no blood, just loose flapping skin lying over
exposed intestinal tissue.
    ‘Looks like he's been fish food for some time. Vermiculation
evident.’ O’Neil scanned the body.
    ‘Teeth and tongue removed, his genitalia has trauma, though I
think that's mostly Gator related. These jagged marks here?’ Her
latex gloved finger probed and lifted serrated folds of skin where
the victim’s lips once were. ‘These seem