Chapter Six
The Beach
One Hour Later
Ten P.M.
Oh, it was perfectly obvious when the FBI had been alerted, because as Gene stood on the beach, Corbin by his side, they saw the vehicles and lights going on to light up the beach, and the body.
They were about to put on a show, and Gene was infinitely grateful that they were on a private, resort beach. The last thing he needed was the media catching him and Corbin there.
Both of their straight-men personas would be shot to shit.
When he saw an agent heading his way, he got ready to start working. There was no doubt that there would be pushback as soon as the man saw the victim.
If one of his co-workers had been dumped in the water, and turned up on a beach, he’d want control of the case to get him justice.
As he sauntered his way, Gene checked him out, trying to gauge how rough this was about to be. The new director’s rule was bound to piss him off.
The man was in jeans, a Hawaiian shirt, and had his gun and badge on his hip.
As he stopped in front of him, the games began.
“Agent Cantrell?” he asked, holding out his hand. “I’m Agent Lucas Mayfield,” he offered. “I work out of the office here. We were notified to show up.”
Gene shook his hand, and he kept his body in front of the victim for the time being.
“Call me Gene,” he offered. “I’m sorry we’re meeting like this.”
The man nodded.
“Yeah, me too. We were notified by someone out of the Philly office that we had a crime scene.”
Oh, he could say that.
Gene was still watching the area, and there was another man heading his way.
That had to be the ME. He was putting down his kit as the other techs lit up the beach so they could work.
Lucas was confused.
“They said you were running a case now, and we don’t understand why.”
Oh, well, he was about to find out.
“Unfortunately, when an agent finds a body, and the agent doesn’t work for the local office, that person is tagged in,” he admitted.
Lucas lifted a brow.
“Uh, if the body is tied to our office,” he stated. “You left that part out.”
Gene stepped to the side, and pointed.
On the beach behind him, with the surf receding, was the body.
“I believe this is Jarod Shand. I went to training with him back at Quantico a few years ago. If that’s him, once your ME gives positive ID, your office can’t work the case.”
The man gasped.
“Jarod?” he asked, staring over at the body in horror. “What the fuck?” he asked, heading toward him.
Gene followed.
When they reached him, the man crouched down and shook his head.
“Oh, shit. Jarrod, what the hell happened, buddy?” he asked. “Was it a boating accident?”
Yeah, Gene wished he knew. What wouldn’t he give to have it be a simple boating accident? Let’s just say his fingers were crossed that this was as simple as that.
That would mean not spending precious time on their vacation dealing with a case, instead of having moments to make a memory.
“If only the dead could talk,” Gene said, taking it all in. Corbin was staying back, thankfully.
Lucas sighed.
“This sucks! Jarod basically ran our office. He was damn good at it, too. We thought he was going to get the director position.”
Well, that wasn’t happening.
Not now.
Lucas looked up.
“How did you find him?” he asked.
Gene had a question first.
“Do you believe this is him?” he asked.
The agent stared at the body.
“I think so. He had a tattoo on his thigh of a snake,” he stated. “If this man has one, it’s definitely Jarod.”
Gene used a piece of driftwood to lift the man’s short’s leg, and check out his skin.
Lo-and-behold, there was a snake looking back at them from around his thigh.
“Shit,” Lucas stated. “It’s Jarod.”
Yeah, it looked like it was.
Now that they knew that, Gene could answer his other question, because the ME, who was heading their way, would have to answer the rest.
“We were walking down the beach in the surf, and he literally bumped into us,” Gene said, pointing at Corbin who wasn’t too far away.
Then, he continued.
“At first, I thought he was a drowning victim, so I flipped him over to resuscitate. The minute I touched him, and saw the start of the bloat, I knew he was too far gone to do CPR.”
The ME reached them and sighed when he heard that.
“So you touched and moved him?” he asked.
Agent Mayfield stopped that before it started. It appeared, the man hadn’t liked hearing that.
“Calm down, Doc. He had to see if he could save him. You would have flipped a potential drowning victim over, too. It happens all of the time here. People go out on boats, have too much to drink, get battered on the rocks, and wash ashore.”
The ME still looked angsty, so Lucas tried to clear the way for the man.
This case was out of their hands, and if they were lucky, and they were nice, Gene Cantrell would let them help out.
“Greyson Croft called us, and he vouched for the man, Doc. You can put the aggression away.”
The ME said nothing more, but the irritation was crystal clear, and Gene got it.
Immediately, the agent introduced him.
“Agent Cantrell, this is Doctor Ben Crowley, and as you can tell by his sunny disposition, when it comes to the body, he’s in charge of the dead here. We finally got an ME and morgue, and he runs it.”
Oh, he could tell the man was going to be a stickler, too. Then again, all the good ones were.
Gene focused on the doctor.
“He has a tattoo on his thigh, and it matches Agent Mayfield’s ID of him.”
The man didn’t say anything, but Gene knew what he was thinking.
Yeah, he’d be the one who decided that.
Lucas was curious.
“Who is this?” Lucas asked, nodding his head toward the man not far away. “You said Jarod bumped into you guys in the waves. Is this the other person?”
This was a mess, and Gene knew it.
If Gabe found out about his ‘new boyfriend’, Corbin being there, he’d smell something off. Not only that, but he’d also NEVER let Corbin work with them.
The shit would hit the fan.
All Gene could hope was Corbin figured that out before he made a giant mess of this.
“He’s a friend,” Gene said, trying to leave it at that so nothing was on the record.
Lucas stared at him.
“You realize this is a gay resort, right?”
When no one said a word, he got it.
“Okay, he’s your friend,” he said.
Corbin smiled.
“We’re goooood friends.”
Gene stared at him, trying to get him to knock it off, but the man was incorrigible on a good day. Tonight, he was in a mood, and trying to be a pain in Gene’s ass.
Lucas was to the point.
“Listen, I don’t give a shit,” he admitted. “If you’re here with your ‘friend’, whatever. All I care about now is what happened to my friend, Jarrod. He’s my priority, and that’s got to be the focus.”
Gene went there, and he was relieved that this man didn’t ask Corbin’s name. Now, whether that was out of courtesy, or he just didn’t care, Gene would take it, either way.
“Our boss doesn’t know I’m gay, and I’d prefer that staying on the DL,” he said.
When Corbin held his hand to shake the other agent’s, he gave him a look.
In fact, Gene willed him not to introduce himself.
“The cat is out of the bag, love muffin,” he joked, and then shook the agent’s hand. “I’m a detective with the Philadelphia police. I’m Corbin Price. Once you go cop, you don’t go back,” he joked.
Lucas laughed.
“Nice to meet you, Corbin. I know the feeling. My significant other is a cop too. No worries,” he said, winking at Gene. “Birds of a feather flock together.”
Oh, brother.
He was going to strangle Corbin later.
Bet.
On.
It.
He hoped he was still laughing when Gabe rescinded his offer for Corbin to ride shotgun with them as a liaison.
This baby detective was going to be bitchy then.
Gene took back control of the narrative, or tried to, to save their asses. If it were up to Corbin, they’d be doing the can-can on a stage that said, ‘the gays are here’.
“Anyway, we were walking, and what Gene said is accurate. The body bumped us in the water, he flipped him over to see if he was able to perform CPR, and that’s when he felt all the broken bones.”
Gene was staring at him, willing him to sink into the sand as he let him handle this. Corbin liked to overshare, which ironically was how they got into this mess.
As the ME was filling out paperwork, he was sitting beside the body, and the techs were taking pictures.
“So broken bones?” the ME asked.
Gene nodded.
“Yeah, badly broken,” he stated.
He was curious, and wanted to start working this as quickly as he could.
“Could the bones have been broken when the body was bashed against the rocks?” Gene asked, pointing not far down the beach by the tropical forest where some sharp rocks were protruding into the water.
The ME was checking out the body.
“If he was bashed against the rocks, there would be more damage to the body on the outside. Now, it appears that it was prior to his death, or he had he fallen off something high, and hit the water flat. That could have shattered some bones if the drop was high enough.”
They all listened as the man spitballed some ideas as to what happened to him.
“What I can see is that he has bruising, so that tells me he had blood flow when he was hit with something. That would be before he was pummeled against the rocks. On top of the bruising, there are marks on him, and they seem to be in some kind of…markings.”
Gene crouched down.
Yeah, he’d seen the markings, and they looked ominous.
“What kind of markings do you think they are?” he asked.
Doctor Crowley tried to smudge some with a gloved finger, and it did come off on his glove, but not easily. They were greasy.
“I’m not sure, but I’ll find out with some testing, he said. “They look like symbols I’ve seen before,” he admitted.
Gene was in work mode.
“Where?”
That was a good question.
“I need to make sure before I give you any information, Agent. I like to secure my sources first.”
No shock there.
Before Gene could say anything, Lucas got the man’s attention.