"Night Warriors - 01 - Night Warriors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

'I, um - I was working on a magazine article all night,' Henry explained. 'I live right up there. . .the cottage with the white-painted balcony. I finished up around five-thirty, then I decided to take a walk.' He hoped Lieutenant Ortega couldn't smell his breath.

Lieutenant Ortega turned to Susan. 'How about you?' he asked her. 'Exceptionally early to be down on the shoreline, wouldn't you say?'

Susan said, 'Guess it is.'

'So what were you doing here, so exceptionally early?'

'Walking, that's all. Thinking.'

'You had a row with your parents?'

'My parents are dead . I live with my grandparents.'

'You had a row with them?'

' I just went for a walk, that' s all.'

Lieutenant Ortega worried something out from between his front teeth with his thumbnail. Then he sucked at his teeth, and said, 'Okay. I want you all to make statements to my officers here; full statements: how you found this dead person here, everything.'

'Straightforward drowning,' Detective Morris repeated.

At that moment, two more cars arrived on the beach, a dilapidated Buick Regal and an olive-drab station-wagon from the coroner's department.

'Ah, the photographer,' said Lieutenant Ortega, rubbing his hands together. 'And the medical examiner, too, remarkably prompt for a change.'

The photographer was a dour young man with a monk-like tonsure and a repetitive sniff. He began work straight away, laying out measurement markers and then photographing the young woman's body from all sides. The medical examiner, a short bull-necked man in a loud black-and-white hound's-tooth sports jacket, whistled tunelessly between his teeth while he waited for the photographer to finish.

'Straightforward drowning, what do you think?' Detective Morris asked him.

The medical examiner stared at him. 'Do you want to do the post mortem, or are you going to leave it to me?'

Detective Morris gave him a hesitant grin. 'No, sir, you go right ahead.'

'Can we turn her over now?' asked Lieutenant Ortega. 'I'd like to see what she looks like.'

The medical examiner didn't answer him, but carefully brushed the sand away from the dead girl's shoulders, and ran his hands down the length of her bare back. He stood up straight, and frowned, and then he looked out along the beach.

'Do any of you know this beach at all well?' he asked, thoughtfully.

'Yes, sir,' said Detective Morris. 'I've lived here just about all of my life.'

'Have you attended drownings here before?'

'Five or six.'

'Can you recall how far up the beach those other five or six bodies were discovered?' the medical examiner asked him.

Detective Morris looked puzzled. 'On the waterline, I guess, just like this one.'