Read Online The Bone Bed by Patricia Cornwell - Free Book Online
Authors: Patricia Cornwell
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it myself,” Marino says rudely, and it isn’t true that he can do it himself.
He’s been fussing with the straps, trying to defeat the buckle as if it is a Chinese puzzle, making a lot of impatient clicking and snapping noises as he turns the rotary and attempts to force metal links into the wrong slots, and I can’t help but wonder what Bryce said, exactly, when he called the Coast Guard a little while ago.
What persuasion of his resulted in the vessel we’re on?
Typically a 900-horsepower 33-foot Defender with shock-mitigating seats that restrain us like fighter pilots isn’t necessary for what we do. One doesn’t need maneuverability or high rates of speed when there are no arrests or rescues, and then I recall snippets of what my chief of staff was describing over the phone, painting a morbid scenario about putrid human remains and hosing off the deck and double pouching. Better to be on a bigger boat with an enclosed cabin so we can rocket back to shore with our antisocial cargo, I suppose.
“It’s tricky,” says the boatswain named Kletty, as he finishes strapping Marino into the seat behind me.
“Don’t need it.”
“You do, sir.”
“Sure as hell don’t.”
“Sorry, but we can’t go anywhere if everyone’s not strapped in.”
Then the boatswain checks my harness, which is fastened correctly, the sub-strap and rotary buckle wedged where they belong.
“Looks like you’ve done this before,” he says to me, and I sense he might be flirting, or maybe he simply is relieved that I’m not going to give him an argument about Homeland Security protocols.
“I’m all set,” I reply, and he takes a seat next to the redheaded machinist mate, whose name I think is Sullivan, the three members of the crew friendly enough and quite compelling in navy blue fatigues and caps and blaze-orange life vests.
When so many young men I come across are very nice to look at, it reminds me I’m getting old or acting as if I’m getting old or feeling like a de facto mother, and I try to resist staring at the pilot, who looks like an Armani model. He notices me looking and flashes a smile as if we are on a leisurely cruise that involves nothing awful or dead.
“Sector one-one-niner-oh-seven under way. GAR score one-two,” he radios the watch standard command center that the Green-Amber-Red risk assessment for this mission is at the moment low.
Visibility is good, the water relatively calm, the three-member team on board well qualified to transport a forensic radiologic pathologist and her grumpy lead investigator to a location amid islands and hazardous shoals in the south channel, where several hours ago a dead body and an almost extinct species of sea turtle were discovered intertwined in tangles of rope weighted down possibly by a conch pot.
“Coming up!”
A push of the throttle, and within minutes we are going thirty-six knots and climbing. The high-performance boat slices through the water, blue lights strobing, frothy white wake curling on either side of the bow, where a weapons post is lonely for its M240. Long guns and machine guns weren’t part of the checklist, as interdictions and violent confrontations aren’t anticipated. Other than the .40-caliber Sigs the crew members have strapped to their sides, there are no firearms on board that I’m aware of, unless Marino is packing a pistol in an ankle holster.
I glance at the cuffs of his khaki cargo pants, at his big booted feet, and see no hint of a weapon as he continues to complain, staring down at the hockey puck–looking buckle wedged snugly in his crotch.
“Leave it alone.” I raise my voice above the loud rumble of outboard engines, turned in my seat so I can talk to him.
“But why does this thing have to be right here?” He places his hand protectively between the buckle and his “privates,” as he calls them.
“The straps have to be routed so they restrain the body’s hard points.” I sound like a stuffy scientist making
He’s been fussing with the straps, trying to defeat the buckle as if it is a Chinese puzzle, making a lot of impatient clicking and snapping noises as he turns the rotary and attempts to force metal links into the wrong slots, and I can’t help but wonder what Bryce said, exactly, when he called the Coast Guard a little while ago.
What persuasion of his resulted in the vessel we’re on?
Typically a 900-horsepower 33-foot Defender with shock-mitigating seats that restrain us like fighter pilots isn’t necessary for what we do. One doesn’t need maneuverability or high rates of speed when there are no arrests or rescues, and then I recall snippets of what my chief of staff was describing over the phone, painting a morbid scenario about putrid human remains and hosing off the deck and double pouching. Better to be on a bigger boat with an enclosed cabin so we can rocket back to shore with our antisocial cargo, I suppose.
“It’s tricky,” says the boatswain named Kletty, as he finishes strapping Marino into the seat behind me.
“Don’t need it.”
“You do, sir.”
“Sure as hell don’t.”
“Sorry, but we can’t go anywhere if everyone’s not strapped in.”
Then the boatswain checks my harness, which is fastened correctly, the sub-strap and rotary buckle wedged where they belong.
“Looks like you’ve done this before,” he says to me, and I sense he might be flirting, or maybe he simply is relieved that I’m not going to give him an argument about Homeland Security protocols.
“I’m all set,” I reply, and he takes a seat next to the redheaded machinist mate, whose name I think is Sullivan, the three members of the crew friendly enough and quite compelling in navy blue fatigues and caps and blaze-orange life vests.
When so many young men I come across are very nice to look at, it reminds me I’m getting old or acting as if I’m getting old or feeling like a de facto mother, and I try to resist staring at the pilot, who looks like an Armani model. He notices me looking and flashes a smile as if we are on a leisurely cruise that involves nothing awful or dead.
“Sector one-one-niner-oh-seven under way. GAR score one-two,” he radios the watch standard command center that the Green-Amber-Red risk assessment for this mission is at the moment low.
Visibility is good, the water relatively calm, the three-member team on board well qualified to transport a forensic radiologic pathologist and her grumpy lead investigator to a location amid islands and hazardous shoals in the south channel, where several hours ago a dead body and an almost extinct species of sea turtle were discovered intertwined in tangles of rope weighted down possibly by a conch pot.
“Coming up!”
A push of the throttle, and within minutes we are going thirty-six knots and climbing. The high-performance boat slices through the water, blue lights strobing, frothy white wake curling on either side of the bow, where a weapons post is lonely for its M240. Long guns and machine guns weren’t part of the checklist, as interdictions and violent confrontations aren’t anticipated. Other than the .40-caliber Sigs the crew members have strapped to their sides, there are no firearms on board that I’m aware of, unless Marino is packing a pistol in an ankle holster.
I glance at the cuffs of his khaki cargo pants, at his big booted feet, and see no hint of a weapon as he continues to complain, staring down at the hockey puck–looking buckle wedged snugly in his crotch.
“Leave it alone.” I raise my voice above the loud rumble of outboard engines, turned in my seat so I can talk to him.
“But why does this thing have to be right here?” He places his hand protectively between the buckle and his “privates,” as he calls them.
“The straps have to be routed so they restrain the body’s hard points.” I sound like a stuffy scientist making
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