Read A Song of Shadows for Free Online Page A

postmortem. Corpses in water always float facedown, and the buffeting of the waves, combined with any damage that the body might have sustained upon sinking initially, could well have resulted in abrasions to the head. The lividity to the visible parts of his upper torso was dusky and blotchy from his movement in the water. His right foot was shoeless, although he still wore a striped sock. The remains of his big toe poked from a hole. Something had eaten most of it down to the bone. His left foot had retained its shoe, and the right shoe was attached to it by the laces. So before he’d gone into the water, his shoelaces had been tied together.
    Carefully, Bloom patted the pockets of his garments, looking for some form of ID. She discovered none.
    ‘You thinking a suicide?’ said Stynes.
    Bloom leaned back on her heels. She’d heard of cases in which people had tied their shoelaces together, or bound their legs, before dropping, or shuffling, into the water, just so they could be sure that they wouldn’t start kicking once the panic set in. She had even seen photographs of drowning victims with wire tied around their wrists, leading to an initial assumption that the bodies were put in the water by a third party, only for the autopsy to reveal marks in their mouth where they’d pulled the wire taut with their teeth.
    She examined the man’s fingers. The skin of the pads and the backs of the hands were macerated from his time in the water, but none of the fingernails was missing. As putrefaction developed, the epidermis and nails tended to peel off, but his were still intact.
    ‘I’ll inform the ME and the state police,’ said Bloom. ‘We’ll see if there are any reports of abandoned vehicles, or somebody finding a discarded wallet or ID. In the meantime, we need to get him bagged and off this beach.’
    Now that he was out of the water, decay would start to set in rapidly. It was essential that they secure him in a cooler drawer as soon as possible, in order to facilitate an accurate autopsy. In addition, the discovery of a body inevitably attracted rubberneckers, especially in a small town. Kramer & Sons, the local funeral home, had the contract for dealing with floaters and similar unfortunates in this part of the county. They’d be glad of the work. Despite Boreas’s relatively elderly population, nobody had died in town for a couple of weeks.
    ‘Mary,’ she said, ‘I want you to go up to the road and establish a cordon. No unauthorized vehicles, no unauthorized personnel, and no excuses. Caroline, you stay with the body for now, and take Mr Rainey’s statement. I’m going to call in Mark and Terry to help us do a sweep of the beach while the tide is going out, just in case we can find anything to help us make an identification. All clear?’
    They nodded, then Preston looked past her.
    ‘Pastor’s here,’ she said. ‘And Father Knowles.’
    Bloom turned to see the two men waiting at a polite distance. She could see only one car, though. They must have decided to travel together. Martin Luther would have had an embolism.
    ‘Is it okay to come down?’ Pastor Werner called.
    Bloom waved them over. Both men were wearing clerical collars. She wondered if they’d put them on specially. Bloom wasn’t religious, but she maintained good relations with both Werner and Father Knowles, the parish priest of Holy Mother. He was a tiny, energetic man, whose enthusiasm for everything sometimes wearied Bloom. She got on better with the Lutheran Werner, who was more laid back and laconic. He probably had six inches on Knowles, and the smaller cleric usually deferred to Werner in community matters, for Werner’s father had been pastor before him, while Knowles was only in his second year at Holy Mother.
    ‘We heard about it in town,’ said Father Knowles. ‘It’s no one local, is it?’
    ‘I don’t believe so,’ said Bloom.
    The two men looked past her at the face of the dead man, and winced at the sight of