Visions of Death Read online

  Faces with red eyes don’t exist. And they certainly don’t exist on a stupid tarot card.

  Three days later, Deputy Ellis Martin steered his Boston Whaler alongside the dock on Eagla Island.

  For the past week, he’d been prevented from making his rounds because of ocean storms that ravaged the islands at this time of year. Some of the old timers believed the gales were winter’s way of refusing to give up its stranglehold on the Coffins, intent on extracting every last ounce of revenge with squalls and hurricane-like winds.

  After seeing for himself the volatility of the weather, he wondered if they might just be right.

  There were four isles that made up the Coffin Islands, located out in the Atlantic Ocean two hours due east from Portland, Maine. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, ferries travelled back and forth several times a day, spewing out visitors like a giant maw.

  The tourists had no knowledge, or didn’t care, that their summer destination was considered cursed. In 1745, a ship travelling back to England capsized, releasing its macabre cargo of coffins into the ocean. Several of the pine boxes, many containing bodies, soon floated ashore. The story quickly spread of the ghoulish incident, and it wasn’t long before the land masses became known as the Coffin Islands.

  Despite intense research over the years, historians had yet to discover the reason why, before the days of refrigeration and preservation, the bodies of so many were being returned to England. It was a mystery that only added to the dark legends and myths surrounding the morbidly-named islands.

  Ellis lived on Sarke Island, the largest of the four. Eagla was the second largest, followed by Neddy Point and the smallest, Redemption Island. Because of the distances between the land masses, he’d decided when accepting the job of lone deputy, that he’d make weekly visits to each of the islands to reassure the locals he was on duty and available for any and all law enforcement issues.

  Which, he quickly realized, was pretty much a waste of time.

  Despite his position as the only law enforcement officer on the Coffins, a job he’d held for almost a year now, he knew if a matter came up that wasn’t outright murder, the locals quietly took care of it without informing him. It was the way they’d handled things since the islands were first settled back in the 1700’s, and it was the way they would continue to handle things in the foreseeable future. They weren’t about to change; he was the one who was going to have to learn to live with it. The alternative was to make himself persona non grata in a place where, because he wasn’t a native, he was already treated with polite mistrust. No sense making his job any more difficult than it already was. It didn’t stop him, however, from doggedly making his weekly visits to unobtrusively make his presence known.

  Because of the unsettled weather, he’d been going stir-crazy in his small cottage that sat on the property of one of the largest and most successful hotels on Sarke. There were only so many times he could drive around his home island, telling himself he was keeping an eye on things rather than facing the truth that if he had to spend one more hour indoors, he’d go stark raving mad. He watched the weather reports assiduously, and when a break finally occurred in the storm pattern, he practically ran down to the dock where he climbed aboard his small police patrol boat and quickly pulled away from shore.

  The temperatures were frigid, the sky was overcast, the seas a bit choppy, but he didn’t care. He was on the move and that’s all that mattered.

  After a twenty-year stint as an NCIS investigator, he’d grabbed at the opportunity to patrol the Coffins after an event occurred that forced him to re-evaluate, not only his career, but his life and everything he thought he’d believed in. He’d known the job on the islands would be slow compared to what he was accustomed to at NCIS. However, after the craziness of the summer crowds, he wasn’t prepared for just how much life ground to a halt once the tourists left. Except for the island’s fishermen who continued to earn their livelihoods from the sea, the rest of the islanders stayed warmly ensconced indoors, venturing out into the turbulent and freezing weather only when absolutely necessary.

  By the time Ellis reached Eagla an hour later, he felt invigorated and re-energized. The white spray blown up by the bow of his Boston Whaler, and the refreshingly cold temperatures, made him feel more alive than sitting in front of his wood stove ever could.

  Reaching the dock, he pulled in and was just finishing up securing the boat when he felt a presence at his shoulder. He turned and found a young woman standing next to him.

  She stood about 5 ft. 3 inches tall and was at least thirty pounds overweight. Dressed in a natty multi-colored coat, with black leggings, hiking boots and a knitted hat shoved down over long black hair that hung down her back, she looked like a wannabe bohemian. She wore no make-up, and her face was pale with a few freckles sprinkled around her nose. Her cheeks were ruddy from the cold, and Ellis thought her somewhat pretty. Except for the scowl marring her features.

  “Are you the new deputy?” she asked tersely.

  Although he was going on ten months in the job, he was still considered new to many of the locals. Bearing in mind how much they practically ignored him, he was intrigued by her deliberately seeking him out.

  “I am. I’m Ellis Martin.”

  “I’m Dara Clemons. I really need to talk to you.”

  “Of course. Let me finish tying up the boat. Then we go down the street to a small office I just opened where we can get out of the cold and talk.”

  She shook her head. “I prefer to talk out here.”

  He noticed her shivering, but her stubbornness was plainly evident. Wondering why she preferred freezing to death than sitting in his warm office, he quickly finished up with the Boston Whaler. Just as he was done, a gust of wind came up and pummeled them both with icy fury.

  “Are you sure you won’t accompany me to my office? It’s only about a five-minute walk, and I promise you a warm cup of coffee for your efforts.”

  Dara shook her head. He had no idea how hard this was for her. She’d spent the last two days agonizing over whether she should say anything. But each time she convinced herself she’d only end up looking like a fool, the dream appeared in her mind’s eye. Sparing even five minutes to walk up to the deputy’s office would rob her of what little courage she was desperately holding onto.

  “I—um—I’m not sure how to begin.”

  “How about at the beginning?”

  Ellis strove to be patient, but with the wind blowing right through his clothes, he wanted nothing more than to get to his Keurig coffeemaker where he could thaw out with a hot cup of coffee.

  Before he could try once more to convince her to get out of the cold, she blurted out, “I don’t expect you to believe this, but I see things.”

  “See things?”

  “Uh huh. I’m what you’d call a psychic medium. I hate to use the cliché I talk to dead people, but sometimes I do.”

  Ellis stood still, careful to keep his face neutral, despite his nose starting to drip from the cold. “Okay, Ms. Clemons, you see things.”

  “Please, call me Dara. And I do. See things, I mean. I’m here because I had a dream a few nights ago. It’s probably nothing, but it was so real, I felt I needed to report it. Just in case, you know.”

  She inwardly groaned as she realized she was rambling. It didn’t help that the deputy, who was handsomer than she’d expected, was quietly watching her, his grey eyes fixed on her face. Risking the genuine possibility that he’d consider her a complete flake, she had no choice but to continue. “I saw a girl with long blonde hair. She was in the water. She was dead. And…and—" She looked up at him, her dark brown eyes brimming with tears. “Both her eyes and mouth were sewn shut.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Eagla Island

  Two days later

  Dark clouds scuttled across the grey sky as Ellis watched the police diver pull the body up from Watson Pond. The limbs were limp and lifeless, like the strands of blonde hair that clung to the di
ver’s shoulders as he brought her up alongside the boat.

  “How did you find her?” Rob Crozier asked as he stood alongside Ellis on the boat they’d borrowed from the man who had found the body. He looked around and saw nothing but trees surrounding the body of water. “It’s not like she was floating for everyone to see. That is, if there’s anyone around here to see.”

  Rob was one of several medical examiners who worked out of the Portland office. He was meticulous, straightforward and a lover of 1980s music that he blasted in his lab while he worked. He also had a caustic wit that Ellis was convinced helped him cope with the horrors he saw on a daily basis.

  “An old-timer by the name of Dean Akins decided to do a bit of quiet fishing today.”

  Rob guffawed. “He certainly caught more than he bargained for, didn’t he? Probably gave him a heart attack.”

  “As a matter of fact, it did. He’s now in the hospital.”

  “Oops,” Rob grimaced. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry. He’s in excellent hands with Dr. Rhys. I’m sure it was more the shock than anything else that caused the chest pains.”

  As the diver came up alongside the boat, both men leaned over and helped lift the body up and over onto the plastic tarp that had been laid out on the deck.

  Her features remained hidden behind hair plastered to her face. Kneeling down next to the body, Rob gently pushed the soaking tresses aside. Seeing her face for the first time, Ellis took an involuntary step back as Crozier recoiled in shock.

  “Holy Mother of God!” the medical examiner exclaimed as he fell backwards onto the deck.

  The girl looked to be in her early twenties. She was dressed in a pair of black skinny jeans, heeled ankle boots, a white turtleneck sweater and a short brown leather jacket. A shiver of disgust and dismay ran down Ellis’s spine as he took in her face.

  Jesus. That strange girl was right.

  Just as Dara had described, the corpse’s mouth and eyes were sewn shut, the moss green colored fishing line obscenely stark against the bloated white face.

  A thousand thoughts raced through Ellis’s mind, stopping each time at the odd young woman who’d spoken to him just two days before.

  How had she known about the dead girl? Was she responsible for killing her and perpetuating the atrocity on her face? Was she one of those murderers who enjoyed inserting themselves into the investigation – getting some sort of sick pleasure from trying to outwit the police?

  Was she really the psychic medium she claimed to be?

  Or was she a cold-blooded killer?

  His thoughts were interrupted when the diver spoke. “Looks a little crowded. I’ll just swim to shore and meet you there.”

  As he swam away, Rob righted himself and leaned back over the body. “No wonder the old man had a heart attack. I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit in my time, but the sight of this would give me a heart attack. She must have really ticked someone off to have them do this to her. I thought stuff like this only happens in those schlocky Hollywood horror movies.”

  “Stuff like this happens everywhere,” Ellis answered in a clipped voice.

  Rob threw him an inscrutable look. “Yeah,” he finally muttered before turning his attention back to the body.

  “How long do you think she’s been in the water?”

  “Hard to say, what with the cold temperatures. Six to eight hours maybe?” He gently picked up her hands. “No defensive wounds.” He next ran his fingers over her scalp. “No bumps or injuries to her skull.”

  “Do you think she drowned?”

  The medical examiner shrugged. “I’m not seeing any froth about her nose or from the corners of her mouth to indicate death by drowning.” He leaned in closer to the woman’s face. “If I’m not mistaken, whoever sewed up her mouth and eyes used fishing line. I’ll know better when I get her to the lab.” He turned and looked up at Ellis. “Has anyone filed a missing person’s report?”

  Ellis’s mouth settled into a grim line. “I should be so lucky,” he murmured under his breath.

  While Rob continued his initial examination of the body in situ, Ellis hooked up Dean’s boat to the back of his SUV to take it back to the old man’s house. Just as he was finishing up, he heard a step behind him. Turning, he found Ana approaching.

  Ana Marquez was a ten-year veteran of the forensic sciences. A second generation Cuban-American, she had jet black hair and expressive black eyes that twinkled when she saw him. Dressed head to toe in white overalls, she still managed to look confident. And extremely sexy.

  They’d worked together on his previous case and she’d made it clear she found him attractive. He’d made it equally clear he wasn’t interested in anything other than a professional relationship. At least that’s what he kept telling himself. She seemed to accept his decision, though she wasn’t above teasing and flirting with him every chance she got.

  “You’ve landed a nasty case here,” she said as she came up to him. “That poor girl. Do you know who she is?”

  “I’m off to find out.”

  “So far we haven’t found a thing. Just a lot of dead leaves, dead bugs and the occasional beer can.” She looked out over the pond. “With all this land to cover, we’re going to be awhile.”

  “If there’s anything here, I know you’ll find it.”

  She turned and their eyes met. Heat flared up between them which Ellis quickly extinguished by looking away, but not before noticing a wry smile play across her lips.

  “If we find anything, you’ll be the first to know,” she said as she turned and walked back across the parking lot.

  “You are dangerous,” he muttered under his breath before climbing into his SUV and driving away.

  After depositing the boat at Akins’ house, he continued on to the one place he knew would provide the identity of the victim.

  “Her name was Mallory Angleton. Jada – that’s her mother - called me yesterday, telling me she hadn’t come home the night before.”

  Cade McHadon was the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen who ran Eagla Island. As with the selectmen on the other islands, nothing happened on their turf without their knowledge. And no one lived on their island that they didn’t know their history, idiosyncrasies and habits.

  The problem for Ellis was wrestling the information from them.

  He stood in McHadon’s living room in the white clapboard house that looked out over the ocean. He’d been there for ten minutes, and the tenuous hold on his temper was slipping as he tried to uncover the circumstances surrounding Mallory’s death.

  The year-round residents of the Coffin Islands were not known for their effusive conversations. They guarded their words as zealously as they guarded their privacy.

  Cade was no different.

  It wasn’t that he was slow, though to hear the inordinately long pauses between the sparing words would have made an off-islander believe he was somehow mentally incapacitated. Ellis knew better. He suspected Cade was probably the sharpest man on the whole island.

  What made the deputy want to scream in frustration was the necessity of literally prying every word out of the selectman’s mouth. His irritation was compounded by the fact that, despite knowing how the islands worked, this was a situation he should have been called on when it became clear Mallory was missing. Perhaps if he’d been brought in sooner, he might have been able to save the girl from her horrible death.

  Recalling her beautiful features marred by the terrible disfigurement, coupled by the thought of how terrified she must have been in her last moments, Ellis’s temper was already at breaking point. Cade’s monosyllabic responses to his questions only made his anger worse.

  “Does her mother know where Mallory went the night she disappeared?”

  Cade nodded. And said nothing. Ellis took a deep breath and let it out slowly, barely restraining himself from reaching out and throttling the selectman.

  “And that was where?”

  “Friday night the kids do a bonfire over
on Pleasant Point Beach.”

  “And that’s where Mallory was going?”

  “A-yup.”

  “What time did she usually come home?”

  Cade tilted his head and took a long time answering. When he did, he said, “Eleven.”

  “Did her parents usually wait up for her?” Cade shook his head. “You don’t think it odd that her parents wouldn’t worry about what she was up to?”

  The selectman shrugged, and Ellis wondered if he could get away with pistol whipping the infuriating man. His rage seeped into his words when he asked in a sharp voice, “When did they discover she hadn’t returned from the bonfire?”

  As if realizing Ellis was about to explode, Cade was a bit more forthcoming in his response. “The next morning when she didn’t come down to breakfast.”

  “It never occurred to you to call me to report Mallory was missing?” Ellis seethed.

  Cade raised a perplexed eyebrow. “Didn’t want to bother you.”

  Ellis just managed to keep from throwing his hands up in the air. “That’s my job. It’s what you hired me to do. It’s what you pay me to do.”

  Cade tilted his head again and, after mulling it over, nodded. “Suppose you’re right.”

  “Did anyone talk to Mallory’s friends?”

  Now the look turned to one of incredulity, as if Ellis had just asked the stupidest of questions.

  “’A course Jada and Derek talked to Mallory’s friends. That’s the first thing they did.”

  “And?” By now Ellis was ready to risk jail time and murder Cade himself.

  “They said they were at the beach until eleven when they all called it a night and went home.”

  “Mallory drove alone?”

  “Walked. The Angletons don’t live too far from the beach.”

  “Nobody walked home with her?”