The sound of the speed boats combing the lake rattled me back to my senses. Five bodies so far have been discovered at the bottom of the lake, all with signs of recent decomposition. “I got another two bodies down here!” Shouts one of the diving team. Seven fucking bodies now, what kind of a monster came to this little town?! I stand with the coroner while he examines the first two bodies we brought up from the depths, “Can you tell COD yet?” I ask almost impatiently. I hate this part, standing around waiting for evidence to cling to and start following any lead the evidence unearths. “I won’t know what actually killed them until we get back to the lab, but it absolutely was foul play, you can see obvious signs of bludgeoning and stab wounds hidden under the clothes. The state of decomp unfortunately makes time of death rather recent, can’t determine exactly when until later, but if they are all in this state, the was a mass killing, one after the other likely”. “Jesus, seven vicious murders all under our noses and zero leads so far, no witnesses except that one hobbiest diver that discovered the first two bodies”.

I approach the diver knowing he doesn’t know a damn thing about this but protocol and hope guide me. I need some small bite to hook into and follow. “Mr. Evans? I’m Detective Green, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?” “I suppose so, but I don’t know anything, and I already told the other officers everything I know.” Mr. Evans says trying to keep himself calm and collected. “Thank you Mr.Evans” I start. “Please just call me Jeff.” “Of course Jeff, so can you tell me how you came across the first bodies?” I ask as I pull out my notebook, reviewing his response to the report he already submitted. “As I told the other officer, I came to do some amature treasure hunting, you know, looking for stuff people lose off their boats or whatever. You can pawn some of that stuff for a pretty penny sometimes, usually I just find some trash and I try to clean it up as I can while I’m down there ya know?” “Do you do this often?” I ask not looking up from my notes. “The occasional weekend I’ll come out here and dive and fish, just escape for a bit, I got a family and sometimes a man just needs a break, ya know?” He replies with sincerity. “I get that Jeff, got a wife and newborn myself. But could you be a bit more specific? How many times a month would you estimate you come here?” I look up from the notes to show my understanding of his explaimntion. “Probably once a month, twice if I can manage.” He quickly replies with an honest politeness, “I’m sorry, I wish I could be more helpful, but I didn’t see anything strange at all, drove up here early, sun was up by the time I parked just up the road at the dock. Got right in the water and after finding a knock off Rolex I realized it was attached to a wrist, a human fucking wrist!” He exclaims progressively getting more worked up as I’m certain he’s reliving that trauma of finding not one but two human corpses. “Thank you Jeff, that’s really helpful” I interrupt and put a hand on his shoulder, “its okay, you don’t need to continue. You left your context info with the other officers so we will reach out if we need anything else. Thank you again Jeff” I shake his hand and turn to head back to the coroner. “Wait!” Jeff yells and runs to catch up to me. “Yes, what is it Jeff?” “I just remembered something, there was a boat docked, I thought nothing of it, I mean people leave their boats docked here all the time, I do even. But” he points up towards the dock, “it isn’t there anymore, and I haven’t left anywhere besides going underwater.”. “can you describe this boat?” I ask feeling the first bit of real hope in this case begin to flood over me. “It was pretty unremarkable, grey or faded black maybe, white stripes. Looked pretty beat up and old, not really cared for a whole lot. That’s really all I can remember about it” Jeff says alm,ost rushed so as to not lose the mental picture. “Thank you Jeff, this is a bigger help than you know” I say shaking his hand with much more vigor.