In the Belly of Jonah Read Online Free Page B

eye.” Streeter was impressed. He had also earned Brandt’s trust and therefore was getting more information in a shorter time frame than he would if he pulled jurisdiction from him and took over the case. “What else?”
    “The boats nearby kept rocking around, knocking into each other. Every time I looked that way, I about lost my lunch. Kept it real, if you know what I mean.”
    Streeter knew. It was the girl, the blood, the smells that were making Brandt sick, but the mind has a powerful ability called transference. It was easier for Brandt to blame the rocking boats, which symbolized seasickness, for his urge to throw up.
    “She . . . the girl was sitting up, hands in her lap, legs straight out, facing the reservoir,” Brandt struggled.
    “North? The body was facing north?” Streeter asked, drawing Brandt’s attention to details so his memory would be sharp. Plus, Streeter had sketched the reservoir in relation to Fort Collins and was marking areas as Brandt spoke.
    “Yes, north. It was weird, Pierce. She had a . . . a wooden stick shaped like a T propping her up, stuck under her collar bone. Kind of like where her spine should have been . . . ”
    His words trailed off.
    Streeter was losing him to the world of nightmarish memories. “What kind of stick, Brandt? A tree branch? A walking stick? A pole?”
    “More like a crutch, I’d say. It was a wooden crutch with a T . . . no, more like a U-shaped handle. The shaft was about three feet tall.”
    Streeter ruminated on this image. “One piece or two?”
    “You mean was the handle attached? No, it wasn’t a separate piece. The shaft and the handle were both hewn from one piece of wood.”
    “Same wood as the cabinets?”
    Brandt paused. Streeter heard a clicking noise and imagined Brandt tapping a fingernail or a pen against his tooth or something.
    “No. Different wood. Maybe the same wood as one of the cabinets. I can’t remember. I’ll have to check.”
    “Anything else around? Other furniture, weapons, cigarette butts, clues, anything?” Streeter had diverted Brandt’s attention from the girl for the time being, trying to extract as much as possible before getting back to the emotionally draining images.
    “We’re still combing the area. We’ve picked up boxes and boxes full of crap off that beach. Bottle caps, cigarette butts, candy wrappers, fishing hooks and line, you name it. It’s a really popular spot for locals.”
    “Anything catch your eye that might fit with the murder?”
    Brandt hummed. “Nope. Well, just that . . . nope.”
    “What?” Streeter urged. After a long pause, he added, “Trust your instincts.”
    “Well, the odd thing to me was what wasn’t there,” Brandt offered.
    “How so?”
    “Like, where was her middle? I mean, I know I found bits of bone and gunk in the shallows, but where was the spine? Did he take it home as a trophy or something? There wasn’t anything nearby except a lot of blood, and even that wasn’t as much as I would have expected considering the damage that was done to her.”
    “So you think this wasn’t the spot where he killed her?” Streeter switched the phone to his other ear and shoulder and kept writing.
    “My gut says it was, but not where she sat. The gravel looked wet all around her body and to the water’s edge, like she’d been in the water and dragged up on shore or something. Maybe the water washed away most of the blood. The stream of blood from her body was more like a trickle, and the pooling around the cabinets was minimal considering the wound. Least ways that’s how I figured it.”
    “Maybe he tossed the spine, the bigger chunks into the deeper water.”
    “Maybe.”
    Streeter’s mind imagined the gray rocks on the beach at Horsetooth Reservoir. He had been there before with his late wife. The reservoir was long and narrow, running north and south, with a road encircling the water. It was a stunning, rocky area with pebble beaches, not sandy ones. The pebbles