Page 4 of The River We Remember

“With what?”

“I want to get his body out of the river.”

“Uh-uh,” Ostberg said. “No way I’m touching him.”

“I’ll help,” Felix offered.

“With those missing toes, you have trouble just standing up,” Brody pointed out.

“Let me help,” Wicklow said.

What they laid out on the sand was a gruesome sight. Except for a pair of striped boxer shorts, Quinn was naked. His chest, all rock-hard muscle in life, was no less massive in death, but it looked waxen, unreal. Wicklow began snapping photos again.

“Herman,” Brody said without looking up. “I need a favor.”

“What?” Ostberg replied with a cringing tone, as if whatever Brody was going to suggest was bound to be something awful.

“Would you go into town and find Deputy Fielding? Tell him what’s going on and have him get Doc Porter.

“Doc Porter? Hell, Brody, the doc can’t do anything for Jimmy now.”

“He’s the county coroner, Herman. I can’t move Quinn until Porter has certified death.”

“Certified? Brody, I never laid eyes on a man more certifiably dead. Hell, a moron could see Jimmy ain’t coming back.”

“Would you just do it, Herman?”

“This wasn’t exactly the way I’d planned to spend my day,” Ostberg complained. “I’ll find ’em and send ’em back, but I’m done here, okay?”

“I understand, and I appreciate your help.” As Ostberg headed away, Brody said, “Felix, will you go with him and give him a hand? But don’t forget, you’re still under arrest.”

“Nothing I can do here?”

“Not at the moment. When you find Fielding, tell him to bring a body bag and his pickup so we can haul Quinn back to town. And don’t say anything to anyone else about this, okay?”

“You can count on me,” Felix replied.

“Not a problem,” Brody told him. “When you’re sober.”

“If you’d suffered what I’ve suffered, Sheriff, bourbon would be your good friend, too.”

It was a line Brody had heard often from the man. He could have replied that he’d seen plenty himself and knew a thing or two about suffering and that bourbon was not his answer to the night sweats, but Brody didn’t. Like so much else in his past, this was a subject on which he chose to remain silent.

When Felix and Ostberg had gone, the sheriff asked Wicklow, “Anything like that Jap soldier you saw in the Philippines?”

“Big difference,” Wicklow said. “That soldier wasn’t my neighbor. What do you think? Drowned?”

“I’m guessing not. Drowned folks, their lungs fill with water and they’ve got no buoyancy. They stay under quite a while. Days.”

“Jimmy’d still be on the river bottom then?”

“That would be my guess.”

Wicklow considered this a moment. “So you think he went into the water dead?”

Brody nodded. “And floated until the current brought him here.”

“Heart attack, maybe, and he fell in? The way he’s dressed, he might have been getting ready to swim.”