Floater

by Jerry Peterson

About the Author: Jerry Peterson writes crime novels set in Kansas, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. Nine books out plus five short story collections.

Excerpt

James Early jammed his pointer finger in his coroner’s face. “Don’t say it.”

Doc Grafton stared, both he and Early in waders and up to their butts in sewage. “Say what? Say ‘shit’? We’re at the sewer plant, for God’s sake, slopping through the damn sedimentation pond. Why the hell did I let you rope me into mucking around in this—”

“I said don’t say it.” Early got hold of the shoulders of the floater, the floater face down, the shirt on it maybe a red-and-black plaid, the pants denim. Early couldn’t be certain of the shirt’s colors because the body could have been in the pond since the sewer plant operators went off duty Friday, three days ago. This someone, this floater, Early wondered, could he have fallen in? And if he did, what was he doing out here in the first place? Or could he have been dumped? But if dumped—

Grafton took hold of the ankles, and together he and Early pushed the body toward the grass-covered shore, the grass lush from the constant supply of water and fertilizer.

Behind them a short distance and on a rise stood the one-room office and work shed of the Manhattan Sewer District, the shed a lean-to affair. In front of that, a flag pole. The mechanics who ran the operation, Rupert Gillingham and Eldon Smith, stood by the pole, one saluting the flag while the other lowered it to half staff and a wind-up phonograph played a record—Taps.

Grafton stopped. He watched. “Cactus, this is one-hundred percent strange.”

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