"Should I ask where I am?" he said, trying to joke.
"Why not?"
"Where am I?"
Mark said, "At the scene of a crime, so get your ass up."
"Easy now." It was Sarah.
Colin sat up slowly, his shoulder aching from the fall. He saw that the other men were still standing around, most of them staring at the body in the pool, but a few were looking at him, making him feel worse.
"Are you sure you're all right?" Annie asked.
Colin wondered why she cared, but was glad she did. "Yeah, sure, I'm okay."
Annie smiled. "Too much dip."
"I wasn't drinking," he said defensively. He got to his knees, then to his feet, wavering a second.
Mark grabbed his arm. "Hey, take it easy."
"I was just kidding," Annie said.
He ignored her.
"Don't look at the floater again if you don't want to," Mark said quietly.
"No, it's okay, I just… I just…"
"Skip it."
Their eyes locked in understanding. In Seaville only Mark and Sarah knew about it. He wanted things to stay that way.
"Maybe you should go home," Sarah suggested.
"No. I'm fine now."
Colin and Mark walked to the edge of the pool. She was still floating there like something from one of those lagoons in horror films. But it didn't get to him now. He made himself detach, like the good newspaperman he was.
A siren wailed in the distance. Colin wondered if it would be a patrolman or the chief himself. He liked Chief Hallock. They'd taken instantly to each other, and that was valuable to Colin. Mark had no rapport with the man, couldn't reach him. Colin knew it burned Mark that he'd won Waldo Hallock the first week on the job, but Mark was fair and smart, knew it was good for the paper, so he kept his ruffled feelings tamped down.
The siren died in front of the house. Patrolman Albert Wiggins was first through the gate, hatless, his short-sleeved blue shirt showing big wet patches under the arms. The chief followed, white shirt immaculate, his hat set at a jaunty angle, back farther than regulation.
Waldo Hallock was forty-eight and he'd been chief for twenty years. During his third year on the force all policemen were required to take a civil service test. Hallock was the only one of five men who passed, and he was immediately promoted to chief, replacing the current one, Charles Gildersleeve. And now his son, Carl, detested Waldo.
Gildersleeve hurried over to him, clutching a handkerchief, which he used to wipe his sweating neck and face.
"Don't know how this happened, Slats," he said to the chief, calling him by his high-school nickname. "I never saw this woman before. I don't know what's going on here. This is a mess."
Hallock tilted his head to one side, took off his hat, exposing his full head of black hair, not a gray one in the bunch, reached out a long arm and gently but firmly pushed Gildersleeve to one side. "'Scuse me, Stinky," he said, using Carl's high-school nickname, and walked to the edge of the pool.
The chief returned his hat to his head and Colin wondered if he'd taken it off just to show that thick thatch of black to white-haired, balding Gildersleeve.
"Got to get her out," Hallock said to Wiggins. "Call the M.E."
"Right." Wiggins walked away.
"You guys want to help?" Hallock asked.
Colin felt his stomach flip-flop. He couldn't touch the body. Never again. But what could he say?
"You don't have to, you know." It was Annie, behind him.
Mark called to Doug Corwin and Ray Chute to give a hand. He stepped in front of Colin, making it impossible for him to get near the pool. The chief didn't seem to notice, and in a minute Wiggins was back, so there were five, pulling and lifting.
Colin looked down at his feet. He wanted to get the hell out of there. But it was humiliating enough without running like some chickenshit. And he had to stop being rude to this Annie Winters who was only trying to be nice and helpful. He turned to speak to her but she wasn't there.
Then he heard the flumping sound of the body dropping onto the patio, and he forgot about Annie. The men drew back, creating a space, and Colin was suddenly part of the group staring down at the dead woman.
Light-colored hair hung in long hanks around the swollen face and over shoulders that looked like they might explode. Colin avoided looking at her eyes. A piece of material was knotted around her throat like a ragged jabot. His gaze drifted to her chest, where cuts ran from the bottom of her neck over her breasts and down to her navel.
"Anybody recognize her?" Albert Wiggins asked.
There was nervous laughter.
"You must be joshin', Al," Ray Chute said.
"Just thought I'd ask."
"Carl," the chief called. "C'mere."
Gildersleeve, handkerchief still working overtime, scurried across the patio. He'd removed his sunglasses and they hung against his chest, one bow hooked over the edge of the pocket of his pink linen jacket. The two men stared at one another, their mutual lack of admiration evident.
"You know this woman, Carl?" Hallock asked.
Gildersleeve's face flushed in anger. "I told you I didn't. Don't try an' pin this thing on me." He turned toward Mark. "And don't you go writin' this up in the paper, Griffing."
Mark looked surprised. "Now, Mayor, you know I have to report the news."
"I mean, don't go writin' it like I have somethin' to do with it. You fellas have a way of slantin' the truth."
"All the news that's fit to print," Mark said.
Gildersleeve turned back to Hallock. "This here is somebody's idea of a joke."
Hallock looked at Gildersleeve as if he were smelling something bad, then pulled on the bridge of his long nose. "You're serious, aren't you, Carl?"
"Well, what else is it? What's it look like to you, huh? Everybody knows I give this party every year. Everybody looks forward to it, waits all year for it. So some cocksucker I didn't invite goes and does a thing like this to get at me. It's clear as the nose on your face, Waldo."
Hallock blinked, and Colin wondered whether the last remark was an intentional slur on the Chief's big nose or whether it was just one more example of Gildersleeve's foot-in-mouth disease.
"You got a list of all your guests, Carl?" Hallock asked.
"A list?"
"You know who your guests are?"
"That's my whole point. I don't let just anybody in here, Waldo. My guests are the cream of the crop."
"What crop's that?" It had not escaped Hallock all these years that he'd never been invited to the Gildersleeve house, thereby making him less than cream.
"You know what I mean," Gildersleeve said.
"So you got a list?"
He nodded, looking grim.
"Then tell them all to go. I want everybody out of here. Now."
Gildersleeve told Doug Corwin to carry out the chief's order, and Corwin scudded across the patio and into the house. Then Gildersleeve raised his voice to the other men standing around in groups of twos and threes and told them what the chief had said. He also offered his apologies for the ruination of his party.
Mark told Sarah to take the car; he'd find a way home later.
Sarah saw the alarm in Colin's eyes. "You can't go with Colin," she whispered.
"Oh, yeah, right," Mark said.
Colin heard them and felt even lousier than he had. He was looking bad today, as if all of his problems were flashing in neon.
"I'll wait outside," Sarah said.
"It might be awhile."
"That's okay." She kissed him lightly, then kissed Colin. "Want to eat with us tonight?"
He wanted to, but he'd had dinner with them twice already this week. "No, that's okay, Sarah."
"What's that mean?"
Colin glanced at Annie and wondered if she would be at the Griffings' for dinner.
Sarah picked up on his thought. She was good at that. "Come on, why don't you and Annie both have dinner with us? We'll go out."
Annie looked startled. "Well, I don't know, I'm not ready for tomorrow."
Sarah said, "You never are and you always get it done."
"I'm really way behind."
"Well, both of you think about it. Come on, Annie, we're not wanted around here. See you soon."
Colin watched the two women leave, noting Annie's long slim legs. Tomorrow was Sunday. What did she have to get ready for a Sunday?
"So what's them marks?" Wiggins asked.
Colin moved away from the woman's head and stood near her feet. He wanted to be away from those eyes.
"They're cuts." Hallock squatted down and looked over the shoulders, his eyes tracing the jagged lines to her navel.
Colin stared. About two inches below her breasts he noticed a faint horizontal cut crossing the two vertical ones.
Hallock said, "They aren't deep. She couldn't have bled much from them. Superficial wounds."
"Before or after death?" Mark asked.
"M.E.ll have to tell us that, but I'd guess after. Why is what I want to know," Hallock said thoughtfully.
"Never mind any damn cuts," Gildersleeve snarled. "Who put her in my pool and why?" He looked afraid. "You think it's a warning, Waldo?"
Colin watched the chief take this in, conquer a smile, then press his advantage. "Could be. Yeah, just might be that."
Gildersleeve passed his twisted handkerchief across his face like a windshield wiper. "Jesus God Almighty. What am I gonna do?"
The chief looked back at the body, ignoring Gildersleeve. "Wonder if it's supposed to mean something… these cuts. Can't figure it."
Colin looked again. It was suddenly as clear to him as if the last piece of a puzzle had fallen into place. "I think I know," he said.
"Yeah? What?"
"Come around here," Colin suggested. "I think maybe you're looking at it the wrong way."
The chief and the others moved down to the feet. No one said anything for a moment; then Hallock made a sound like cheeez. "I see it. It's an A. It's a goddamn A."
"Like Hester Prynne?" Mark said.
"Who's she?" Gildersleeve asked.
"In the Scarlet Letter. A for Adulteress."
Hallock said, "Or A for number one."