Author Daniel J. Waters has written 7 popular crime novels, all set in one of his favorite places: the Jersey Shore. He grew up in South Jersey, graduated from Bishop Eustace, and after 30+ years as a heart surgeon, Waters turned to his other love, writing novels that fly off the shelves (especially down the Shore). He chose this excerpt from the first book in his series: “Surf City Confidential.”
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Mickey Cleary pulled the Chevelle police cruiser up as far as she could onto the dunes. The air-conditioner was working better but a thin line of sweat was forming across her forehead, just above her non-municipal-issue Wayfarers. She palmed the crown of her campaign-style hat, which lay on the empty bucket passenger seat, lifted up on the door handle and eased herself out. Mickey intentionally left the red cherry-toppers rotating although the engine was off.
The smell of the salt-air was tanged with something foul and familiar.
“Sorry Chief,” Kaylen Fairbrother said. “Figured you would want to know right away.”
“So do we know who called it in?” Mickey asked as she closed the car door and began to walk.
“Dispatcher said it sounded like a kid, but probably an older kid. Maybe like a teenager. Real nervous on the phone. Wouldn’t ID himself. Hung up before she could get anything else from him.”
“Did she record the call?” Mickey asked.
Kaylen’s look told her that calls were not routinely recorded on Long Beach Island, an idea she might have to mention to Mayor Bill. Kaylen’s normally pale skin looked a shade whiter and sweat stains ringed the underarms of his uniform blouse. His ever-present patina of Coppertone was augmented with a dab of zinc oxide on his nose and his uniform cap was tilted back on his head.
“Run it down for me again,” Mickey said.
“OK, but do you mind if I sit down for a sec, Chief? I’m really not feeling all that well.”
Kaylen took a seat on one of the wooden pilings that were driven into the beach at the edge of the road. Their main function was to hold the dunes in place and provide a picturesque nautical image at the same time. Each was about the circumference of a telephone pole and they were lashed together in two’s or three’s with heavy braided rope. Undulating sections of brown wooden snow-fence guarded the path to the beach.
Kaylen perched on the piling nearest the road. His Galaxie cruiser, recently washed and still dripping water, Mickey noticed, was parked ten yards away, obstructing pedestrian access to the egress point.
“Pull it together, Deputy,” she said. “Just tell me what we’ve got.”
Kaylen took a breath and squinted up at her. “It’s bad, Chief,” he said slowly. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. I mean, it’s really bad.”
“OK, then let’s just go have a look,” Mickey said. She noticed that Kaylen did not move. “You did secure the scene, right?”
He nodded. “Feel like I might need to heave, Chief,” he said. “Can you give me another minute?”
Mickey spread some of the beige sand and broken shells on the edge of asphalt with the toe of her shoe. “OK, well, just come down when you’re ready, I guess,” she said.
Mickey Cleary never heaved, no matter how bad it was. She was a third generation cop, she reminded herself. Whatever it was, she knew, she had seen worse. Her soles slipped awkwardly in the sugary sand and she pumped her arms for balance.
There were whitecaps offshore. A small knot of people milled behind a makeshift rope cordon twenty yards down the beach. Mickey was surprised to see an older man in Bermuda shorts and a floppy canvas hat standing knee-deep in the surf by the ruins of an old pier.
She recognized Doc Guidice, the retired G.P. who acted as the Island’s coroner. He was poking at something in the water with a piece of driftwood. The pungent aroma mingling with the ocean breeze was, she knew immediately, decomposition.
Guidice, when she’d first met him, had taught her how to pronounce his name correctly. “Like Judah-Jay,” she remembered him saying. “Think Judas without the ‘s’ and Jay like jaybird.” He straightened his back and looked at her.
“Hell of an eye-opener, huh, Chief?” he said with a crooked smile. “Grab a leg and we’ll pull him up on the sand.”
Mickey stepped into the gently foaming surf and watched as the wetness quickly wicked its way up her khaki pant legs to just below her knees. It really was bad, she realized. She could understand Kaylen’s queasiness. Mickey took three quick breaths and swallowed hard, willing the little that was in her stomach to stay there.
“Ever think about wearin’ shorts?” Guidice asked. “This is a resort town, you know. Nothing wrong with a summer uniform.” He bent back down and grasped a soggy, sock-clad ankle.
Mickey leaned over to do the same. “I have ugly legs,” she shot back.
Guidice tilted his head and narrowed his eyes.
“Now, I’m bettin’ that’s a lie,” he said. “I’m still a doctor, you know. Technically retired, but fully licensed in two states and pretty good at human anatomy, if I do say so myself.”
Mickey grunted as they dragged the heavy, lifeless form up the inclined shore, a trail of indented sand and leaking bodily fluids snaking behind them. The low tide had passed and the waterline seemed to inch slightly shoreward with each lapping wave.
Once out of the water, Mickey surveyed the carnage and started making mental notes.
Young white male – late teens or early twenties, maybe. There were socks but no shoes. She saw multiple contusions and abrasions, especially around the belly and chest. Probably multiple rib fractures and a couple of broken long bones at least. Fairly standard stuff until you got to the shoulders.
Guidice was poking again with the driftwood.
A crescent-shaped cut revealed pale white neck bones. The young man’s head had been nearly severed. Strands of sinew and muscle were all that held it to the body. The shiny cross-cut windpipe drained a pink, foamy fluid mixed with sand and seawater.
A shock of long, jet black hair lay matted to the intact but dented skull, the face puffy and bruised. In the heat, the seawater was quickly evaporating, leaving a briny film on the olive skin.
