Page 7 of Property of Anchor

He lifted the man’s hand and flexed the fingers.“Stiff, but not locked.Time of death, I’d say...six to ten hours ago.Could be more, but the water might’ve slowed decomp.”

“And the mouth?”Skull asked, arms crossed.

Doc leaned in and twisted the man’s chin with a gloved hand.“Stitched tight.Thick thread.Some kind of waxed twine.You want my guess?Done postmortem.Lips show no trauma from movement, no bleeding.He was dead when it happened.”

He used a scalpel to slice near the letters carved into the man’s chest.The tissue parted cleanly.

“Same with the carving.No active bleeding.They waited until he was dead, then did this.Message was for whoever found him, not him.”

“No ID, no phone, no wallet.Just a body,” I said.

Doc peeled off his gloves and tossed them into a bin.He looked up at me.“You want my medical opinion, Anchor?Whoever did this?They weren’t just trying to kill someone.They were trying to unnerve you.This is psychological.A scare tactic.You don’t do this unless you want someone tofeelit.”

I stared at the body with my jaw tight.“You ever seen anything like this before?”

Doc shook his head.“Not even in Detroit.”

Push entered with a wooden crate in his arms.He set it down near the door.“One case of whiskey, aged nine years.”

Doc grinned.“I always knew I liked you guys.”He hefted the crate, gave us a casual salute, and vanished down the tunnel.

Thirty minutes later, the patched members of the club gathered around the Church table.

The room was lit low.The walls, once bare concrete, were now covered in black wood paneling and framed patches from fallen brothers.The table itself was thick oak, battle-scarred and solid as hell.The chairs were heavy, too.Nothing in here was delicate.

I sat at the head with my hands braced on the table.Skull to my right, Prime next.Piney, Post, Vin, Cross, Bob, and Pull followed in clockwise order.Wannabe and Lost stood behind the last chairs, their hands clasped behind their backs, eyes sharp.Prospects listened.They didn’t speak unless asked.

“We’ve got a body on our shore, and marked with our name,” I said and scanned their faces.“Stitched mouth.Strangled.Dumped near the boat dock on a Saturday night, when every camera was rolling.”

“No one recognizes him?”Prime asked.

“Nobody,” I confirmed.

“That’s not random,” Skull said.“That’s precision.Whoever dropped him knew our schedule.Our routes.They wanted to make sure it was seen.”

“Push and Vin are going to go through camera footage?”Piney asked.

“Yeah,” I said.“All angles from the past six hours.”

Vin tapped a notebook.“Already pulled three blind spots while Doc was downstairs.Two along the back trail by the loading dock, one near the south bluff.Could be where he came in.”

“How’s the tide there?”Bob asked.

“Could carry a body to shore if it’s dumped from a skiff,” Skull said.“But it’d have to be placed carefully.You’d risk it drifting too far.”

“Or not being found at all,” Cross added.

“Unless that wasn’t a risk,” I said.“Maybe whoever did thiswantedus to find him.”

Pull hadn’t spoken, but I caught the tightness in his shoulders.He looked rattled.Focused.Like he was trying to remember something.

“What is it, Pull?”I asked.

He looked up.“When I first saw the guy from a distance...I thought he was just another drunk who’d fallen in.That’s why I called Lost over instead of radioing it immediately.”

“You think he was left there recently?”

Pull nodded.“He wasn’t bloated the way I’d expect from a longer submersion.He looked...recent.”

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