Swamp Bones Read Online Free PDF Page A

again.
    Inhaling deeply, I took a small surgical forceps from the bag, reached my arm in, elbow deep, and peered at the back of the dental arcade.
    The thing was silver and wedged between two maxillaries. As I wiggled it free, the gator whipped her tail left, then right. I froze, but Jordan held the animal’s head immobile with a hammerlock.
    Yanking my arm free, I scrambled backward and, in a childish display of victory, held my prize aloft. Then I lowered and studied the object in my forceps.
    It was a silver dolphin charm affixed to a loop via a short filigree chain. A chunk of decaying flesh clung to the dolphin’s upraised tail.
    Belly ring. A distinctive one.
    My moment of triumph faded when I glanced up.
    My four companions were staring at me with matching expressions of horror.

Chapter Four
    Kiley James was a short, athletic python wrangler. Former marathoner. Liked by all. At least, all but one.
    It wasn’t a formal ID, but my companions had no doubt that I’d recovered her belly ring. The gloom was palpable.
    Solemnly, we reboarded the airboat and headed east. This was no case for the natural resources center. Yellen had gotten permission to collect and transport the torso, and me, and we were going straight to the Miami–Dade County morgue.
    The boat pulled to shore somewhere along Highway 997. We sat on a weathered dock and waited for the medical examiner van, which was en route.
    “She was one of the best.” For a change, Lundberg sounded subdued.
    “You can’t be certain of identity from a piece of jewelry.” I wasn’t trying to raise hopes. Just being precise.
    “The kid liked belly shirts.” Yellen was terse.
    I swatted a mosquito. Not to think ill of the dead, but the idea of exposing unnecessary skin in this habitat seemed lunacy. Then I berated myself. Facts before conclusions. Stop assuming the victim is James.
    Our group had diminished, Yellen having directed his deputy to Jordan’s airboat to ensure its owner found his way to the Hammocks district station. Jordan had protested vehemently, to no avail. Yellen didn’t say it, but the man was now a suspect. Turned out Jordan knew James. And he’d “found” her body way out in the middle of nowhere. Yellen would be negligent not to bring him in.
    And I’d be negligent to rely on personal effects to establish a positive ID. Many others probably owned the same belly ring. Or the ring could be unconnected to the body. Or James might have lost hers, sold it, or given it away.
    And the thing just happened to end up in a gator’s mouth with a mangled hunk of torso?
    Small. Active. Woman
. My own words whispered across my brain. Kiley James fit the profile in every respect.
    “Has anyone talked to James recently?” I asked.
    Lundberg shook his head no. “Kiley would camp in the glades for the duration of the contest. She was just like the pythons she hunted—you only saw her if she wanted to be seen.”
    “She’d be required to deliver her bounty, wouldn’t she?” I persisted.
    When the biologist nodded, mid-afternoon sun flashed off his lenses. “Any capture must be dropped off within twenty-four hours at one of several stations, along with a completed data sheet and GPS coordinates for the harvesting location.”
    “Maybe her GPS notes will help pinpoint her last field location.”
    Yellen shot me a scathing look. “This ain’t my first rodeo, doc lady.”
    “Wouldn’t mean diddly. The kid covered a lot of ground.”
    I jumped when Pierce spoke because he did it so rarely. I’d forgotten he was slumped against a piling behind me.
    “Most snakes are brought in alive, but Kiley didn’t mess around.” Lundberg sounded totally miserable. “She’d euthanize in the field then move on. I’ve never seen anyone else deliver three kills in twenty-four hours.”
    “Mating season.” Pierce crossed his outstretched legs, dropped his chin onto his chest, and, I assumed, lowered his lids. Couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark Maui