Louis saw Roberta standing in the door, watching them. He waited, listening while Strickland called in to his station and reported the skull. He heard the harried dispatcher say that no one could respond. Strickland clicked off and turned to Louis.
“Looks like I’m it,” he said.
They walked back to Louis’s cottage, Strickland wheeling the Vespa. Inside, Louis started to the kitchen to dump the groceries.
“It’s over there, in the chair.”
“Wow...”
When Louis turned, Strickland was holding the skull. “Hey, don’t pick it up, man,” Louis said.
Strickland set it down quickly. “Why not? Not likely to get prints off a skull that’s been in the water for so long.”
“You don’t know how long it’s been in the water. You should treat it like evidence anyway.”
“Yeah, okay. You didn’t find anything else with it?”
“Not a thing.”
Strickland knelt next to the chair. “It’s probably a newborn,” he said softly.
Louis came forward. “What makes you say that?”
Strickland pointed. “See the little holes on top?” “Pickax,” Louis said.
Strickland turned to look at him. “Pickax? No way, man. Those are fontanelles.”
“What?”
“Fontanelles,” Strickland said, standing. “Soft spots. Babies got ’em so their skull plates can compress while the baby travels down the birth canal.” He used his cupped hands to demonstrate, drawing one set over the knuckles of the other. “They don’t close up for months afterward, sometimes as late as two years.”
Strickland saw the incredulous look on Louis’s face and smiled. “My wife just had a baby.”
Strickland bent down, hands on knees, to look at the skull again. “Babies are so cool, man,” he said. “Jenny made me read this book on how it all happens, and it talks about fontanelles and stuff. Sometimes, the skull comes out kinda mushed up from the baby going down the birth canal.”
Louis suppressed a sigh. It was more than he needed to know.
“My daughter’s head looked like an upside-down Dixie cup,” Strickland went on, “so I made them wait a day to take the hospital photos. Ashley looked great then. Want to see her picture?”
Strickland had already gone for the wallet.
“Pretty,” Louis said when Strickland thrust out the picture. He didn’t add that he thought all babies looked like Karl Malden.
“Babies are so cool,” Strickland said again, more softly now. “It’s like when they’re lying there looking up at you, it’s like suddenly you get that you’re it. You’re life and death to them, man. You’re everything.”
Louis nodded like he understood. Strickland carefully put the picture back in his wallet.
“So,” Strickland said, “where exactly did you find the skull?”
“C’mon, I’ll show you.”
He took Strickland to the place on the beach where he had picked up the skull. The beach was crowded, the shell seekers now joined by the curious who had just come down to see what havoc nature had wrought. Offshore, three surfers were bobbing on their boards, hoping the choppy water would yield a ride or two.
Strickland looked at Louis. “Think we should secure the scene?”
Louis nodded. “That would be a good start.”
“How far you think we should go?”
“You’re the responding officer. You decide.”
“You got any tape?”
“No. Don’t you?”
“In my cruiser, but it’s sitting in my driveway with a tree on the hood.”
Louis turned and looked out across the beach.
Strickland drew in a breath Louis could hear. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “This is my sixth day on the job. Everyone else is tied up with other shit.” Strickland ran a hand over his stubbly hair. “I’d appreciate any help.”
Louis hesitated. He knew that in different circumstances, the whole beach would be roped off and a team of cops and techs would do a methodical search. But that wasn’t going to happen right now. Every cop in the county was probably tied up with storm duty.
“What are we going to do?” Strickland asked.
Louis nodded toward an elderly couple coming toward them, the man sweeping a metal detector over the sand. “Get them to help.”
“What?”
“People like to help.”
“What do we tell them?” Strickland said, hurrying beside him.
“Tell them we found an old skull and we’re looking for other bones.”
“That’ll gross them out.”
“No, it won’t. Trust me.”