…continued from Priscilla’s Promise.

It was late in the afternoon on January 2nd when the North Charleston Police Department received the call of a floater in the Shipyard River. It was a gloomy day and the wind was blowing from the east, unusual for this time of the year. Daylight was waning quickly by the time the first officers responded.

A longshoreman taking a cigarette break had spotted the body washed up against the breakers near the bulk salt terminal. The young officers were still staring over the edge of the rocks at the body when the Coroner arrived.

“Well, are we just going to stare at him, or are you going to pull him out of the water?” The Corner was a gruff old man named Greycar, a Vietnam Vet that everyone addressed as Captain, despite his greater accomplishment of becoming a medical doctor.

“We didn’t want to disturb him until you got here Captain,” one of the officers offered as an excuse. The body was obviously in the water for some time and was bloated and blue, and the police were hoping that EMTs or Fire Department would show up to drag it out.

“I doubt you are going to disturb him,” the Coroner continued with a combination of sarcasm and disdain. “Looks to me he has been dead for a few days. And I guarantee this isn’t where he died.” A quick survey of the breakers revealed nothing but a generous cover of sea gull shit.

When the officers finally dragged the body out of the water to a small bare spot in the river grass, the Coroner remarked to no one in particular. “I think we can rule out a maritime accident.”

“This boy certainly isn’t a sailor.”

The young man was wearing cut off jean shorts, a Breyer’s Ice Cream T-Shirt, and a Jesus sandal on his left foot, with the other sandal missing.

“How do you think he died, Captain?” one of the officers inquired. The Coroner gave him condescending look. “I mean, how should we write it up,” the officer stammered?

“That I won’t know, until I get him back to the morgue.”

“Check to see if he has any identification on him.”

***

The first thing the Coroner noticed about the body when it was dragged out of the river, was the broken neck. But with bloat and color there was no way for him to know whether this was from a fall or foul play.

This was not the first jumper from the Arthur Ravenel Bridge the Captain had autopsied in the last 35 years, but he could not remember any of the others being this far up river. He considered the tide and the wind and decided it was possible.

But when his final report was filed a few days later, the heading read: John Doe, Murdered.

On close examination of the body, the Coroner found signs of bruising indicating the neck was broken manually, probably by someone with specialized military training. There was no water in the lungs and the young man was dead before he went in the water.

No, this one was not a jumper.

###

This story continues with Savannah Banana.

2016 Kirt Van Buren