Deception (Southern Comfort) by Lisa Clark O'Neill

had been torn down, making way for a new waterfront resort facing City Marina, and while the gruesome discovery had shut down work around the crime scene, there was still enough leftover real estate to keep most of the workers busy.  Sparks flew as men in welding masks took their torches to steel girders, and from above them came the clang of metal on metal as a crane lowered more support beams into place.
    After donning hard hats, Josh, Kathleen and Mac followed the foreman to the far northwest corner of the site, where yellow crime scene tape snapped against the breeze blowing in off the water. The scent of brine barely masked the distinct odor of decay.
    Mac moved off to speak with one of the first responders, and Josh ducked under the strip of yellow plastic to get a look at the remains in situ, careful not to disturb the scene before the crime scene techs had a chance to do their thing.  He could hear Kathleen questioning the foreman as he went down on one knee to get a better view into the pipe.
    It was some kind of drainage deal, probably two feet in diameter, just big enough for a small human.  Kathleen was right about the ID – there wasn’t much to go on.  No clothing in evidence, no rings or necklaces clinging to fleshless fingers or draped around the nearly skeletal neck. Though there was a chance those types of articles could have fallen off during the decomposition process and rolled further down the pipe.  The entire thing would have to be cut out and hauled into the lab.  There was no doubt the remains had been there at least three months, because the pipe had been covered with concrete all that time, but how long they’d been there before that and whether or not the body had decomposed here or someplace else and then was moved was a question for the lab techs. 
    But Josh’s concern was the body, and more particularly, the face.  He couldn’t see the full remains as the pipe blocked his view beyond the shoulders, but he could tell that the victim had probably been female, Caucasian by the looks of the bone structure. And judging from the tangles of long, dirty hair clinging in clumps to the skull, an unnatural blonde.  The line of dark near the scalp meant he’d need to work up sketches showing both possibilities. 
    And like Kathleen had said, she was missing several front teeth.  Knocked out, possibly.  From the looks of the molars left along the back of the jaw, there was little evidence of decay, so this was a female who probably had regular dental care, making falling out on their own unlikely.  He couldn’t be entirely sure, given the bad angle and less than stellar conditions, but as he shined his penlight across the bones surrounding the nose and the eyes, it looked like they’d sustained several major fractures.  Through the empty eye sockets, he thought he spied some additional cranial damage as well.  So chances were this woman had been beaten, or had her face smashed in prior to being shoved down this tube.
    Not a ton to go on, but he’d be able to tell a whole heck of a lot more after the ME got the body out of the damn pipe.  
    Josh heard the soft click of Kathleen’s heels on the concrete, and looked up at her approach.
    “I don’t guess there’s any possibility the vic simply tripped and fell down there on his or her own?”
    At his get real look, one corner of her mouth quirked.  “It’s a her,” Josh clarified.  “And not a chance.”
    “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”  She knelt next to him and Josh readjusted his light so that she could see.  The day was overcast, the sky heavy with the promise of the rain which had been threatening for hours. The wind whipped the water in the marina into angry little waves that crashed against the boats moored behind them.  The sky was going to open up soon – Josh could feel it in his shoulder – and they’d probably have to erect a damn tent over the scene. 
    Nothing like digging up dead bodies in the