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He’d been right. The balcony offered a perfect telescopic view into his small, shaded yard. At the end of his yard was a small reedy embankment giving way to the canal. An elderly man was splashing around in the greenish water, shouting.
Pop?
Pop couldn’t swim? Or was this a ruse to—
No. In the next instant, Jason realized neither could be the case. The boaters making their way to Pop also began shouting and pointing.
“What the hell…”
Jason leaned over the railing and saw what the commotion was about. The bloated body of a man in a blue security uniform was floating face up in the bloom of yellow algae spreading across the water.
Horace Pratt.
A wave of dizziness swept over Jason. He closed his eyes. The pebble fell from his fingers and bounced on the deck. He gripped the railing hard, drew in long, steadying breaths, got control of himself.
The police had rushed through his yard and were hauling Pop out of the canal. Jason watched as if from a distance.
Jesus Christ.
He needed to pull himself together, get down there and claim federal jurisdiction for this homicide. No gray area here. Murder in an FBI agent’s own backyard? There wasn’t a more direct attack on a federal agent than that. The FBI crime-scene investigators would need to process this crime scene. He watched Pop still shouting and pointing. The police were looking around in confusion. Jason whistled sharply. Waved.
As he looked down, something caught his eye. The pebble he’d dropped rested an inch or so from the toe of his boot. He stared, the hair on the back of his neck prickling.
Not a pebble.
A small, round carving.
Netsuke.
A netsuke jack-o’-lantern.
