Petra hadn’t been happy when I called her about getting officers to check all the river beds in the city. She also wasn’t pleased I had withheld things from her by solving two riddles already and not telling her. She had reluctantly agreed to the officers searching the riverbeds.

Victor drove my car as we first made our way to the river head. He had even called a former student of his with diving experience, asking if he could come over and search underwater for clues or even a dead girl with a nail through her skull.

As we arrived at the river head we got out and looked around. I hadn’t been here much; the river never had a strong pull on me like it did with most children. Sure, it was a nice place to spend a day; swimming, sunbathing or, like most teenagers did nowadays, public sex in the water. Not really my scene.

Victor had attached flip-up shades to his regular glasses and was talking to some of the young children who were throwing rocks at each other. “When will that former student of yours get here?” I asked him.

He looked at me and gestured to turn around. As I did so I saw a platypus furry get out of a convertible car carrying a surfboard. “So what does Prof need me to dive for this time?” he asked as he approached us, pushing his sunglasses up onto his head. “Did you drop your rad watch in the water again?”

By the way he was dressed I could see he was a surfer; a clichéd image of a surfer, but one nonetheless.
Victor walked past me and shook his hand. “Glad you could come, Paul,” he said as he led him over to me. “This is Tara Duluc.”

Paul looked me up and down. “Yeah, dude, I like know that. Most cool people know who this P.I. Hottie is; chick caught this insane killer man. Prof, you need to catch up with the times, dude. So is the hottie going to tell me what I am diving for? I’m hoping it’s your bikini top; that would be awesome.”

I had to blink as he spoke; when he talked his hands went everywhere and he spoke so rapidly I was hoping to get some form of subtitles.

Victor shook his head. “No, Paul, that won’t be what you’re looking for today. You are actually going to see if there might be some sort of a container with paper or anything in there,” he replied.

“Or someone who is in there, alive or dead,” I said to complete the list.Paul stared at Victor then me with his bill open as his sunglasses slipped from his forehead back onto his face. “I beg your pardon?” he asked.

Before I could answer, Victor was already explaining it to Paul. “Tara here is working a case. How cool would it be to be named alongside her in the newspapers? I mean come on, your name associated with Tara Duluc?”

Paul gave what I thought was a smile as he nodded. “That’s cool,” was all he said as he walked to the river head and placed his surfboard in the water, swam to the middle of the river head and dove in.

I looked over at Victor. “Won’t he get cold? It is winter after all,” I asked him.

He just shook his head and walked away from me. “Tara, I will check clockwise. If you check the head counterclockwise we can get a dual look on the area, so we can be sure we don’t miss a single thing,” He started looking around the river head.

From time to time Paul would surface and tossed all sorts of container onto his surfboard. I was amazed at how long he could stay underwater, and he never seemed to be gulping for air as he surfaced; just took a breath, placed junk on his surfboard, and dove down again. Victor was also working hard, looking at the various changing booths and storage lockers at the side of the river head.

I had started at the other side, which was mainly grassland. Snow had covered most of the grass, which made it harder for me to actually find anything that might be hidden beneath the snow.

Suddenly Victor came out one of the changing booths and waved his arms wildly at me. When I got over to him I saw that Paul was also returning to the shore with his surfboard filled with all kinds of junk.

“Tara, I think I found something,” Victor said as he pulled me into the booth and pointed at the wall. “See that nail? It’s a new one, and larger than those in the other stalls.”

He allowed me to push in front of him to take a closer look at it. I hadn’t seen the other booths so I had to take his word for it, but I had to admit that the nail was sticking out kind of far for a clothing hanger or whatever.

As I examined it I realized that this was the exact same type of nail the murderer had used to kill the other girls with.
I looked over at Victor. “We need to get the nail out of this wooden board.”

Paul walked up to the booth and with a smile asked, “Any room for a third to make this a threesome?” Victor gave him an angry look that made him take a step back and look like a small boy that was about to be punished for widdling on the rug. “Well, nothing down there in the dead body department, and also nothing useable in the container with stuff in it department. I did find some jewelry,” he said as he held out his hands and showed several rings and amulets that were most likely tossed into the river by angry wives or lovers.

“Anything we could use to pry a nail from wood?” Victor asked, as he walked to the edge of the river and looked over all the junk Paul had brought up. He returned with what looked like the remains of part of a pair of skates. He worked at the nail and started to pry it out of the board. With a bit of effort, he managed to lever it out of the wood. “What’s so special about this nail anyway?” he asked as he examined it.

I took the nail from him. “I don’t know; they are just your normal run-of-themill nails.” I turned it around. “There are words on here,” I said as I suddenly saw the tiny print on the nail.

Victor looked at me. “What does it say?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I can’t read it, it’s too small. I think we need to go to the morgue, to see if this is definitely the same type of nail as the others. But with the text on it I am sure it will be. We’ll be able to use Andreaa’s a microscope to read it.”

Paul was trying to get our attention. “Hey, you mind if I stay here and dive some more? It’s like a gold mine down there.”
Victor smiled at him and put his paw on his shoulder. “Sure Paul, knock yourself out.”

Paul smiled, took a bow and winked at me. “You know what, Tara Duluc? You look so much hotter and better in real life.” He tossed the junk off his board and threw the board back into the water.

I shook my head. I had met some characters in the city but Paul surely took the cake.
“Okay, let’s go. You want to call your cop friend before we go?” Victor asked.
“No, I’ll give her a call in the car. We’ve no time to waste.”  

Next Chapter: Back to the morgue