Tuesday, June 27, 1978, 0437 - There's a dead man in the sand. Daniel Hagerty has been roused to come out in the early morning to view the body. It's not a pretty body. Gustave Kopecki, astronautical engineer, never had a pretty body. Over weight and fish-belly white would be polite terms to describe the carcass. The best word to apply to Kopecki's remains was fresh.The astronautical engineer wasn't supposed to be on the beach seven-eights below the high tide line. Hagerty wasn't sure where Kopecki belonged, but he knew that he shouldn't be here. After being discharged from psychological treatment at Bethesda Naval Hospital, Hagerty had barely hung with the DOJ. They'd stuffed him out at the Kennedy Space Center reviewing expense accounts of government contractors.Mental healthwise it seemed to be working. He hadn't heard the voices, panicked or shot anyone in twenty-two months. Angela hadn't crossed his mind in eighteen days, but who was counting.Here he was on the beach east of Melbourne, Florida babysitting a stiff who had fallen under federal jurisdiction because he was mostly on federal land and a NASA employee. He, Hagerty was only involved because he's the closest federal lawman, the only federal law enforcement officer known to the locals for thirty miles. For him the trick is to hand off the case to the FBI when they opened the Orlando shop in three or four hours. No problem.
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