Death in Deep Water

by Paul Kemprecos

  The drive to Oceanus took less than ten minutes, but it was enough time to see that the pace of events had gone from zero to Mach 1 in no time flat. Within hours of signing on to this crazy case, one of my suspects became a corpse, I’d been hammered with a nightstick, and my freedom and my PI license were in question.

  The pickets must have been eating their breakfast granola, because no one stopped me at the Oceanus entrance. I drove around back and parked near the staff door. I rang the bell. When that didn’t work, I pounded on the door about fifty times. The racket finally dislodged the gruff old security guard with the bulldog frown. He smelled sourly of booze and his cheek was laced with red sleep wrinkles. I said I was new on the staff. He rattled his key ring in my face like an angry wraith.

  “Yeah, Austin told me about you. Christ, why didn’t he give you a key? C’mon, follow me.” Truly a man of action.

  His office was behind the ticket booths in a space that could have been measured in square inches. He had shoehorned a cot, an office refrigerator, and a TV into the postage-stamp cubicle. His pillow had a head-sized dent in it. He took a key off a pegboard that held several key sets and squinted at the tag to make sure it was the right one.

  “This’ll open the backdoor,” he said, handing the key over. “Come to me if you’ve got to get in anywhere else. My name is Ben. I’m here nights every other week.”

  He shuffled off, doing a good imitation of somebody with a destination in mind. I headed toward the dolphin pool. Two silver-gray backs and one paler glided through the water. Puff had a couple of friends. Introductions would have to wait. Austin stood in his office window waving his hands at me like a conductor trying to get the piccolo section to pump up the sound. I went over and climbed the stairs to the office.

  “Socarides. What the hell is going on? The police called me at home a while ago. They said Phil Hanley had been killed.”

  I told Austin how I had called Hanley as a possible lead and found him dead a couple of hours later.

  “The whole thing is incredible,” Austin said. “I just can’t believe it. First Eddy Byron, now Phil Hanley.”

  “Do you know anyone with a reason to kill Hanley?” I asked.

  “No, no one. Phil didn’t have any enemies. He was just your typical PR guy. Came out of Emerson College. Wanted to be a writer, couldn’t make it, so he went into newspapers, but found there was more money in PR. He was full of bullshit and could talk a lot without saying anything, but that was his job.”

  “Why did he get fired?”

  “Hanley was responsible for some of the bad ink we got in the press.”

  “Such as?”

  “He screwed up on the Eddy Byron thing. He handled it fine in the first days, put a spin on it, feeding the press, but not really telling them the whole story. It looked like the whole mess would die down. Then the story got out about the holes in Eddy’s suit and the link to Rocky’s teeth. Phil Hanley was under strict orders to deflect those questions. Say he couldn’t confirm them. Or bump them upstairs to Boston so the reporters wouldn’t bother me and we could put them off.”

  “So he got fired for telling the truth?”

  “Dammit, Socarides, he got fired for confirming damaging information. It was only a tiny slip, admitting that we were looking into the possibility of Rocky being involved in Byron’s death, but it was enough to light a fuse under the story. I had strict orders from the top to keep a lid on things down here. I took over as spokesman after Hanley was fired. By then it was a matter of damage control.”

  “What about the news leaks? Any idea who was responsible?”

  Austin shook his head. “We tried to keep it quiet, even from the staff, but it was impossible. Barring lie-detector tests, there’s no way to find out who shot their mouth off.”

  “What about the trainer who got fired a while ago?”

  “Lew Atwood? He was no longer working at the park when Eddy was killed, but he could have maintained ties with some of the people here and picked up the story over a glass of beer and told the press. I just don’t know.”

  “Why was Atwood fired?”

  “Rocky got sick last year. Atwood should have told us sooner that it was happening.”

  Austin gave the impression of being helpful, but he didn’t say much.

  “Okay,” I said. “Maybe I can get to the bottom of this. I’m ready to go undercover.”

  He got up from his desk. “C’mon. I’ll get you outfitted.”

  Austin led me downstairs to a storeroom where Oceanus uniforms were neatly stacked in a large metal cabinet. He gave me a blue shirt that matched his and a pair of khaki shorts. Then he led me to the men’s locker room, left me there to change, and said he would meet me by the dolphin pool.

  I put on my Oceanus uniform and caught up with Austin again. He was chatting with a girl he introduced as Jill. She was just over five feet tall, bordering on the anorexic, with bright blue eyes in a bony face, cornsilk hair, and a wide Howdy Doody mouth. She was probably around twenty, but with her freckled nose and long hair getting in her eyes, she looked around twelve. Norman Rockwell would have loved her.

  “Jill will show you around,” Austin said. “She’s one of our most knowledgeable staffers. After she gives you the grand tour, report to me and we’ll discuss your duties.”

  Austin headed back to his office and Jill squinted up at me. The top of her head came to my Adam’s apple. She chewed a wad of spearmint gum without saying anything. I guess I passed muster. She grinned like a sunny day and thrust out a skinny arm. Her handshake had more strength in it than I expected. “My name is Jill Wheeler,” she said.

  “My name is Socarides.”

  “Socrates like the philosopher?”

  “Socarides like the fisherman and diver. Please call me by my nickname. It’s Soc.”

  She cocked her head and considered the information. “You from around here, Soc?”

  “I live down Cape. How about you?”

  “My parents have a summer place in Cotuit. We’re from New York, Westchester. They’re vacationing in the south of France. Ever worked in an aquarium before?”

  “Nope.” I looked around. “I guess the toughest thing for me will be learning where everything is.”

  “It’s easy. Just think of the park as a big cross with thick arms. It’s really four buildings built around the main plaza.” She pointed to the floor. “The dolphin theater here is the bottom of the cross. The roof is open now, but in the winter they install a portable glass ceiling along those metal beams so they can keep the park operating year-round. The top of the cross is the orca stadium directly opposite the other side of the plaza. It’s the biggest building in the compound. There are seats for two thousand spectators.”

  She swung to her right. “Off there is the main entrance and ticket booth, turnstiles, and the gift shop. The administration office and space for the staff is on the second floor. On the opposite side are the fish tanks. All the buildings are connected by underground passageways so people don’t have to go outside to get from one exhibit to the other. Tucked in around the main buildings, you’ve got the penguin, sea lions and seals, and the bird pools. The food concessions are off the main plaza. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I said.

  “Good. C’mon.”

  She was short, but most of her height was legs and I had to walk briskly to keep up with her. We left the dolphin area and headed along a descending corridor into a large circular space that was painted black. It was illuminated by the other-worldly glow from the fish tanks set into the curving wall or into freestanding islands that blocked off the center area in a mini-maze. If the park had been open, people and kids would have been milling about and oohing and aahing at the fish. But the room was empty, and the only sound was the bubbling of the aerators.

  “This is my favorite room,” Jill was saying in the hushed voic
e one uses in a cathedral. “The tropical fish are so beautiful. Look at all those neon colors. Come this way. You’ll love this part.”

  The black walls and the distortion of reality caused by the moving patterns in the fish tanks threw my bearings off. But I realized we had passed from the fish room, through a short passageway lit with black ultraviolet light, and into another open space. There were fewer tanks along the walls and they tended to be larger than in the fish room.

  “This is what the little kids like best, outside of the whales and dolphins,” Jill was saying. “It’s got the scary fish, predators and things that bite. Piranha. Angler fish, stingray. Morays. Electric eels. Spiny fish with poison spines. Octopus. Most of them probably wouldn’t hurt you unless you stepped on them, and even then I’m not so sure.” She pointed at a circular tank in the middle of the room. “That’s the centerpiece.”

  The cylindrical tank was about thirty feet in diameter and extended from the floor into the high ceiling. Around its circumference, like giant TV screens in a sports bar, were rectangular windows, each about four feet wide and a yard tall.

  I moved closer and pressed my nose against the gentle curve of the glass. Long shapes the color of rain clouds glided by like phantoms. I identified a nurse shark, a lemon shark, some dogfish, and a small hammerhead. But what really caught my interest was the six-foot-long great white shark swimming on the opposite side of the tank. He drew near and passed the window, his wide staring eye only inches away from mine.

  I smelled spearmint. Jill was right behind me. “That’s Whitey,” she whispered. “Isn’t he beautiful?”

  “Who designed this place?” I said. “Dr. No?”

  “I don’t think so,” Jill answered. “Somebody from Florida. There’s another level above this ceiling where you do feeding and maintenance.”

  The big shark was coming around again.

  “Whitey’s not a bad guy,” she said. “You’ll get to know him better. C’mon.”

  She grabbed my hand and pulled me along another dark hallway that led to the outside. Seconds later we were blinking our eyes in the sunlight streaming down on the plaza. We sat at the edge of a fountain. Water squirted from the mouths of a dozen metal fish and tinkled musically in a large sea-green basin in the shape of a scallop.

  Jill crammed another stick of gum in her mouth and offered me one, which I accepted. “That’s pretty much it except for the orca stadium.” She gestured toward the large flat-roofed building with the picture of killer whales painted against the dark concrete. “Mr. Austin will have to show you that, I guess. Have you heard about Rocky?”

  “I read something in the papers. Too bad about his trainer.”

  “Too bad for Rocky, too. He’s still in jail.”

  Jill wasn’t shy about telling me where her sympathies lay.

  “Did you know the trainer who was killed?

  “I only got here a little while before he did. They had some kind of purge and got rid of all the old Oceanus staff. That was the only reason I got the job. They needed to hire new people.”

  Sally Carlin was walking across the plaza. She came over and shook my hand. “What a pleasant surprise.” She appraised my uniform. “I didn’t realize when we talked yesterday that you were going to be working here. You should have told me.”

  “I wasn’t sure myself. I still don’t know what my duties are. Dan Austin is supposed to tell me.”

  “Come over to help me if you’d like. I’ll be working with the dolphins.”

  I looked at Jill. She smiled knowingly. “I’ve got some stuff to do.”

  “Thanks for the tour.”

  “No problem,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Cute kid,” I said to Sally as we strolled to the dolphin theater.

  “Oh, Jill is a doll. She’s always so pleasant, and smart, too. She’s learned just about every aspect of the park’s operation.”

  I stored that away. Someone who knew the ins and outs of Oceanus would be a good source to cultivate, even if I had to buy a few packs of spearmint gum.

  “Puff will be glad to see you,” Sally said. She blew the whistle and two dolphins came over. They were accompanied by a white-skinned animal about the same size as the dolphins. His bulbous head and friendly grin made him look like a pug who’s been used too many times as a punching bag.

  “Meet Puff’s friend Huff, and Froggy the beluga whale,” Sally said. “He’s actually a species of dolphin.”

  The beluga came up to the edge of the pool and went “wonk.”

  “Hello, Froggy,” I said. “Hope you’re not trying out for the Boston Opera Company.” The dolphins stuck their noses out of the water and chirped at us. I couldn’t tell them apart.

  “Which is which?” I asked.

  “Huff is the big one and Puff is the smaller.”

  “How can you tell them apart when they’re not together?”

  “After a while you know their personalities. There are other ways. Markings, scars and so on, especially on their fins or tails. Puff has a white spot on her fin. Birthmark, I guess.”

  “So Puff is a woman?”

  “They’re both ladies. Most of the dolphins performing in parks and aquariums are females,” she said. “The males can be overly aggressive and cause problems, particularly when there’s a female around.”

  “Not too different from humans.”

  She smiled. “Nicer,” she said. “Oh, here comes Mike. Have you met him?”

  “No, but it looks like I’m about to.”

  It was the guy I had seen talking to Sally from Austin’s window. He was about the same size as I am, just over six feet, but whereas I like to think that I’m built in the classic, muscled but sculpted body of the Greco-Roman tradition, Mike was more of the Arnold Schwarzenegger mold. His sleeves were tight against his biceps. His legs were thick. And he looked mad as hell.

  Chapter 9

  “Who the hell are you?” he snarled.

  Sally said, “Mike, this is Soc. He’s going to be working at Oceanus.”

  The news triggered an angry explosion.”Dammit, Austin didn’t tell me he was hiring anybody.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe he forgot.”

  His eyes blazed. “Maybe he did, buddy, but don’t get too comfortable in that uniform. Nobody gets hired around here without my say-so, and I didn’t say.” He spun on his heel and strode toward Austin’s office.

  I watched him go. “Who was that?”

  “Mike Arnold. He took over as head trainer after Eddy. I’m sorry he was rude to you. He can be a sweet guy, but he’s got a bad temper sometimes. He’s my boss. Yours, too, if you’re still here after he talks to Dan.”

  Ten minutes later, Arnold was back and it was clear his talk with Austin hadn’t gone well. His face was the color of a cranberry cocktail and his mouth was set in a tight line. I didn’t blame Arnold for being burned up, but he was producing an excess amount of heat. Hell, bosses go over the heads of their people all the time. You get mad, then either quit or go on with your job. Mike Arnold was holding on to his anger, and I wasn’t sure why.

  He stalked over to me and said, “Austin says you’re only on temporarily. That’s ridiculous. We’re operating with a skeleton staff as it is. Well, if you’re going to be here, you can’t hang around the dolphin pool all day.” He glanced involuntarily at Sally and I understood his hostility. Arnold didn’t want an eligible male near his attractive dolphin trainer. “C’mon. I’ll give you something to do.”

  He led the way out of the dolphin theater down a corridor that took us to the penguin pool, a concrete tank about fifty by thirty feet, built with irregular contours like a fried egg. The pool’s sloping sides were made of blue-gray artificial rocks that were fashioned into caves, grottoes, and ledges. The water was around four feet deep.

  The penguins were cute little guys a foot or two l
ong. They sunned themselves or cruised around the pool underwater, more like fish than birds, propelling themselves with quick, jerky wing sweeps.

  Arnold was scanning the water, looking for something, and at last he saw it.

  “There,” he said, “that’s the one. He’s got a red tab in his left flipper.”

  He was pointing at a little gray-and-white penguin who swam happily along without a care in the world.

  “What about him?”

  “It’s Oscar. He’s due for a shot. I want you to bring him into the infirmary.”

  I looked around for a long-handled net. “How do I do that?”

  “You get in the tank, and when he comes around, you grab him. Don’t worry, it’s safe. He hasn’t eaten a trainer in ages.”

  “You’re kidding. I’ll get all wet.”

  “That’s a shame,” he said, pouting in mock sympathy. Then he grinned, not a nice grin. “You work around an aquarium, buddy, you’ve got to expect to get wet. Next time bring your bathing suit.”

  The penguin with the red tag was coming by again.

  “What the hell,” I said. “He doesn’t look too tough.” I stripped off my shirt and sneakers and climbed the low chainlink fence onto a ledge, careful not to slip on penguin droppings, then eased into the water. I waited for the birds to get used to me and kept an eye on my target. It wasn’t easy. Oscar was one of a half-dozen penguins, all about the same size, going ’round and ’round, rocketing forward occasionally in short bursts of speed.

  Each time he rounded the far end of the pool, I’d move in a yard. If I sashayed close enough, I might be able to cut him off at the pass. The water was up to my chest, and movement didn’t come easy. Mike Arnold hung over the fence, still grinning. I hoped he got muscle cramps in his jaw. Jill had come by and stood beside him. She waved. My cheering section. I waved back, then stepped into Oscar’s way and spread my hands underwater like a quarterback at center.

  Oscar sensed my presence and swam to my left without panic. I lunged, scaring the hell out of him, but I managed to get a grip around his body. He flapped his short wings violently and popped out of my hands like a wet watermelon seed. My reflexes were off and my knee was still stiff from the drubbing I took on Hanley’s boat the night before. I nose-dived into the water after him and came up empty-handed.