Grey Lady

by Paul Kemprecos

  I made my way back to the pick-up. Stored in the fiberglass storage box behind the cab was a duffel bag. Possessing the contents of the bag would merit an arrest in most jurisdictions. The bag’s former owner was sent away to a bad boy home and didn’t need his burglar tools any more. A green plastic trash bag had been sitting in the back of the truck, destined for the dump. I emptied out the empty beer cans, cut eye and arm holes with my Swiss army knife, and pulled the bag over my head, down to my hips.

  It wasn’t a cloak of invisibility. And it smelled of yeast from the beer cans. But it would do the job. The cameras would record my trespass, but they wouldn’t show my handsome mug. I slung the duffel over my shoulder and followed the driveway to the gate. I waved my arms at the camera’s glass eye and waited for a reaction. Then I listened, ready to bolt back to my truck and make a run for it.

  Five minutes passed. The woods were still except for the twitter of the birds. I decided to chance an entry. With the metal cutters from the duffel, I snipped the mesh and cut a hole just big enough for me to crawl through. Once on the other side of the fence, I slipped the trash bag off and put it in the duffel. I started walking. The driveway led to an aluminum-sided building. No cars or trucks were parked in the paved lot near the building. I walked directly to the entrance and saw that it was padlocked.

  I circled the building and found two more locked doors. Back at the main entrance, I got out a set of picks from the bag. The padlock didn’t stand a chance. I turned the knob and pushed the door open. A damp musty odor of mold welled out and smacked me in the face. I tried a wall switch. Rows of fluorescent ceiling lights blinked on.

  The interior was basically a big windowless room. The side opposite the entrance was lined with cubicles. A rectangular pool around twenty-feet-deep took up much of the floor in between. A motor hoist with a hook attached ran along the ceiling above the empty pool.

  I walked around the pool to the cubicles. One space was at least three times the size of the others. Folding metal chairs faced a white display board on an easel. The board was covered with squiggles and equations. Taped to the wall behind the easel were photographs of bees swarming around a hive, ants clustered on an anthill, flocking birds and a school of tropical fish.

  The cubicles had all been cleaned out. But in one, I found a sheet of paper on the floor. The electric bill was dated more than a month earlier and marked paid over the signature of Sean Malloy. I folded the bill and tucked it in my pocket, then went over to a bin that looked like a lumber stall in Home Depot. A sheet of plywood stood upright in the bin alongside rectangles of different material, all around five-by-five feet in size. I tugged at the plywood. The sheet was a lacework of layered wood and a piece came loose in my hand.

  Leaning against the plywood was a fiberglass sheet around a half-inch thick. The sheet was peppered with holes as if it had been used for machine gun practice. There was also a plate of half-inch steel covered with dozens of dents on one side and goose bumps on the other. Above the bin was a motor and cable arrangement that would have allowed the sheets of material to be moved to the pool.

  I glanced at the nature photos on the wall, wondering if there was something I had missed, then I took a last look around and headed for the door. The fresh air felt good after the musty interior. I refastened the padlock and trotted back to the hole in the fence. Before I crawled through, I shimmied into the plastic bag. Moments later, I was back at the truck where I removed the bag. I drove onto the road and headed to the Hyannis ferry terminal. The big car ferry Iyanough, run by the steamship authority, was the next boat to Nantucket. I got on board after a short wait and climbed to the cafeteria deck where I bought a cup of coffee and took it to a window seat.

  The view of the blue-green sea had a calming effect and after a while, the thoughts stopped bouncing around in my skull. I spread a paper napkin out on the table and with a ballpoint pen drew a triangle. At the points, I printed the words Ramsey, Ivan and MAC. In the center of the diagram I drew a picture of a sinking boat. Nothing jumped out at me. I turned the napkin over and drew another triangle. This time I labeled the angles Coffin, Daggett and Swain. In the center of the triangle I wrote the word Scrimshaw with a big question mark over it. I stared at the diagram. Nothing again. I folded the napkin and tucked it into my shirt pocket with MAC’s power bill.

  After the ferry landed in Nantucket, I walked over to Lisa’s office. She was on the phone. She waved and pointed to a chair. As she talked, I studied her face, marveling at the smoothness of her unblemished mocha skin and the animation of her mouth and eyebrows. I decided that I liked Lisa very, very much. It went beyond physical attraction. She was a class act.

  She hung up a minute later and gave me a warm smile.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Soc. That was someone from the land trust.”

  “No apology necessary. Thought you’d like to hear about my trip to New Bedford.”

  I told her what Mandel had said about Warner and the collection he was peddling.

  “What you seem to be saying is that this missing piece of scrimshaw could be the key piece to the whole puzzle,” she said.

  “It does seem to be a common denominator.” I ticked off the points on my fingertips. “Coffin and your grandfather argued over the collection. Coffin felt something in the collection could exonerate his ancestor. And the scrimshaw was the reason for the meeting at the museum that ended so badly.”

  “Then we have to talk to Warner.”

  “I tried. He didn’t answer. From what Mandel told me, Mr. Warner is a slippery fish, but there may be a way to lure him in.”

  I outlined what I had in mind. Lisa didn’t hesitate when I gave her Warner’s telephone number. She snapped up the phone and called him. She got his recorded message.

  “Hello, Mr. Warner,” she said. “My name is Lisa Hendricks. I’m an attorney and I’m acting as agent for Mr. Socarides, who tried to contact you earlier. He asked me to stress that he is very interested in the Coffin scrimshaw collection and that money is no object. Please call me at your earliest convenience.”

  After she hung up I said, “Not bad.”

  The satisfied smile faded from her lips. “On that other matter. The incident out at the Serengeti. Have you made any progress?”

  “I’m still assembling the dots. Once I do that, I have to find a way to connect them. In the meantime, it might be wise for you to keep your distance from me.”

  “That would be very difficult,” she said. She must have noticed my raised eyebrow, because she quickly added, “Especially where we’re living side-by-side.” She didn’t like the sound of that either. “Oh, you know what I mean.”

  “The offer to move out still stands.”

  She pursed her lips and gave her head a slow shake. “I need you where I can reach you. Dear God. I can’t seem to get it right.”

  Seeing her embarrassment, I glanced off at one of the conservation maps taped to the walls. She had explained at our first meeting that the maps were color-coded to designate land tracts as private, public conservation and property under discussion.

  “Isn’t that Ramsey’s property in the conservation trust holdings?”

  “That’s an old map. The trust had hoped to acquire the property, but the deal fell apart.”

  “Too bad. How did Ramsey acquire it?”

  She made a sour face. “It’s a long story.” Before she could tell me, the phone rang. She answered it, then covered the mouthpiece. “I’m going to be tied up for a while. Dinner later?”

  “It would be a pleasure. Want me to cook again?”

  A pained look came to her face. “Not really. Let’s meet in about an hour.” She jotted down an address on a pad and ripped off a page for me. “This is where Lillian lives. She can tell you the whole story.”

  “Ms. Mayhew is familiar with the property?”<
br />
  “More than familiar. The Mayhew family owned the land for more than two hundred years. It’s still called Mayhew Point.”

  From Lisa’s office it was a short walk to India Street where Lillian lived in a two-and-a-half-story white captain’s house topped with a cupola. I climbed to the veranda and rang the doorbell. No one answered. A blue antique Ford beach wagon was parked in the driveway. I left the porch and walked around back. Lillian was bending over in a vegetable garden with her rear end facing me.

  I walked up behind her and said, “Nice tomatoes.”

  She stood and turned, trowel in hand. She looked startled, and then the glimmer of recognition came to her eyes. I gave her a little help.

  “My name is Socarides. We met at the cocktail party.”

  “Oh, yes. You were with Lisa.” Slowly, the ghost of a smile came to her lips. “I assume you were talking about my plants just now. In any event, thank you. But if you really want to flatter a woman, don’t approach when she has her hind-most parts in the air.”

  “I’ll remember that, Ms. Mayhew.”

  “Call me Lillian if you will, Mr. Socarides.”

  “And please call me by my nickname. Soc.”

  She tucked her trowel into a belt holster and stepped out of the garden onto the lawn. She was dressed in a loose, long-sleeved peasant’s blouse and baggy, knee-length slacks. On her head was a wide-brimmed Shaker style straw hat. She settled into an Adirondack chair and invited me to sit in the one beside her.

  “Well, Soc. How may I help you?”

  “I was at Lisa’s office a while ago. We got to talking about Ramsey’s property.”

  Her blue eyes blazed like cold light lasers. “In my family, we still call it Mayhew Point.”

  I had touched a sore spot. “How did Ramsey acquire your family’s property?”

  “Indirectly,” she said with unveiled contempt in her voice. “It was taken by the Navy years ago. They used it for some sort of hush-hush work during the Cold War. Something to do with spying on the Soviets, I believe. When the Cold War ended, the Navy abandoned the property, but retained ownership.”

  “Did your family ever offer to buy it back?”

  “The Mayhew family long ago lost the fortune it had made in whale oil. Bad investments and bad luck. We suggested that the Navy turn it over to the conservation trust. They refused, saying the government planned to hold on to it. The next thing anyone knew, Ramsey was building that monstrous monument to his ego. That’s the first we knew the navy had sold it.”

  “The ownership passed from the Navy to Ramsey?”

  “Evidently,” she said. “Don’t ask me how or why. It just did.”

  “Did the Navy say why it changed its mind?”

  “I must have talked to a dozen people. The closest I could get to an answer was that the decision was made ‘higher up.’ ”

  I ran through the scenarios in my head. Bribery. Political favor. Old school tie. There were probably a dozen ways Ramsey could have weaseled choice waterfront property from Uncle Sam and they all smelled to high heaven. I could see too why Lillian was afraid Ramsey would acquire Lisa in the same inexplicable way.

  “I’m very sorry at the way things turned out.”

  “Thank you. May I ask why you are so interested in Mayhew Point?”

  Lillian was no dummy. She’d never believe me if I told her it was idle curiosity.

  Deflecting the question, I said, “I’m more interested in Ramsey’s business associate. The man who came in by helicopter.”

  She wrinkled her nose as if her nostrils had picked up a foul odor. “I left directly after that. I’m confused. I thought you were hired to help Lisa defend her grandfather.”

  “That’s right. This is unrelated to Mr. Daggett.”

  I don’t know if she believed me, but she gave me a quick, knowing smile. “How is Henry doing?”

  “Still thinks he’s Ahab.”

  She stared off into the distance.

  I pushed myself up from the chair and said, “Thank you, Ms—I mean, Lillian.”

  The frown on her lips changed to a smile. She stood and unsheathed her trowel. “And thank you for helping Lisa and Henry, Mr. Starbuck. I can see that they are in good hands.”

  I wanted to tell her that those hands were a little shaky after their owner had been shot at and almost drowned. I promised I would do what I could, said my goodbyes and headed back to town. I put aside my self-pledge to stay sober, rationalizing that alcohol would help me think. I headed to a local hang-out called the Rose and Crown.

  The place was busy with the after-beach crowd. I squeezed up to the bar and ordered a beer. The college kid tending bar looked at me as if I were the good gunslinger about to ask for a sarsaparilla in an Old West saloon.

  “Is there a problem?” I said.

  “This is incredible!” he said. “Guy just left here could have been your son or brother. He looked just like you. Except a lot younger.”

  “Did you happen to catch his name?”

  “Oh yeah. Said his name was Alex and that he was a lawyer.”

  “Cancel my order,” I told the bartender. Then I headed for the door.

  The hotel Chili was using for his drug operation was a couple of blocks from Water Street. It was an old ark of a place that had been renovated at great cost to accommodate guests who wanted to do more than sit fully-dressed in a rocking chair and take in the sea air. There were a couple of benches set on the sidewalk facing the hotel, and sitting in one of them was Cousin Alex. He was reading a newspaper, occasionally glancing over or around it.

  I snuck up behind him and yanked the paper from his hands. Then I ripped out a hole in one of the pages, sat down and shoved the paper back to him. “Now you won’t have to keep looking over and around the paper,” I said.

  “Hey, Soc—”

  “You told me you were going to leave the island.”

  “I had every intention, but I as I walked around I thought that I shouldn’t hang this all on you. I could help. Maybe I’d see something that you can use.”

  “Your intentions are noble, Alex, but this is way out of your league. You’re—”

  “Wait, Soc. It’s Chili!”

  I grabbed the paper page and raised it to my face. Through the ragged hole I saw three men emerge from the service entrance. One man had the husky physique I remembered from Alex’s old drug supplier. He said something to the other men, then they left and walked toward the harbor. One man was tall. The other was short. Sergei and Pitir. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so harsh with Alex. Thanks to my nephew, I had had just learned that Chili the drug dealer was pals with Ivan’s goons.

  CHAPTER 20

  Alex and I sat without speaking at a table amid the noisy crowd at the Rose and Crown. We were like a couple in need of marriage counseling. Ten minutes earlier, he tried to thank me for buying the round of beers. I told him to shut up. I wanted to think. I sipped my mug, letting the cold liquid trickle down my throat, while I laid out a mental checklist of what I knew. Chili was in the drug business. Human torch impersonator Viktor Karpov had been in the drug business. The goons who may have killed Karpov worked for Ivan, and they knew Chili.

  Ivan was a KGB guy by trade. He would know that his muscle guys were dabbling in pharmaceuticals. But that didn’t make sense. Why would a wealthy businessman risk his fortunes by pushing drugs? I thought back to the Volgatech report that Flagg loaned me. Ivan controlled a pile of companies, but many had gone belly up. In a standard business deal, the creditors have to wait in line to get their pennies on a dollar. Ivan’s investors were likely his pals in the KGB. What if he had leveraged money from his pals into his investments?

  Hey, Boris, do I have a deal for you!

  Ivan could be in hock for debts owed to some very to
ugh guys.

  Hey, Boris. About that money I owe you.

  It takes a lot of rubles to maintain a big yacht and a helicopter. Maybe that’s why Ivan had cut corners and hired a couple of low-budget hoods rather than ex-KGB bone-crushers who’d be more professional, but more aware of his failing fortunes. In that context, the change Ivan could pick up from the drug trade might come in handy. A million here, a million there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money. He could tread water until a piece of wreckage drifted by for him to cling to.

  That possibly explained Ivan’s dealings. What about Ramsey? His MO was similar to Ivan’s. Borrow money and leverage the risk. If his fortunes were tied closely to the Russian’s business flops, Ramsey too could be in big trouble. I couldn’t see Ramsey pushing drugs, but he and Ivan were definitely up to something that could save their asses. And it had to do with MAC.

  I drained my beer mug. “Okay, Alex. Now you may talk.”

  He smiled with relief. “What’s going on, Soc? You rip my newspaper to shreds and ream me out. Then you put your arm around me and buy me a beer. What gives?”

  “I’ll spell it out for you, dear cousin. This is no longer a simple drug case. We, you and I, have stepped into a big pile of horse manure. The situation is far more dangerous and complex than either one of us could have imagined. Those two guys Chili was talking to are bad, in a very big way. The last guy to annoy their boss, they tied to a tree, poured gasoline on his head and made a one-man bonfire out of him.”

  Alex put his mug down on the table. I was pleased to see a healthy look of fear in his eyes. “You’ve got my attention,” he croaked.