Under Pressure

by Kathy Brandt

  Simon traveled light. His green duffel contained a swimsuit, a pair of baggy cargo shorts, two T-shirts, a stack of comic books, and a couple pairs of underwear.

  Daniel Stewart and Sammy Lorenzo had each checked a bag. Stewart’s was filled with shorts, T-shirts, low-key vacation garb, an expensive Rolex, still running, and a couple of mystery novels. Sammy's contained gaudy shirts, a box of expensive cigars, and other basics.

  Zora Gordon had not checked luggage but had only a backpack, which I’d found in the cabin. Maybe her luggage hadn’t made the flight or maybe she traveled light too. We’d find out. Inside were her passport, a couple of granola bars, and her wallet. Her driver’s license showed a Los Angeles address. A pouch in the wallet held several of her business cards. Zora Gordon was an attorney.

  “Jesus, would you look at this,” Stark said, pulling a clear plastic bag of white goo out of the copilot’s flight bag. “Any bets on what this is?” He stuck his little finger into the paste and dabbed it on his tongue.

  “Cocaine, pure,” he said. Stark would know. He’d worked undercover narcotics in Miami for several years before deciding he’d had enough and returning home to the BVI.

  Unfortunately, coming home didn’t mean Stark had escaped the drug scene. Movement of drugs through the islands was always a problem, people looking for any way possible to transport them from South America, up through the islands to the States or Europe. Huge quantities came from Colombia, where drug syndicates refine eighty percent of the world’s cocaine. Drugs went by boat and airplane, in the mail, in prostheses, and in people’s stomachs.

  A few months back, a woman had been apprehended with her baby’s carrier filled with heroin, sewn in the blankets as well as stuffed inside the plastic frame. On top of it all was a screaming baby who needed his diaper changed. She got passed through customs quickly. No one wanted to deal with a screaming kid or the smell of a dirty diaper, until one brave customs woman who’d raised six kids of her own insisted on a closer look.

  The amount in the bag that Stark held was small, maybe two kilos. But multiply that by the number of flights that go out every day and it adds up, even if only ten percent of the flights have a crew member aboard transporting the drug.

  “Could be a motive to bring down the plane,” Stark said. “That copilot might have been causing someone trouble. It’s usually what happens. The carrier gets greedy, wants a bigger share or starts cutting the coke and selling a little extra on the side. Or hell, maybe he was getting into the stash himself. We’ll know when we get the tox screens back.”

  “Yeah, but why bring an entire plane down along with a couple of kilos of coke? There had to be other opportunities to get to the copilot,” I said.

  “I’ve seen it before. These people are ruthless,” Stark said. “One high-end dealer in Miami blew up another dealer’s house, wife and kids inside. It was a warning to every dealer on his payroll.”

  “Well, sabotage or not, it’s pretty clear that we need to follow up on the drug angle,” I said.

  Stark was still holding up the bag of cocaine when a short, stocky guy wearing a pair of scuffed cowboy boots and a cowboy hat walked in. He wore a brown plaid shirt that looked like one Roy Rogers would have been proud to wear, right down to the mother-of-pearl buttons.

  “Good day, gentlemen, ma’am. It appears that this crash may be solved before the week is out. I presume that powder is some sort of illicit material,” he said, taking off his hat and running a kerchief over his forehead. “Pardon my manners. I should introduce myself. Joe Harrigan, AAIB.”

  Christ, this was our expert? Sturtevant’s praise for the investigator didn’t quite match the guy that stood before us. His accent was pure Brit. A damn British cowboy? What the hell was that? He held the crown of the Stetson and was replacing the hat back on thinning brown hair. Then he hooked a thumb in his jeans. Nothing about him engendered any confidence that he was an expert at anything except impersonating Wild Bill Hickok.

  “Mind if I take a look around?” he asked, and began strolling though the items laid out on the floor. He talked as he walked, his patter directed at no one in particular. It was clear that he was making a mental record of everything he saw—the location of all the passengers, which ones hadn’t lived through the crash, where the cargo had been placed. I could see the wheels turning, assessments being made. He never touched a thing. He crouched, placed his arms on his knees, and took a hard look at the gun that was visible inside the clear plastic evidence container.

  “You’ve recovered a weapon,” he said.

  “I found it wedged next to a seat,” I said.

  “I believe that someone slipped that gun onto the plane undetected,” Harrigan said, stating the obvious. “I wonder how? More than likely it is not related to the crash, from what I have heard so far about how that plane went down. However, I will certainly be talking to airport security to find out how it could get through the metal detectors. I suppose it could have belonged to one of the pilots.”

  “We’ll be running the serial numbers and see what comes up,” Stark said.

  I couldn’t believe the stuff that was strewn all over the warehouse—a gun, sex toys, and cocaine, all on this little fifteen-passenger aircraft. God knows what ends up in a 747. If we needed a motive for murder, we’d found several, including an unfaithful husband and the threat of divorce and a 9 mm Beretta. The most likely was the cocaine smuggling. Stark and I would be following up on that immediately. Everything would remain in the warehouse until the investigation was complete, except for any items that Dickson or Harrigan might want to examine in the lab or send out for analysis.

  We left the two of them standing side by side—a squat John Wayne and a Hell’s Angel wannabe. They were surrounded by plaid boxers, T-shirts sporting university and sailing logos, cameras, film, toiletries, pocket calculators, and books.

  “What do you think of Harrigan?” Stark asked on our way out.

  “A cowboy? Jeez, Stark. Between Harrigan, Dickson, and Mr. GQ, I’d say we’ve got a cast for one of Stewart’s movies.”

  ***

  Simon was perched on the edge of his bed ready to go when I got back to the hospital. He wore the same red high-tops, baggy pants, and T-shirt that he’d had on when I pulled him out of the plane. The hospital had washed them. I realized it was all he had.

  “Guess we’ll need to get you some new clothes, huh?” I said, sitting next to him.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You ready to go?”

  “Yeah,” he said, sliding off the bed. “I still want to see my dad, though.”

  I called down to the morgue from the nurses’ station and told them I was bringing the kid down. I didn’t want Simon walking into a scene from The Body Snatchers. Dr. Hall had already talked to them and they understood what needed to be done. They said they would wheel the body to a room across the hall.

  We were quiet in the elevator on the way down. Simon was nervous, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, one hand fingering the edge of his shirt, the other deep in a pocket.

  When the elevator door opened, the same attendant that had been working yesterday when I brought Westbrook down was waiting for us, without the bloody lab coat. He led us past the morgue to a doorway on the right.

  “You sure you’re up to this?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I just want to see him.”

  “Want me to come in with you or you want to go in alone?” I asked.

  “Maybe you could come with me.”

  The attendant opened the door and told us to take as long as we wanted. They’d done well. Simon’s father was lying on a gurney that had been draped with white linen. His hands were folded over his chest. Someone had actually put some blush on his cheeks, trying to cover the wax-like countenance of death, and had placed some island flowers in his hands. I owed these people big time.

  Simon hesitated for a while, standing back. Then he stepped to the side of the gurney. He was barely tall enough to
see over its edge. He stood there for a long time, just looking. Finally he touched his father’s hand. He never shed a tear.

  “I’m ready to go,” he said finally.

  The attendant was waiting outside. “I really appreciate your taking care of the body,” I whispered to him as Simon went ahead to the elevator.

  “No problem, mon. My wife be comin’ by ta help out, brought da flowers. We got kids of our own. I jus’ be real sorry dat boy dun lost his daddy.”

  We were out in the hospital parking lot getting into the Rambler when I saw Jack Westbrook pull up to the entrance. I asked Simon to wait for me and went to talk to him. He was sitting in the car, tapping his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, windows rolled up.

  I knocked on the glass. When Westbrook rolled down the window a blast of cold hit me in the face.

  “Detective Sampson. Hello. I’m just waiting for Debra. Doctor Hall said she was fine to go,” he said, glancing at Simon who was standing near the Rambler.

  “How’s the boy?”

  “Shaken, upset.”

  “He going home?” Westbrook asked. It seemed an odd question.

  “Of course. He will be going home as soon as we get in touch with his family. Until then, he’ll be staying with me.”

  “Any word on why that plane went down?” he asked.

  “It’s way too soon to tell. The investigator from AAIB just got in. They’ll be bringing the plane up in the morning. We’ll be needing to talk to all the other passengers, including your wife.”

  “She’s in no shape for a lot of questions. I’d prefer you didn’t bother her. Besides, what on earth could she tell you?”

  “I’m afraid no one is exempt, Senator.” Somehow, I didn’t see Westbrook as the concerned-husband type, but that was the card he was playing right now.

  I told him I’d stop by their boat tomorrow and didn’t give him the opportunity to come up with an excuse.

  Chapter 14

  Simon and I pulled away from the hospital and headed to the Tortola PD. I didn’t want to leave the kid alone on the Sea Bird, so he was my companion for the rest of the day. He was quiet as we drove. He leaned on the window frame, head resting on his arms, gaze directed out at the ocean. I was guessing his mind was a long way from where we were right now. Probably still in the hospital morgue, looking at his father for the last time.

  I didn’t know what to say. I was no good at this. How could I possibly make it better? I couldn’t. I pulled the Rambler over at a stretch of white beach at Paraquita Bay.

  “How about a walk, Simon?”

  “Okay,” he said, coming back to the present.

  We removed our shoes, left them near the car, and headed down to the edge of the water. I followed him into the gentle surf. He was up to his knees, arms raised, working to keep his balance against the periodic rush of waves that lapped against the bottom of his shorts. Water rushed around our feet and worked the sand from underneath them. As Simon began to topple into the water, I grabbed him under his arms and swung him around.

  He laughed, a carefree kid's laugh. The first I’d heard. I kept him swinging, his heels brushing the tops of the waves. I twirled him until I was breathless. Then we splashed our way back to the shore.

  “You know my dad and me, we weren’t very close,” Simon said as we walked down the beach. He had found a conch shell buried in the sand and had been holding it up to his ear, trying to listen to the ocean.

  “Sometimes adults get wrapped up in things and forget what’s important, Simon. I’m sure your dad loved you very much.”

  “Maybe, but ever since my mom died, he wasn’t the same. He used to come home from work and we’d play catch or he’d show me something neat on the computer till dinner. After she died, all he did was work. We got a housekeeper. He always said he’d be home for dinner, but he never was. When he did come home, he spent all his time in his den.”

  “Sounds like he was hurting, Simon.”

  “Yeah. I kept waiting for him to get back to the way he used to be,” he said, regret filling the words.

  I heard what he was saying, that now it would never happen. The father he had once had was lost to him forever. This kid was way too young to have to deal with that kind of regret. I found myself angry with Lawrence Redding for being so selfish, so unable to be there for his son. He hadn’t been the only one suffering. Sure, he’d lost his wife, but Simon had lost his mother. I don’t think I’d have liked Lawrence Redding much. He’d been self-involved and weak.

  We kept walking, Simon darting in and out of the surf. In the distance I could see a man coming up the beach toward us. As he drew closer, the unmistakable bulk of Enok Kiersted, environmentalist and my new neighbor, took shape. He recognized Simon. Evidently the kid had been with his father when they’d met about the grant. He knelt and shook Simon’s hand and then insisted we walk down the beach to the mangroves. I had to give Kiersted credit. He too recognized that the kid was hurting.

  “Simon will love it. All kinds of cool stuff in there,” he said.

  “Cool” would not have been the way I’d have described it. As he led the way onto greasy mud banks and into gnarled and twisted branches and roots, my feet were sucked into a foot of muck. God knows what I was stepping in. Every once in a while I felt something hard poke into the sole of my foot—some sort of shelled creature no doubt. I tried not to think about what else might be living in the stuff. I was more troubled by what I couldn’t feel—the soft, slimly things that lived in the mud. The intensity of the slime was outdone only by the putrid odor it emitted—that of rotten eggs. I was about to suggest we head back to the beach.

  “It’s hydrogen sulfide,” Kiersted said, noticing my discomfort. “There is very little oxygen in the mud.

  “See these little holes in the prop roots above the water?” he asked, crouching. “They lead to air passages that carry oxygen down to the roots in the mud. That’s how the trees get oxygen.”

  Simon stooped down next to him. He was fascinated. So much for getting the hell out of there. We kept going, wending our way through the tangled mass of roots as Kiersted, grateful for an audience, gave Simon a lesson in mangroves.

  Scores of fiddler crab holes dotted the banks. One crab was industriously flicking mud out of its burrow until it saw us approach and scrambled down its tunnel. Kiersted picked up a stick and unearthed what he described as a burrowing polychaete worm, fascinating to most nine-year-old boys.

  “The mangroves are loaded with nesting birds—egrets, brown pelicans, cormorants, great blue herons, and even bats,” Kiersted explained. At the moment I could hear a frigate bird clucking in the branches over our heads. The mangrove was a canopy of waxy leaves and cigar-shaped seedlings decorated with intricate spider webs.

  “All this muck? It’s important in preserving the coral out there,” Kiersted said, pointing out toward the reef. “The mangroves capture a lot of sediment and pollution that washes from the land and keeps it from settling on the coral and smothering it.”

  “Seems like a losing battle,” I said. I knew that in many areas, sediment and pollution were turning turquoise waters brown. Elyse had had a hand in preventing some of it when she’d convinced a local gravel pit operator to terrace the hillside and put in catchment ponds to keep the rain from washing sediment into the bay.

  “People can be stupid,” Kiersted said, his anger rising. “All they see is the muck and the smell and they tear these trees out. All over the world, the mangroves are being destroyed, replaced by fancy resorts, beaches, and shrimp farms. It’s the same old story. A few come in and usurp the mangroves from the locals.

  “What are shrimp farms?” Simon asked.

  “They are football field-sized ponds constructed in the shallow water where the mangroves used to thrive. The operators use chemicals and nutrients as feed for the shrimp, turn the area into a toxic waste dump, and then desert the farms when they no longer produce and simply move on to the next viable site. I call it rape-an
d-run agriculture, kind of like the slash and burn in the rainforest.”

  “Look at all the sailboats out there. They call Paraquita Bay a hurricane hole for good reason,” he went on, pointing out into the lagoon.

  I knew that if that storm continued on its path, O’Brien and the other charter company owners would be cramming as many boats as possible into the protected bay. The lagoon was about fifteen feet deep, surrounded by mangroves, and thus shielded from the wind and waves. There was only one opening wide enough to motor a boat through.

  “Not only do these mangroves protect the sea from the pollution on land, they also protect the land from a violent sea,” Kiersted explained. “Without them, regions which were protected from storms and tidal waves are now being destroyed, thousands killed in areas where few died when the mangroves were there to act as a buffer.”

  I thought about the 2004 tsunami that had killed hundreds of thousands and devastated entire villages in Indonesia and Thailand. I wondered how much of that region had once been guarded by mangroves. Suddenly the smell and the muck were tolerable.

  “I am not going to let these mangroves or any others in the islands be destroyed if I can help it,” he said, clenching his fists, his jaw set. “There are people down here who plan to convert the mangroves in Paraquita Bay into beachfront property. Just let them try.”

  I was glad that I was not the perpetrator of what he clearly considered the crimes of the century. Kiersted had no perspective. He was extremely angry and still ranting about the continued shortsightedness of government when I interrupted him.

  “Who owns this land?” I asked.

  “A local islander. He’s given me permission to take samples here. I’m pretty sure that he’s been approached by a developer. I’ve seen people wandering around on the property. He won’t say who it is, but I’ll find out and then I’ll put a stop to it.”

  “How are you going to do that?” I asked. I wondered if Kiersted was crazy enough to resort to violence. He just shook his head, and didn’t answer.