Black Tide

by Brendan DuBois

  Then the answering machine beeped its silence, and I said, “Yeah, Craig, I got that. But what the hell did I just get?"

  And a final message: "Man, they shouldn't have laughed at me…”

  I played the tape back twice. It didn't quite make sense. I had visited him twice, the last time being yesterday. Could that be called harassment? And then there was the comment about "you and your buddies." Who did Craig think my buddies were? The staff at Shoreline? I looked over at the digital clock on my TV's VCR. It was past eleven. I was tired and I wanted to go to bed. I knew that if I returned Craig Dummer's call, I'd probably wake him up and he'd be in no mood to talk. At this time of the night, I was beginning to share that mood, and I decided to talk to him tomorrow, on Wednesday. With that, I went upstairs and took a shower and examined my skin carefully, and noticed with a sense of pride that the scar on my side was healing quite nicely, thank you, and was working its way to a wonderful pale pink.

  There were also no lumps on my skin either. For that small boon, I didn't feel any pride at all. Just gratitude.

  About four hours later I was awake again, in my darkened kitchen, naked and trembling a bit, with sweat racing down my ribs, drinking ice water straight from a jug in the refrigerator. It was nearly four in the morning, and about ten minutes ago, I had been in the throes of one hell of a dream. It played at first like a snippet from a videocassette. The high Nevada desert. Bodies of my friends on the sand. Except this time they weren't quite dead. They'd get up again, weaving and stumbling, and flesh was falling from their bones, like the meat off a well-cooked chicken in a simmering pot, and they were coming to me, demanding and pointing and asking why I had lived…

  Before they got to me is when I woke up. The water tasted wonderful and I didn't drink too much, not wanting to cramp up my stomach or get sick. The light from the open refrigerator door was a tiny oasis in the kitchen, and when I put the jug of water back and shut the door, the sudden darkness poked at me and I went back upstairs.

  I changed the moist sheets and opened a window wider, then I lay down on the bed, my breathing beginning to ease. I stared up at the dark ceiling and the noise began. A far-off whirring sound that I was sure was a helicopter, a helicopter coming here to my house, but before I panicked I switched on the light and listened closer, and recognized the sound as a mosquito in my bedroom, teasing me with its whine. I picked up a copy of Astronomy magazine from the nightstand and rolled it up, and in a minute I killed the mosquito and went back to bed and shut off the light. I usually get a dream like that about every month or so. With my quota filled, I easily went back to sleep.

  In the morning I made three phone calls to Craig Dummer's house and got no answer. Then I went to have lunch with Roger Krohn in the center of town, and afterward we sat on a park bench and watched the traffic crawl by on Route 1, also known as Lafayette Road. It was a hot day, and even the shade from the oak trees didn't do much with the heat. Roger looked a bit tired, with that weariness around the eyes that's hard to hide in the daylight. I said something about that and he said, "Up late last night, doing a ride along with a couple of uniforms."

  "Anything interesting?"

  He shrugged. ''A couple of things, though it's amazing what sets off the guys here in Tyler Beach. I mean, back in Boston, a couple of guys on a street corner drinking a couple of beers, that's no big deal, but here, hell, they make a federal case out of it. Open-container ordinance. You got a beer bottle or can in your hand and it's open and pow, you're in jail for the weekend and you have to come up with a couple of hundred bucks for fines and court costs. No thanks."

  "No thanks for the aggravation, or no thanks for the law?"

  "Either or," he said, folding his thick arms across his chest. , "It'll just take some getting used to, an easier pace like that." And he turned and grinned, saying, "But I think I can make the adjustment just fine."

  "You're beginning to sound more confident," I said. "Does it really look that clear?"

  Roger looked around, as if he was concerned about who might be overhearing us, but all about us were people scurrying along the sidewalks, mostly tourists who looked as though they were wondering where in hell the beach was. Roger said, "The chief and his family are keeping things very close to the vest, but I don't think it's going to be that long. And I've already been told by the town manager and selectmen chairman that even though they're going to open up the chief's position to the usual advertisements and search committees, I have an inside shot. Maybe only shot."

  "That's pretty interesting," I said, not wanting to tell Roger what was really on my mind. Continuing this little deception, I added, "I've been thinking some about what you said before, the night Diane and I came over to your apartment."

  "Really?" he said, and I could tell that though he was acting casual, what I was saying had gotten him interested.

  "Really," I said. ''About cooperation and working together, helping each other out. I've been considering what you said and I now think it sounds pretty intriguing."

  He looked over at me. "Intriguing? In what way?"

  I tried to act as if I was being a bit coy. "In a way that might prove profitable for both of us. You were right, back there, when you said I had a lot of contacts up and down the coast. I do have sources. A lot of contacts that even Diane Woods might not know about. With you coming aboard, well, I think you and I might have an arrangement that we could work out."

  Roger rubbed at his chin. "What changed your mind? When I brought this up back at my place, Lewis, you acted like a society matron who was just propositioned."

  I shrugged. "Thought it over, and I decided cooperation would be the best approach. Plus, well, I'm working on something and ---"

  “And you need my help? Right?" He had a giggly look of triumph on his face, a look that almost made me smile. He looked like a high school quarterback after scoring the winning touchdown.

  "That's right."

  ''And what do I get in return? Besides your undying gratitude, of course."

  "Of course. What you get is a piece of information that I've been holding on to for a while. About a major crime in this state that took place some years ago. I've got a couple of leads that could blow the case wide open."

  He eyed me oddly, as if the words weren't making sense. "Why didn't you bring this to Diane Woods?"

  Because of timing, I thought. If and when I find out about the paintings, after the exchange, then I'll toss a name or two your way. That's my information, and my gift to you for becoming the new police chief of this nutty and lovely town. And that might also be a way for me to get those paintings back to their rightful owners.

  I said, "She has nothing to offer me right now."

  ''And I do?"

  "Yep," I said, leaning back on the park bench. "Something your Massachusetts contacts would probably know, about an old investigation that took place in the state some years back. I need the information for a story I'm working on, but I want to get some deep background stuff that I wouldn't be able to get anywhere else. You help me with this, Roger, and the information turns out, then you'll get the info on the crime."

  "What kind of crime? Murder? Kidnapping? Robbery?"

  I shook my head. "Nope. Look, this is a trial run for both of us, all right? So why don't we take it just one step at a time."

  Roger seemed to mull that over for a few moments and then he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a tiny notepad. "Go ahead," he said, uncapping a pen. "What do you need?" So I told him.

  I was at home that afternoon, trying once again to get a start on a column for Shoreline before I got another nasty note from Seamus Anthony Holbrook, when Felix called and invited me out to dinner for the following night. From the sounds of voices and music in the background it sounded as if he was calling from a restaurant or bar. When I asked him, he said, "Of course, Lewis. I still don't know who's out there, getting ready to receive those paintings.

  "Haven't been home for a while, have you?"


  “Nope. The nest is where they always look, and I don't plan to be back there for a while."

  "Do you miss it?"

  He laughed for a moment. "Lewis, it's just a place to keep the rain off of my head, nothing else. Home is wherever you decide to store your socks, underwear and ammunition. If a hurricane blew away my house tomorrow, I'd just collect the insurance check and go on to somewhere else."

  I looked around at my own home, here in this spot for almost a hundred and fifty years as a lifeboat station and officers' quarters, and now fulfilling the equally important mission of being my shelter. I could not imagine not living here. I didn't want to tell that to Felix, so instead I changed the subject. "Have you set the exchange?"

  “Day after tomorrow," he said, his voice sounding relaxed, as though it was all finally coming together. "Meet is on for Friday night."

  "Got a place?"

  "Nope. I'll get a call into my answering machine a couple of hours ahead of time, setting up the place. And then we go on from there."

  "Something tells me that when the exchange is over, you're not exactly going on vacation, Felix."

  "Nope. I'm going hunting. And that's a fact."

  Comfortable as I was in my home, there were promises to be kept, so I said, "Well, just tell me where to be for the exchange, but you're on your own for your hunting expedition. I've had enough thrills and chills these past couple of weeks. "

  He laughed. "Haven't we both, then? Well, we'll see about Friday night. It just might be some fun at that."

  ''Agreed. " After I hung up the phone, I went back upstairs to my study and actually got an hour's worth of work done.

  After a barbecue dinner I sat out on the rear deck, glass of wine in my hand. Dinner was small and satisfying. There's something about eating near the ocean and the salt air that makes everything taste better. The solitude also helped, for a handful of miles south of me were thousands of tourists and day-trippers, jumbled tight into the sand with their warm drinks, soggy food, sand-encrusted towels and loud music. But before me was my tiny cove and the waves crashing into the rocks, and out beyond the horizon, the line sight of the Isles of Shoals. Luck was also with me this day: there was no stench from Cameron Briggs's mistake, the Petro Star.

  When I was through, I sat for a few minutes in quiet and peace, my legs up on the deck railing, watching the tilting and flying of a group of gulls. I finished my wine and sat for a while longer, not thinking any great thoughts in particular, just those random thoughts that give you the illusion that everything's fine and under control. When I went inside and started washing the dishes, I remembered that I had not heard again that day from Craig Dummer.

  I hurried through the dishes, collected a couple of items and then left the house and got into my Range Rover.

  Within an hour I was among some trees near the trailer park where Craig Dummer lived, looking carefully at his house. His car was parked in the yard, but there had been no sound, no movement, nothing for the thirty minutes or so I had kept the place under watch. A telephone call from a pay phone in Exonia to his home went unanswered, and I was not thinking good thoughts, not at all. I had parked the Range Rover off the side of an adjacent road and had bushwhacked through the woods to get to this point. Little voices inside of me were shouting about bad things and danger. It didn't seem to be a good idea to drive right up to the front of his house and become a memory for some witnesses.

  I went across the yard, trying to look as if I belonged and as if I was just visiting, and I went up the wooden steps and knocked on the door. No answer. A few flies were buzzing around.

  I knocked again, louder.

  "Craig? Craig Dummer? It's Lewis Cole."

  I looked around at the other trailers. Some kids were playing in the yards, some wheeling about in plastic tricycles of bright colors. Some little shouts of glee and joy, and they seemed happy, content. I was glad they didn't know what was going on inside my mind at this very moment.

  Another knock. Another call. "Craig? Anybody home?"

  No answer. I tried the door. It was unlocked. I went in.

  The living room was a mess. Clothes were strewn about on the carpeted floor, along with newspapers and magazines. I gingerly stepped in. "Hello? Craig?" But the only sounds were a few flies trapped in the trailer. There was a TV set and a bookshelf and a brown upholstered couch, and a window that looked out to the woods. The bookshelf had a mix of paperbacks, criminal law textbooks and art history books. To the right of the living room was the kitchen, lined with dirty gray tile that looked the color of day-old dishwater. The refrigerator and the shelves were almost empty, save for the bags of chips and other snacks and the cans of Budweiser and some frozen pizzas. Dishes were piled in the sink and the water was greasy and scummy.

  I went back through the living room and down a short hallway carpeted in a light tan color that seemed to show every scuff or stain that it had ever suffered. For a trailer, the building was wide and roomy. I could see why mobile homes like this one were popular. For not much money, you had the illusion of living in a real home, and for some families, this illusion would be the best that they could ever do. But I wouldn't want to ride out a tornado or hurricane in one.

  The first door to the right led to the bathroom, and unlike the rest of the trailer, it seemed reasonably clean, as if it had just been washed. There was the usual stuff you find in a bathroom, and I left after a minute or so. Beyond the bathroom were two more rooms. One was being used as a bedroom, with a box spring and mattress on the floor, and more piles of clothes and magazines. The magazines were similar to the ones I had found in his old apartment in Bainbridge: art magazines and men's magazines. Quite a combination. I looked through the closets for a moment --- some security guard uniforms and other clothing, boxes on the floor --- and then I left. The room smelled of sweat and mildew, and I was glad to get out.

  There was just one room left. I took a breath, tried to ease the trembling in my hands and opened the door.

  Nothing. Just piles of boxes, clothes and some pieces of furniture salvaged from the apartment. I looked underneath a desk. Nobody. Craig Dummer was not home.

  So where in hell was he? And what did he mean by those messages he left on my answering machine?

  Feeling a bit light-headed and almost relaxed, I went back to the living room and dumped a pile of newspapers and magazines on the floor so I could sit down on the couch. The couch gave a little belch of dust when I sat down, and my stomach twinged at what the papers had uncovered: a half-eaten cheeseburger resting on a greasy paper napkin. What a dump. I couldn't understand how anyone could live like this. Except for the bathroom, the whole mobile home was a health threat, was eligible to be condemned, was ---

  Except for the bathroom. I was back in the bathroom, on my hands and knees. The white tile had been freshly washed, but in the center of the floor there was a rusty stain in the grouting that made me uneasy, and I didn't feel any better looking in the bathtub. It had also been scrubbed, but the washing couldn't hide gouges in the tub's side. I touched the gouges. They were sharp and raw. I sniffed the air, smelling nothing save the strong odor of cleanser. This room had been cleaned, and had been cleaned well, and not so long ago.

  I got back on my hands and knees, looked some more, and behind the toilet I found evidence that the cleaners had missed something.

  A human tooth, still bloody at the root.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  In another minute of searching I found something else that almost made me use the toilet for something it wasn't primarily designed for --- a piece of bone, with brain tissue still attached, about the size of a quarter. I dropped it and left the bathroom quickly. In the kitchen I ran the water and scrubbed and scrubbed at my hands, then I sat down on the dirty linoleum floor with my back against the refrigerator and tried to think. All of my alarms were jangling and voices were telling me to get the hell out. For a change I tried to ignore the voices. I went back to the storage room and the bedro
om, and I started tossing the place, being careful where my hands ended up.

  In the storage room I found a file folder that contained some of Craig Dummer's financial background. There were check stubs dating back almost five years, and something about the companies he worked for sounded familiar. In his bedroom I found some more men's magazines and a couple of videotapes of movies that never made it to Oscar night. The room made me feel awful, but I stayed, and it was in the closet that I found something that made me clench my teeth with both the anger and the joy of discovery.

  Hidden way back in the closet, behind shoes and bags full of socks, was a shoebox. In the box was a ski mask and a .380 Smith & Wesson automatic pistol, with silencer attached. I removed the magazine and counted out the cartridges. One was missing, and I was certain when it had been fired, over a week ago.

  I was also certain where it had been fired. Into the side of Tony Russo's head, in front of me and Felix Tinios.

  I spent the next fifteen minutes in that mobile home wiping down everything I had touched, and then I got the hell out.

  At home I didn't do anything except sit on the back deck with my knees up to my chest, watching the stars rise in the east. It was a cool night for a change, another warning of the cold winter that was approaching. In the span of four short weeks the local population would plummet, as the motels and hotels closed up, as the owners of the cottages drained the water systems, shut off the electricity and nailed sheets of plywood over doors and windows. Four short weeks. I wondered where I would be, what I would be doing and what I would be thinking at that time.