Primary Storm

by Brendan DuBois

  He led me through the thinning crowd of people, to a dark blue Ford LTD with a whip antenna that was parked next to the Harley Davidson that was Bert’s… and God knows who would ride that motorcycle again, and though I had just met him that day and hadn’t particularly liked him much, I still found myself tearing up some. The guy had been alive just a few hours ago, and now he was probably dead, and I had been through it all, and I was the last woman he had ever seen, or spoken too, and I had a flash of regret, that maybe I should have been nicer to him.

  At the rear of the LTD, writing notes on a paper-cluttered metal clipboard, was a woman about fifteen or so years older than me. She had short brown hair down up in some sort of bobbed haircut that looked a decade or two out of date, and she was wearing black slacks, white blouse and a short brown leather jacket. She looked up at me and I spotted a thin white scar on the bottom of her chin.

  “You’re Jenny Wilson, right? The intern from the Chronicle?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  She held out her hand, which I shook. “Detective Diane Woods, Tyler police department. You were on the boat when Bert Comstock fell overboard, am I right?”

  So far, two for two, but her face was set and she didn’t look like one for joking. So I nodded and said, “That’s right.”

  “I need a few minutes to talk to you.”

  And I needed a few days to put this whole bloody day behind me, but I just wanted to get it over with, and I nodded again.

  “Good. About what time did he fall off?”

  “About ten a.m. It was after they had gotten their first load of the day. Jack was heading out to another fishing area when Bert… when Bert fell in.”

  She made a few notes and said “unh-hunh,” and asked, “And where were you when he fell in?”

  “In the wheelhouse.”

  “And Jack?”

  “He was in the captain’s chair, steering the boat.”

  “Did you see Bert fall in?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  She stared at me. “But you were in the wheelhouse.”

  “Yeah, but I was… damn, I was tired. I had been on the boat since four a.m., I had taken some anti motion-sickness medicine, and I got sleepy. There’s a padded bench in the wheelhouse. That’s where I stretched out.”

  “So you didn’t see anything.”

  I bit my lip for a moment. “That’s what I said. I didn’t see anything.”

  “Did you hear anything?”

  “Yeah, I did,” I said. “There was a thump I heard from up forward. And then I heard Jack start yelling, and he went out to look for Bert, and I followed.”

  “And did you see anything in the water?”

  “No, not a thing.”

  “Really? He wasn’t wearing a life jacket?”

  I rubbed my hands together. Damn, I was tired. “They’re fishermen… I think… I think it’s a point of pride for them, that they don’t wear lifejackets. And Jack thought… well, he thought maybe he had run him over, that the propeller had struck him.”

  More scribbles in the clipboard. “I see… anything else you think I should know?”

  I thought for a bit and said, “Blood.”

  “Blood?”

  “Yeah, there was blood on the bow. Where he hit his head when he fell off.”

  “Thanks, that’s good to know.”

  I yawned. “Look… I’ve had a hell of a day. All right if I head out?”

  She went back to her clipboard. “Sure… oh, one more thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you take any photos while you were out there?”

  “Sure.”

  “And took notes, I’m sure.”

  I was quickly becoming more awake. I didn’t like where this was going. “Of course I took notes. Lots of notes.”

  Her face was set. “I’m sorry. I’m going to need to look at your notes, and your photos. As part of the investigation.”

  I spoke without thinking. “No.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I shook my head. “No. No way. You’re not seeing my notes, or my photos. First Amendment and all that, detective.”

  It seemed like the white scar on her chin was getting whiter. She said, “And this is a serious business, and I’m investigating an untimely death, and all that, Miss Intern. So I want your notes, and your photos.”

  “You’re not getting them.”

  “I could arrest you, you know. For interfering in a police investigation.”

  “Do what you have to do,” I said. “Because I’m going to do what I have to do.”

  She smiled, a not-so-friendly smile that chilled me. “Your choice, then.”

  I guess so.

  And you know what?

  They really do say, “watch your head,” when they’re putting you in a police cruiser, after having put those very heavy and very cold handcuffs on your wrists.

  An hour later I was in a cell on the first floor of the Tyler police station, about a five minute drive from the harbor. I was put in the rear of a police cruiser and brought over, and through the entire booking process, they were quite polite, taking down my name and personal information, taking my fingerprints and a mug shot. It seemed like a big giant joke until it came time for the strip search.

  “The what?” I had asked.

  “Strip search,” I was told. “To make sure you don’t have any contraband either on your body, or in your body.”

  Well.

  A bored police matron, about the age and size of my mother, came in and snapped on a pair of rubber gloves, and when she was done and I was issued an orange jumpsuit, I knew I would never ever complain about my annual OB-GYN exam and stirrups and cold gear, ever again.

  So here I sat. The cell was small, with a bed made of thick pad, another small pad for a pillow, and two wool blankets. A stainless steel sink and toilet bowl was in one corner. No television, no newspapers, no nothing, for the cells here were just holding cells. The real jail was at the county jail, a few towns over, with the state prisons being reserved for the really tough stuff.

  So when was I getting out?

  A shrug from one of the cops. “It’s Friday. We don’t do exchanges over the weekend. So you’re going to be our guest, until you get bailed out.”

  “And when’s that?”

  Another shrug. “Two of the local bail bondsmen are up north, at some convention. There’s one guy, covering this part of the state. Might get here tomorrow. Or Sunday. Depends.”

  Depends, I thought. Sure. I hugged myself in the cold cell. I knew what they were doing, and they were doing it pretty well. They were trying to shake me up, make me scared, make me want to cooperate. A lot has been written about the romance of being a journalist or a writer and being placed in a jail cell for one’s beliefs, but I didn’t see any romance or glory. I was cold, tired, and hungry. Earlier I had been promised my one phone call, and I had hesitated. Parents, down there in Massachusetts? They would freak and get me out eventually, but I wouldn’t want to spend the next year or two debating why I did what I did. Mother is still upset about the dress I wore to the junior prom back in high school, and to this day picks fights with me about that fashion disaster, so Mother and Father were off the contact list.

  A lawyer? Didn’t know any lawyers, thank you very much. One of my professors at UNH… possible, but I didn’t want to single-handily destroy or damage the intern program by this little stand I was taking.

  My editor, Rollie… um, no. After getting my butt out of jail, he would probably send my butt back to school, and with one destroyed internship under my belt, I would never have a chance to get another one.

  Which left just one person. I called, got an answering machine, left a message, and was promptly taken back to my cell.

  Where I waited.

  Sometime a couple of hours and a lifetime later, a young cop came by, carrying a tray.

  “Dinner,” he said. “Hungry?”

  “Yeah, I am,” I said, getting off t
he bed. “What do you have?”

  He said, “What I got is what you’re getting.”

  He slid the tray under an opening through the bars. “When you’re done, put the tray back out. You leave a mess… well, you won’t like what breakfast is going to be.”

  I picked up the tray. Cold cheeseburger, wrapped in wax paper, complete with mustard, ketchup and onions. I hate onions, and mustard is only for hot dogs, but I managed to scrape the offending stuff off before chewing and swallowing it. Bag of chips. Lukewarm cup of cola. I finished what they gave me, washed my hands, and gently slid the neat tray back out into the hallway.

  Now suddenly tired of it all, I stretched out on the hard foam mattress and pulled a wool blanket over me. It smelt of harsh detergent. I closed my eyes, thought again and again about the events of the day, what I had seen, what I had heard, and sleep just wouldn’t come. Wouldn’t come at all. Things… things were not right, and I spent most of the night, thinking, again and again, and when I wasn’t thinking, well, I felt sorry for myself, and cried a couple of times.

  Morning. And the only way I could tell it was morning was that the lights, dimmed during the night, came back on. Another young cop came in and said, “You’ve got a visitor. You want breakfast first, or the visitor?”

  “The visitor. Please. Breakfast can wait.”

  “Sure.” He left and a minute later, Paula Quinn, the reporter for the Chronicle and the woman who had warned me to stay away from her beat, walked in, carrying a folding chair. She opened the chair and sat down, wearing jeans, black sneakers and a gray TYLER BEACH sweatshirt.

  “Hi,” I said.

  She folded her hands around one of her knees. “You know, we get interns like you three times a year. Fall, spring and summer. Three years ago, we had an intern who didn’t drive and didn’t want to get a driver’s license. So she took a bicycle around to do all her stories. Last year, we had an intern who subsidized his income by selling marijuana to out of towners at the beach. So we’re used to odd interns. But Jenny.. congratulations, you’re the oddest.”

  I leaned into the bars, held onto them with my hand. “Look, the detective, she wanted to look at my notes, my pictures, she wanted to --“

  Paula raised her hand. “Oh, please. What did you expect her to do? She’s investigating an untimely death, she’s looking to find out the truth of what happened out there, and she’s looking for help from you. And what did you do? Pull out your Journalism 101 copy of the First Amendment and wave it around?”

  “And what else should I have done? Roll over? Cooperate?”

  She leaned forward a bit in her chair. “And why the hell not? You stay with her, you let her glance through your notes, ask a few questions, and then flip through your digital pix. Bing, bang, boom, you’re done in under an hour, and you’ve put a fair number of chits in the favor bank.”

  Now I felt tired and just a bit overwhelmed. “What… what kind of reporter are you, anyway?”

  “A damn good one,” she snapped back. “A good one at finding out the news and reporting the news. For God’s sake Jenny, if I acted like you all the time, do you know what I’d get? A weekly press release from the police department, giving me the bare essentials of burglaries, car accidents, and other events. That’s it. And because I’m not like you, you know what I get?”

  I just motioned with my hands, too tired to continue. She said, “What I get is good stories. Like last month. Detective Woods got a tip that a couple of young lads from Connecticut had set up an amateur pharmacy clinic in their motel room for the summer. Because I had favors in the chit bank, Diane let me go in on the raid. Got great photos, great story about what it looked like, busting in on them, complete with descriptions of the room and the young morons. You know what the other newspapers got around here? A four-sentence press release, announcing the arrest. That’s it.”

  “Sounds like bribery to me,” I said.

  A vigorous shake of the head. “No, it’s called being smart, it’s called knowing who you are and where you’re going. It’s called community reporting, that’s what it’s called. So Jenny. It’s Saturday morning. You can wait until Monday to be bailed out, and let this whole circus continue so that Rollie knows, the entire town knows, hell, other newspapers. Brave, crusading intern reporter.”

  I wiped at my face. God, I needed a shower. “And my other option?”

  “You tell me you want to see Detective Woods. She looks through your notes, through your digital pix. And then everything’s dismissed. No paper trail, no record, nothing. Free to go home.”

  Home. My ratty little one room apartment that seemed so cozy and homey right about then.

  I wiped at my face again. So tired.

  “Deal. Under one condition.”

  That made her smile. “Not sure if you’re in any position to ask for a condition, but go ahead.”

  “This is my story, and I want access to Detective Woods. I want to be able to call her and talk to her, any time I want.”

  Paula stood up. “That’s two conditions, but I think they’re doable. Stay right here.”

  I went back and sat down on the hard mattress. “Not like I’m going anywhere now, right?”

  Sunday morning. In my little apartment. Woke and stretched and I should have felt good, but I didn’t. Yesterday, after getting out of the cell and retrieving my notes and digital camera from my Kia, I spent a few minutes with Detective Woods, answering her questions, and then, that was that. Went home and showered and ate and went to bed, cried a bit, and slept through the night.

  But still I thought of Friday. About that trip out. And then…

  I got dressed and drove the fifteen minutes to the Tyler police station, and surprise of surprises, when I asked the dispatcher for Detective Woods, I got in her office in just under a minute.

  Maybe there was something to this whole chit business.

  “Yes?” she asked, sitting behind her gun-metal gray desk. She looked tired and her desk was piled high with manila folders.

  On the way over, I had batted around what I was going to say, so I decided to get right to it.

  “I think it was a scam, a set-up.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah, I do,” I said.

  “Why?”

  I said, “Because I don’t think he fell over. I think the sound I heard, that thump, was the sound of the forward bulkhead door slamming shut. I think Bert smeared some of his blood on the bow of the boat – easy enough to use a knife out there – and then ducked in through the forward bulkhead. Hid there for the whole day. Doesn’t make sense that right after hearing that noise, we didn’t see him floating. Bodies can’t possibly sink that fast, can they? Besides… Jack, he seemed upset. But upset to a point… like he was acting. So I think it was a scam, Diane”

  “For what purpose?” she asked evenly.

  “Insurance fraud. I bet as an employee of Jack’s, Bert had insurance. Jack told me he had no family… and I bet he had a policy where Jack was the beneficiary.”

  She smiled and lifted a folder, opened it up. “Very good, Jenny. Very good. The fact is, Bert did have a policy, for one million dollars, and Jack was in fact his beneficiary. Very good.”

  I smiled back. Felt good. Felt like I wasn’t screwing up.

  Said feeling lasting about ten seconds.

  Diane put the folder back on the desk. “A nice little theory, Jenny. Except Bert’s body was recovered about two hours ago, by another fishing boat from Falconer. Injury to his head, initial cause of death drowning.”

  So back home I went. Sunday early afternoon. Tomorrow morning I would have to write a story for Rollie about this whole disaster, and I looked through my notes and my digital photos, I just couldn’t do it. My little laptop sat patiently on my home made desk – plank of wood, four plastic milk crates – and I just couldn’t bear to touch the keyboard.

  Even my notes.. they seemed silly, like they had been written by a perky little girl who knew nothing about life or dea
th. Every little detail written down, from the moment I arrived at that dock, to…

  Every little detail.

  Back to my notes again. And then the digital photos.

  “Damn,” I whispered, and for the second time that day, back to the Tyler police station I went, and I stayed for about an hour, until the good detective practically threw me out.

  That Sunday night, I drove up to a small ranch house in Tyler, painted a light yellow, and walked up to the front door and rang the bell. On the side of the house was a collection of rope, anchors, old nets and other bric-a-brac. I rang the bell again and a woman answered: Helen Houlihan, looking cautious, cigarette in hand, wearing a black turtleneck and jeans.

  “Yes?” she asked, and I told her who I was and that I wanted to see her husband. In a minute or two I was in their living room, the television set now muted, and they sat on a couch and I sat in an easy chair that didn’t feel too particular easy. There was a fake fireplace on one side of the room, the mantelpiece stuffed with family pictures, and I took a breath.

  “You heard that they found Bert’s body?” I asked, feeling a bit constricted in my clothes.

  “Yeah,” Jack said, sitting slumped on the couch. “I heard that.”

  “Do you have any information about funeral arrangements?”

  “Nope, I don’t.”

  I had my reporter’s notebook in my hand. “I.. I’d like to get your reaction, if I can.”

  “My what?” Jack asked, a bit sharply.

  “Your reaction. For the newspaper. About Bert’s body being recovered.”

  He looked to Helen and she violently shook her head. “No,” he said. “It’s.. it’s been too much. We don’t have anything to say.”

  I looked at my notebook with its blank page, and I said, “I guess, then, I should leave. Look… before I go, think I could bum a smoke?”

  Again, the shared look, and then Helen went out to the kitchen and came back, tossed a pack of Winstons on the coffee table. I looked up and said, “Oh, thanks anyway. I find I don’t like those… Jack, do you think I could bum some from you?”