Oil Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 4)

by T'Gracie Reese

  I hate these people, thought Nina.

  “But seriously, folks, it’s time to get on to the more urgent and pressing matters. As all of you know, there were some pretty serious and even frightening things said last week about Louisiana Petroleum, and specifically about the installation known as Aquatica.”

  Silence.

  Camera pans to reporters.

  All of them are texting.

  Camera pans back to podium.

  “The statements made were false. They were completely without foundation. How such nonsense came to be printed in a newspaper with the reputation of The New York Times—well, that question is still being looked into, and will be for some time. There is a great deal of discussion going on in Baton Rouge and in Jackson—because the states of Louisiana and Mississippi are co-partners in the operation of Aquatica, and the mutual trust enjoyed with Louisiana Petroleum—at any rate, there is much discussion about starting hearings at the state level to ascertain ultimate blame for what was almost a complete panic.”

  Wonderful, thought Nina.

  Where would she most enjoy being roasted by a roomful of politicians? Jackson or Baton Rouge?

  And why couldn’t Louisiana have made New Orleans its capital?

  “Right now, though, we are here in Baton Rouge—and we have invited our neighbors from the state house in Jackson—to announce a party. And you all know the citizens of Mississippi and Louisiana luuuuuve to party!”

  Huge raucous laughter.

  Some moments before order can be restored.

  The spaghetti, thought Nina. The spaghetti!”

  “But to offer this invitation, I’m going to invite up here to the platform, one of the most important cogs in the machinery of Louisiana Petroleum, Dr. Sandra Cousins, who is not only one of the head engineers out at the rig Aquatica—but who is also their chief in charge of public affairs. Sandra?”

  And there she was, as perky as ever. Sandra Cousins.

  Beaming at the camera.

  “Thank you thank you thank you, people of Mississippi and Louisiana!”

  More applause.

  Applause dying now.

  Nina sat forward in her seat.

  “What do they have you doing, Sandy?” she whispered.

  “I have great honor tonight. It’s an honor bestowed upon me by the executives of Louisiana Petroleum, working in conjunction with the state governments of Mississippi and Louisiana. As you know, Louisiana Petroleum is responsible for supplying energy to a great many citizens and installations of those two great states. And one of the lynchpins of our ability to do this is the Aquatica, upon which I have the honor to be based. But Aquatica is not just an ‘instillation;’ it is a home to many of us. And a magnificent home it is. It is a factory, an ocean liner, and a magnificent hotel, all in one. Those of us honored to work on it are constantly fascinated by its state of the art equipment. And, I might add, its beyond state of the art FOOD!”

  Laughter and applause.

  “And that is why we feel remiss. We have been keeping the wonders of Aquatica all to ourselves. But now we want to show it off to the world!”

  More applause.

  “And so we, in conjunction with the major political parties of Mississippi and Louisiana, are throwing a party! A gala! If you will. We’re inviting two hundred very special people—entertainers, political leaders, school teachers, college professors, scientists, writers, you name them—to come out to the vessel Aquatica in two weeks’ time, on Saturday evening, June 28—to enjoy a tour of the facility, plus a summer fireworks display at sea, followed by the most sumptuous dinner y’all have ever had! Furthermore…”

  “Well, that’s interesting,” said Nina.

  John smiled:

  “You think you’ll be the guest of honor?”

  “I will not, definitely, be the guest of honor!”

  And they all laughed.

  But as time would prove, they were all to be completely wrong.

  Neither Nina nor John nor Helen were truly late night people. She was home by nine forty five.

  By ten o’clock she had straightened up in the shack and was thinking of going to bed.

  There was a knock on the door.

  She crossed the room and opened it.

  Before her on her porch stood Brewster Dale.

  He was dressed in a white sport coat and navy slacks.

  But his hair was still wavy, and his complexion ruddy.

  He smiled broadly:

  “I hate so terribly to bother you at this late hour.”

  “No. No, it’s all right.”

  “Your privacy is important to you, I know. But there are some things I feel I need to tell you. You may learn them soon anyway, but…”

  “Come in.”

  She led the way into the living room, turning on the light as she did so.

  He followed. He did so with what seemed a mixture of trepidation and delight, delighting that such a place as this existed, and fearing at the same time that he might break it. He looked everywhere, into the corners, up at the ceiling, over at the bedroom door, down to the carpet—and all the time his mincing steps were accompanied by two actions Nina found noticeable: first, he held his hands tight together just below his belt, his fingers opening and closing on the rim of a large hat.

  There was no hat, but he did not seem to mind that.

  Second, he kept bending and stooping, even though the top of his head was a foot and half shorter than the ceiling.

  “What a delightful place you have to live in, ma’am!”

  “Thank you, I like it. Will you sit down?”

  But he was having none of that. His eyes were fixed on the sliding glass door that led out to the deck.

  “You have access to the ocean, I believe.”

  “Yes. Would you like to sit on the deck?”

  “It would be my greatest pleasure! I am, Ms. Bannister, landlocked, when I am not aboard The Aquatica.”

  “You live in…”

  “In Jackson. Not an ocean around, for miles and miles.”

  “How sad.”

  “I regret it constantly. And I blame the Yankees.”

  “Why is it their fault?”

  “Why, we always blame the Yankees. This is our nature.”

  “I see. Well, then. Come on, and may I offer you something? I can make coffee.”

  “Oh, I don’t wish to impose, more than I am already.”

  “There is also wine, and tea, and…”

  “You don’t have any whiskey, I suppose.”

  She slid the deck door open; they walked out.

  The beach lay deserted before them and the moon hung white above, its perfectly round mouth somewhat astonished to have heard the word ‘whiskey.’

  “Whiskey?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. I only ask because it would be so much easier than coffee. I’m never certain why all people do not grasp this fact.”

  She pulled a chair out from the table and gestured to it; he sat, crossing his legs and sighing at the Gulf of Mexico. She thought about the matter for some moments, then said:

  “I think I do have a bottle of whiskey in the pantry. I was thinking of pouring it out.”

  He shook his head and frowned.

  “It is as Mr. Faulkner once wrote: ‘Pouring out liquor is like burning books.’ That line is from Intruder in the Dust.”

  For some reason, that seemed wrong to her, but no matter.

  She opened the pantry door and reached high to find a nearly completely obscured bottle of Seagram’s Seven.

  She took it down, opened it, let the fumes escape into the air, kept a careful eye out to be sure that no live flames approached them, then found a glass to pour two inches of brown liquid into.

  For herself she poured a glass of Chardonnay.

  And after a moment or two more, the two of them had settled into deck chairs, the table wobbling between them, several Mississippi stars looking down.

  “It is very gracious for you to re
ceive me like this.”

  “Not at all.”

  “I must admit, I’ve been doing a bit of snooping into your personal history.”

  “I’m not sure I have very much of that.”

  “Oh, you do. Yes, ma’am, you have a good deal of personal history. The matter of the Robinson fortune is now lore in your town.”

  “That was a bizarre thing.”

  “And would have been even more bizarre, according to my sources, had it not been for one lady who would not give up and accept what everyone else was telling her.”

  “I suppose it just proves I’m stubborn.”

  He nodded.

  “As am I, Ms. Bannister. As am I.”

  She smiled:

  “I guess we’re both children of Mississippi.”

  “That we are, Ms. Bannister. The name of ‘Dale’ has been rattling around in the northern part of our state for some generations. I feel my grandfather, and his father before him, would have been deeply disappointed in me. A common security specialist. What a fall from the plantation owners that we once were!”

  “You’re hardly ‘common’.”

  “Thank you, madam. That was a gracious thing to say. I must also add that I learned more about you than your role in the Robinson affair. I learned of your years spent in teaching; and I learned of your late husband’s outstanding legal reputation.”

  “Yes. We’ve been here a while, in Bay St. Lucy.”

  “I should say. I’m sorry that I was not able to make the acquaintance of the two of you when you were a couple. My own late wife would have taken to you immediately. And I’m sure your husband—his name, I’m told, was ‘Frank?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, we would have found our way onto some quail shoot, or we would have made some other kind of unrest for the community to deal with. I would have liked the man.”

  They were quiet for a time.

  “Well,” said Dale finally, after taking a sip of whiskey and savoring it for a time before swallowing it. “As much as I do love sitting here remembering…”

  He looked at his watch.

  …I suppose the time is growing a bit late.”

  “Maybe a little.”

  He smiled:

  “Clocks slay time...time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life. That is, I believe, from Light in August. Marvelous book. And quite underrated.”

  She knew nothing to say to that.

  He continued:

  “I must express to you, Ms. Bannister, “my great admiration for you. And for your actions during the past days, the past weeks. Ever since, when one thinks about it, your discovery of the young Ramirez lad.”

  She shook her head:

  “I’m still amazed that you’re not furious with me. I stole that disk. I deceived you all.”

  He smiled.

  “You were doing what you felt needed to be done.”

  “I made a fool of myself.”

  “In the quest for truth. There are worse things that one can do, worse sins that one can commit. I’m going to take another sip, please, if you do not mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  He poured an inch more of the amber liquid into his glass, saying:

  “We read in A Rose for Emily that ‘War and drink are the two things man is never too poor to buy.’ No, no, you acted bravely. And it was you, ultimately, who were deceived.”

  She shook her head:

  “I’m still not able to make sense of that, Mr. Dale.”

  “Brewster, please. And I should love the privilege of calling you ‘Nina.’”

  “Of course. All right then, Brewster. There are, as I say, a lot of things I’m not able to make sense of. I don’t know who the two people were who met me in Lafayette. And by the way, I did meet them—or rather they met me—I didn’t dream the whole thing up.”

  “Of course, you didn’t.”

  “And I didn’t dream up Edgar’s murder.”

  “No. Although we all wish we had dreamed that, and that it had never happened at all.”

  “It was two weeks ago that I found...well, anyway, it was two weeks past. And I still see his body down there.”

  “Of course, you do, dear lady. But you must remember what Mr. Faulkner tells us in The Reivers. ‘The past is not dead. It isn’t even past.”

  She nodded.

  “Mr. Faulkner is correct about a lot of things.”

  “Of course, he is. But it is because of the things you have spoken of just now that I am here, stealing your whiskey, admiring your moonlight.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, dear lady, that, drunken old reprobate whom you may take me to be, I still have a few teeth in my head, and am not completely incompetent at my job.”

  “No, Brewster, I never thought you were.”

  “Nor am I alone in my duties. The corporation is large, and there are more than one of me. We take very seriously the task of protecting the good souls who work on our installations. ‘The reason for living,’ as we read in The Intruders, ‘was to get ready to stay dead a long time.’ Well, one does stay dead a long time. That fact is our reason for living.”

  “I’m not sure I understand…”

  “We have been hard at work on the matters of young Mr. Ramirez’ death, Nina.”

  She sat forward:

  “Do you know something?”

  He nodded:

  “Very possibly. A kind of, well, breakthrough, has been achieved.”

  “What kind of breakthrough? What did you learn?”

  “Some very troubling things.”

  “About Edgar?”

  “No. No, it seems now that he was doing just what you believed him to be doing. Trying to help matters.”

  “I’m not understanding you. If things were going wrong out on Aquatica, and Edgar knew about them…”

  “Certain things, it seems were going wrong on Aquatica.”

  “But…this still isn’t making any sense to me! I just watched that press conference tonight. You’re inviting the whole world out to that rig in two weeks. If it isn’t safe…”

  “It is safe. Aquatica is safer in than The Peabody Hotel in Memphis.”

  “Then what did Edgar…”

  “Drugs.”

  The word hung in the air for a while, and, never quite dissipating, finally crept to a corner of the deck, where it attempted to hide by melting into the shadows.

  “What?”

  “Drugs. More specifically, heroin.”

  Nina shook her head:

  “I refuse to believe Edgar was involved in drug trafficking.”

  “No, no. You fail to understand. Edgar was not involved in drug trafficking. Edgar had discovered drug trafficking.”

  And then, finally, it began to make sense.

  “He hadn’t discovered some engineering malfeasance; he had discovered…”

  “A smuggling operation.”

  “But how could such an operation have been going on?”

  Dale shrugged:

  “We do our best to prevent such things. But you must understand: huge amounts of materials are delivered by boat to Aquatica each day. The helicopters transport personnel. But foodstuffs, replacement parts, drilling equipment—all of these things are brought out to the vessel, and taken into shore from the vessel—by boats. More than a hundred crates of various materials are transferred each way, in any given working day.”

  “So it would be easy…”

  “Why don’t we play a guessing game, Nina?” he interrupted.

  She looked at him, then said:

  “All right.”

  He smiled and continued:

  “How much high-grade heroine is estimated by the food and drug administration to enter The United States’ borders illegally, coming from countries all over the world, each month of the year?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “One point four million pounds.”
<
br />   She was stunned, and said:

  “I’m stunned.”

  He drained his whisky, seemed to want more, seemed to decide against it, and said:

  “And well might you be. It is a war, and we are losing badly. But we fight our hardest. Security at border checkpoints is very tight. It is not so tight, though, on the personnel flying in and out of Aquatica each day. We subject all of our people to rigorous background checks. We flatter ourselves that Aquatica is staffed by the best and the brightest. But the possibility of a packet of something being offloaded from one of the supply boats, slipped into the duffel bag of a newly hired roustabout heading into Bay St. Lucy––or any village along the Gulf Coast—well, this possibility not only exists, but exists as a highly lucrative source of bonus money.”

  “And you think Edgar may have discovered such an operation?”

  “That is the theory with which we are now working.”

  “But the disk! All those figures…”

  “When you opened the disk, you saw figures, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that was as far as you went. You did not search the entire disk?”

  Suddenly it began to be clear to her.

  “No,” she said, softly. “No, we didn’t.”

  “Because what you saw was a kind of computerized mask, Nina. A casual observer would have taken that disk as a backup source for purely engineering data. But a more thorough search of it would have revealed…”

  “…Names.”

  He nodded.

  “Precisely.”

  “The person Edgar called that night…”

  “Was undoubtedly someone he felt he could trust, in revealing what he knew.”

  “But who he really called…”

  “Was a smuggler. Perhaps the head of the operation.”

  “And he killed Edgar.”

  “Most probably.”

  “And the person I called…”

  “You called the same person.”

  “The meeting in Lafayette…”

  “Was a kind of wild goose chase, designed to do two things: first, to GET THAT DISC, which the smugglers needed at all cost. Second, to create a kind of smokescreen, making you and Ms. Cohen, I suppose, what one might refer to as—well, fall guys.”

  “Or fall girls.”

  “Or fall women, if we are to behave as enlightened feminists.”

  “Yes. We want to get the language right.”