Blackwater Sound

by James W. Hall

  “Well, that’s the whole list, Alex. Sorry. Wish I could help.”

  “Thanks anyway, Benny. Sorry to call you so late.”

  “I was up,” he said. “So he’s lost, huh?”

  “Lost, yeah. I guess you could call it that.”

  “You try that place he goes in the daytime, what is it, a nursing home?”

  “Harbor House,” Alex said. “Yeah, I tried there. And I called all his lady friends. No one’s heard from him.”

  “Does he remember phone numbers?”

  “Some of the time, yeah. He’s got all my numbers in his wallet.”

  “Well, he’ll turn up. And when he does, tell him I asked about him. He can find me at Captain’s Tavern from six to nine most weekdays. Tell him to stop in, we’ll shoot the shit. Tuesday is still lobster night. Great food. Our old bartender, Jeff, still works there.”

  “I’ll tell him, Benny. Thanks.”

  She clicked off. Holding the portable phone in her lap, she sat down on the foot of her father’s bed and watched the old Sylvania perched on the cherry dresser, the same TV set Lawton and Grace Collins had shared all their married life. The commercials had ended and the lead story was still the crash of Flight 570. The female pilot still in a coma. A couple more survivors had died. Then they moved on to the double homicide of Charlie Harrison and Brandy Perkins. Alex listened, tapping her foot, as the slender blonde stood just beyond the alleyway and described the ghastly scene. In less than three minutes she managed to get three or four facts wrong, then after a little byplay with the anchor about the tragedy of losing such a dedicated young journalist, they cut to the third piece. The TV people were calling it “Mayhem at Sea.” One passenger dead, one other missing, while the captain of the vessel was sought by Miami Police and the U.S. Coast Guard.

  The reporter was tall with wild, curly hair blown wilder by the late-night sea breeze. He was positioned on the beach near Rickenbacker Causeway, near the same spot where that afternoon Alex had waded into the water. With the smugly amused tone they reserved for the more outlandish stories, the reporter summarized the facts the police had released so far. According to an eyewitness who’d been windsurfing in the area, the boat was traveling at a high rate of speed and in an erratic manner for over a mile. Two men were thought to have been thrown overboard as the yacht rammed at least three channel markers and the seawall along the Intracoastal Waterway, and finally slammed the structure of the Rickenbacker Causeway itself.

  The reporter paused to invite the eyewitness forward and the camera angle widened to include the wiry young man. His name was Tim Corash. He was shaggy-haired and wore a long-sleeved white T-shirt, and he seemed confused, squinting into the television lights, not sure where to make eye contact.

  “Well, I mean, it looked like the captain or pilot or whatever you call it, he was trying to throw those guys off.”

  “Intentionally knock them off the boat?”

  The young man looked at the reporter, then back at the camera. “Well, yeah, that’s how it seemed.”

  “Is it possible he might simply have lost control of the vessel?”

  “Maybe. But to me, it looked like he was steering that way on purpose.”

  “Did you get a good look at this man who was piloting the boat?”

  “An old guy. White hair, he was kind of short. He was coming right for me at one point, but you know, I was on a good tack with a solid breeze, so I was out of the way in time. I still got a pretty good view of him. He had this crazy look like he was high on something.”

  They filled the screen with the photo of Lawton Collins, a snapshot Alex had provided the TV stations late in the afternoon. It was a few years old but still caught his present-day features. Intense blue eyes, sharp cheekbones, the unruly mane of white hair. Alex had taken the snapshot one afternoon at a picnic for the Police Benevolent Association. A sunny day with lots of beer and hot dogs and children and silly games. Being among old friends all afternoon had cheered Lawton, but still when she looked at the image on the screen she saw the desolate traces of melancholy that had taken root there after Grace’s death. From the day of her funeral, he’d never been the same. Grace and Lawton were childhood sweethearts—a sixty-year romance. Losing her had hastened Lawton’s decline, put a dull glaze where once there’d been such sparkle. Although an array of medications and herbal remedies had slowed the process somewhat, giving him lucid stretches, still, the deterioration seemed inexorable, as each day more of his memories moved just beyond his grasp.

  The reporter thanked the windsurfer, then turned back to the camera and began to summarize the highlights of the story. According to the county medical examiner, the drowning victim had sustained broken bones and other serious injuries before being thrown into the bay and may have been unconscious when he entered the water. He was identified as Arnold Peretti, a longtime Miami resident with ties to organized crime. The yacht was registered to Mr. Peretti and was dubbed You Bet Your Ass, no doubt a reference to Mr. Peretti’s alleged association with the underworld. The second man thrown overboard remained unidentified.

  When he finished, the newsman handed off to the studio and the evening anchor bounced it back with another question.

  “So is Mr. Collins a suspect in these deaths?”

  “Well, right now, Willie, he’s just being sought for questioning and for leaving the scene of an accident. If anyone has information concerning either the whereabouts of the fifty-five-foot Bertram sportfisherman or of Lawton Collins, you are asked to notify either Miami police or Crime Stoppers immediately. We’ve also been informed that Mr. Collins, who is a retired City of Miami police officer, suffers from occasional memory lapses, so he might appear to be dazed or bewildered.”

  “Is he considered dangerous, Andy?”

  “Willie, at this time, the police aren’t using those words. But as I’ve reported, one man has died and one other is missing, and since Mr. Collins has not yet come forward to explain his role in the events, it appears at this moment that he is the main target of an intense police investigation. So I suppose it would be safe to say that anyone spotting Mr. Collins should proceed with extreme caution.”

  They flashed Lawton’s photo one more time. Shuddering with rage, Alex reached out and snapped off the TV. As usual the news guys were pumping up the volume, wringing every last drop of melodrama they could from the situation. Managing to turn a frail old man into a desperado. If Lawton happened to see the TV news, it would only drive him deeper into hiding.

  Taking careful sips of air, Alex tried for a moment to ease the pounding in her skull, but it was no use. Heart working double-time, veins about to rupture.

  She stood up and began to roam his bedroom, searching again for any hint of whom Lawton might have called or where he might have fled, anything at all that might get him back.

  One wall was covered with photos, black-and-whites mainly, some from his war years, Lawton kneeling in profile in his uniform with a German castle in the background. There were courting pictures with Lawton and Grace standing beside various automobiles in suits and hats decades out of fashion, and another with Lawton in his cop’s uniform posing at parade rest, and one of him wearing madras Bermudas and a long-billed hat, holding up a wahoo he’d caught down in the Keys with one of his old buddies. Then there was the one of Lawton and Alexandra on the beach up in the Panhandle. Alex was ten years old, sunburned and happy, crouched behind the four-foot-high sand castle she’d labored on all summer vacation. Lawton clowned behind her with Alexandra’s red pail balanced upside down on his head, while he saluted the camera with the matching shovel Alex had used to construct her fortress.

  On the other wall his bookcase was full of knickknacks, old beer steins and some wood carvings he’d done in his youth, mostly fish and a few fanciful creatures of his own design. His holster from the Miami PD lay next to a couple of framed citations for excellence on the job. On a middle shelf was a collection of trinkets Alex had given him for birthdays and Christmas
es over the years. A brass trout rising from a brass pond she’d found in an antique store. Some bottles of fancy cologne he’d never opened. A mahogany plaque she’d made in high school shop that said TO THE WORLD’S COOLEST DAD. And from her one summer at camp, there was a lanyard she’d woven in shades of blue to match his police uniform. In the last few months Lawton began asking her to remind him of the stories behind the knickknacks. And she would dutifully repeat the same things over and over while he stood with a vague smile as if listening to some bedtime story he never grew tired of.

  The only book on the shelves was a tattered paperback he’d discovered at Harbor House a month or two earlier and had gotten permission to bring home. The Secrets of Houdini. She picked it up, paged through it, examining some of the ink sketches.

  Lawton had taken to studying the book for hours at a time. He’d all but abandoned television, which suited Alex just fine. Sitting in his favorite recliner in the living room with a yellow legal pad on his lap, he meticulously copied the pen-and-ink drawings from the book. Houdini’s never-before-revealed methods for extricating himself from iron boxes, straitjackets, and submerged packing cases. Lawton had no interest in the card tricks or mind reading or the sleight of hand deceptions. He focused entirely on the escape techniques. As if by analyzing some of the great magician’s stratagems, Lawton might discover a way to wriggle free of the bondage that was tightening around his own life.

  It crushed her heart to watch him practicing with such grim patience, using an old pair of handcuffs he’d carried for thirty years on the job. Locking them on his wrists, then repeatedly whacking the steel manacles against the edge of a marble bookend, trying to find the exact place on the steel cuffs that would spring open the mechanism. In a month’s time Lawton had managed to duplicate Houdini’s handcuff escape only once, releasing the catch with a single sharp rap. But that one success lifted his spirits so dramatically that Alexandra had given up trying to steer him away from this new fascination.

  She set the book back on the shelf and walked into his bathroom. She stared at her image in the mirror, mouth tense, eyes haggard. For the hundredth time she cursed herself for being so goddamned negligent as to let a man like Arnold Peretti take charge of her dad. A man whose ties to the criminal world had obviously caught up with him. Some botched business deal, some vendetta or unpaid debt had placed her father in the line of fire. She was sure of it. And when the violence began, Lawton was panic-stricken. The tottering pedestal on which he managed to hold his fragile balance had collapsed beneath him. And now there was no way to guess what shape his terror was taking. Which direction he was headed, what logic was guiding his decisions.

  A search of the nighttime waters was out of the question. At dawn the Coast Guard boats and helicopters would begin to sweep Biscayne Bay, starting from his last known location. By then, in a vessel as fast as Peretti’s, Lawton could be anywhere from east of the Bahamas to midway into the Gulf. He could be as far away as Jacksonville, or holed up in one of the thousand marinas dotting the coast. Or it was equally possible that he had docked the boat somewhere in South Florida, then wandered off, searching for his way home.

  With the phone in one hand, Alex touched a finger to the bristles of his shaving brush. And as the first tears she’d allowed herself stung her eyes, the front doorbell rang.

  She gasped, whirled around, bumped her shoulder against the doorway, then rushed down the hall to the front door. Wiping her eyes, she caught a glimpse of white hair through the eye-level window and tore open the door.

  “Got anything to drink?” Dan Romano said. “I mean drink-drink. The real stuff. ’Cause I’m off duty.”

  Beside him was a tall, dark-haired man who was giving Alexandra a pained smile, as if to apologize for Dan’s lack of grace.

  She leaned out the doorway and glanced behind them. No one.

  “Did you find him?”

  “Not yet, not yet.” Dan stepped past her into the house. “Whiskey if you’ve got it. But rum’ll do.”

  “You haven’t heard anything?”

  “Nothing.” Then he gestured at the other man and said, “Wingo, introduce yourself. This is Alexandra Collins.”

  The tall man nodded with that same embarrassed half smile. He shut the door behind him and stepped into the foyer. He wore khaki slacks and a white polo shirt. His arms were deeply tanned.

  “Good evening, Ms. Collins. I’m Jamie Wingo.”

  She swung away from his outstretched hand and marched into the dining room.

  “Dan, what the hell’s going on? Something’s happened, hasn’t it? Talk to me, goddamn it, talk to me.”

  Romano plucked a bottle of Bacardi from the liquor cabinet, uncapped it, and poured himself a shot in an old-fashioned glass. He had a taste, then set the glass on the table before him.

  “Take it easy, Alex. No, we didn’t find him. He’s still missing.”

  “And who’s this?” She slashed a hand at the tall man.

  “Okay, okay, you’re upset. I should’ve called first. But this thing came up, it’s kind of weird, nothing I wanted to discuss on the phone, so I drove over.”

  From next door the Morrisons’ beagle began to howl. Probably picking up the jittery vibes radiating from Alexandra’s house.

  The slim man stepped into the doorway. Dan shrugged at him and waved his hand—take it away, it’s all yours.

  Wingo closed his eyes and opened them. He stood silently for a moment as if gathering his dignity.

  “I apologize for the intrusion, Ms. Collins, especially at such a traumatic time. And I’m very sorry about your father’s disappearance.”

  Dan poured himself another sip of rum and took a seat at the head of the dining table. Lawton’s place. He fumbled in the pocket of his yellow sports coat and drew out his pack of Marlboros and shook a cigarette loose.

  “Not in here,” Alex said. “You want to suck on that poison, go outside.”

  Dan studied her briefly, then replaced the cigarette and slid the pack into his jacket pocket.

  Wingo said, “There are indications, Ms. Collins, that the case I’m investigating might overlap with your father’s disappearance. So I have a few questions I need to ask you.”

  Alex stared at the man. His black hair was thick and slicked back. He had a coppery complexion and a raven’s inky, impenetrable eyes. His forehead was broad and high and his nose mildly hooked, the faintly aristocratic profile of a Cherokee brave.

  “I’m listening,” she said.

  “May I sit?”

  She shrugged and Wingo took a seat on one side of the dining table. He rested his wrists on the edge of the table and gazed across at the far wall. There was a stillness about the man that was unnerving. Alex stayed on her feet, too wired to sit. The Morrisons’ beagle continued to bay with delirious abandon.

  “It’s connected to those kids in the alley,” Romano said. “This afternoon, the newspaper guy.”

  “Charlie Harrison?” Alex stared at Dan. “What does Dad have to do with Charlie Harrison?”

  “There’s a link,” Dan said.

  She peered at Dan, then gripped the back of one of the chairs. She eased herself down and looked across at Wingo.

  “I’ve seen you somewhere. What are you, FBI?”

  “Ms. Collins,” he said, “vice chair for the NTSB, National Transportation Safety Board.”

  “Airplane crashes,” Dan said, and gulped down the rest of his rum. “Railroads, buses, the whole gamut.”

  She nodded. Feeling the fog begin to rise inside her head, a drifty sensation as if gravity had suddenly lost its hold on her. Blinking, trying to focus, keep it all clear.

  “Airplane crashes,” she said. “Charlie Harrison’s murder. What the hell is going on?”

  “Ms. Collins, I’m working the American 570 crash.” Wingo shot her a quick look as if to appraise her reaction. Alex gave him nothing and finally he moved on. “You’re familiar with it, of course.”

  The haziness that had been
clouding her thoughts vanished. She was suddenly flushed with anger, eyes clear, blood singing. She drew a long breath and counted to three before releasing it.

  “Okay, so let me get this straight. My dad not only killed his closest friend this afternoon, he’s also mixed up in this airline crash? What is he now, a saboteur?”

  Wingo gave her a bruised smile and directed his eyes to the far wall.

  “Hear him out, Alex,” Dan said. “Something weird’s going down. If what Wingo thinks is true, Lawton may have stumbled into something.”

  “Into what?”

  Dan picked up his empty glass and stared into it.

  “Right now it looks like he stepped into a major-league pile of shit.”

  Ten

  “Talk to me, goddamn it,” Alex said.

  Wingo reset his wrists against the table. When he spoke, his voice was smooth and neutral, professionally aloof. A federal official taking charge.

  “Perhaps the lieutenant should bring you up to date on his side of the investigation, Ms. Collins, then I’ll fill in the rest.”

  “I’m about two seconds from throwing both of you out of my house. So you better make this good, Dan, damn good.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “Here’s how it is, Alex. This afternoon right after we notified next of kin in the Harrison case, we get a call from the kid’s editor at the Miami Weekly. He wants to help with the investigation, so I hear him out. Seems Charlie was working on a story about some kind of secret military gizmo that might’ve fallen into the wrong hands. Around noon today, he was supposed to meet his contact at Neon Leon’s on the river. You know that place, a bunch of scuzzballs. So I bop over to Leon’s, pass the kid’s picture around. And yeah, sure enough, they remembered him. Him and his hotty girlfriend. I get five solid IDs. They agreed it was Harrison sitting in a booth. Him and his girlfriend and two other guys. Two senior citizens. One of them turns out to be Peretti and the other one, well, you can figure that out.”

  “Dad was at Neon Leon’s?”