Acting Dead (Michael Quinn Thriller)

by John Moralee

  “Michael, it’s Sarah Beck.”

  “What’s is it?”

  “Nothing, I think. But I just want to check something.”

  “Go ahead, I’m listening.”

  “I’ve just got a telephone call from someone called David Freeman. He said he’s my new lawyer. He said he’d visit me today, but I was wondering if he’s legitimate.”

  “Talks fast, like he’s racing to get the words out?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s him. He works for Dyler and Westbrook.”

  “Oh, good. They’ve been giving me the run-around since I called them about Taylor going missing. I thought they weren’t doing anything. I was beginning to think that maybe I was talking to thin air.”

  “Have you see those men again?”

  “No, why?”

  “Just checking.” I told her about my meeting with Van Morgan.

  “He’s slimy, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, I don’t think his mother would like him. I think he tried to bribe me with an offer of a job, but he was careful to make it look genuine.”

  “You’re not considering it, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “Keep watching for the bird watchers,” I said.

  “Watch yourself,” she said.

  “You, too.”

  She hung up. It rang a few seconds later. I picked it up.

  “Sarah, wh-”

  “Michael Quinn?”

  “Uh-huh. Who’s this?”

  There was no answer.

  “Hello?”

  Nothing.

  “I’m hanging up now …”

  “There’re are lot of fires in the summer. A single spark could burn down a house … or a bar. Innocent bystanders could get hurt. Be careful you don’t stir up the heat, pal. You’ll get burned real bad.”

  Click.

  Immediately, I called the telephone company and told them I’d just received a threatening phone call. They gave me the number that had just called – it was a payphone somewhere on Wharf Street. I thanked the operator and put down the receiver. The pulse in my neck was throbbing. I wanted to catch whoever had made the call, but they would have been long gone by the time I drove to Wharf Street. I called my father and told him to watch for strangers hanging about, then I warned Fiona and Sarah. Sarah said that the only fires she would see would be ones she caused, but I detected a touch of false bravado.

  The threatening phone call made me more determined than ever. I needed a good look at Emerald Point. I wanted to look in the creek, especially. You could hide a car in it quite easily. But there was the problem of access. That Cyclone fence was a huge problem. I drove by the area studying the perimeter fence and wasn’t encouraged. There were security cameras posted on it. You would have thought they were guarding Fort Knox, not a bunch of bulldozers.

  The only way onto Emerald Point that didn’t involve crossing a fence or being invited was the beach. But you could only get to it by water.

  The Scud Hunter was anchored to the jetty. Wayne was sitting on the deck wearing headphones, nodding his head to some music I couldn’t hear. His naked back was covered in tattoos of dragons, snakes and young, buxom maidens. I walked up to him and cast a shadow. He pulled off his headphones one ear at a time and glared at me. His hard chest was also covered with tattoos, continuing the general pattern of dragons, snakes and young, buxom maidens. The buxom maidens looked as though they were enjoying the company of the snakes and dragons.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “You again,” he said. “What is it with you, Quinn? I told you I don’t want to see you. What part of that sentence don’t you understand?”

  “This isn’t about me this time. It’s about Scott.”

  Wayne tensed. A vein on his temple stood out like a copper wire.

  “He’s missing,” I said.

  “I heard,” he muttered.

  “I think I know what happened, where he is, but I have no proof. I think Charles Van Morgan had him killed and dumped his body in the creek up at Emerald Point. At least, that’s the theory I’m going off. I got a call today from someone who doesn’t want me to pry into his business, so that’s precisely what I’m going to do. Will you help me?”

  His eyes went cold and distant and I was reminded of the day when two older boys had ganged up on the three of us. We were about eleven. The boys – fifteen or sixteen, angry little psychos – demanded we gave up our money or they’d kick our heads in. Scott and I were going to do it, but Wayne said no. The boys went for him – and he promptly kicked one in the testicles and bit the other so hard a chunk of flesh came out of his hand. Wayne beat them both without our help. There was the same look in his eyes then as now. It was as though an eclipse had occurred within his head. His pupils seemed to darken.

  “Why … do … you … think … that he’s … dead?”

  I told him my suspicions. “I think they may have dumped him in the creek at Emerald Point hoping nobody’ll find him ever. You know how the water at the bottom is never disturbed.”

  “Yeah …”

  “I was thinking I’d go down and explore the bottom. I’ll hire you to take me there by sea and rent your diving equipment.”

  “You got to be kidding.”

  “I’ll pay five hundred bucks.”

  “A thousand.”

  “Seven-fifty.”

  “Okay.” He shook his head. “You’re one sorry piece of work, you know it? But I’ll do it for Scott. I owe him. But you, I don’t like. As far as you and me are concerned, this is strictly business. I need the money. You get yourself in trouble, I’m having nothing to do with it.”

  “Fine with me,” I said.

  “Good. Then you can start by untying the ropes.”

  The Scud Hunter growled out of the harbour and ploughed through the blue-green water. Wayne did not speak to me. He had that hard look. He would not have looked out of place firing torpedoes at an oil tanker. He steered his boat in a straight line, forcing sailboats to alter course. He’d told me where the diving equipment was stored and expected me to prepare it myself. So I carried it out of the hold and onto the deck and checked the oxygen tanks while the boat turned parallel to the coast. I put on a diving suit that felt like cold fish-scales against my skin. Occasionally, Wayne would look around and shake his head, which did wonders for my confidence. When I inflated a dinghy with a foot pump, my foot slipping off it a couple of times, he almost cracked a smile.

  I watched the coast as the cliff grew higher and steeper until it was a white wall above an extremely narrow band of rocky shoreline. I could see Emerald Point ahead now. It was a green vista on the top of the cliff so beautiful I wondered how many shades of green I could see. Wayne slowed when he was parallel, then turned off the engine. The boat rocked gently on the water.

  “Here we are,” he said.

  “We’re miles from it,” I complained.

  “Rocks, moron. I can’t get closer. Besides, it’s only a quarter mile at the most.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “You wimping out now you have to do something?”

  “No.”

  “How long do you want me to wait?”

  “Wait two hours, then if I’m not back wait another two hours. Keep waiting like that until I get back.”

  “Hell, I bet you can’t even row the dinghy to shore. I reckon you lost your sea legs in Tinseltown.”

  “Nobody says Tinseltown these days,” I said, for something to say back.

  He grinned. But then he stopped grinning. “You’d better not find Scott dead, Quinn. I’m praying this is a waste of time and your money.”

  “So am I,” I said. “So am I.”

  I dropped the dinghy in the water and climbed aboard. Water poured over the sides until I steadied it with my arms. Wayne handed down a waterproof flashlight. “You’re crazy,” he said. I think I detected a hint of admiration in the insult. Maybe not. I fixed the oars into position and rowed
towards the shore, leaving the boat behind. The boat soon looked tiny, though the shore looked just as far away. Maybe the cliffs looked closer, a little. They certainly dwarfed me. I kept rowing.

  Eventually I reached the shore. I hid the dinghy between some rocks. Then I looked for a way up the cliff. I knew there was one; we’d used it as kids; it was just hard to find. But I did find it after ten minutes of running up and down. It veered left and right until it reached the top. I climbed it. I reached the top out of breath. The view was spectacular. You could see a long stretch of distant coastline and the vibrant green blobs of islands. Looking the other way, I could see a long stretch of marshland, woods and hills and part of the creek, a sliver of silver. Cape Mistral looked tiny from this height. I could obscure it with my thumb. I walked in the direction of the creek and followed it upstream. The marshland teemed with insects. They plucked at my exposed skin. I could see why a philistine like Van Morgan would want to put a hotel on it. From that point on, I was cautious. I didn’t want to run into anyone from Heaven and Earth Enterprises wearing a diving suit – how could I explain myself? I set off towards a rise of rocks, beyond which the creek was deepest and widest.

  The deepest part of the creek was hidden under an overhang of white rock that shaded the water. The water was Prussian blue. I checked the banks for signs of tyre marks but could not see any. That did not mean much, however. If someone had driven Scott’s car into the creek they would have made the effort to dust over the marks. I waded into the water. It was ice cold. I swam on the surface to the deepest area, then attached the facemask and dived. The water was clear for the first ten feet, but after that I needed the flashlight. The cold was something I’d not prepared for. It numbed me. Freezing water plucked the heat from my skin. I touched the bottom surrounded by murky darkness.

  I had to think hard to remember what I was doing.

  So cold. Jesus. I was freezing solid. I panned the flashlight down at the muddy bottom. I moved along, sweeping the beam over the rocks, feeling for something car shaped. Doing something warmed me up a little. But I could feel my heart and lungs in my throat. The cold gave me a pain behind my eyes.

  I looked everywhere. Believe me.

  I found nothing.

  The car was not in the creek.

  I searched until my air almost ran out.

  Nothing nothing NOTHING.

  I crawled to the shore exhausted.

  Chapter 15

  Once I’d dried off and rested, I thought I could hear a low rumble coming from somewhere nearby. I decided to see what was causing it. I climbed up the rocks until I was above the creek, then I followed the noise through the marshland. The sound was coming from the other side of a copse of swamp maples near the road. I stayed low in the crab grass as I peered down an embankment at a large area cleared of trees. Trucks driving in and out stirred up dust trails. I counted eighteen portacabins and a mobile canteen/office. Bulldozers were parked in rows. It looked as if they’d torn up half of the wood just to make a temporary site. Who knew what they would do if the development started for real? Idle workers tanned themselves, drinking beers, smoking and playing card games. I could imagine Van Morgan wasn’t too pleased to be paying their wages for doing nothing. But they were legally bound to do nothing until Sarah Beck’s court case was resolved. If Van Morgan paid a hundred workers under contract for eight hours a day for one month that was at least $210,000 if the workers only got $10 an hour – and that was even if he won the case. You could probably double or triple that figure when other costs were added. Ouch. No wonder he’d offered Sarah $50,000 for the problem to go away. Her refusal must have really hurt his bank accounts.

  I studied the few people I could see, hoping to recognise the ones who’d followed me. I didn’t see them, but I did see a brown pickup. It looked as if it had been washed recently. I was fairly sure it was the same one, but not positive. In a line up of trucks, I’d probably pick the wrong one. Its licence plate was clean now, so I memorised it anyway. Maybe it would lead somewhere. Maybe not.

  Time to head back, I thought.

  It was then I heard the dry crack of twigs.

  RIGHT BEHIND ME.

  I turned around expecting an armed security guard.

  But it wasn’t.

  It was a grey squirrel.

  A stupid squirrel!

  What a relief!

  “Shoo!”

  It scuttled into hiding.

  I felt for my heart. It was pounding like a jackhammer.

  “Well?” Wayne said, when I climbed on board The Scud Hunter.

  “Nothing. Total waste of time.”

  “Figures.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re stupid.”

  “Speaking as one who knows better?”

  “Damn straight. Why would a guy like Van Morgan dump a car in the creek? What if it was found? No. Too risky - he could just have it buried in concrete on the construction site. Nobody would ever find out. You really want to find out if this Van Morgan guy did it? I know how. You should kidnap him, take him out into the ocean where nobody’ll find him and beat a confession out of him. That’s what I’d do.”

  “And you’d go to prison for it.”

  “Only if I left him alive.”

  He wasn’t joking.

  I wondered what demons haunted his thoughts. I knew Wayne’s childhood had left deep scars on his personality, making it hard for him to trust anyone. My childhood had been tough, but not like his. Yes, I’d lost my mother and brother, but I’d had a father who loved me. Wayne, on the other hand, had two drunks for parents. He’d lived in a trailer. His father had often beat him in public for the smallest misdemeanour. And his mother had acted as if Wayne did not exist. He had rarely gone home, frequently sleeping on the beach or under the boardwalk if it rained. Scott and I had been his family. He would kill to revenge Scott, I knew.

  Wayne gritted his teeth. “Well, I earned my money. I’m taking us back. You look kind of pale, Quinn, like you swallowed too much saltwater.”

  Chapter 16

  Wednesday. I was in high school again, walking down silent halls filled with memories, good and bad. I thought of Billy as I passed the gym where the prom had been held twenty years ago. I cracked the door open and smelled the acrid sweat of teenagers engaged in a vigorous game of basketball, their sneakers squeaking on the hardwood floor. It was in that gym Abby and I had danced one last time before I went to Hollywood and left her in Cape Mistral. I had been so stupid. I shut the door and continued towards the English department, slowing only to look at the walls of class photographs and the trophy cases. Billy had his name on several of the trophies.

  I reached the door to Abby’s classroom. I knocked and opened the door. The classroom appeared smaller than I recalled. The kids looked incredibly youthful and healthy and alert. Abby – Mrs Boone to her students – looked cute in a light, loose pink sweater and long, pleated skirt. She handed me an annotated copy of Hamlet as I entered. Her perfume smelled like cherries and apricots, and I held it in my nose for as long as possible, savouring the heady scent. She said to her students, “Mr Quinn is here!”

  All of the tables had been moved to the walls. The class were sitting in a circle, expectant. Abby showed me to my seat between two attractive girls. She sat across the classroom.

  “Hi,” I said, “thanks for inviting me.”

  “Hi, Mr Quinn,” everyone said in unison. A pretty girl opposite giggled.

  “Someone should say to our guest what we’ve been doing with Hamlet,” Abby said. “Any volunteers?”

  Several hands shot up. Some snaked up slowly, hesitantly. Abby picked one of the latter, belonging to a tall black girl. Her voice boomed. “We – uh – we’ve been reading the first act, sir. We take turns to play the parts. We’ve read the original words, then we like discussed what they mean in modern English. For example ...” The girl summarised last week’s lesson and the class refreshed themselves with the play. Eventually, the st
udents chose roles and performed in the centre for the others to criticise constructively. Abby and I directed the play if things got too chaotic. I could tell many students were holding back, embarrassed to show their emotions. I tried to loosen them up with a few exercises I’d done at drama school designed to destroy inhibitions. It made them laugh and relax. They begged me to join in. Reluctantly, I agreed.

  Sad as it sounds, I was soon having the best fun in years. As the kids really loosened up, I did, too. Spurred on by her class, Abby got up and acted with me. She was flushed with embarrassment. But when we started her confidence grew and she enveloped herself in the role. We wrought emotion from the scene. Afterwards, the students cheered. It was a disappointment when the bell rang to end the lesson. They asked if I’d come again. I said yes, laughing. I’d love to come next Wednesday. Abby let the kids go, but she stayed to rearrange the tables and chairs. I stayed behind to help. I could not stop looking at her. I had the urge to kiss her. But I refrained. She was married. I couldn’t step into the middle of that.

  “I enjoyed today,” I said.

  “You were brilliant. You always were.”

  “You were better, though. You could have made it as an actress. You could have come with me to Los Angeles, like I wanted.”

  “I wanted to teach,” she said. “You wanted to be the actor.”

  “It was a big mistake. My ego got the better of me.”

  Abby sighed. “Let’s not get into this.”

  We moved the furniture in awkward silence.

  When she lifted a chair, her right sleeve of her sweater rolled up to her elbow. She pulled it down quickly, but not before I’d seen the purple bruises. They were like angry welts.

  “Abby, how did you get them?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Bull.”

  “I bumped it.”

  “Let me look at it.”

  She shook her head, pulling away as I reached for her. “Leave it, Mike.”

  “Abby-”

  “Today’s been nice, Mike. Please don’t spoil it.”