Any further movement above the water and I risked him seeing ripples on the surface.
The evening light penetrated no more than a few feet into the water. Even with the goggles I could barely see anything beyond the murky orange in front of me.
Fortunately for me, Wilbanks was directing me where to go. The purring of the trolling motor on his boat sounded like a foghorn in the deafening silence of the lake, giving me an easy heading to follow.
Pulling in long even strokes I drove towards it, swinging my arms in front of me and frog kicking hard with each pass. On every third stroke I drew my right arm in to take a small hit off the air tank before moving forward.
Several hard minutes of swimming brought me close enough that it sounded like the trolling motor was right next to my ear. Diving a bit deeper, I inched forward, waiting for him to give me my final directions.
Part of me wanted to bring my eyes above the surface and check his position. The remainder knew to stay in position and wait for the motor.
It didn’t disappoint.
Once more it kicked on, this time so close I could feel the bubbles in its wake wash over me. Kicking out to the side, I allowed my body to ascend, the shadow of the boat taking shape above me.
My body rose almost to the surface, my hands grabbing hold of the back corner.
Rising just inches from the water, I slid my eyes above the surface and heard Wilbanks whistling as he reeled in his line. Working my way down the opposite side, I drew even with his position in the boat before dropping back down beneath the surface.
Using the bottom of the boat as a guide, I crossed over to the opposite side, one hand positioned on the bottom edge. With the other I extended the air tank out a few feet from my body and depressed the lever, sending up a stream of air bubbles to the surface.
Basic human reaction to seeing a serious amount of air bursting through the surface would dictate a person to lean out and try to see what it is.
I was banking on him having the basic human reaction.
Waiting three full seconds I sent up another burst of air. Before it had even reached the surface, I propelled myself to the surface, breaking free from the water and straight into the shocked gaze of Keller Wilbanks.
Keeping the air tight in my right hand, I exploded upward and wrapped my left arm around his neck. With gravity providing me leverage, I jerked him down over the edge of the boat. The move caught him by complete surprise, his body offering no resistance as we both went tumbling down into the water.
Once we were beneath the surface I wrapped my legs around his torso and held him away from my body. By the time he realized what was happening, I already had him in position.
With my arms I swam upward a few feet and anchored myself against the bottom of the boat. I clamped the air tank between my lips as he fought against me, both of my hands bracing us beneath the hull.
Every so often I would squeeze down on the lever, giving myself a jolt of fresh air. Otherwise, I remained immobile.
The fighting lasted no more than a minute. Another one passed before the last of his air slid out of his lungs and his body fell limp.
There might have been more fun ways to dispatch the man, but this way there wasn’t a mark left on him.
Keeping my arms braced against the bottom of the boat, I swung my legs towards the surface and released Wilbanks from my grasp. I waited until his body floated away, the white of his t-shirt beyond sight, before turning and swimming hard for the opposite shore.
Time was now of the essence.
I swam as hard as I could until feeling gravel crunch beneath my feet. I slid my head above the water to make sure I was out of sight of the house before climbing out of the lake and ducking into the cover of the woods.
I peeled the dri-fit t-shirt from my back and wrung it out once, then tied it around my head in a makeshift bandana. It would have been dry in minutes, but I needed it more to cover my wet hair than my upper body.
If anybody was paying close attention, they would notice sopping wet hair more than a bare torso.
No jogger gets that sweaty, especially not this time of year.
Picking my way through the woods, I angled away from the lake to avoid emerging right beside the driveway. Several hundred yards down the road I broke into a full runner’s stride, merging onto the road at a brisk but believable pace.
I passed not a single person on Wilbank’s road, or on the one after that. Not until I swung back onto 26 did I encounter another living soul, by that point just another nobody out for a jog.
The car was a little more secluded than when I left it, but still entirely isolated. Removing the keys from the pack I unlocked the door and jumped inside, pulling the strap from my waist and the shirt from my head as I did so.
Instead of driving back towards Boston, I moved away from the highway and turned into a state park outside of town. Just as I remembered, there was a small park there with picnic facilities.
No more than a few sparse cars dotted the lot.
Taking up the bag from the back seat I walked into the bathroom and shut myself into the extra large handicapped stall. I started by pulling off the now dry running gear and replacing it with the jeans and black t-shirt.
I smeared on some deodorant and ran a bit of gel back through my hair, plastering it down hard against my skull in the old Pat Riley look. The finishing touches were the sunglasses and sandals.
For a moment, I paused to look at the transformation in the polished silver mirror above the handicap stall sink.
Not too bad.
Tossing everything back into the gym bag I strolled back out to the car, fired it up and headed back through Newton.
As I drove I listened hard, but not a single siren rang out in the evening air.
Chapter Ten
“Jesus man, you look like shit on a stick. You been here all day?” Meeks asked as he walked through the deserted police station. The only light in the cavernous room was the desk lamp on Beckett’s desk, the only person the owner himself.
Beckett leaned back in his chair far enough that the springs gave an angry groan and placed the toe of his right boot on the corner of the desktop. “I assume your coming here has a purpose?”
Meeks smiled with the right side of his mouth, white teeth peeking out against his caramel skin. “Gee, it’s good to see you too.”
Beckett snorted. “Fine, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
“That’s better,” Meeks said and pulled a long package wrapped in white from the brown paper bag at his side. “I’ve got steak-and-cheese and an Italian sub. Which one you want?”
A dozen sarcastic remarks ran through Beckett’s head, but he refrained from issuing any of them. “Steak. I could use a little protein right now.”
Meeks tossed the sandwich across the desk and the two both began to eat.
“You been here all day?”
“Went home for a couple of hours, changed clothes,” Beckett said. He took a large bite out of the sandwich and added, “Too much swirling through my mind, had to get back here and get on this.”
With a smirk, Meeks shook his head. “They don’t call you Lockjaw for nothing. All this time here do any good?”
Beckett slapped shut a large manila file and tossed it onto the chair beside Meeks. “Crime scene is clean. Spotless.”
“As in somebody scrubbed the place before they left?”
“No, I didn’t say it’s sterile, I said it’s clean. Place is loaded with fingerprints, hairs, fibers, but they’re all hers. Only trace of another person we found was her brother Allerd, and he checks out.
“Lives in Hartford with his wife, was up last weekend for her birthday. Is a youth soccer coach down there, has a load of witnesses saying he was with them on a weekend tournament in New Jersey last night.”
“Hmm. So the place is clean. We get anything from the girl working the desk?”
Beckett grabbed a printout from his desk and tossed it down on
the chair with the file. “Said there must have been thirty people coming and going, with it being Saturday night and all.
“Only thing she said that was of any interest was that earlier in the evening an unidentified man called and said he’d been in and lost his wallet. Asked her to check the elevators and stuff for it, then just hung up on her.”
Meeks stared at nothing for a moment, trying to process the information. “And that ties into this how?”
“He specifically asked her if there were any cameras in the elevators she could check to see if his wallet was lying around.”
Meeks’ jaw dropped open as he stared at Beckett. “And she bought that? Gave him exactly what he wanted?”
Beckett took another large bite of sandwich and nodded, a scowl across his face.
“Let me guess, nothing on the call logs from last night either?”
Beckett picked at a bit of melted cheese stuck to the wrapper of his sandwich.
“There are fifty-seven phone calls on that list, most of them from tenants. Of those fifty-seven there are exactly two originating from numbers unknown.
“Care to guess which two?”
“Son of a bitch...” Meeks muttered. “What about the front door?”
Beckett finished his sandwich, wadded the paper up and threw it away. He brushed the crumbs off his desk and into his hand, depositing them in the trash as well.
“Nothing yet. It’s a public lobby and the cleaning staff only works Monday through Friday. By Sunday morning there were over a hundred different prints on there to sort through. They’re still looking, but I’m not holding my breath.”
Meeks leaned back and laced his hands behind his head, chewing the information. “Alright, let’s start over here. I will give you that there are a lot of coincidences piling up, but somebody good enough to get in and out without leaving so much as a hair behind? Come on.
“What makes you so sure this is a murder?”
Beckett held a hand up, the calloused palm facing Meeks. “Slow down. You’re forgetting one very important thing.”
Meeks pulled his hands down from behind his head and leaned forward onto his elbows. He furrowed his brow and thought hard for a moment. “What’s that?”
Beckett held up another file and said, “Medical report.”
“Jesus, that’s back already?”
“I told you this morning something wasn’t right. Asked Hank to speed things up. He got back to me an hour or two ago.”
“And?”
“I don’t think it was as clean as the scene would suggest.”
Meeks leaned forward further, his elbows resting on his knees. “I’m listening.”
Beckett snatched up a page from the top of the file and read, “Victim’s blood contain trace amounts of cyanide and arsenic. Individual amounts are low enough to be toxic but non-fatal. If paired together with proper delivery technique, could certainly be a cause of death.”
“Hmm. And no signs of heart failure, stroke, anything like that?”
“Woman was healthier than you or I. You know the academic kinds—vegan, worked out all the time, etc. Six months ago she ran the Marathon in under four hours.”
Silence fell in the room for several seconds. Meeks steepled his fingers and thought while Beckett leaned his head back and ran a hand over his day old beard.
“This guy is good. He did this knowing there was no way we could track him, but left us just enough to know he’d been there,” Meeks said.
Beckett nodded. “It’s going to take some serious work and a lot of luck to crack this one.”
Meeks picked up the file beside him and rifled through it as Beckett went back to reading the medical report. The better part of a half hour passed without a word between them when the telephone on Beckett’s desk shattered the silence.
He picked it up without glancing away from the report.
“Beckett.”
A voice on the other end barked loud and hard. Beckett pulled the receiver away from his ear, wincing.
“Yes, sir. We’re on our way sir.”
More angry yelling caused Beckett to jerk it away again.
“We’re on our way sir,” Beckett repeated, hanging up despite the voice still pouring out of the receiver.
“What the hell was that all about?” Meeks asked, glancing between Beckett and the phone.
“We’re headed to Newton,” Beckett said as he stood. He grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and headed straight towards the door.
“What the hell’s in Newton? Don’t they have their own police?”
“That was the Chief,” Beckett said, tossing a set of car keys to Meeks and climbing into the same Crown Vic they’d used that morning. “We’ve got a floater.”
“A floater? In Newton? That’s nowhere near the ocean.”
“That’s not the only body of water in New England you know.”
“Hell, the only thing over there is...”
“Lake Keller,” Beckett finished for him.
Meeks shook his head from side to side, his face twisted up in frustration. “That dumb bastard shoot somebody and throw them in his own lake?”
“No,” Beckett replied. “That dumb bastard’s the one floating in his own lake.”
Chapter Eleven
“So where the hell are we going?” Meeks asked as he drove. “I know where Newton is, but the Meeks clan never exactly had family picnics at Lake Keller growing up.”
“Just get to Newton,” Beckett said. “From there I’m betting we can just head towards the circus.”
He was right.
As they rolled into Newton the flashing lights of squad cars and ambulances could be seen dancing in the evening sky. Meeks angled the car through town towards the lights, took a series of turns, then angled some more. Within minutes they were rolling up on a scene that would have made Hollywood envious.
“Jesus, did the President die out here or something?” Meeks muttered.
Beckett shook his head, pushing out a small grunt. “Damn near. United States Congressman is one of the highest offices in the land. Figure on there being FBI crawling all over this place.”
Meeks parked on the shoulder of the road almost a quarter mile away from the hub of activity. Without speaking they swung free of the car and walked down the street at a brisk pace, cars lined solid on either side.
As they grew closer the cell phone in Beckett’s pocket sprang to life. He flipped it open without slowing.
“Yeah?” A few seconds later he added, “We’re on our way Chief.”
A moment passed. Meeks could hear yelling coming from the phone.
“I mean, look down the damn road,” Beckett snapped. “We’re literally on our way.”
For the second time that night he snapped the phone shut without another word.
As they approached, the breadth of the scene before them continued to grow. Their view had been enclosed by the thick timber lining the road, but as they emerged they could see cars and ambulances and fire trucks extended in both directions.
Cumulatively they covered every square inch of available parking space, all mashed together in a haphazard pile.
Off to the left moonlight could be seen dancing on the water as a half dozen boats circled, large search lights throwing out yellow cones in front of them.
“How the hell you think they got all those boats in here?” Meeks asked in a half whisper. “I doubt Wilbanks had them sitting around ‘just in case.’”
Beckett’s scanned the horizon before them, taking in the scene. “Somewhere in that sea of neon light and darkness are a bunch of trailers. Whoever’s handling this probably called over to the Coast Guard, had them brought in.”
“And they got here before we did?”
Beckett began to answer, but stopped himself as a tall silhouette loped towards them. Recognizing the knocked-kneed gait and thick tufts of hair billowing out from around a smooth head, he said, “This can’t be good.”
Boston Police
Chief Perry Royal emerged from the darkness and stepped towards them with long strides. “What the hell took you so long?”
“We got here in seventeen minutes Chief. That’s twenty-three miles by car and a half mile on foot in seventeen minutes.
“Mind filling me in on what all this is?”
That fast, the Chief forgot his annoyance with their tardiness and turned towards the scene with a sigh. “Congressman Wilbanks, as worthless a politician as ever lived, and that’s by politician standards mind you. Bastard should have been in Washington deliberating on something, but instead was here fishing. Somehow the dumbass ended up in the water, found himself the newest victim of a drowning accident.
“Our taxpayer dollars working to the fullest of their capabilities.”
Beckett nodded. “Then why am I here? If it’s that easy, shouldn’t we call a coroner and go home to watch the Patriots game?”
The bitterness returned to the Chief’s face and he scowled hard at Beckett. “You’re here because I called and told you to get your ass here.”
He paused and let the sentence hang in the air, the heavy lines around his eyes bunched tight as he glared at Beckett.
“You’re here, hell we’re all here, because Wilbanks was a United States Congressman. That makes this a federal matter. FBI field agents are already with the family and out on the water, a whole bunch more will be in from Washington in the morning.
“They are asking for complete cooperation from the local authorities and they requested you by name. Apparently one of them was familiar with your history in narcotics, thought you might be a useful man to have around.”
Beckett nodded again. He had figured as much. “Is there any reason to think this is linked to narc?”
“Not at all, they just wanted the biggest name working the case.”
Beckett hoped his eye roll was at least partially hidden by the darkness. “Alright, what do we know right now?”
“More or less just what I told you. Wilbanks was here instead of in Washington doing his job, messed around and fell in a lake.”
“Who phoned it in?”
“His wife called the local Sheriff around ten when he hadn’t returned and she couldn’t get him on his cell phone. Said he never stays out after dark and is always good about keeping in touch.
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