Killing Shore

by Timothy Fagan

  The man in the driveway tilted his head as if noticing the truck for the first time. He took off his sunglasses and made a little comic "I'm walking here" gesture, laughed at himself for the benefit of his companions and said something to them. After a couple more seconds, he slowly moved from the opening, giving Pepper a little mock wave.

  That man, Pepper now believed, had been Arnold Keser.

  But at the time, Pepper had dismissed the four walking men from his mind as soon as they cleared the driveway entrance. He'd been exhausted, stiff and totally focused on being home and what would happen next. How his dad would react.

  The long driveway was still worn dirt with a smattering of crushed oyster shells. Pepper eased his pickup truck slowly all the way down to the house and parked in the little turnaround in back. He paused a moment, looking eastward over the Atlantic, took a very deep breath, let it out slowly. The blue snakeskin of the ocean gleamed back at him.

  Pepper walked up the side porch's creaking steps. For the first time in his life, he rang the bell. Waited.

  A bit later, the door opened and there was his dad, Gerald Ryan. A little older. His head of white hair was still full, meticulously combed. A little smaller now than the six foot of his prime, but still solid in his early seventies. Still had forearms like Popeye. He was wearing green work pants and a thin multi-colored flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His serious face peered back at Pepper through thick glasses, tilted up a little.

  “Damn Pepper," his dad said after an awkward pause. "For a moment I thought you were Jake. You look more like he used to, with that Sox cap."

  They stood there, staring at each other.

  "Home for a visit?"

  "No sir. Home for the summer. And a job."

  His dad finally stepped back, made a little gesture. "I guess you'd better come in."

  What dummy said you can never go home again?

  They sat at the old yellow Formica table in the kitchen. It still had the same minuscule wobble. Pepper noticed a Christmas card with two little boys stuck to the fridge with a magnet. Patrick and Little Jake, his brother's sons. They must be around eight and ten years old now.

  "They're getting big," said Pepper, getting up and plucking it off, studying them. They both had the Ryan blue eyes, but their smiles were more like their mother's. Cautious.

  "Little hellions. Chips off the Ryan block. I only get to see them a couple times a year. Julie gets too busy, now she's teaching again."

  "I've got to get up to Boston and see them soon, if she'll let me in. She any less mad about me?" Part of Julie's mourning for Jake included anger toward the other Ryan men--particularly Pepper.

  "Julie's still Julie. But keep your butt out of trouble for a little bit and I'll put in a good word for you."

  His dad began clattering around the kitchen, making coffee, and Pepper just stayed silent. Building whatever strength he had left.

  His dad came and sat at the table while he waited for the pot to percolate. He tossed a box of oatmeal cookies on the table, the same brand he'd favored since Pepper was little. Maybe even the same box—Pepper remembered them as unpleasantly hard, tasteless and liable to suck all the moisture from your mouth.

  "So," his dad said, somehow biting into a cookie. "There must be a hell of a story...home for the summer? Something to do with that?" Pointing to a band-aid which covered a pretty good cut above Pepper's left eye. "You running from someone, handsome? Maybe a girl or her boyfriend? And you said, a job?"

  Pepper definitely wasn't going to get into the story behind the band-aid, not right then. But was that what his dad still thought of him? "There's no girl. I've signed up with Eisenhower for the summer."

  His dad actually recoiled. "You what!?"

  So the General hadn't tipped off his dad. "Just for this summer. Gives me time to figure out what's next. "

  His dad had gone red. Was shaking a bit. "I don't understand. What about your music?"

  "That wasn't going so hot. It was time for a change--a simple job with a steady paycheck."

  His dad grimaced. "You disappear for three years, the wandering bard? Threw away family and friends? Career prospects? Now you're Mr. Steady? Where'd you come back from, the nuthouse?"

  "Nashville, most recently. Austin and L.A. before that." Pepper hated that his answer wasn't completely honest, though it wasn't exactly a lie.

  His dad got up, poured two cups of coffee. Put one in front of Pepper. The mug said 'Got Crabs?', with a picture below of two New Albion green crabs.

  "So why're you really back…second chances?" asked his dad. He was now standing behind his chair, leaning on it, looking like a cop trying to bully a murder suspect into confessing. Which would have been more intimidating if he didn't have an oatmeal cookie crumb hanging from the corner of his mouth. "Finally feel guilty for taking off? Or hoping to bring the Ryan name back to our former glory? No, don't tell me you're actually trying to pretend you're Jake again?"

  Right, and there it was. Cold anger flooded Pepper's mind. He almost didn't recognize his own voice when he spoke, it sounded so measured, clinical.

  "I'm just here for a job. Temporarily. And Eisenhower needed extra help this summer, with President Garby coming to town."

  His dad chuckled. "You know the papers say that'll be a real shit show. How'd the president piss off so many voters that quick? You sure you want to get caught up in his hot mess?"

  Pepper stood and walked to the kitchen window. Looked out to the gray wooden deck and the beach fifty feet in the distance. The silvered water beyond, reflecting the last of the day. He yawned violently—the long drive had completely fried him.

  "Speaking of messes," Pepper heard himself say. "I heard from the General that things aren't so hot for you these days, financially? I can chip in, pay some rent, if you can put up with me moving back in here?"

  His dad flushed an even deeper red. Started shaking again. "Eisenhower and his big fucking mouth!"

  "So it's true?"

  His dad huffed, dislodging the cookie crumb. "It's just the property taxes. They've tripled in the last ten years. The town assessor's been hitting me just like the bigger houses on the road—the damn price of this ocean view. I've had to take out a home equity line."

  "And?"

  "And I'm maxed out, all right? Upside down with a balloon payment due. So the writing's on the wall—I'll have to sell. The bank'll force my hand this fall. Maybe sooner. Unless you made a couple million bucks on your songs?"

  Pepper hadn't.

  "I'll figure out something. Or not. But it's my problem and Eisenhower shouldn't have said anything to you." His face was creased with betrayal—Pepper recognized the look.

  But Pepper felt betrayed too. "Dad…I'm glad he did. This is my home too, right? Jake's and Mom's. Our memories of them. Why didn't you tell me yourself?"

  His dad laughed. "Well, I guess I was waiting for the phone to ring. You forget the number?"

  Pepper's stomach tightened into a knot. He bit off a response, knowing it'd be so easy to make his dad explode. But that was the great thing about being a Ryan--the fight would be waiting in the morning. He yawned so hard he felt his jaw click a mini-dislocation. He was too exhausted for coffee to help. "You have any problem me sleeping here?"

  His dad paused. Finally he said, "You've always been welcome here, Son, no matter how you left. No matter how many times you've… But good luck with the job—Eisenhower's going to need any help he can get."

  Pepper said nothing more. Instead, he gave a luxurious yawn and stretched. Left his dad alone at the table.

  Pepper went out to his truck and grabbed his guitar case and a backpack. He'd only owned the guitar, a Taylor acoustic-electric, for two days. He'd bought it at Gruhn's in Nashville to replace his dear old favorite Gibson, which on Monday night—his final night in Tennessee—he'd smashed across the face of the owner/bouncer of the bar he was playing in. A different story.

  His other things could wait. Pepper went back i
nside and climbed the steep, narrow stairs to the small bedroom where he'd bunked for so many years with his older brother.

  The room was as they'd left it. Baseball gear in one corner, hockey sticks in another. Curling-edged posters of Bruins and Red Sox players who were long retired. The half-assed repair job of fishing stickers covering the hole in the closet door made by Pepper's head, thanks to a surprisingly effective wrestling move by the bigger, stronger Jake, too long ago.

  How could his dad have been planning to sell the Ryan home without telling him? That concept had never even remotely occurred to Pepper. He wondered again if coming home had been a big, fat mistake.

  Pepper had leaned his guitar case in the corner and dropped his backpack. Taken off the Red Sox cap and hung it on the bedpost. He'd looked out the bedroom's small window at the Atlantic one more time, which had gone deep gray under the early moonlight. Then he'd slowly climbed up to his top bunk, still fully dressed, and stretched out, pressing his face into the musty pillow. He'd been asleep before his eyes closed.

  Chapter Five

  I'm the most powerful man in the world.

  I'm the most powerful man in the world.

  Wayne Garby kept repeating this to himself, softly but firmly. When he felt like he exactly believed it, he pulled himself to his full five ten and three-quarters inches and stepped from the White House's West Sitting Hall into the master bedroom of the most powerful man in the world. His bedroom.

  As summoned.

  The First Lady, his wife Lulu, whirled at her Chippendale writing desk and threw the Hamilton biography at his head.

  Damn! He barely ducked it—great arm for a tiny woman. "Lulu honey!" he protested.

  "Don't honey me, you shit! I just heard about the security briefing. There's some wacko assassin running around where you're forcing us to go to on Cape Cod? I'm not going!"

  Uh oh. "Lulu, you're talking crazy," he said with open palms and the low whiskey tone that had helped him win 54.5% of the popular vote eighteen months earlier. His trust me voice. But he casually slid to the left, behind the Italian carved settee, just in case. He was heading to Japan and Vietnam for a quick trip before their Cape Cod vacation and couldn't afford facial bruising.

  Then he tried again. He didn't want to imagine the media, political and financial fallout if he couldn't get every damn family member to show up for the First Vacation. "I was going to tell you at dinner," he assured her. "I don't want some weirdo to ruin our getaway! A real family vacation, for all the baloney you put up with every day. Your long hours. The hardest working first lady since Jackie O!"

  "Family vacation? Don't make me laugh," she said, but with a tiny bit less vitriol. He knew she secretly measured herself against Jackie O. All the first wives did.

  Garby noticed the slight drop in her fury and jumped on it. "The four of us, honeybee. Walks on the beach. Bike rides to get ice cream. A good old-fashioned family vacation. And a chance to reconnect with the girls and each other. Put that Jimmy Fallon thing behind us. And clear our heads from all the Washington talk and nonsense."

  Garby knew Washington got on her nerves, same as his. He'd just spent thirty minutes straightening out his press team about the latest cheap shot at yesterday's press briefing—questions about a rumor that Garby had a stake in some offshore entity Garby'd never even frickin' heard of! Snarky innuendo about money laundering and Iranian oil. His press secretary was blindsided and botched it, the putz—his answer sounded like guilt or evasion, especially the clip everyone ran. But the rumor was total balls-out fiction! Garby could defend financial ties with a borderline smell—you gotta do what you gotta do in a complicated world—but he'd be damned if he was going to get torpedoed on crap he never touched!

  His wife was staring at him, reading him. Weighing which way to take this. "Can't we just change our plans? You knew I wanted us to go to Paris this summer."

  Huh? Garby knew she'd watched a lot of French Open tennis this spring. But the City of Lights was now her newest thing? He suspected that Republicans who hope to be re-elected don't vacation in Paris… "Honeybug, my approval rating's the lowest first-term since Jimmy Frickin' Carter. If I vacationed in Paris now, we'd have to ask the French for refugee status!"

  She didn't break even a little smile at that one. "But why Cape Cod?" she demanded. "Why not home, see our friends?"

  Running home to Kentucky would be retreating, make him look like a pussy. But he knew Lulu wouldn't understand. "Acker Smith invited us to stay at his compound and you know I had to say yes, honey bunch. I'll need his super PAC again for my reelection. Think of our legacy! And Smith's really sick."

  She was giving him her full glare, but at least he had her attention.

  "Actually," he continued, lowering his volume. His confidential voice now. Full eye contact. "Lulu, he's dying. There's probably no next year for him...I have to lock up his money this summer. For the re-election and our presidential library. We've got to stick to the plan."

  If there was one thing that got through to the First Lady, it was the never-ending need to feed the financial beast. And she knew they'd had no more generous billionaire on their side last time than Acker Smith. Garby held his breath. He had to nip this in the butt--he was already late for a drop-by with the Turkish ambassador.

  Finally she sighed. Her martyr sigh. "Well, you get to tell the twins about the beach assassin," she said. "If you can get them to stop partying long enough to listen. And Wayne?"

  "Yes, dear?"

  "Speaking of Washington talk and nonsense? If I hear there's a fake-boobed redhead named Alexis anywhere on Cape Cod during our old-fashioned family vacation, I'll stab you dead in your sleep. Save the assassin the trouble." Lulu smiled sweetly at him to make it clear she wasn't joking.

  Garby swallowed, flashed back a moderate smile. He quickly closed the distance between them, gave his wife a lingering but wary hug.

  And made a mental note to ask Alexis to go blonde.

  But Garby was humming lightly as he made his escape to the Turkish ambassador. He scored this a win for himself, Washington-style: slightly more victory than defeat.

  And hey, he was headed to Cape Cod in the summer. Golf, sun and sand. Bikinis.

  What could go wrong?

  Chapter Six

  A yellow Porsche convertible came around the bend fast, probably going twice the thirty miles an hour limit on Shore Road. Startled the crap out of Pepper Ryan. He shook off his surprise, hit his rollers and took off in pursuit.

  Pepper had parked his squad car on the shoulder of Shore Road to call his brand new partner, Special Agent Alfson. Pepper had been on his way back to the police station but knew when the General saw him he'd expect an update on the Clambake case.

  Which was nada, so far on that Monday morning, unless Alfson's little army of investigators had made some progress. Unfortunately, Pepper was having trouble getting a clear cell signal along this stretch of Shore Road, the smallest bar on his phone blinking in and out. But the speeding Porsche had interrupted and also pissed off Pepper.

  Pepper had the Porsche pulled over within half a mile. He typed its license plate into the laptop strapped to his cruiser's dashboard. It came back as registered to a Delaware corporation named Fulmar Limited. No citation history.

  Pepper radioed in his location to Dispatch, said he'd stopped a car for a speeding violation, then spelled out the license plate number. Zula Eisenhower's sweet voice piped back over the radio, repeating his location, then she added, "Use caution, Pepper!" Zula was way too chatty for open radio, but better to let her dad smack her down--anything Pepper said would just make her worse. "10-4, Little Ike," he replied, because he was pretty sure she hated sharing a nickname with an old white president. And she was wicked fun to tease.

  Pepper was surprised that he got an adrenaline kick as he cautiously walked up behind the idling convertible, his sunglasses on, hat low. Everything a cop should be. He unclipped his newly-issued Glock 23. He didn't need Zula's nagging to remem
ber even a routine stop can turn deadly.

  The Porsche held two people but it was hard to notice anyone other than the driver. She was a wavy-haired honey blonde, big red sunglasses, about Pepper's age, late twenties. Maybe a bit too thin for her own health? But attractive enough to probably expect to smile her way out of speeding tickets. Too bad she'd caught an officer who could steel himself against such charms. A model lawman, who could spit out tickets to miscreants like a human Pez dispenser.

  A pretty boy type was sprawled out fake-casual in the passenger seat. He had light brown hair, two-day stubble on his cheeks. Probably a touch younger than the woman. Pepper noticed he was wearing a graphic tee with his own smug face on its front. Wicked ironic.

  All four of their hands were in sight. Pretty Boy was puffing on a vape pen, nonchalantly exhaling vapor. He was also fiddling with his bright red cell phone like he was trying to stealthily record the police stop, angling back and forth between his own profile and the rest of the scene. God bless the TMZ generation.

  The woman driver leaned forward to get her license from her purse, while maybe also trying to give Pepper a long wink of tanned cleavage. Pretty Boy didn't miss her move--he puffed up his chest and blew vapor toward Pepper.

  Pepper saw the name on her Florida license and his subconscious unease clicked into realization. Madeline Smith. Maddie! Pepper actually felt his stomach tighten, his breathing quicken, but as if he was watching himself from outside his body. Get it together dude.

  "You know the speed limit along here?" he asked in his lowest voice.