Killing Shore

by Timothy Fagan

  Alfson was better than coffee for getting Pepper jacked up. So Pepper changed the topic by asking for an update.

  Alfson shared that the forensic evidence from the clambake site hadn't produced any leads, yet. His team of investigators had grown to twelve agents, but none had found strong leads yet.

  Their first stop was an ecology rights group called Planet Liberation Action Now Trust that had set up in town for the week. A little tortured of a name, but with a groovy acronym: PLANT. Alfson's research folks had verified that the group rented two houses in New Albion, side by side, a few blocks from the beach. Not a cheap neighborhood. And the Secret Service had identified a possible affiliation between PLANT and a domestic terror cell that were the prime suspects in the arson of a waste-to-energy facility in Maine ten months earlier.

  The interview went smoothly, at first. Alfson and Pepper sat down in the living room of the larger of the two rental houses with a man and a woman who were careful to explain they were not the leaders of PLANT. PLANT, they explained, was a grassroots organization—a leader-free resistance. The woman, a lawyer, suggested they think of her as a kind of spokesperson. The man didn't explain what he thought he was.

  "A leader-free entity?" asked Pepper. "Like a starfish?"

  "You bet!" said the woman. "They even call our type of group a starfish organization. Independent parts with a shared goal to support ecological and environmental causes. Do you know what happened historically when fishermen tried to get rid of starfish here on the Cape by chopping them up?"

  Pepper nodded. "The pieces regenerated, so the fishermen ended up with a lot more starfish."

  "Exactly! So don't mess with us!" She talked a bit about their plans for holding nonviolent protests, making it clear that she knew more about demonstrations and permits and the first amendment than Pepper did. Seasoned activists, the kind that pre-negotiated the number of arrests to ensure the police had enough transport wagons for the experience to be civilized. Orderly. But Pepper was pretty sure the blue cell phone sticking from the woman's purse was the same unusual model that Pepper had been glimpsing all week…

  "Just one other question," said Pepper. "Have either of you pacifists visited any waste-to-energy plants in Maine in the past year, maybe burned it down?"

  The man appeared stunned, then reddened with anger, started wagging his finger at Pepper. "Playing by your rules doesn't always get our planet the protections it deserves. We're willing to pay the price for what we believe in. Are you?" He was half-standing now like he wanted to smack Pepper. So, maybe not completely orderly. The woman had her hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him down or maybe even to hold him back.

  She flipped into lawyer mode. Full attitude. Showed them right out.

  "You get that reaction a lot?" asked Alfson, as they walked back to the police car. "I still think those New River Front punks murdered Keser, but these PLANT assholes deserve a closer look too."

  Pepper had to agree so he nodded—some surveillance wouldn't hurt, right?

  Pepper's stomach was growling so he pulled into the parking lot along the beach seawall and parked his cruiser near a blue food truck called Captain Lefty's Fish and Chips. Food trucks were one of the few changes to New Albion in recent years that made perfect sense, filled a gap.

  "Hungry?" he asked.

  Alfson laughed. "Not for grease. But I have to touch base with my team anyway, see if anyone has caught any leads. You knock yourself out."

  So Pepper radioed in his location and checked his phone. Nothing important. As he left his car, Pepper saw a man hustling across the parking lot toward the food truck. It was the purple-hatted homeless guy who'd been sitting at the bar in McLennen's on the afternoon of the Dunne arrest. Purple hat firmly in place--must be his signature fashion statement. But to be honest, the man might be wearing exactly the same outfit as in the bar, from hat to shoes. Hard to judge how old he was, maybe early thirties?

  Pepper joined the food truck line behind Mr. Purple Hat. The man seemed to sense him, turned with a surprised gawk, then stepped away.

  "Whatta you want officer?" Purple Hat asked Pepper, shaking his long mess of hair. Between the unruly brown hair and his large white sunglasses--women's?--it was hard to see the man's expression. His voice was a little high and a bit cracked.

  Pepper just smiled. "I think the fish and chips--must be their specialty right?"

  The homeless man cracked a grin. "Glad you weren't here to arrest me like you did the big crazy man in the bar. My grapes hurt just thinking about it!" The homeless man was grinning but also sizing Pepper up. "Hey, you wanna make a bet? Loser buys lunch?"

  This was getting interesting. "Okay."

  The homeless man took a stance, dirty hands on hips. "I bet I can tell you where you got them shoes!"

  What? Pepper had bought them so long ago even he couldn't remember. "Okay, it's a bet." Just seeing where this was going...

  Purple Hat grinned, confident. "Officer, you got them shoes...on your feet!"

  Pepper laughed. Never underestimate a man who wears a purple fisherman's cap. So Pepper ordered and paid for two fish and chip specials, served old-fashioned style in newspaper cones. After they loaded up their food with ketchup and salt, they sat together on the seawall's edge. The fishing boats had already returned for the day; they rocked below them on the battered commercial pier. Motorboats and sailboats slid back and forth around the bay, some heading out to deeper water, but most just cruising. Pepper could see just a hint of the Madeline Too on the horizon. It was a million dollar day, warm and clear with a light breeze. Pepper didn't feel bad at all, leaving Alfson in the stuffy patrol car on his conference call. After all, Pepper had cracked a window for him…

  "They call me Rowboat Willie," the man said, offering his hand to shake. It was softer than Pepper expected.

  "Pepper Ryan."

  "Oh, I know who you are!" laughed Rowboat Willie. "The Pepper Ryan. And nice moves the other night. I think your buddies woulda shot that man."

  Pepper didn't say anything back, just grunted with his mouth full. The fish was perfect, crispy on the outside, hot and moist on the inside. The newspaper cone was thick with grease and ketchup. To their right, two seagulls sat just out of reach, shifting from foot to foot with their characteristic impatience, calling dibs on leftovers. Pepper unsnapped his Glock threateningly but the birds didn't seem to care, so he closed the snap. Rowboat Willie chuckled again, didn't miss a thing.

  Rowboat Willie's long stringy hair was working against him, dangling in the way of his plastic fork as he shoveled fish and chips into his mouth. Little bits of ketchup stuck in his hair. "You officers getting close to catching your clambake killer? You see me get interviewed on TV? That lady didn't pay me but hey, it's all good publicity in my line of work, right?"

  So that's where Pepper had also seen this character—the circus gathered at the crime scene police tape. Willie really got around. "What line of work's that?" asked Pepper, trying not to watch Willie's eating style too closely.

  "Fashion designer!" winked Willie, underarming a few fries down the beach. The gulls sprang after them.

  Then Pepper had an idea. "Hey, back at McLennen's Bar? Did you hear the big guy say anything before I came in?"

  "Oh, I wasn't too close. Maybe just close enough to hear…something…" He grinned, and yep, there were the bits of fish and chips on display. Pepper lost the rest of his appetite.

  But Pepper fished a twenty from his pocket, displayed it to Rowboat Willie. "I'll bet you can tell me twenty dollars’ worth of something, right?"

  Willie snatched the bill with a high-pitched chuckle. "It's a bet! I heard just a little. The big guy, he was drinking like a fish. Down toward the other end of the bar, with a woman. Three guys came in, made their way over, invited themselves some conversation. But I couldn't hear much…"

  "You haven't won that twenty bucks yet."

  Willie was silent a bit. "I think I heard the big guy say something to the three guys,
like he was repeating it back to them. I shit you not, I think he said 'nude river front’."

  "Hmm," said Pepper. "What else?"

  "Something about Saturday."

  "Upcoming Saturday? Or last Saturday?"

  "Maybe last Saturday. Things that'd already happened. They got in closer, were talking more quiet, you know? Then that cop came in and the other three guys cleared away. Pretty soon all shit broke out."

  Pepper handed the homeless man his business card. "Well, that part I know," said Pepper. "But if you remember anything else Dunne said, can you give me a call?"

  "Dunne's the big dude? Why's he so important anyway…did he waste that clambake guy?"

  That was a rumor to nip in the butt. "No, no, Dunne's just a fisherman with a bad attitude. But think some more about what he said, you might win another bet or two. And until we catch our killer, be careful out there."

  Rowboat Willie tucked the card somewhere into his outfit and then nodded past Pepper's shoulder, like Pepper had missed something. And he had.

  Pepper had been so busy with the conversation and with rescuing his last fries from the ketchup puddle in his newspaper cone that he hadn't noticed the busload of Weepers who'd pulled into the parking area a few hundred yards further down the lot.

  It was a brightly colored school bus with four loudspeakers pointing forward like horns. Their full name, the Weeping Church of Peter, was painted down its length. It parked lengthwise, taking up six parking spaces along the beachfront.

  Fuck.

  Pepper crumpled the newspaper into a ball and three-point shot it toward the battered blue garbage barrel next to the stairs down to the beach. His shot bounced off the rim and tumbled down the staircase, stirring up a few bees buzzing around the garbage barrel's opening. More laughter from Rowboat Willie. Without dignity Pepper retrieved his trash and settled for a dunk this time.

  "Gotta go, Mr. Rowboat," Pepper said. "Thanks for the company."

  "You get 'em, Officer!" Willie was a hot ticket and someone to keep an eye on—he'd either end up in jail or in business with Angel.

  Pepper went back in his cruiser and saw Alfson still deep in his conference call, saving the free world one agenda point at a time. Pepper grabbed his ticket pad from the front seat, pointed toward the bus and made an 'I'll be right back' gesture. Alfson gave him a little salute.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Pepper paused at the front of his cruiser and fully wrote out six parking tickets. He then walked across the lot to the bus.

  "That didn't take long," laughed a tall, lanky man with an unruly head of sandy brown hair who was leaning against the front bumper.

  Pepper didn't reply. He just smiled, nodded, and checked the parking meters alongside the bus. Of course, they were all expired. So he went over to the bus and tried to hand the parking tickets to Lanky Guy.

  "Not me, man," L.G. said, "I'm just along for the ride."

  So Pepper walked to the driver's side, got on his tiptoes and slid them under the windshield wiper.

  "Excuse me officer!" yelled an older man, hustling up from the beach, with two younger women in tow. One in her twenties, the other a teen. "What seems to be your problem?"

  Pepper recognized him immediately: the infamous Reverend Michael McDevitt. Pepper knew enough about him and his 'church'. The Weepers' headquarters was in Fall River, an hour and a half away. His poison had done awful damage in New Albion in the past, but to give the Reverend credit, his garbage had risen to the national stage in recent years.

  "No school today?" Pepper asked the teen.

  "She's homeschooled. More quality family time," said McDevitt.

  Pepper knew everything he needed to about the Weepers and their qualities. The Weeping Church of Peter was, effectively, a hate church. Their greatest skills were getting media attention and pursuing lawsuits. They picketed dead soldiers' funerals—Reverend McDevitt explaining to the media they weren't there to pass judgment on the deceased, because God already had. The media had given a lot of press to the series of court rulings which upheld the Weepers' constitutional right to picket near funerals.

  But Pepper had to admit, their church stood on clear principles. They opposed interracial sex and any other racial mixing. They also fought abortion and homosexual rights. They were often at the heart of demonstrations that became violent when opposing groups showed up. Such events were typically followed by the church suing everyone else involved. Oh, and they opposed taxation of individuals who allied themselves primarily with their church, not the USA. Funny how so many of these groups had a thing against taxation.

  "Where'd you get that bruise on your arm?" Pepper asked the teen, ignoring McDevitt.

  "Sports," she said.

  On TV, McDevitt appeared huge. Not quite so big in person, without his microphone and hate signs. His only distinctive feature was his black hair. It was thickly gelled into an elaborate coif that would withstand the beach breeze. Maybe even a hurricane.

  "Did you just give us a parking ticket?" he asked with great indignation, playing to his two women companions and Lanky Guy. They were lapping it up.

  "Nope. I just gave you six. One for each spot you're taking up."

  The man got agitated. "The Lord shall break in pieces the oppressor. Psalms 72," he said. Finger poking the air at Pepper to emphasize his words. Luckily for his finger, a safe distance from Pepper's chest. "You harass us and your runt-ass town'll spend the next three years getting taken apart in court. Again. It's been a while since I got one of your police chiefs canned, so pick the fight carefully. I'd be happy to teach that lesson again."

  Pepper remembered all too well.

  More church members were trickling back from the beach to watch the confrontation. The Weepers had been picking a public battle with President Garby in recent months, showing up to disrupt his East Coast appearances. Through megaphone ridicule and prayer barricades, they'd been trying to advocate for President Garby's salvation. Which seemed to be connected to him becoming more in line with the Weepers' holy agenda. Is that why they'd come back to New Albion?

  Then McDevitt froze, squinted at Pepper. At his name tag.

  "Dear Lord," he said, now chuckling. "Officer Ryan? Don't tell me you're the son of your disgraced Chief Ryan? I thought I ran your family out of town—guess I'll have to try harder this time. Gather me the people together, that they may learn to fear me, and they may teach their children."

  Pepper's blood was nearing the boiling point. "Is that a threat?"

  "No, it's Deuteronomy." McDevitt's followers laughed.

  They were in a staring contest now, neither willing to break away first.

  "Well, enjoy your visit to our runt-ass town," said Pepper. "And I'll be back in an hour. Like clockwork. Six more tickets if you're still here at expired meters." Smiled extra politely, walked away.

  Lizzie just needed to get the darned documents signed. She'd spent the past twenty minutes standing at the edge of Mr. Smith's enormous mahogany bed, trying to get him to approve the seemingly endless stack of documents needing his personal signature. He'd always liked it that way for money movements, corporate actions, all the decisions which kept his extensive empire spinning nicely in orbit. And his lack of delegation was a nice mechanism for keeping himself solely in control of his empire. But it made her life much, much harder.

  So when Mr. Smith's daughter Madeline walked right into his bedroom, no knock, no appointment, maybe Lizzie made a mistake. Lizzie had almost had a child, back when she was young and married. She often wondered if the baby would have been a boy or a girl, if she hadn't miscarried. Either way, she knew her own sweet little child wouldn't have been a selfish brat like Madeline Smith. Lizzie had grown up hard, in the LeFlak housing development in Queens, New York, and she had no tolerance for soft, spoiled princesses.

  "He's not available right now," Lizzie said. This time Lizzie consciously didn't step away from Mr. Smith. And not from Madeline either. "Come back in an hour," ordered Lizzie, as firm
ly as she would the other employees at Smith Enterprises.

  And the little snot sailed right past Lizzie. Even bumped her as she passed. "He's never been available," scoffed Madeline. "But why don't you come back in an hour? Or, never? Daddy and I need to have a family discussion. Maybe you should get some sun?"

  And the daughter actually gave her an eye roll…

  "Great news, Daddy!" Madeline said. Plopped herself on his bed's edge. "Pepper Ryan's back! You remember him? Tall, dark and scrumptious? He's got a badge and a gun and everything. I made him promise me to nip in the butt all the, you know, dirty stuff going on."

  "What dirty stuff?" asked Mr. Smith. He was sitting up taller now, but still pale. Still weak and confused. But louder.

  "He's close to catching the murderers of that poor agent on the beach. He called them morons, it got retweeted a billion times. The Secret Service is so grateful for his help. But I told him I'm worried about maybe some other shady things happening at Eagle's Nest. He guaranteed me he'll take care of it."

  Smith pulled his blankets higher. "You mean—"

  "Sir?" interrupted Lizzie. "The Secret Service is handling all security issues for the presidential vacation. We shouldn't be inviting in the local police—think of the gossip and bad publicity!" Not that Mr. Smith would mind any bad publicity if it was limited to President Garby—like confirming the stubborn rumor of Garby's latest mistress stashed away somewhere nearby on the Cape! The president deserved all the mud he stepped in since he created it.

  "Daddy has nothing to worry about," laughed Madeline. "Pepper's the best and he'll do anything for me. But I wouldn't want to be the dirtbags trying to pull anything around here! Just watch!" Finished with a smirk.

  "Well thank you, Madeline. But your father needs rest," said Lizzie as sternly as she dared. "So if you'd please…"

  Madeline reached forward and pulled her father's blankets even higher. Almost to his chin. And Mr. Smith let her. Then he smiled, maybe for the first time that day?