Killing Shore

by Timothy Fagan

  The first thing Zula noticed as she approached their table was Maddie eating from Pepper's dish. Then wiping a drop of chocolate sauce off the corner of Pepper's lip. Laughing, licking her finger. Putting on a show.

  "Oh hey," Maddie said with a little smile, seeing her before Pepper did. "It's Zula, right?" She looked like a Ralph Lauren model, little nipples sticking through her pink t-shirt, and blonde hair back in braids all cool. Does that girl even wear makeup?

  "Hey, Little Ike!" Pepper said, voice cracking, sitting up straight. "What's up?"

  "Pop just scheduled a 2 PM with the Secret Service about your little, ah, press briefing and where things stand with the Westin hunt. And you didn't answer your phone…your battery die again?"

  "Damned cell phones…" he said, coughing. Actually appeared kinda embarrassed.

  "Sorry, he's been taking care of me," said Maddie with a sleepy smile.

  Zula felt her face flush.

  "But if you've got something else to do?" she asked Pepper.

  "No, no, I'll be there. Thanks kid."

  "Right, well I've gotta get back to the Desk," she said stupidly. Self-conscious in her khaki work pants and white blouse. And mad at herself for not playing it more chill—Pepper could hook up with whoever he wanted to. But did it really have to be that super-rich, smug blonde? Fuck.

  And maybe mad at herself for being his frickin' errand girl. No wonder that's all he thought of her.

  Pepper wasn't going to get smacked around by Chief Eisenhower and the Secret Service until 2 PM. And Maddie was demanding not to go straight back to Eagle's Nest, almost throwing a mini-tantrum. So Pepper drove them back down to Shore Road and snaked their way slowly along the New Albion coast toward Chatham, killing time.

  Traffic was thick and Pepper had to focus on keeping the Porsche moving smoothly at such a slow speed, easing the clutch in and out. Maddie was going on and on about Zula. What's the deal with her? Is she dating anyone? So exotic, right? Except for her clothes…

  Pepper didn't really want to get into the Zula topic with Maddie, so instead he filled her in on the Lizzie investigation, the little he'd learned. Told her about the Delaware entity called Fulmar Limited that owned Eagle's Nest, the yachts, etc. And that Lizzie is an officer.

  "I knew it!" Maddie shouted triumphantly. "That bitch! Can't you arrest her?"

  Jeez. "No, no…it might be totally innocent," warned Pepper. "Just tax planning for rich people. But you may want to ask your dad what's up. Tell him what you're worried about, the whole Lizzie thing. Family first, right?"

  Pepper saw St. Jude's Cemetery on their left and he pulled off the road and parked. "Did I ever bring you here?"

  "This may be the one place we didn't park," Maddie giggled. She seemed to have forgotten all about Justin Case and her worries about Lizzie Concepcion.

  Pepper led her down the crushed oyster shell path into the cemetery. He stopped to show her some beach rose hips, an odd plant which looked like it had bright red apples and octopus legs. Then he led her up the rise, to the right. Stopped at two gravestones separated by empty grass from the plots around them. The first said: Mary Maureen Ryan and Kevin Mullaney Ryan. Mother and Son, Together In Eternal Rest. The second said: James Michael Ryan. Forever Duty.

  "Did you know my mom died after giving birth to my little brother, Kevin? You hadn't moved to New Albion yet. I was four years old so I don't even remember her funeral. Then baby Kevin died, two weeks after mom. Something was wrong with his lungs. So my dad had mom's grave opened up so they could rest Kevin's body in her arms. Buried her again.

  "Their grave was in the cemetery's oldest part—low down, near where we parked. A year later, a hurricane hit the Cape. It happened at high tide and a lot of the coast flooded. A bunch of graves closest to the beach were washed out to sea. For weeks after the storm, boaters came across half submerged coffins. The one with my mom and Kevin was found by a fisherman names Daniel Dunne. So my dad buried her for the third time, way up here on the hill."

  "That's sad but it's creepy too," said Maddie. "And so tragic, your dad, raising you boys alone." She put her arm around his waist, snuggled close.

  Pepper closed his eyes when Maddie's sweet, light perfume filled his nose. Flowers and grass and sunshine. He didn't know what he felt about the mother he couldn't remember. He remembered her more from that story than anything else. The woman buried three times. And he didn't want to think about his dad, how his badge came first, Jake came second and Pepper a distant last place.

  "My mom's buried in the south of France," said Maddie quietly. "In Bonnieux, where she grew up. I went back to her grave a few years ago. It's tucked up on a hill too, a cozy village cemetery in Provence. And I stood there and couldn't cry. Like it could have been anyone's grave. I didn't last ten minutes. Totally sad, right?"

  Pepper just nodded gently. He was no philosopher or wordsmith, except maybe when writing a song. He slipped off his sneaker and dumped out a few shoe-venirs which had found their way in during the walk. "This is my first time here since I got back. Last time was when we buried Jake."

  And he told her about the day Jake died, the real story. How he and Jake had been fighting on the phone. They were always fighting in those days, with words and sometimes fists. Neither willing to give an inch. Pepper down in New Albion, working for Chief Eisenhower but raising hell on and off duty. How Pepper had dared Jake to come down from Boston and straighten him out. That Jake was on his way to New Albion when he heard a call on his scanner about a jewelry store robbery in East Sandwich as he was driving by. How he'd responded, jumped right in, was first to arrive. How he was shot by the store robbers, believed to be two undocumented gangbangers from Mexico. Neither of whom had ever been apprehended.

  "So you like, blame yourself?"

  "Sure. I think about that day all the time, what I could have done differently, if I hadn't been such a self-absorbed dick." Pepper blamed everyone. Himself, because Jake wouldn't have been near East Sandwich if Pepper hadn't taunted him into coming down to the Cape. Obviously the jewelry store robbers, for shooting Jake and never paying the price. And Jake, for putting himself in their path, no bulletproof vest, no backup. For thinking he was invincible, or for not caring enough that he wasn't.

  "So sad, on such a sunny day!" she said. "You know, thinking too much, that's a kind of self-torture."

  Then two completely unexpected things happened. Maddie thrust herself down on Pepper, pressing him to the ground for a kiss. And mid-press, Pepper heard an intense slapping noise and saw the corner of his family headstone explode into fragments.

  "Christ!" screamed Maddie, and Pepper saw blood. Was it from her head? Her arm? Was she hit?

  Pepper grabbed her and pulled her down even lower on his family grave. Slap! A second bullet whizzed past, hitting a tree beyond them in an explosion of splinters.

  That was no regular handgun. It was something more powerful. A rifle?

  Pepper drew his puny Glock 23, tried to look for the gunman while keeping his face as low to Maddie's chest as he could. Would have been a pleasant experience if not for the blood, bullets and Maddie's hysterical attempts to jerk away from him.

  "Don't move," he hissed, pulling her down harder, rolling her to the side.

  Maddie's eyes were enormous and blood was flowing down her forehead, past her nose, to her open mouth.

  Slap! A huge lick of dirt sprayed them. They had to get out of there. The Porsche was waiting by the road at the bottom of the hill. Could they reach it? What if the attackers had followed them to the cemetery and saw where they left the Porsche? They might anticipate Pepper and Maddie trying to escape to it, downhill. If there was a second gunman that's where he'd be hidden.

  Pepper whispered instructions to Maddie, shaking her when she objected. He knew she was heading into shock, would soon be hard to control.

  Pepper squeezed off three quick, wild shots uphill, toward where he believed the gunman was positioned. At least Pepper was making it clear th
ey weren't completely toothless.

  "Crawl," he whispered. He pushed her ahead and they began crawling left, parallel to the hill and away from where Pepper believed the sniper was positioned. They moved from headstone to headstone as quickly as they could. After fifteen feet, Maddie started to get up. Pepper grabbed her feet, dragged her flat. She shrieked.

  Slap! Another headstone took a direct hit about ten feet ahead, sending another shower of stone shrapnel at them. Pepper felt a sting across the top of his head. Shit! He ducked lower. Then he blindly pointed his Glock uphill and fired six more times.

  Leaving him with only four bullets, he quickly calculated. They had to keep moving. He whispered to Maddie again, pushed her trim butt forward, urgently. Her white capri pants were covered in dirt and blood.

  But Maddie seemed to have a burst of adrenaline. She crawled forward so fast Pepper had trouble keeping up. Reached a small cluster of trees at the edge of a little road that wound through the cemetery.

  He pressed Maddie as low as she could get at the base of the trees. Shielded her with his body—his Glock up and ready in case the sniper came into sight. Whoever moved next was going to die.

  Then Pepper heard sirens in the distance.

  "Missed!?!" shrieked Oliver. "How can you miss an unsuspecting target with a sniper rifle?" They'd rendezvoused back at their latest swiped vehicle, a maroon Buick LaCrosse, two streets away from the cemetery and were now driving at the speed limit as far away from the damn cemetery as they could get. Oliver had been waiting down where Ryan and the girl had parked their fancy convertible, ready to ambush them with a handgun if Croke failed, but they must have escaped in a different direction. Damn local knowledge!

  Of course Croke was defiant. "You wouldn't let me practice with it," he grumbled.

  "Practice? There wasn't time, once we saw where they were on Instagram! At that distance, you should be deciding which eyelash to hit. It's automatic. I should have done it myself."

  Oliver suspected Croke's eyesight wasn't 20-20, based on his driving. Fucking Croke! Now they'd have to do it the hard way.

  But first, Oliver made the phone call to the client to break the bad news. The client was—no surprise—super pissed.

  Oliver let him vent in his garbled voice for a bit, then cut in. "We'll take care of Ryan tonight," he promised. Then inspiration hit him. A plan, coming from the surveillance he'd already done and the burning desire to not just kill, but to kill spectacularly, notoriously. To take his slaughter up a notch, Hollywood-style. "But we need you to arrange some special—and clean—equipment."

  More venting from the client…with an increased volume of curse words.

  Oliver waited it out, then interrupted. "This time? We're gonna need a bigger boat."

  A long, long pause. Oliver hoped the client wasn't a movie fan, didn't think he was being made fun of… Then the scrambled voice gave grudging agreement, with the warning that time was of the essence. The job had to happen tonight and it had to succeed.

  Oliver smiled. This'd actually be a chance to become even more infamous. "Good news," he said to Croke. "We're going to drown that bastard."

  "Okay," said Croke, slowing for a yellow light. "Which bastard?"

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  After the cemetery gunfight, Chief Eisenhower ordered Pepper Ryan to stop and to stay out of trouble. Lay low—don't shoot anyone, don't get shot. The New Albion police department would process the cemetery as a crime scene. He and Pepper would meet in the morning and Pepper would have a chance to explain himself, before the General made any final decisions.

  Final decisions? That sounded predetermined, somehow…

  Pepper had called Zula to see if she'd learned anything helpful during her research for him about the list of corporations and officers. But also to ask if she wanted to grab some dinner…he realized he missed hanging out with her. But she hadn't picked up—he must be on her shit list too.

  But Maddie? Getting injured by headstone shrapnel had oddly been a bit of a turn on for her. She'd only had a scratch on her arm, which she'd allowed paramedics to treat on the spot and refused to go to the hospital. She was giggling, flirting, exhilarated by her brush with death, drunk on adrenaline and attention. When he returned her and the Porsche to Eagle's Nest, she'd fiercely kissed him goodbye, insisting she would bring the damned First Twins to Malecón again that night. "The crazy thing is Daddy absolutely hates President Garby, called him a weasel and there's nothing that gets him madder these days," she'd said with a laugh. "And I'd like to strangle those twins instead of hugging them…but that's politics and money, right? But tonight I'm going to live…so you'd better be there tonight too. I won't take no for an answer!"

  So, sidelined by the General anyway, Pepper took an Uber to Malecón that night with the single-minded goal to let off steam. He was hoping a series of Jack Daniels shots and beer chasers would reboot his brain, shake off his near-death encounter and the threat of his meeting the next morning with the General. Pepper wasn't playing around with daiquiris or margaritas. Pepper was just planning to get drunk—no need to make a circus of it.

  Two guys and a woman were onstage, doing a serviceable but somewhat mellow set. The dance floor was empty. It was somewhere around 10 P.M.

  Then, comfortably buzzed and hanging near the bar, Pepper got waylaid by Angel. As his buddy pointed out, Pepper owed him after running out again the night before. So before Pepper knew it, he'd jumped in with the group on stage. A couple songs later, when the band headed to a break, he asked if they'd mind him playing on, solo. And they didn't mind at all. Pepper was still floating along on the rush of booze and performing and switched to his original songs.

  Which were a little rowdier than the tunes the trio had been playing. The crowd seemed to love his stuff. One song blended to the next, his old showmanship flowing too, whipping the crowd into a party mood. When the band finally came back from their break, Pepper stayed to accompany them. Now they were playing more up-tempo radio stuff, songs everyone knew, but Pepper was still having a blast. It was great to just be doing what he loved again, for the fun of it, no baggage.

  Then there was a surge and a fuss by the patio entrance. A large group of buzz cut heads, serious faces. Then too-loud laughter, hands in the air. The First Daughters had arrived again.

  And Maddie Smith. He saw her smiling at something one of the twins said. Laughing. Like she hadn't almost been shot that afternoon. She looked about twelve years old tonight, her blonde hair back in braids again. She was wearing a peach colored bandeau top and a white skirt almost to her knees, an ensemble marred only by the white bandage on her arm.

  The twins worked their way through the dancing bodies to claim a space right below Pepper. They each had a drink in their hand and were dancing with practiced abandon.

  Then Maddie was up front too. Then she was on stage, twirling, toasting the crowd, shimmying to the song with Pepper. It was a romantic Luke Bryan song with a great groove and she made it even better. Now the twins were on stage too, and it was getting past capacity.

  But Pepper let things go on because he saw Angel by the bar, beaming. His arms wide to say, "Told you kid!"

  Two more songs and then Pepper bowed out, handing the show back to the band, getting one last roar of applause. He didn't even feel the steps as he came off stage. Angel gave him a full body hug by the bar and then Maddie and the twins swept over with a few other people. Angel stood them all a round of Patron shots. Or was it three rounds?

  Justin Case wanted his Maddie back, bad. He didn't care that she'd been a C U Next Tuesday. He wanted back into her world. He felt like he'd been kicked in the nuts, kicked to the curb, kicked like a —

  What was the word he was looking for?

  He'd gone to that Cuban bar again to confront her. To take her by the hand and the heart. But after he arrived, he'd stayed in the background, low key for once, sucking down mojitos and Moscow mules, waiting for his opening. Seen Maddie arrive with the cocktease twins
from hell. Seen Maddie dancing on stage with that cop, Ryan. Maddie laughing and flirting like a slut, like Justin had never existed.

  He decided to confront his girl and Ryan in a place a little more…private. He'd borrowed a pepper spray keychain from a female fan, which Justin thought would help convince the cop to fuck right off, get his own girl. So Justin caught a Lyft to the cop's address, but only found a silver trailer there…cop pay must be shit. And Justin caught a break—the trailer door was unlocked. He went inside, stood facing the doorway. Angry and drunk. Pepper spray at the ready. Then he got the humor of it—ambushing Pepper Ryan with pepper spray—it was going to be so fucking apropos! He knew they'd be coming there to do the deed—he'd seen Ryan's hand on her hip, already proprietary. And he knew they wouldn't go to Eagle's Nest—her rich daddy hated Pepper Ryan even more than he hated Justin, and that was saying something.

  As the minutes passed, Justin decided it might make sense to sit down. He pulled out his vape pen. Maybe a few hits of weed oil would take the edge off his drunken state. His head felt thick from the mojitos and Moscow mules, but he needed to be on point, to win back his babe!

  Pepper took a free ride back to Eagle's Nest. They were a sloppy bunch at this point. Laughing and laughing, about nothing in particular, little things someone had said at the bar. Everyone laughing except their sober Secret Service driver.

  When they arrived at Eagle's Nest, Pepper and Maddie lost themselves from the group, slipped around the side of the main mansion. So they wandered down to the beach, past more Secret Service. Laughing about how it must look on the surveillance cameras, how many sensors they were tripping.

  It was almost completely dark due to thick clouds blocking the moon and stars. Somehow they were both barefoot, but Pepper couldn't remember where they'd lost their shoes. They were down near the inky water's edge. Close enough to get caught by the fingers of the biggest waves, the quick chill grabbing them as they danced upward to drier sand.