Private Detective: BENNINGTON P.I.: A thrilling four-novel political murder mystery private detective series...

by D. W. Ulsterman

  Where the hell can I hide?

  Beyond the salon, toward the bow of the boat, was the area Walt had used as his bedroom. It had a small bathroom on the right side adjacent to the single bed where inside, I found a stand up shower stall with a single curtain that separated the shower area from the rest of the bathroom. Not the ideal place to hide out, but given I could both hear and feel the two men making their way onto the boat, I didn’t have much choice.

  I pulled the shower curtain closed and stood as quiet as possible. On the other end of the yacht, the sound of the men attempting to pull open the now locked salon door reverberated around me. This was followed by the men’s footsteps gently vibrating the inside of the shower stall as they made their way down the yacht’s side walkway.

  “You see anything?”

  “No, nothing. If he’s coming back here, I don’t think he’s done it yet. Looks just like we left it yesterday.”

  I didn’t recognize either of the two voices, but if they weren’t law enforcement, and they were here yesterday, that meant they were probably the ones who killed Walt.

  “So what do we do? Wait around here for him to show up? What if the cops come by again?”

  Whoever the second man was took several seconds before they responded.

  “I guess we wait in the parking lot by the gate. That way we see anyone coming or going. If he shows up, we take him out.”

  “What’s the guy’s name again?”

  This time the second voice didn’t hesitate in his reply.

  “Bennington - older guy. That was his place the cops went to this morning after they finished up here.”

  The Chris Craft shifted in the water as the two men made their way off the boat and back onto the dock. I walked slowly back into the salon and peeked through a window, grateful to see both men already making their way back up to the parking lot.

  That left the predicament though of how I was to get past them. There was only one way into and out of the marina, and that was through that single entrance gate.

  There’s only one way on foot you old fool. Use your head!

  My eyes drifted to the large front windows of the salon overlooking the yacht’s large, outside bow area. Sitting on that bow, covered under a wind torn blue tarp, was a small, decrepit wooden dinghy attached by a rope to a metal hoist meant to move the dinghy into and out of the water.

  Just drift on out of here and leave those two murdering bastards behind.

  It took me about five minutes to lower the dinghy into the water. Two oars were at the bottom of the small boat which I used to slowly push myself into the middle of the marina and then follow the shoreline toward a restaurant overlooking the water that was another hundred yards to the north. A short pier jutted out from the restaurant’s small parking area that I tied up to, stepping off of the dinghy and becoming a somewhat reluctant landlubber once again.

  From there I used my cell phone to call another taxi as I withdrew the key I had just taken from Walt’s boat and looked it over as a low flying seagull eyed me from above.

  My next stop was Union Station and what I hoped to be a storage locker with some answers.

  11.

  It was the end of the workday rush by the time the cab dropped me off in front of Gate A at Union Station. That was good. I wanted lots of people around me just in case I was being followed.

  Inside Gate A were rows of solid colored storage lockers. Some were very small units capable of holding no more than a woman’s purse, while others were larger. I had no idea what locker the key I had taken from Walt’s boat belonged to.

  I took the key out and held it up, peering at every detail on its dull copper colored surface. Nothing on the key indicated which locker it belonged to. With hundreds of lockers, it would take hours to check each one, and certainly my attempts to open every locker in the place would draw the kind of attention I didn’t need right now.

  Walt had to have left me a clue, something he thought I could figure out.

  Again I looked over the black and white photograph of Jacob Talbot standing very near to where I now stood. I could see the row of storage lockers behind him. All the lockers appeared a solid, dark color except for one in the very far left corner of the photo. It was lighter, with a very subtle, pinkish hue.

  Pink? This photograph is black and white. How the hell am I seeing pink?

  That was it – clearly Walt, or someone, had carefully doctored the picture just enough to allow a clue for someone looking closely enough for one. My eyes scanned upward from the photograph to the area directly in front of me, and the rows of lockers. At the very end, to my left, was a locker that was unmistakably pinkish in color.

  Bingo.

  Looking around to determine if I was being watched and seeing nothing, I then walked slowly between the bustling bodies of the after work crowd, making my way toward the locker. On the front was a small keyhole. I withdrew the key from my pocket and inserted it into the keyhole and paused for just a second before attempting to turn it to the right.

  It didn’t work.

  I then turned the key to the left, unaware I was holding my breath as I did so.

  The locker opened.

  Inside was a plain manila envelope which I withdrew and placed inside my coat against me chest while again looking around me to see if I was being monitored. I didn’t want to open the envelope here, but also knew going back to my apartment wasn’t safe either.

  My favorite bar, Off the Record was just five minutes by cab. I’d head there, sit down at my table in the corner next to the fireplace, break this envelope open, and see what the hell was inside.

  Hopefully it’d be some answers.

  My cell phone rang. It was Stanislov.

  “Hello, Mr. Bennington. I was informed you are no longer in your apartment. Give the authorities the slip did you?”

  My paranoia returned, causing me to glance at the swirling crowd for anyone looking back at me.

  “I didn’t break the law. I’m allowed to come and go as I please, right?”

  The attorney chuckled.

  “Absolutely, Mr. Bennington, they haven’t arrested you. Though I’m certain the officer assigned to watch your apartment had a very unhappy supervisor.”

  I began moving toward the street again, looking for a cab while still holding the cell phone to my ear.

  “Not my problem. So what do you want?”

  Stanislov paused on the other end. I sensed he was considering his words carefully before speaking them.

  “Where are you at? Your disappearance lends a certain appearance of guilt that the authorities might use to justify future decisions involving your situation.”

  I wasn’t about to tell anyone where I was, including the attorney.

  “I’m safe, Stanislov, that’s all I’m gonna say for now. You told me to find answers. That’s what I’m doing.

  Again the attorney paused before replying.

  “That’s correct, but I wanted to inform you I’ve been told the D.A. is pushing a search warrant for your apartment, Mr. Bennington. It could be issued by tomorrow morning, perhaps sooner.”

  I stopped and raised my free hand to signal for a cab.

  “Then it’s up to you to keep my ass out of jail, Stanislov. They can search my apartment all they want. I have nothing to hide there. Are they gonna arrest me?”

  I could hear the attorney inhaling and then exhaling slowly.

  “I don’t know that yet. If they find nothing in your apartment, it would seem a case against you would be very thin indeed. Then again, who knows? I cannot predict the often unpredictable nature of those we deem worthy of upholding and executing the law. Frankly, I’m a bit surprised they’ve been this aggressive in moving against you already.”

  A cab pulled up next to me.

  “I’ll check in with you tomorrow, Stanislov. Appreciate your help.”

  I glanced at the cab’s driver, a rather large, multiple chinned man with three days of beard, and a so
iled t-shirt that looked as if it had been worn by him since Clinton was president.

  “Take me just up the road to the Off the Record.”

  As I sat down in the backseat and reached out to close the passenger door behind me, another man attempted to push his way inside of the cab.

  “Hey asshole, I ain’t sharing! Wait for the next one.”

  The man, whoever he was, ignored the remark, and continued to push against me to move over in the seat.

  “Hey! This cab is taken buddy!”

  The man turned around and looked at me. His face, though now covered in a full, salt and pepper colored beard, was instantly recognizable to me.

  “Hello Frank, I’m Jacob, Jacob Talbot. And might I add, it’s about damn time you got here.”

  12.

  I managed to hide my shock at seeing Jacob Talbot sharing a cab with me, instead looking back at him as if his arrival was completely expected.

  “I remember you from the campaign all those years ago.”

  Talbot leaned back in his seat and offered up a thin smile. His hair had thinned considerably, the sides now mostly grey. His face was leaner, almost wolfish, and his green eyes, sitting behind thick framed glasses, indicated a great fatigue.

  “That was another life, and a far less important one for me Mr. Bennington. And now, seeing you here, I would assume a less important time for you as well. You have the information Walt left you?’

  I felt the manila envelope pushing against my chest, but knew better than to admit its existence to Talbot. At least until he proved himself worthy of my trust.

  “No, just a hunch that proved empty.”

  Jacob Talbot removed his glasses to clean them with a cream colored handkerchief he pulled from the front pocket of his dark blue blazer. Along with the blazer, he wore casual, loose fitting tan khakis, and a well worn pair of dark brown, Oxford styled shoes.

  “And where are we going now?”

  The guy was assuming he was coming with me? Not so fast there asshole.

  “You think we’re some kind of team now, is that it?”

  Talbot was unfazed by my rebuke, though his eyes, once again ensconced behind his glasses, appeared even more tired than just moments before.

  “Do you want answers? If you do, then you’ll want me here with you to provide them. If not, I’ll just disappear, and try and do this on my own.”

  I looked over at Talbot as the cab pulled up to the entrance of the Off the Record.

  Talbot looked out the window and this time, allowed himself a genuine smile, his eyes lighting up like the face of a child on Christmas morning.

  “I haven’t been to this place in years! It hasn’t changed a bit!”

  I gave a quiet snort as I moved to open the rear door of the cab.

  “Wish I could say the same for the rest of the world.”

  Talbot’s voice grew distant, his mind seeming to travel back to a simpler and safer time in his own life.

  “I know what you mean.”

  As I walked down the stairs to the entrance of the Off the Record, I could hear Talbot struggling to catch up to me.

  “So it’s ok that I join you?”

  I stopped and whirled around, looking the other man up and down several times before responding.

  “Yeah, you can sit down, buy me a drink or three, and if you got any information on what the hell happened to Walt, tell me all about it. I get any indication you’re playing me though, deceiving me in any way, and we’re done here. Got it?”

  Talbot nodded once.

  “I understand, Mr. Bennington.”

  I jabbed my right pointer finger lightly against Talbot’s chest.

  “Just call me Frank. Mr. Bennington was my father.”

  A few minutes later found me sitting across from Jacob Talbot with a double shot of single malt Scotch over ice at my usual table adjacent to the fireplace in the far left corner of the Off the Record, the place that had been for many years, my second home in Washington D.C. It was a location I still felt safe in. I’d logged thousands of hours sitting inside the Off the Record, and seen some of the greatest political movers and shakers of their day laid low under the influence of too much drink. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss those times just a bit. There were only ten others in the dark wooded and deep red colored interior of the bar, allowing Talbot and me plenty of privacy to talk over with him about what he knew.

  “So spill it,Talbot. The last twenty four hours have been challenging enough without having to sit and listen to bullshit. Just come out and say it – what’s going on? What was Walt mixed up in?”

  Talbot scanned the room around them, his eyes momentarily settling on every person in the bar before moving on to the next one. I realized then the guy was nervous – a lot more scared than he was letting on inside the cab.

  “I want to tell you first Mr., I mean, Frank. I want to tell you that Walt was my friend. We had delved into this subject some time ago, left it, and then for some reason, he decided he wanted to bring it out into the light once again. Perhaps he thought it would give his life some meaning, or be one more go round. I don’t really know, he didn’t say much about that part of it. He was very determined though to see this through. He wanted it exposed. All of it.”

  I downed my drink and signaled for another. Talbot was talking in circles and it was giving me a headache. I understood why he was doing it – he wasn’t sure he could trust me, any more than I was sure I could trust him, so the circular talking was just a matter of him trying to feel me out. Knowing that’s what he was doing didn’t make me any less impatient for him to get to the damn point though.

  “How about you just tell me what it, is? I don’t have time to be trying to guess at what you’re almost getting at.”

  Jacob Talbot watched me take a sip from my second double Scotch, his eyes narrowing, becoming exponentially more intense.

  “Perhaps you should first take a look at what Walt left you Frank inside the storage locker Frank. I’m pretty sure is hiding inside of your jacket.”

  I downed what remained of my Scotch and smiled.

  “Tell you what, I’m gonna go use the bathroom and then come back here and by then, you’re gonna figure out a way to get to the point. If you can’t do that, then our talk here is done, and we go our separate ways.”

  Talbot simply shrugged.

  “I’ll do my best, Frank. Don’t forget to wash your hands.”

  I made the short walk to the men’s room, entered one of the two stalls inside and sat down on the closed toilet seat while removing the manila envelope from inside my jacket. I opened the envelope and carefully withdrew its contents. It appeared to be a collection of papers and documents on top of which was a yellow sticky note written in what I assumed was Walt’s handwriting.

  Don’t trust Talbot.

  I was just about to look through the collection of papers when the bathroom door opened, and the sound of slowly approaching footsteps could be heard making their way toward my stall. I leaned down and peered underneath the stall door, and recognized the dark brown Oxford shoes of the person now standing directly on the other side of the door.

  They were the shoes of Jacob Talbot.

  13.

  Talbot stood silently outside my stall for several seconds as I just as silently returned the manila envelope to the inside of my jacket.

  “Are you in there Mr. Bennington? I mean, Frank?”

  I didn’t respond right away, wondering if Talbot could be so desperate as to consider trying to kill me in a bathroom at least a few people noticed him walking into.

  “What do you want, Talbot? I’m not really comfortable with other men following me into the restroom if you take my meaning.”

  Talbot issued a short chuckle.

  “There’s two men who came into the bar, Frank. They showed badges and I overheard them saying your name. They spoke with the bartender who I don’t think indicated he’d seen you.”

  The bartender would be
Reg, the main bartender at the Off the Record for the last five years. He was in his mid forties, tall, with a lean, athletic build, and the good sense to keep his mouth shut when the job required. He knew the beautiful and or powerful people of D.C. came in here to hide from the world, and yes, sometimes the authorities. He wouldn’t have given me up.

  “Go back to our table and wait for me there.”