Calamity (Captain Grande Angil Mysteries)

by Robert G. Bernstein

  “Tell me about your husband, Jenny. He was a lawyer, right?

  She wiped away her tears using both sleeves of her bathrobe and blew her nose with the last tissue in a box on the end table.

  “He was an attorney with a prominent law firm in Boston. They specialized in criminal and constitutional law. If he had lived the President would have made him a special prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney General. He was very excited about the position.”

  “President Clinton, right?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What did he do before he became a lawyer? Where did he go to school?”

  “He went to West Point as an undergraduate, served in the military and then went to Harvard on a combination of his VA benefits and a scholarship. He graduated in the top two percent of his class.”

  “Vietnam?”

  “Yes. How did you know? Three years.”

  “Did he ever talk about it?”

  “No, not really. He was very secretive, at least about his service during the war. Sometimes he would tell me about his training or his time in military school or about a buddy from the unit. Never war stories. Good God no. Not Allen.”

  “Ever hear him talk of a Preston Mellville?

  “Not that I can remember. Was this man a friend or associate of my husband’s? A war buddy?”

  “I’m not sure, Jenny,” I said. “It’s just a name that popped up. I’m not sure it means anything. Do you know what branch Allen was in? Navy, Army, Marines—”

  “Air Force, I believe. He flew airplanes. He loved to fly. He flew small planes right into his late fifties. He stopped flying when Aaron was born.”

  “Do you know when he got out?” I asked.

  “Of the service? Nineteen sixty-nine, or seventy, I think. I’m not sure.”

  My line of questioning was making her very suspicious.

  “He must have discharge papers,” I said.

  “The only papers I have of his are the ones he had in his office at the time of the fire, and some papers that were in our safety deposit box. Everything else was lost. Everything he has left has been placed in secure storage.”

  “I’d like to look through those papers,” I said.

  Jenny Bowers placed both hands on her knees, leaned forward and looked me squarely in the eyes.

  “Captain Angil,” she said.”What does all this have to do with Aaron?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe nothing.”

  26

  I met Zeke in the hotel’s lounge for lunch. Jenny ordered in, preferring, as Zeke explained, to have her meals in her room, either by herself or with him. The days before and after Christmas would always weigh heavily on the two of them, like a wet and cold impenetrable fog that never lifted. Holidays, birthdays, the anniversaries of the fire and the day Aaron left for good, the day Jenny signed the papers giving him up for adoption, the day he was lost at sea. The sadness was ever present. No wonder she never stayed long in one place.

  The Bar Harbor Cub offered panoramic views of the bay through spacious floor to ceiling windows. Antique cherry and birch wood panels and moldings, large, comfortable chairs and soft linens, gave the place an Old World, New England charm. Zeke, wearing a brushed suede blue blazer, tan slacks, a blue button down shirt and a pair of brown Oxfords, had picked a table by the fireplace, next to the grand piano. I joined him, feeling a bit underdressed in my jeans and wool plaid short. When I sat he raised his powerful arm to draw the waiter’s attention. Big as he was, he moved with the grace of a dancer.

  “I waited for you,” Zeke said. “Want a drink?”

  I looked at the waiter. “Glenlivet. Double. On the rocks,” I said.

  “I’ll have the same,” Zeke said, then added. “Keep ‘em coming.”

  “Great minds,” I said. “You think I can get a room here?”

  “I got you one already,” Zeke said.

  “Thanks.”

  The waiter brought our drinks. I took a long pull of mine and felt the warm, smoky flavor all the way in the pit of my stomach. Right then and there I knew that I would be comfortably drunk by dinner and in an alcohol-induced sleep by twenty one hundred. People who said booze didn’t wash away their cares had never listened to a story such as the one told by Jenny Bowers.

  “What whisky will not cure, there is no cure for,” I said.

  “Physician heal thyself, eh?” Zeke said.

  “I wish. Unfortunately, Zeke, we both know there’s no cure for what ails us.”

  “This won’t make it worse, though.” He held up his glass and took a modest sip. I had already sipped through half of mine.

  “Did you know her husband?” I said.

  Zeke tensed momentarily. “Never had the pleasure of meeting the man” He brought his drink to his nose and sniffed the amber liquid, then he placed the drink gently on the table. His massive hand and fingers made the glass look no bigger than a garment worker's thimble. “When I first started with The Lady and met her people, her lawyer, broker, accountant, people like that, they would volunteer information. From what they said I gathered he was quite the gladiator.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was told he started his career looking out for the little guy. I guess he made his name working with the Attorney General during Watergate. That went extremely well for him, helping to bring down a president and all. A friend of The Lady’s told me Mr. Bowers then left government and joined one of the biggest law firms in Maryland. Guy said Alan Bowers took hardship cases pro bono. Man had a conscience.”

  “Jenny said he was going back to government.”

  “A special prosecutor,” Zeke said.

  “That would have been a huge pay cut.”

  “No matter to a man like that. I handle all The Lady’s financing and manage her portfolio. Without getting into specifics, Mr. Bowers didn’t need no money. They lived frugal, and he saved. Big time.”

  My second drink came and I took a sip while staring at the huge, black enigma in front of me. When I’d first met him, he threatened to kill me if I so much as looked sideways at Jenny. He was like a muscle man for a murderous street gang. And when I confronted him in Massachusetts, he played it like a dumb puppy. No education. No ambition. Bu nothing could be further from the truth. Looking at him now made me think of a sixteenth century Samurai. Schooled in art, science, poetry, finance, military affairs and all manner of social and cultural graces.

  “What you starin’ at?” he said.

  “You surprise me, that’s all,” I said.

  “Back at ya, Captain.” He raised his glass and I raised mine. We clinked across the table and drank. I finished my third Scotch while he started on his second. Menus arrived and we ordered. A filet mignon in a rosemary dijonnaise and a glass of Merlot for him; stuffed haddock and asparagus and two bottles of Samual Smith’s Original Lager for me. The food came with perfect timing even though the restaurant had filled to capacity and a least a half dozen other tables were waiting for their orders.

  We ate heartily and with few words spoken between us while three hardwood logs burned yellow and orange in the fireplace a few feet away. A warm, homey atmosphere engulfed our tiny enclave, and the effects of the single malt and beer were enough for me to temporarily place Jenny’s story in a back room of my mind and close the door. Zeke made certain I didn’t turn the lock.

  “What do you think of her?” he said.

  “Jenny?” I said, polishing off the last of my Smith’s. “I’m not sure I would have survived it. I would have become an angry, intolerable drunk. Or worse.”

  “No you wouldn’t have. You would have gone on.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m a good judge of character.”

  “You didn’t seem so convinced of my character when we first met.”

  “Testing you.”

  “Right.” I let the word ring out, partly for emphasis and partly because I was getting a little drunk.

  “You passed the test,�
�� Zeke said.

  “And still you followed me to Annapolis.”

  “I knew you were tough enough. The question was: Whose side were you on? Yours or The Lady’s?”

  “You get your answer?”

  “To be honest, not quite,” Zeke said. “But I’m willing to wait on it. You deserve that much.”

  “She listens to you, doesn’t she?” I said.

  Zeke nodded matter of fact and called for the waiter. He ordered two more Glenlivets and asked for the desert menu.

  “I thought after desert we’d go for a walk,” he said. “You can show me around Bar Harbor. It’s Friday night.”

  “Not much open this time of year except the pubs and taverns,” I said.

  “My kind of town,” he said.

  27

  When you’re bar hopping in a northern New England town at Christmas time with a six foot seven inch, three hundred and ten pound black man you’re going to get a few people staring. Frankly, I found it a bit irritating. Zeke, on the other hand, told me to shut up and keep drinking.

  “Cap,” he said, “let me tell you what it’s like being me.”

  We were standing at the bar at our last stop of the night, Leary’s Irish Pub on Cottage Street. It was packed in tight with the usual holiday crowd: family from away visiting loved ones, half a dozen quirky locals, and a group of four, hard core fishermen I had met earlier who said they were off an eastern rigged scalloper on its way to Lunenburg.

  “First . . . the women,” Zeke said. “Half of them are scared to death of me; the other half treat me like a sex toy.”

  “How awful for you,” I said.

  “Shut up and let me finish,” he said. “The men aren’t much different.”

  “Now you’re scaring me.”

  “Not like that. Or maybe it is like that, who the hell knows? Half of ‘em think I’m gonna roll ‘em and the other half – who should be scared of me — want to take me on. Mark my words, before this night is over, we’ll meet up with more assholes than a proctologist.”

  “And the women?” I said.

  “By midnight, you and I will be going our separate ways.” He smiled like a Cheshire cat.

  I glanced to my left and saw a young woman in her twenties at the end of the bar staring at us . . . correction, staring at Zeke. She wore leotards with black and white horizontal stripes, a long wool scarf that reached the floor, a fake fur jacket and a black derby. Zeke winked at her and she blushed.

  “Hey dog,” I said to Zeke. “Is that off the hinges or what?”

  Zeke raised one of his fuzzy eyebrows Spock-like and shot me a hard look.

  “I was being hip,” I said.

  “Yeah, hip if you Randy Jackson or a gang-banger from East L.A. If you a middle aged, white ship captain in an Irish bar it sound less hip and a lot more ludicrous. Do you even know what ‘off the hinges’ means?”

  “I think it means she’s an attractive woman with whom I’d like to get further acquainted,” I said.

  “Well, you ain’t too far off. How do you even know that?”

  “If I tell you, you’ll have to kill me.”

  “Isn’t it usually the other way around,” Zeke said.

  “Usually, yes. But Your Ebony-ness makes that particular outcome highly improbable.”

  Zeke smiled, ordered another round. “You’re drunk,” he said.

  “I’m not so thunk and you drink I am.”

  “Last one,” he said.

  “Fine with me,” I said. “I’m well sloughed if you want to go.”

  “One more,” he said. “Then we’ll go. Besides, you still haven’t answered my question.”

  “What question?”

  “About The Lady?”

  “What about her?”

  Our drinks came, another shot of Benvenie and a Stout chaser for me and a glass of Merlot for Zeke. I noticed he hadn’t finished his last glass and suspected he wouldn’t drink much, if any, of the fresh one. Indeed, I had consumed enough alcohol over the previous eight hours to pickle a small moose, and I was very drunk, but I knew enough and maintained enough control to act tipsier than I was. I also knew and pretended not to notice that Zeke had been plying me with booze while imbibing very little himself.

  “I was just wondering if you thought she was attractive.” Zeke said.

  “Jenny Bowers,” I said, “is an elegant, magnificent woman. The pain I feel for her has burrowed itself deep into my soul. I wish . . .”

  I left my thought hanging, then polished off my last shot and set the glass on the bar upside down. I took a sip of my Stout and said: “Let’s get out of here, Zeke.”

  We walked out of Leary’s, took a left on Cottage Street and another left on Main. Sure enough, about halfway down Main, on our way back to the shore and the hotel, three drunks coming out of Geddy’s looked at Zeke and me and made a series of disparaging remarks about Zeke’s size and the color of his skin. Stepping in front of Zeke, and without breaking stride, I threw a short, right upper cut that caught the biggest of the three squarely under the chin. There was a distinctive double-crack sound as my knuckles hit and his lower jaw snapped up into his upper jaw. He went backwards and as he did I caught his jacket collar and eased him onto the sidewalk to prevent his head from hitting the pavement. That’s where the real danger lies, in the head injury that follows the fall.

  I never changed my pace or lost stride. I stepped lively for West Street and Zeke stayed right with me. When we turned the corner at West I looked back and saw the two friends of the guy I hit helping him to his feet. “I could hear him saying, “Wh’ th’ f’ hap’n?”

  Zeke and I walked quickly across West Street and took the back way to the hotel. As we entered the lobby, Zeke turned to me and said: “I thought you were drunk.”

  “I sober up quick,” I said. “Want a nightcap?”

  “Why not?” he said.

  We went into the bar and waited for the cops. They never showed. I had another Glenlivet and Jake stared at another glass of Merlot. By this time, with the adrenaline wearing off, I was slurring my words for real. Zeke helped me to my room, dropped me on one of the two queen size beds and turned off the light by the bathroom.

  “I’m not undressing you,” he said.

  “Oh sure,” I said. “Be a tease.”

  “See you tomorrow,” he said and left.

  I laid half on and half off the bed for about five minutes in the dark, moments away from sleep, until I heard a card key working the lock on the door. I reached under my jacket for the forty-five and felt its reassuring grip in my palm. Someone came into my room and then shut the door. It was very dark, but I could sense the person standing in the narrow hall between the bathroom and the closet, tentative, cautious. A professional would have made it quick. They would have struck fast and sure.

  I slid the Warthog out of the holster. To mask the sound, I groaned and moved on the bed as if I were half asleep. The person in the hall moved farther into the room. I could see an outline. Tall, shapely . . . feminine. I put the gun on the table.

  “I’ll leave if you want,” Jenny said from across the room.

  “No,” I said. “I want you to stay. Should I turn on a light?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” she said.

  She shed her robe, dropped it at her feet, stepped out and then just stood there. In a sliver of light penetrating the closed window shades I could see she was completely naked.

  “Tell me what to do,” I said.

  She was crying.

  “Make love to me,” she said.

  28

  When I woke up in the morning Jenny and Zeke were gone, checked out. No note. No instructions. I drove back to Turkey Cove in the Chevy rental and played-back the messages on my answering machine. There were calls from the ex-wives, the kids, one from Warren Post’s friend, the retired air traffic controller in Bangor, a call from Stade, and a message from a storage facility in Needham, Massachusetts.

  My curiosity getting the
best of me, I called the storage facility first. The receptionist there told me they needed my address so they could send me several boxes registered to a Mr. Allen Bowers.

  “Who instructed you to send me these?” I said to the girl on the phone.

  She paused a few seconds. I could hear paper shuffling. “A Mrs. Jenny Bowers. She called earlier this morning and gave me your telephone number. She said I should arrange the delivery with you directly.”

  “Yes, of course. Send the boxes.” I gave her the address. “By the way, how long have these been in storage?”

  I heard more shuffling of papers. “Let me see,” the girl said. “October nineteen, nineteen ninety-seven. Thirteen, going on fourteen years.”

  “Who delivered them to you?”

  “Oh, gee,” she said. “Should I be answering these questions?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Should you? Tell you what. I’ll hold on while you check with Mrs. Bowers.”

  “Oh, if you say it’s OK with her . . . I don’t see the harm.” I waited a few seconds for her to find the right paper. “They were delivered, yes, it’s right here, Federal Express Ground, and the return address is: Chalmers, Bowers and Tate, Attorneys at Law, Boston, Massachusetts. Do you need the exact address?”

  “No, that’s fine,” I said. “Mrs. Bowers never claimed the boxes?”

  “No, sir. I have the sign-in and sign-out sheet and there were only two visitors in the last thirteen years. Someone named Ramsey Davis came in to collect the boxes soon after they were delivered in October of ninety-seven. It says here he was denied access and his request to take the boxes was refused by the tenant. That’s not so unusual. We’re a secure, guarded and climate-controlled facility. We have special clients, and we don’t let anybody in without authorization. People try. They give us fake names and identification and think they can just walk in here and take what they want. I called the police just the other day on a guy who tried to bluff his way in. They arrested him on the spot.”

  “Good for you,” I said. “Who was the other person?”