Calamity (Captain Grande Angil Mysteries)

by Robert G. Bernstein

  Hell of a time to be playing Wheel of Fortune, I thought.

  “Sure, sure...” Hollyoake said, nodding. “I remember now. It was called Jimmy-Fizz. They had a catch phrase, too. Something like: ‘It’ll blow you mind.’ Perfect, huh? Don’t forget it was nineteen sixty-nine.”

  “Somebody really had it in for us, I mean, those kids back then,” I said. “Person needs a gut full of animosity to come up with a plan like this. Twenty tons of spiked bug juice. If you figure the weight of a bottle, contents and the crate, we’re looking at about sixty to eighty-thousand bottles, maybe fifty-thousand to one hundred thousand kids doped out of their minds on military grade hallucinogen. Senator, do you remember who it was that gave you your orders?”

  Hollyoake glanced around the room and made eye contact with each of us for the appropriate amount of time. He pursed his lips and thought carefully about what he wanted to say and how he would say it. The quintessential politician. Always on stage, always playing to the crowd.

  “We had a higher-ranked operations chief on the base,” he said. “He was a few years older than the rest of us. Other than picking up flight plans and such, we had very little contact with him. I’m almost certain he was the guy who gave us our orders that day.”

  “Remember his name?”

  “Melvin something.”

  George and I looked at each other. George grinned.

  “Did you know Allen Bowers was trying to find out who he was?” I said to Hollyoake.

  “Yes. Allen wouldn’t let go of it. I tried to get him to move on.”

  “He wanted the truth to come out before he would work in government,” I said.

  “Correct.”

  “Did you help him with his investigation?”

  “Oh no,” Hollyoake said emphatically. “I didn’t want to have anything to do with his investigation, and he absolutely didn’t want me involved. It was a mutual feeling. Look, you have to understand, I loved Allen, but we disagreed on this. My party had been courting me for a run in the Democratic Primary at the same time he was looking into some very controversial and sinister covert ops he and I had taken part in. While I believed ultimately we did the right thing, and I respected Allen’s intent, I wasn’t happy about the timing of his investigation.”

  “What did you do?” I said.

  “What could I do? Nothing. He was my best friend. I told the party no. I figured I would wait and see how Allen’s investigation played out.”

  “And then the fire happened,” I said.

  Jenny flinched at hearing the word “fire” and started to cry. Not sobbing, just wetness in the corners of the eyes, gravity doing the rest. A tear dropped onto Hollyoake’s pant leg. He reacted by squeezing her hands and holding her closer. His remorse seemed genuine and palpable.

  “After the fire I decided not to run,” he said. “I also made changes in the way I did business. I took a more active roll in my investments and my associations with people and organizations. I wanted to live-up to Allen’s standards.”

  “Is that when you sold out of SafeOps?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Hollyoake said, a look of surprise on his face. “But it wasn’t just SafeOps. I sold my shares and interests in a dozen or more companies, and I told everyone who worked for me that from now on every connection I and my office or campaign would have would be properly vetted.”

  “So you had questions or doubts about SafeOps thirteen years ago?”

  “I wouldn’t say doubts of illegality,” Hollyoake said. “They are in fact an international security and military support company. Operations and clients in that business can sometimes be construed as having, shall we say, questionable origins.”

  “Forgive me for asking, Senator,” I said, “But why didn’t those concerns stop you from investing in the first place?

  “Good question,” he said without blinking. “It was something out there. A business opportunity. All of us who came out of the intelligence service and who made a bit of money were approached. It was our bailiwick. Even Allen had an investment for a while, but he got out years before I did. Believe me, it’s not unusual for venture capitalists to seek out their own kind for financing.”

  Hollyoake took a deep breath and let it out. “Anyway,” he added. “Point is, the accident changed me. It took me to a different place in my personal and professional life.”

  Hollyoake’s last words hung heavy in the air between all of us. We glanced briefly at each other. There was quiet in the recovery room, a stillness with its own particular definition, like the edge of a fog bank on a windless, hot summer night. The time had come to drop the bomb.

  “It wasn’t an accident,” I said.

  Immediately on hearing the words Jenny pulled away from Hollyoake’s grasp and covered her face with her hands. She sobbed, her chest heaving. The Senator cloaked her in his arms and rocked her gently from side to side. He was using all his strength to keep from crying, too.

  “No, Jenny,” I said. “It’s not what you think, what you feared all these years. Aaron wasn’t responsible. He didn’t set the fire. He was innocent, a pawn in somebody else’s protection scheme.”

  I told Senator Hollyoake and Jenny everything I knew about SafeOps, Hadley and Mr. English. I told it just the way Zeke had told me, except I purposely left out Zeke’s complicity. If he made it through his surgery and the recovery period, and I honestly hoped he would, he had every right to explain himself to Jenny face to face. There was a confession to be made, and he deserved his chance to make it. He earned as much by protecting her for thirteen years and then saving the two of us by ramrodding English out of the clinic’s second story window.

  Jenny calmed down and listened intently as I described the events of the past few days. I told them both why Zeke had hidden her and given her a sedative, why I had flown down to Annapolis, how I’d gotten myself abducted, how Zeke had rescued me and how and why we had ended up at Greenbrier. Half way through my speech the Senator got up and paced the small room. When he had finished pacing he was full of steam and raring for a fight. He stood in front of the end of my bed and addressed me directly.

  “There’s something big missing here,” he said. “Somebody set this in motion, and Goddamn it, I want that somebody to pay. Mr. Angil. Do you have any idea who this son-of-a-bitch is?”

  “Sir,” I said. “I not only know who he is, I know where.”

  46

  Four months later, with almost all of my strength back, I found myself seated at my usual table at the Sharkbite Bar and Grille overlooking the Turtle Cove Marina and the turquoise waters of the Turks and Caicos Islands. I was sipping a rum punch and anxiously awaiting my second conch burger of the day. The temperature was in the mid-eighties. A twenty-knot breeze blew steady from the Northeast, and the sun had just hit the western horizon. A subtle red-orange glow filled the room from over my left shoulder. If this wasn’t heaven, I probably hadn’t walked far enough.

  Despite a little stiffness in the torso I was feeling good. I had been swimming, lifting weights, working with a personal trainer and jogging about five miles every day for the past fourteen days. Not a bad way to spend a business trip. I also felt good about the way Jenny Bowers and Senator Hollyoake were dealing with what needed to be done at home. Jenny had dedicated herself to assisting Zeke in his slow and steady recovery; the Senator was supervising a full investigation into the operation and business practices of SafeOps Incorporated. I never told anyone about Zeke’s and my conversation, the one we had on the drive from South Carolina to West Virginia, so neither the state nor the Feds had anything much to use against him. Hollyoake’s inquiries were another matter. An incriminating squeal from one or more people at SafeOps would end Zeke’s freedom overnight. He wasn’t in the clear. Not by a long shot.

  The waitress brought my burger. She placed it in front of me and I admired it. Cracked fried conch on a large bun with mayonnaise, red onion, tomato and iceberg lettuce. I ordered another rum drink and pulled out the photo.
It was the same one I’d been showing around the Turks and Caicos all this week and last, the one I had found in a rusty tool box under a rope pile.

  She was a waitress I hadn’t seen before, an attractive girl, thin and very tan, tiny nose and wide eyes, wearing a thigh-high denim skirt, a Sharkbite Bar & Grille T-shirt and flip flops. It didn’t take her long to recognize the guy holding the newspaper.

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “Bowie. He lives on a boat at the marina.”

  “Yes, I know,” I said. “I’ve been here for lunch off and on all week, but I don’t see the boat today. Do you think he went out for a cruise?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, looking out the window. “I usually just work weekends. I’m just covering for a friend. Let’s see. . .” She thought hard, shook her head. “I think it was motoring around the cove early last night.”

  “The sailboat, right?” I said.

  “Yeeaaah,” she said, almost singing the word. “It’s a sailboat. It’s thirty-two feet long. Bowie told me all about it one night. It’s really beautiful inside.” She caught herself and started to blush, then added, “It looks like wood but it’s really fiberglass.”

  I knew exactly what she meant, a fiberglass layup with a grooved finish. Gives the impression of planks or strakes. Very classy. Many builders used the technique.

  “Maybe it’s on the other side,” I said. “On the Atlantic side of the marina.”

  “You know, that makes sense,” she said. “The guys are always moving their boats around.” She started to leave.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Is there a phone in here?”

  “Yes, sir. Next to the bar. It takes credit cards.”

  I thanked her and watched her walk away to get another order. I may have watched her a little too long for a man my age. In my defense, the skirt was very short.

  The cracked conch was excellent, but not quite as excellent as a plate of fried Pemaquid oysters, which, in my humble opinion, hold the Blue Ribbon for bivalve succulence. The sandwich came with a side of macaroni, pickle wedge and the usual assortment of Caribbean fruit, mostly pineapple and papaya.

  I finished lunch off with a Jamaican coffee and a piece of key lime pie, left the waitress way more tip than required and headed for the phone. My conversation was brief. “Tomorrow at daybreak,” was all I needed to say.

  At the marina, just a few steps away from where I had lunch, twin-screw sedans and cockpit motor yachts outnumbered sailboats two to one. Not surprising, given the area’s popularity as a destination hot spot for divers and big game fishermen. I walked leisurely, enjoying the view and fantasizing about retiring to the island and living aboard a forty-two footer. Arriving at the empty slip I expected to see the sailboat in snapped me back to reality. I looked around, then continued my circle of the marine. I figured that as long as the boat hadn’t headed out, it wouldn’t take long to find.

  It didn’t.

  The West Sail cutter lay in a berth on the seaward side of the marina. She was rigged for single-handed passage-making and had obviously been at sea a long time. Her sail covers were sun-bleached and brittle. Blue plastic five gallon water jugs, also sun-bleached, lined both port and starboard rails. She had a serviceable self-steering rig, radar, solar panels, a wind generator and a surfboard. I didn’t see a life raft or an EPIRB, an observation I would later regret not putting in the right perspective.

  She was the boat. No question. I could tell by the name on her stern. . .

  CALAMITY

  “Anyone aboard?” I shouted from the dock. “Hello?”

  I heard rustling from below. A few seconds later a scruffy blond haired young man in his twenties slid the companionway hatch open and poked his head through.

  It was Aaron.

  “Hi,” he said. “Can I help you with something?” He looked me over from head to toe, from the soles of my sandals to the bulging pockets in my expedition-style cargo pants to the turned-up collar on my Hawaiian shirt. Not suspicious, not unnecessarily cautious. Curious, maybe even indifferent, as one would expect of a person living the life of a free-running Caribbean boat bum. Although, technically, we were still in the Atlantic.

  “Name’s Angil,” I said. “I’m a Private Investigator from Maine, and I’m here to talk to you about Mellville Aviation. Mind if I come aboard?”

  Aaron appeared to be completely paralyzed by indecision. He stood in the companionway and stared at me for fifteen-seconds without uttering a sound. Clearly, the name ‘Mellville’ had struck a chord.

  “Aaron,” I said. “Pete Tanner’s dead. And I know why you’re here. We need to talk.”

  He turned abruptly and disappeared down the hatch. I waited until I saw his hand come back out and wave vigorously for me to follow him into the cabin.

  The West Sail thirty-two is a stout blue water double-ender with a rather small cockpit, a hung rudder and a very heavy displacement. She’s better designed for weathering hurricanes than serving cocktails or winning races, and her accommodations, while comfortable and ship-like for two, are a tad cramped for anything more. Nevertheless, if I ever wanted a boat for myself in which to sail around the world, this would be one of the designs I’d consider.

  There are only two ways to step into the cabin of a Thirty-two foot West Sail, or almost any other small sailboat for that matter, and neither method affords a great deal of protection from the person waiting below. You either grab the rails or coaming around the hatch and step down, or you lean over and stick your head down first to take a look around before venturing further. I chose the former to avoid being cold-cocked with a billy club or black jack and because I wanted to give the impression I had nothing to fear.

  Fortunately, I didn't meet up with a billy club or black jack. And, thankfully, not a spear gun or a harpoon. What greeted me at the forward end of the nicely appointed cabin was a lithe young mariner wearing paisley boxer shorts and no shoes, sporting a world-class tan, a necklace of coral beads and shark teeth, a bracelet of braided twine, a hand-carved driftwood earring, a few days of unkempt beard and a rusty and very old large caliber revolver with the hammer pulled back.

  “That's not very hospitable,” I said. “Besides, that thing might blow up in your face. It doesn't look quite functional. What is it? A Wembley?”

  “It'll do the job,” he said.

  “Make more than a little boom. I hear the jail in Provo makes Guantanamo look like a Betty Ford Clinic.” Actually, I hadn’t heard anything of the sort and had no idea what the jail was like.

  Aaron had the gun in the hand with the bracelet. I noticed scarring on his wrist and forearm, probably where Jenny had grabbed him and pulled him down the stairs of the house.

  “What do you want, and how do you know who I am?” he said.

  “Mind if I sit?”

  He shrugged and gestured with the barrel of the gun. I plopped myself down on the port settee.

  “Is it true?” he said. “About Petey?”

  “‘Fraid so,” I said.

  “How?”

  “Murdered. Got his neck snapped by a guy named English. You wouldn't think a little guy like English would be able to snap a big neck like Tanner's but once you learn the technique and practice, size isn't so much an issue. You know who I'm talking about? English? From SafeOps?”

  Aaron grimaced and let the barrel drop slightly. He looked sad and tired all of a sudden. His eyes no longer focused on me, as if something deep inside had dragged him away.

  “Petey didn't deserve that,” he said reflectively.

  “Oh, I think maybe he did,” I said.

  “What do you know about it?” He raised the barrel and aimed it steadily at my head. He was an amateur, and should have aimed at my chest. The four fifty-five Wembley cartridge was almost enough to stop a rhino.

  “Take it easy,” I said. “I'm just the messenger. You hadn't been in touch with him in a long time. How would know what he was doing? Fact is, the deal you had wasn't enough for him. He wanted more. He got g
reedy and went back after a bigger chunk. Aaron, come on now. Sit down. We have to talk. And either drop the hammer on that fucking cannon or point the thing in another direction. I just got over being shot thank you very much.”

  Aaron lowered himself onto the settee across from me on the starboard side. He eased the hammer back and laid the pistol next to him on the cushion. “Are you a cop?” he said.

  “No,” I said. “I'm from Maine. I have a charter boat up there, the Scara. You ever hear of it?”

  “I think so. Maybe I seen it around when I was fishing up there.” He looking down. The deck had a varnished wood finish. Alternate light and dark boards. “How do you know all this about me and Petey?”

  “Your mother hired me to find out what happened to you.”

  For a second, I thought I saw Aaron the nine-year old, the bright blue eyes alive with the memory of a mother's love, the surety and comfort of it.

  I squinted at him. “She's OK, by the way.” My voice sounded cold and disdainful, which was the way I meant it to sound.

  “Does she know about me?” he said.

  “No. She still thinks you're dead.”

  Outside, water slapped the hull sides with a clip-clap sound. Frigate birds and pelicans cawed. I heard pressure water splashing on a boat a few slips away, and voices, something about a billfish tournament. An outboard motor that had been idling chattered to a stop.

  “Why did you come looking for me?” Aaron said.

  “I didn't. I came for Mellville.”

  Aaron jumped out of the settee so fast I instinctively leaned back and put my hands out in front of me, the way you would if you thought someone was about to stumble into you.

  “You know where Mellville is?” he said excitedly. “You have to tell me.”

  “I can do much better than that,” I said. “You tell me how you hustled SafeOps and English, and how you figured out where to find Mellville . . . and you can help me bring him home to stand trial.”

  47

  We were sailing on a port tack heading for the Northwest corner of the island, doing about six and three quarters knots flying the main, staysail, yankee and a sweet little flying jib Aaron said he had designed and rigged for the boat himself. I was at the helm while Aaron tended to a couple of coffees in the galley. When he stepped into the cockpit with our drinks we were heeled hard over and sluicing a generous amount of water down the leeward rail.