Resort Isle: Detective Frank Dugan begins (Detective Frank Dugan series)

by Paul Sekulich

“That’s why you never can trust eye witnesses—“

  “Because they only see what they want to see.”

  “Bought another boat. Cabin cruiser.”

  “So you dumped the sluggy sailboat for the insurance and bought one you really like?”

  “If you knew how much insurance they gave me, you’d laugh at that statement.”

  “You be careful. Take back-up tonight.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Maybe see you later at Harry’s?” Frank said.

  “If Charly doesn’t kill me with affection.”

  “I’ll check the obits.”

  Frank crossed to the kitchen and scrolled through the caller ID function on the answering machine. The calls from Guzman were listed as “blocked.” Frank picked up the kitchen phone from the wall and punched in a number. After two rings Frank responded to the person who answered.

  “This is Detective Frank Dugan, San Diego Police. I need to determine the source of a blocked phone number…”

  * * *

  Dwayne Pinkney and Scottie Fisher hunkered low in the dark among power boats hitched to trailers and strut-supported sailboats on the acre of land adjacent to the Marina del Rey harbor. Dwayne peeked out at regular intervals to see when the harbor office closed for the night. He didn’t have to wait long.

  “The old guy’s leaving,” Dwayne said.

  “For good?” Scottie asked, adjusting the black backpack harnessed to his shoulders.

  “He put out the lights and locked the back door. Another minute and we’re good to go.”

  Dwayne stepped out and checked for activity in all directions. He waited until the old man left the area and disappeared in the parking lot a block away.

  “No one else in sight,” Dwayne said. “Let’s get the keys.”

  Dwayne and Scottie slinked out from their concealment and ambled over to the rear of the harbor office. A shaded lamp on a utility pole shone on a twenty-foot circle of boardwalk planks in front of the office door, then diffused into darkness. Dwayne quietly worked on the back door of the office while Scottie kept watch. Within a minute, Dwayne had the door open and stepped inside the weathered building. Scottie followed and eased the door closed behind him.

  The outside light in front of the office illuminated a wall rack with sets of keys that hung on cup hooks. Dwayne scanned the tags on the keys and stopped at a set with “Wheeler” printed on it. He checked outside for any activity, then plucked the Wheeler keys from the rack. Both men exited by the back door and closed it as they light-footed to the long pier a few yards away that intersected the boardwalk.

  A the end of the pier, they arrived at the Topaz and stealthily stepped aboard.

  “Where do we put it?” Scottie asked, shrugging the backpack.

  “Under the deck here,” Dwayne said and quietly fitted a key from the stolen set into the lock on the cabin. He snooped inside to make sure the cabin was unoccupied.

  Seconds later, they were pulling open the engine access hatch and panning small flashlights across the blue V-8 engines. Dwayne knelt on the deck, leaned over, and studied the limited space within the compartment.

  “Give me the unit,” Dwayne said.

  Scottie stuck his penlight in his mouth, unzipped the backpack, withdrew a bundle of wired electronics attached to a brick red block of Semtex explosive, and handed it to his partner. Dwayne hung the package on the port engine, near the feed line from the gas tank on that side of the boat.

  Dwayne searched under the cockpit for the wire that connected the depth finder display on the instrument panel above to the transducer in the bottom of the hull.

  “Got it,” Dwayne said. “Hand me the wire cutters.”

  Scottie fumbled through the backpack, found the tool, and gave it to Dwayne.

  Dwayne scratched an inch of insulation off the boat’s depth finder wire and taped his own wire to the exposed copper. He neatly tucked the wires back under the panel and returned his attention to the engines. He set a dial on his analog depth gauge, pressed a button, and installed it beside the port engine with duct tape.

  “I hope we’re not in water deeper than 900 feet,” Dwayne said with a smile.

  “Why’s that?” Scottie asked.

  “That’s when this baby goes off. You might say it’s an actual ‘depth charge,’” Dwayne said and chuckled. “It works on echo-sounding from a transducer that interprets the echoes’ timing to determine the depth under the boat.”

  “Aha.”

  Scottie smiled and bobbled a few nods, but his puzzled expression looked to Dwayne like he had just lectured him on the relationship between string theory and plutonium nuclear fission.

  The two men closed the engine compartment as they had found it, locked up the cabin, and scrambled onto the aft deck, where they furtively searched the pier for any signs of witnesses to their visit. Seeing none, they hopped off the Topaz and quick-stepped along the pier to the boardwalk like Olympic speed-walkers.

  They re-entered the harbor office, where Dwayne replaced the borrowed set of keys. They reversed their actions, secured the back door and, in moments, were one with the night.

  Chapter 31

  The Pac-Life Maritime Insurance Company settled Frank’s claim and cut him a check with enough money to buy James Fiske’s cabin cruiser. Frank had the morning to himself and wanted to take the Topaz to San Diego to have Marty’s trusted marine mechanic check out his new purchase. The test ride on the boat went smoothly and the Topaz was amazingly responsive for an older vessel. Frank believed Captain Fiske’s glowing assessment of the Wheeler, but since it had been sitting at the marina for so many months unused, he thought it best to have it examined by an expert.

  Frank got the papers for the boat, his keys from the harbor office, and boarded his new ocean-going transport. He vented the bilge to remove any potentially-explosive gas fumes, cranked the twin Crusaders to life, and motored out of the marina at five miles-per-hour.

  The Topaz cut the water smoothly as Frank steered her south hugging the coast and throttled her up to cruising speed of twelve knots. He set the depth alarm at fifty feet, kept her in less than a hundred feet of water, and carefully monitored the depth finder’s readings to keep an eye on any rising reefs or hard sand shoals that could claw at the boat’s underbelly.

  At 11:12 AM, Frank slowed to the San Diego marina’s 5 MPH “no wake” limit and idled into Embarcadero Park North and tied up at the long pier. Frank had radioed ahead to Jeff Swenson, the marine mechanic Marty Dimino had highly recommended to check out the Topaz. The mechanic stood waiting at the dock where Frank had been instructed to moor his boat.

  “Well, I see she made it here, detective, with no sign of smoke,” Jeff said. “Always a good sign.”

  “Took to the water like a porpoise,” Frank said and jumped onto the dock.

  “A power boat like this is bit different from sailing a sloop.”

  “I’ll say. Lot noisier, but faster.”

  “Any trouble finding this place?”

  “None at all. Your directions were great, and I’m familiar with the Embarcadero.”

  “I’ll take good care of her, Frank,” Jeff said. “Have her ready for you in a couple of hours.”

  Frank handed Jeff the keys.

  “Take your time. I’m going to grab a coffee at the Barnacle,” Frank said, “then drop in to see a friend at the Coast Guard office.”

  The long walk to Buster’s Barnacle Restaurant felt good, almost exhilarating. A lot of Frank’s police work stuck him behind a desk, often sitting, phone-bound for hours. The brisk strides along the quay loosened him up and exercised muscles that had all but lost their endurance memory. He pondered his fitness as he marched at a quick pace toward the business section of the marina. At twenty-seven, he considered himself too young to be going to flab from living a sedentary lifestyle. He wasn’t a lie-about, and resolved to work out more, like he did in his baseball days.

  After getting his coffee and going back outside, Frank decided to ca
ll Rico Guzman, for no other reason than to let him know his “blocked” calls could be unblocked and deciphered.

  “Yeah,” a gruff voice said on the other end of Frank’s call.

  “Rico there?” Frank said.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Frank Dugan.”

  “Oh, the cop with the dead family,” the voice said, becoming more recognizable to Frank.

  “Mr. Gaither?”

  “Yep.”

  “Get Guzman on the phone, shithead.”

  “Hey, you can’t talk to me like—”

  “I’ll talk to you like the piece of crap you are,” Frank said, his blood boiling.

  “He ain’t here. He’s in court.” Gaither said, then the line went dead.

  Frank pressed a key on his cell and stuffed it in his back pocket. He sat facing the marina and sipped his coffee as his pulse eased back to under a hundred beats.

  The marina Coast Guard office was sub-unit of the larger USCG station a mile away, but Frank had made friends with a chief petty officer there during the murder investigation of Senator McAllister. The chief, Don Berkley, was still piecing together evidence from the fateful day of the assassination and had been a steady supplier of information to Judd Kemp and Frank from day one.

  The case was far from closed, but suspicions ran high that Rico Guzman ordered the assassination, trying to remove heat from his drug dealings because the senator was closing in on him like a bad storm. A photo extracted from a distant marina video cam on the day of the assassination had the resolution of oatmeal and was nearly useless had it not been for the distinctive red St. Louis Cardinal baseball hat the assassin wore. Rico Guzman kept his 150-foot yacht, named El Mago, at the marina, which had been kept under surveillance for months, and well before the murder of the senator. In a review of earlier video footage of activity on and around the yacht, there appeared a man wearing a red cap similar to the one seen in the assassination footage. The man could have been there for innocent reasons, and no weapon was visible in the surveillance video. Nevertheless, he was a “person of interest,” which translated into cop-speak meant “He’s probably our guy.”

  The man in the yacht footage, later identified as Mitch Davis, turned out to be a suspect implicated in the Dugan family massacre. Frank and Chief Berkley “liked” him a lot … for several reasons. If Rico Guzman could protect Mitch from being charged, he would be protecting himself from complicity as well. Now that he was under indictment for drug trafficking, a conviction for any felony would be as good as a murder rap. Any major crime added to his former convictions, would spell a trip to the Resort for life. If he skated on the current charges, he would truly be El Mago, The Magician.

  Frank approached the Coast Guard office and was met by a chief yeoman sitting outside enjoying the perfect weather.

  “Chief Berkley around,” Frank asked.

  “Out on patrol,” the yeoman said. “Be back in a couple of hours.”

  “Do you know where he’s patrolling?”

  “Straight out, due west. He’s got a lead on a drug submarine. One of those homemade fiberglass jobs that’s hard to detect on radar.”

  “I’ve heard about them. What’s he going to do if he spots one?”

  “He’s on a chopper with one of our boats nearby. Those subs can’t go deep, so once the guys above lock onto it, they’ll send out a kill-or-capture craft.”

  “Sweet,” Frank said and cast his gaze seaward. “Maybe I’ll go find my friend out there.”

  “Good luck, sir. Just don’t be traveling in a miniature submarine.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Frank said, saluted a thank-you to the yeoman, and headed back to the Barnacle for a refill on his coffee.

  * * *

  Jeff Swenson started the engines on the Topaz and studied the instrument panel’s gauges. Satisfied that all instruments appeared to be working properly, he filled in a preliminary work report and checked all the boxes that pertained to his work thus far with satisfactory marks and notations. He folded the work order and tucked it behind the wheel on the port side of the helm. Then he pulled up the wood cover above the engine compartment that served as a portion of the deck of the cockpit. He checked for adequate ventilation at various points around the compact engine compartment containing the twin Crusader 270 engines. All seemed to be in order.

  He knelt, leaned in close, and observed the starboard engine, listening for a smooth idle and watching for any unwanted vibration. Next he did the same for the port engine. Lastly, he leaned his head between the engines to look beneath them for excess water in the bilge. It was there that he noticed something out of place. A foreign device protruded from under the engine, a device he was certain didn’t belong there. Jeff leaned in farther, almost toppling, but steadied himself and gasped.

  It was a bomb. A big one.

  Jeff sprang to his feet, cut the engines, light-stepped quickly away from the compartment. He leapt from the boat and sprinted down the marina pier toward the concessions.

  * * *

  The time seemed to have flown for Frank as he returned to the Topaz and searched for his mechanic. Onboard, he noticed the engine compartment cover lying open, revealing his two blue engines.

  “Jeff? It’s Frank. You still here?”

  No answer.

  Frank saw the keys dangling from the ignition and his eye caught the folded paper behind the wheel and removed it. The notations on the paper looked like Jeff had completed his check-up of the boat, but no charges were entered for his services. It struck him as strange, but Frank was considerably more baffled by the open engine compartment.

  Must’ve had an emergency back at his shop, Frank thought.

  A few yards down the pier, Frank spied a sailboat with two men working to replace a light atop the forty-foot mast. One man was high atop the mast on a boatswain’s chair, while the other steadied its halyard on deck. Frank hopped off the Topaz and walked over to the sailboat.

  “Excuse me, gentlemen. Have either of you seen the man who was working on my boat?” Frank said pointing at the Topaz.

  “Matter of fact,” the man on the mast said, pointing toward the business district on the land, “he went that way like he was shot out of a cannon.”

  “He say anything?”

  “Not that I could understand,” the mast man said. “You hear what he was yelling about, Tim?”

  Tim on deck shook his head. “Something about us getting away from the dock … not sure.”

  “Thanks anyway,” Frank said and lumbered back to the Wheeler.

  Before he boarded, he took a long look up and down the pier. Then he stepped aboard and jammed the folded work report in his back pocket with his cell phone. Inside the cockpit, he closed the engine cover and secured it, started the Crusaders to let them idle, and checked his gauges. He then cast off the mooring lines and slowly pulled away from the pier.

  After navigating out of San Diego Bay, past the sheltered area of the marina, Frank aimed the Topaz west. It was time for a little shakedown cruise, or to use Captain Fiske’s words, “put her balls to the wall.” The powerful engines roared their approval at being given their head and jumped to its top speed of twenty-three knots, spraying wake like a jet leaving a vapor trail.

  The channel leading off the coast quickly dropped off to over 600 feet as the Topaz surged into the open pacific.

  Chapter 32

  Jeff Swenson guided the van carrying the San Diego Police Department bomb unit down the long pier, its siren blaring and strobe lights flashing in dizzying sequence. The van halted next to the slip where the Topaz had been. Jeff jumped from the vehicle and shaded his eyes to search the surface of the bay.

  “He’s gone,” Jeff said. “I can’t even see the boat. Dear Jesus, he’s gone on that floating bomb.”

  “We’ve got the Coast Guard on the line,” a heavily-padded officer yelled from the truck. “They’re sending help from two directions. One patrol is already out there, plus a ‘copter.”


  Jeff placed his palms on his knees, hung his head, and hoped he wouldn’t hear a distant explosion.

  * * *

  Frank Dugan saw the Coast Guard helicopter racing straight for him, low over the water. Farther out, a Coast Guard patrol boat pitched and whapped waves as it set a course for his boat. Frank watched them intently as they approached, but a clunking noise beneath his feet distracted him and he throttled down the Topaz to a slow speed while he investigated the bothersome sound. He pulled up the engine compartment cover. He dropped to his hands and knees and stuck his head between the running engines. The clunking continued. It was coming from under the port engine. Frank leaned farther in and saw a loose analog depth gauge, flapping against the engine in the compartment. The gauge read 825 feet and rising. Then he saw what it was connected to and made a quick decision. Stop the boat and throw the bomb overboard.

  It was impossible to get both of his hands into the tight space, so he reached in with his right hand and tried to remove it, but it had been attached by heavy wires twisted onto the motor mounts. The wires were too tough to untie with one hand. He needed pliers. The dial on the gauge caught his attention as it slowly swept to 850 feet.

  Frank dashed to the tool chest as the din of the helicopter roared above him, running with him, the faint shadows of its blades scribing a huge circle on the water and the deck of the boat. Frank looked up, shielding his eyes. A boat horn blared as the ‘copter blasted near-hurricane force winds onto the deck. A man on a drop-ladder swung from below the hovering chopper thirty feet above him. He held a bullhorn to his face.

  “Frank, jump out of the boat!” the amplified voice yelled. “Jump out of the boat now!”

  Frank gaped at the man like he was a lunatic.

  “Get away!” Frank yelled.

  The ‘copter dropped closer.

  “There’s a bomb on your boat. Jump out now!”

  Frank braced himself on the gunwale and squinted at the man with the bullhorn. It was Chief Berkley, coming closer as the helicopter descended.