A Shroud of Tattered Sails: An Oregon Coast Mystery (Garrison Gage Series Book 4)

by Scott William Carter

  Finally, the Beretta was pressed into his right hand, the metal warm and slightly damp from Jake's grasp.

  One big meaty hand clamped over his own, worked his finger over the trigger. Another hand roughly moved his arm, rising it up, aiming. Judging by the man's grasp, Jake stood just to his right. No way to swing the Beretta around and shoot him. No, the better plan was to shoot the man dressed in black first. If he was still where he'd been when he'd spoken last, then he stood just off to the left, maybe ten feet away.

  That would still leave Jake in a commanding position, Gage in the chair and Jake behind him.

  "All right," Jake said, "gonna aim now. Be ready in case Troy wakes up."

  "What you want me to do if he does?"

  "I don't know. Just be ready."

  Jake's voice was right there, so close to Gage's right ear that he felt the man's breath on his cheek and got a whiff of beer and bar nuts. His finger was pressed tighter over the trigger, the arm steadied, silence pervading the room.

  Now or never.

  Gage opened his eyes. He was facing Troy, who was still out cold and slumped in his chair, but the man dressed in black stood just to the left looking right at him—and his own eyes flew wide open. The man, lips flapping soundlessly as he tried to voice his surprise, started to raise his gun.

  Gage swung his gun arm to the left and squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet found its target dead center in the man's chest, the man flailing backwards. The bang rang in Gage's ears, echoing off the walls of the small trailer. A shell casing went flying in a puff of smoke. The man he'd shot stumbled to the floor, out of his sight behind Troy and the easy chair.

  "Wha—?" Jake began.

  His face was right there, inches to Gage's right, and Gage swung his head hard into the man's face—using the side of his skull to butt Jake on the bridge of his nose.

  It hurt like hell, but it hurt Jake a heck of a lot more. The man cried out in agony, but unfortunately he did not do the one thing Gage had been hoping he'd do—let go of Gage's arm. Instead, he clamped over Gage's gun hand even tighter and pulled Gage backwards halfway out of the couch.

  He was a big man, stronger than Gage had first estimated, and even as he moaned in pain he was doing his best to yank Gage's arm right out of its socket. Gage got a quick glimpse of Troy—who was blinking rapidly, waking to this chaos—before he swiveled his body around, using his weight and Jake's grasp on the Beretta to pull Jake forward.

  Jake may have been standing, but behind the couch and leaning over it put him in a much more awkward stance. It didn't take that much to topple him over the couch.

  Gage had hoped that Jake would release his grasp on the Beretta in the process, but no such luck. The big man rolled right on top of Gage, a big sweaty mass of muscle and fat, and the two of them grappled for control of the weapon.

  He heard moaning not far away. Troy or the other goon? It was impossible to tell. If it was the other man and he recovered, Gage's chance would be lost.

  Jake may have been bigger and stronger, but Gage had one distinct advantage: it was his hand that held the Beretta. They rolled over one another on the floor, clutching and clawing, the two of them locked in a deadly arm wrestle for control of the gun. He got a flash of the man's bloodied face, red streaks from his nose. The gun fired, blasting a hole in the ceiling. It fired again and a picture of a sailboat on the wall shattered. The ringing in Gage's ear drowned out all other noise. Jake managed to get on top of Gage, bearing down on him with his full weight.

  He got both hands on the Beretta. He started to turn it, angling it for the underside of Gage's chin. It was close. Gage, barely able to breathe, turned his head, trying to keep out of the line of fire. He had his other hand on the Beretta now, but pushing up was a lot harder than pushing down, even if their strength had been equal.

  He was going to lose.

  There was only one thing to do—take away the Beretta's power. When the gun was still pointed just to his right, barely keeping him out of the range of fire, he squeezed the trigger. Not just once, but again and again, emptying the cartridge into the threadbare carpet and the bottom of the couch. He kept going until there was nothing but empty clicking. This seemed to surprise Jake, and it was that flutter of surprise that was all Gage needed because, for just a second, no more than a blink of an eye, Jake slightly relaxed his grip.

  Now emptied of bullets, the gun was nothing more than a hunk of metal. Gage, having intended this, was quicker to take advantage.

  With great fury, he used both his hands to slam the butt of the Beretta into Jake's face.

  He aimed straight for the bloodied nose. Hindered by Jake's grasp, the gun didn't hit with quite the force Gage had hoped, but there was still a sickening crunch, a thwap like a wet towel slapping against a concrete floor.

  Jake screamed, his face a mask of red. In his fury, he scrambled off Gage, on his feet now, reaching behind him. His own Glock was suddenly out and pointing. Coming down. Aiming. Out of bullets, on his back on the floor, there wasn't much Gage could do.

  Then, just when it seemed the crimson-faced Jake was going to unload his Glock into Gage's face, a shotgun blasted Jake in the chest.

  He went flying like some kind of carnival piñata, spinning backwards, blood everywhere. When he hit the floor, it shook the entire trailer.

  Gage rolled onto his stomach and got himself onto his hands and knees. He saw Troy, still looking dazed, rising from his recliner with the shotgun in hand. He was teetering, blinking rapidly, but somehow still having the sense that danger lurked behind him because he started to turn.

  He never even got halfway around before three shots rang out, two taking him in the chest and one slicing him across the throat.

  Troy, too, fell hard to the floor. This put the shotgun within Gage's reach. Just as he saw the man dressed in black rising from the floor, brandishing his own gun, Gage dove for it.

  Two more shots rang out, one of them whizzing right by his ear and puncturing the couch behind him. The man had been holding his right shoulder with his bloodied left hand and his arm had wobbled, his aim unsteady.

  Gage slammed to the floor, grasped the shotgun and fumbled it around until he was aiming it in the direction of his assailant. The recliner blocked his view. Troy lay moaning next to him. Gage expected to see the man dressed in black spring around the chair and unload his Glock, and he clenched his teeth and waited for it, his heart pounding, sweat in his eyes ... any moment now. Any moment and the guy would start firing.

  Then he heard footsteps. The front door banged open, followed by a thudding run on the dirt outside. Gage waited until the footsteps outside silenced, then waited some more, five seconds, ten, his heart gonging away in his ears and pulsing behind his eyelids. He tasted blood in his mouth. His right knee felt as if it had been snapped in half, the agony was so crushing.

  It was only when Troy moaned that Gage snapped out of his reverie. Still with his eye on the door, still aiming the shotgun, he crawled to his knees. Troy's neck was a bloody mess, but there was still Jake to contend with. One glance in that direction, though, confirmed what Gage had suspected when Jake had been blasted with the shotgun.

  The guy lay curled on his side in a pool of his own blood, his eyes open, unblinking.

  Gage had seen those eyes on enough bodies over the years—far too many bodies, far too much death—to know that good old Jake wasn't going to be bothering anyone ever again. There might have been someone out there who actually liked this guy, maybe even loved him, but if the scales of his encounters with people over the years were weighed fairly, Gage had no doubt that few would mourn his loss.

  Troy, on the other hand, seemed more like a two-bit criminal who'd gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd. That was the sense that he hoped to confirm, but when he crawled on his aching knee to Troy and got a good look at the shredded flesh his neck had become and the voluminous amounts of blood pooling on the balding brown carpet, he knew that the old trailer pi
rate was going to be joining Jake in the afterlife momentarily.

  For the moment, though, Troy was alive and flapping his lips like a trout dropped onto the deck of a boat. Blood filled his mouth, too, enough of it that he choked and gagged. So much blood. His red plaid shirt was soaked in it.

  "It's going to be all right," Gage lied.

  More lip flapping, lots of rapid blinking, his one good eye splashed with a watery veil—Troy was definitely on his way out. Gage grabbed the gray casino blanket from the couch and pressed it hard against the man's neck, trying to staunch the bleeding. The man reached for the blanket himself, but his arms seemed to have lost most of their strength; he barely managed to raise them off the floor.

  "Where's your phone?" Gage asked.

  Troy sputtered out some blood, tried to speak but ended up coughing. Instead, he pointed feebly toward the kitchen. Gage took the man's hand and clamped it over the blanket, which was already soaked. He started to rise, intent on calling 911 no matter how hopeless Troy's situation seemed, but then the man clutched at Gage's arm.

  "Didn't—didn't have—" he managed.

  "Save it," Gage said. "Let me get some help first."

  "Didn't have—have a choice," Troy said. "Had to help them. Jessica ... They said—they said they'd hurt Jessica."

  "Who's Jessica?"

  "Daughter. In Ashland. They took my wallet. Saw her picture. Tell her ... tell her ..."

  "What did they make you do?"

  "Tell her I'm sorry. For not being there."

  "Troy, what did they make you do?"

  "Didn't know ..."

  "Troy... "

  It was too late. He clenched down hard on Gage's arm. His body spasmed, his back arching. This lasted a few pulsating seconds, then Troy's pupils dilated until they filled his eye sockets like shiny black marbles. The shine didn't last long. The life faded, the gaze turning distant and unseeing, all that energy coursing through the man's body shutting off like someone cutting a wire.

  He slumped, lifeless, to the floor.

  Gone.

  Chapter 12

  The mess Gage had made at Troy Langford's house—which turned out to be the man's full name—took three hours of explanations, arguments, and a half-dozen phone calls, including a long one back to Chief Quinn in Barnacle Bluffs, before the fine folks who worked in law enforcement in Crescent City finally decided to believe him. Or if not believe him, they at least were less sure he was a murderer. By then, Gage had drank far too much bad coffee and spent far too much time repeating his story to one officer after another to maintain any sort of professional composure. His throat became hoarse from all the shouting. If it hadn't been for his concern for Tatyana, he surely would have punched someone.

  The thug who'd died, Jake, turned out to be Jake Sheffield out of New York according to the driver's license in his pocket. He had a rap sheet a mile long, mostly petty stuff when he was younger, and he was more of a freelancer than someone associated with one of the crime families. The police back east were going to do some checking, but nobody thought it would lead anywhere. Apparently almost all of Sheffield's work came from a go-between that had been on their radar for years and had been impossible to pin down.

  Still, New York. Maybe it meant something.

  Gage managed to arouse the sympathy of a young female cop, who fetched Tatyana from the Apple Peddler. After Gage was finally told he could go, he found Tatyana waiting for him in the reception area, paging through a wrinkled copy of Time magazine. When she saw him, she sprang out of the chair, reaching for his face before self-consciously pulling her hand back.

  "I was so worried," she said.

  "Sorry," he said. "Somebody decided to throw me a surprise party."

  "I heard. And one got away?"

  "Yep, he's still out there. Not in good shape, though. That guy doesn't get medical attention, he's not going to make it. They've got police watching all the hospitals and clinics for a hundred miles. Come on, let's get out of here."

  His van was waiting in the back. The night sky stretched over the little parking lot devoid of stars but wavy with different shades of black and indigo; it was like looking up at the surface of a pond while standing on the bottom. He smelled the ocean on the breeze. The police station was in the heart of the city surrounded by modest houses, a Methodist church across the street and an assortment of one- and two-story buildings, almost all of them dark. Gage, thinking about the goon who was still out there, touched his gun holster through his jacket.

  Would the guy come after him? He didn't think so, but then the two thugs had not exactly proven to be candidates for Mensa.

  Getting into the van, Gage saw two men sitting in an unmarked navy blue Chevy Tahoe parked in the corner. The police chief, a guy so gruff he made Percy Quinn seem almost charming, had insisted on providing Gage with protection. Gage had equally insisted that it wasn't needed. The fact that the chief had gone ahead and given him protection anyway was irritating even if it wasn't surprising. This wasn't just about protection, after all. This was about finding out what he was going to do.

  When he informed Tatyana about their escort, she appraised them for a while.

  "I'm not sure I feel any safer," she said. "Are you sure they are going to follow us?"

  "Oh yes."

  "What do you want to do?"

  "Curl into a ball and whimper for a few hours," Gage said. "But since whimpering probably won't impress you, maybe I'll just lie down. First, though, tell me if you discovered anything on your end."

  Tatyana shrugged. "Not much. I talked to people at three different motels. I also talked to the manager at the Mexican restaurant. Nobody knew who she was. But the man at the Mill Creek Motel, he did act a little ... strange."

  "Strange? How?"

  "He just seemed a little distracted. As soon as I showed him Miranda's picture, he changed. He seemed to want me out of there. Maybe it was nothing."

  "Or maybe this clerk has something to hide."

  She pulled a card out of her jacket pocket and handed it to Gage. "These were on the desk. It looks like he's actually the owner."

  "Bob Martin," Gage said, reading the card. "How do you know this was him and he's not just a clerk?"

  "I asked him."

  "Well look at you. You're like a real detective and everything."

  "You want to talk to him?"

  "Oh yes."

  "Right now?"

  "Yep. Besides, we need a couple rooms anyway. Why not stay at the Mill Creek Motel? I'm sure it's a fine establishment."

  He started the van. Just as he expected, the blue Tahoe followed them out of the lot and back to Highway 101. He told Tatyana about Troy's comments about his daughter.

  "So he was forced to help them," Tatyana said.

  "Looks like it. The problem is, he died before he could tell me exactly what they made him do. I have a few ideas, though."

  "Such as?"

  "Well, let me ask you. Troy works at a marina. It was also pretty clear that he has a boat at that marina. That boat trailer at his place obviously goes to something. We don't know for sure, of course, but let's assume Marcus Koura stopped in Crescent City. Either Miranda was already with him or he met her here and took her with him. What do you think those two idiots wanted with Troy?"

  "His boat?"

  "Or a boat. Why?"

  "Hmm. To go after Marcus?"

  "That's what I'm thinking," Gage said. "Why else would they want Troy to keep quiet? If they'd just showed up asking questions, they wouldn't have needed to strong arm him so much. No, I'm figuring that Troy took them on his boat to find Marcus. Maybe he was told to call them when he saw Marcus leaving the harbor. Maybe they're even the ones who killed him."

  "But why?"

  "Don't know yet. Probably has something to do with eTransWorld, though. We know that Marcus and Omar had a falling out. Maybe Marcus was intent on doing something to bring his brother down. "

  "If Miranda was on the boat," Tatyana said
, "why would they leave her alive?"

  "Don't know that yet either. It doesn't look good, though."

  "You think she was part of it?"

  Gage tapped his steering wheel. "I really don't know. I hope not. Maybe they didn't know she was on the boat? And if that was the case, then maybe she hid below, maybe in one of the storage compartments. If they had no reason to think someone else was on the boat, then maybe they didn't have reason to search."

  "I like that theory better."

  "I do, too," Gage said. "I don't think either us wants to think that Miranda could be an accessory to murder. It also might explain why she lost her memory—the shock of what she witnessed."

  "Did you tell any of this to the police?"

  "Heavens, no! If there's one thing I've learned in all my years of being a private investigator, it's that the less I tell the police, the better. Otherwise they just muck things up."

  The Mill Creek Motel was past the marina and across from the beach. The motel was U-shaped, two stories, with redwood log siding so prominent it bordered on parody. Only eight of the maybe twenty rooms were lit, with half that many cars in the lot. A neon-green vacancy sign lit up the office window. Gage saw a bald, heavyset man sitting behind the counter, peering through reading glasses that seemed far too small for his pale round face. He looked all the more pale because of his black t-shirt.

  "That's the guy," Tatyana said.

  When Gage pulled into the parking spot in front of the office, he watched his rearview mirror. The blue Tahoe drove past, heading south on the highway. Tatyana, following his gaze, noted this as well.

  "Maybe they weren't following us at all," she said.

  "Oh no. Just watch."

  A minute later, the Tahoe returned heading north, and when it reached the motel it slowed and turned left, not into the motel parking lot but onto the strip of sand that bordered the beach and served as parking. Gage raised his eyebrows at Tatyana, as if to say I told you so, and she smirked in response.