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

by Scott William Carter

  It took half a box of tissues, a crumpled white mess that littered the table, but she finally managed to get enough control of herself that speech was again possible. Even so, when she spoke, it came out in a jumbled, jagged mess with lots of stuttering and false starts.

  "You have to—you have to understand," she said. "What it's like. What it's like for me. I try to remember. I do. I think and think and think all day. It's all dark. It's like looking into a pit. Into a giant—a giant hole. Like I'm trying to see the bottom. Like there's things down there, I know there are, and if only I look hard enough—I'm trying. I want to see. And—and—and every now and then, there's a little bit of light. Like I remember being scared. I remember being in something, something small, something like a coffin. There was the ocean. There was the sound of—of sails. In the wind. And there were terrible noises. But what is it? If I tell you more than that, if I tell you I know what it means, I'm lying. I don't know."

  Gage said, "You're telling me you were hiding on the boat?"

  "I don't know. Maybe."

  "You've got to give us something, Miranda."

  "I'm trying!" she cried. "Marcus, New York, Crescent City—maybe, maybe there's something there. I'm looking into the dark. I want to see. I told you all! I know there's somebody coming for me. I know there is. I know he's a terrible man. I know he's—he's capable of terrible things. I'm looking into the dark. I'm trying to see his face. It scares me. Do you know how much it scares? But I'm looking. I'm looking."

  A silence settled over them. Conroy took out his metal flask, brushed off the top with a handkerchief, and held out the bottle to Miranda.

  "Take a drink, girl," he said. "I'm sure your throat is parched now. It will make you feel better."

  "Oh," she said. "Oh, I don't—I don't drink alcohol. I don't remember much, but I remember that for some reason."

  "It's nothing of the sort," Conroy said. "This is Mississippi spring water."

  "I can get her a glass of water of her own," Quinn said.

  "Not like this," Conroy said. "This water is from my home state, a kind of secret elixir like none other. You take a drink of this, then drink the chief's water, and you tell me if they're the same thing."

  "It's really not booze?" she said.

  "Not even a drop, darling. Ask Garrison here. I let him on my secret, too. Must be getting soft in my old age."

  She looked at Gage, who nodded. She took the flask and drank, a tentative sip at first, then a couple of huge gulps. She handed it back to Conroy with a guilty look on her face, but he told her not to worry about it, there was plenty more where that came from. She wiped her lips with the back of her orange sleeve.

  "It's sweet," she said. "I mean, it's water, but it's kind of sweet."

  "The magic of Mississippi," Conroy said. "You feel better?"

  She nodded. And it was true. Gage could hardly believe how much calmer she already seemed, how much more relaxed and at peace. Maybe he'd have to get some of that water himself.

  "Good," Conroy said. "Now look. You need to get yourself together. You don't have to make a decision right this second, you can hear out what these two gentleman have to say, but I'd like to talk to you later today, just the two of us. If that's all right with you? And the chief, of course."

  He glanced at Quinn, who offered back a curt nod. Miranda looked at Gage, as if for approval, but as much as he didn't like or trust Conroy, he decided it was no longer his place to weigh in on this matter, so he shrugged. She nodded at Conroy.

  "All right, darling," Conroy said. "Collect your thoughts, get some rest, and I'll see you in the afternoon."

  He headed for the door, walking deliberately, pensively, as if he was an actor on a stage who knew the spotlight was shining on him. Even for Gage, it was impossible not to stare. He stopped at the door, glanced at the doorknob, and raised his big white eyebrows at Quinn. The chief undoubtedly knew exactly what the man from Mississippi wanted, but he decided to play dumb, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and glaring coldly. The standoff lasted a few seconds, until Quinn sighed and opened the door for Conroy.

  After the lawyer had gone, Quinn slammed the door behind him hard enough that Miranda flinched.

  "Not a fan, huh?" Gage said.

  "What makes you think that?" Quinn said.

  Miranda buried her face in her hands. "I don't know what I'm doing. I know—I know hiring him is a bad idea."

  "You do what you have to do," Gage said. "Forget what I think. Forget what the chief thinks. None of us is in your situation. You've got to make up your own mind."

  "I don't know. He's—he's just here for the publicity."

  "Doesn't mean he can't help you."

  "He probably doesn't even believe me."

  "The kind of lawyer he is, the truth is the least important thing to him."

  She groaned and lowered her forehead to the table. Gage glanced at Quinn, who shrugged. In the stillness of the room, he heard the dull murmur of voices outside, the ring of a phone. Finally, she leaned back slowly, languidly, and stared at them with a pale face and glassy eyes.

  "I'm tired," she said.

  "Understandably," Gage said.

  "Do you believe me?" she asked.

  Gage had been expecting the question, or at least some form of it, but he still didn't have a good answer. She looked so beaten down, shoulders sagging under the weight of her troubles, eyelids drooping as if it took all of her will just to keep them open, and he didn't want to take away what little hope she had left. But what could he say?

  "I want to believe you," he said.

  "Well, that's something at least."

  "You've got to give me a reason, Miranda. You've got to give me something more."

  "I'm tired. I'm so tired."

  "Why did you run to Crescent City?"

  "I don't know."

  "You met up with Marcus Koura there. Why?"

  "I don't know."

  "Did you know him in New York?"

  "I ..."

  "Give me something. Anything."

  "Tired," she said.

  "Miranda, I do want to help you. You've got to help me. Otherwise, there's nothing I can do."

  She nodded, but it was a bare tip of the chin. Her eyes were reduced to slits. She crossed her arms on the table and sank her head into them.

  "It's dark," she murmured. "It's all ... dark."

  She said something else, but Gage couldn't make it out. Then she lay still. They both watched her, Gage unsure of what to do, Quinn fidgeting with his shirt. Gage felt an odd, incompatible mix of sympathy and frustration; he wanted to tell her everything was going to be all right while at the same time slap her face to see if he could knock the truth out of her.

  Then something changed. He felt a cold prickle along his neck and he knew this wasn't right, this whole thing wasn't right.

  "Miranda?" he said.

  She didn't answer. The cold prickle turned into an icy fear shooting through his veins. He shot a glance at Quinn and saw the same alarm mirrored in the chief's face. There was a second, maybe less, while the world froze on its axis and the two of them did nothing, a moment that seemed to stretch forever, and would later become an infinite memory caught in its own unending loop. All the guilt, all the harsh and well-deserved blame, all the embarrassment that they could have been so easily fooled—it would live on in that moment.

  Gage understood, with perfect clarity, what had just happened. The beguiling lawyer who was not what he seemed. The harmless drink from a flask that had not been so harmless after all.

  The moment passed and the two of them sprang into motion. Gage jumped to his feet, chair upending, and dodged around the table. At the same time, Quinn yanked open the door and started shouting, yelling for help, yelling to call 911, yelling to get that bastard Conroy before he got away. Gage felt for a pulse on her neck. There were people in the room, a crowd of them surrounding her, and they had her on the floor. A woman from dispatch had a first-aid kit.
Another man tried CPR. There were sirens. There were medics in the room. Miranda's eyes were open. Miranda's eyes were open and unseeing.

  She was gone.

  Chapter 17

  After all the life-saving measures had been taken, after Miranda was whisked away to the hospital in an ambulance, Gage riding along only to watch Tatyana declare her dead mere minutes after they reached the emergency room—after Zoe brought him back to the station where everyone was caught up in a whirlwind manhunt that included every officer on the street and every desk jockey scrutinizing the security footage for any clue where D.D. Conroy might have gone, after all this, only then did Gage finally look inside his van.

  The metal flask was there, on the seat.

  Rather than bring it himself, he had Brisbane do it, wearing gloves and holding it by the edges in the hopes of preserving any fingerprints. Gage doubted there would be any. The flask was whisked away to the lab for testing, though Gage didn't see how identifying the exact poison was going to help them catch the man who had given it to Miranda. If her killer was shrewd enough and bold enough to waltz into the Barnacle Bluffs police station and poison a prisoner in custody, then he certainly wasn't dumb enough to use a poison that would easily lead back to him.

  "I'm probably stating the obvious," Quinn said, "but that wasn't D.D. Conroy."

  The two of them were alone in Quinn's office, a moment of reprieve from the frenzied activity. Raised voices, ringing phones, the sound of many footsteps—it was all just beyond the door. Gage even heard laughter. It was so out of place that he felt a flash of anger. Who would laugh at a time like this? The blinds covering the windows were closed. Except for the glare of sunlight rimming the outside window, Quinn's computer monitor provided most of the light.

  "I gathered as much," Gage said. He still felt numb, trying to process the fact that Miranda was gone. "Where's the real D.D. Conroy?"

  "Soaking up the sun on a beach outside his condo in Miami. Trenton got him on the horn a few minutes ago. He also got the local PD to send an officer to make sure the man wasn't playing us. He was there."

  "And pretty surprised to hear what someone did dressed as him, I imagine."

  Quinn drummed his fingers on a stack of paper. "Nobody told him yet. I'm trying to keep a lid on this just a little while longer. You know what kind of shit storm it's going to be when the world finds out? I hate being played the fool!"

  "You weren't alone. He played me too. Even that flask. He was sitting outside the station with the cap off, as if he'd just taken a drink. But I never saw him actually drink it. The bastard even had me smell it."

  "And all that crap about not wanting to shake hands or touch doorknobs. He just didn't want to leave behind any fingerprints."

  "He knew she didn't drink alcohol either. That's why he did that whole bit about it only being water. He knew that was the only way he could get her to drink it."

  "Jesus."

  "If this was like one of those TV shows," Gage said, "your crack team of crime scene investigators would find a stray hair, identify the man's DNA, and we'd have him in custody before the next commercial break."

  "I've got a tech in the investigation room right now," Quinn said, seemingly missing the sarcasm, "but I wouldn't hold my breath he'll find anything useful. Do you know how many people come in and out of that room every day? And it's not like we sterilize the place. I'm just as likely to find a hair from some wife-beater who was sitting in that chair a year ago as I am the man who just carried out the most daring murder this town has ever seen." He pounded his fist on the desk. "I can't believe this!"

  Gage, slumping in his chair, couldn't believe it either. It just seemed too impossible to be real. Even in his shock, though, even as he tried to grapple with the guilt that he had let Miranda down in such a profound way, he had to grudgingly admit that the man who had carried out this plan had guile and smarts Gage had rarely seen. It might appear at first to be extremely foolhardy to chose one of the most famous lawyers on the planet as a disguise, but the more Gage thought about it, the more brilliant it seemed. Conroy's beard, heavy frame, and outlandish appearance easily hid the real man underneath. When someone looked so distinctive, who would even notice that the nose might be a little bigger, the eyes tiny bit wider, the cheekbones a little more pronounced? It was as if the man had come dressed as a clown. Would anybody recognize a clown out of costume? Unlikely.

  Even Conroy's fame had worked to the murderer's advantage. If he had come dressed as some random person, he might have received a lot more suspicion. But because Conroy was so famous, the scrutiny had not been about whether he was who he said he was, but on his motives. He had used Conroy's showboating reputation as just another way to hide his true intentions.

  "Who the fuck is this guy?" Quinn asked. "I want you to tell me everything you know right now. No secrets, Gage. I swear, if you hold back from me like you usually do, I will spend the rest of my days making your life a living hell."

  "I haven't held anything back," Gage said.

  "Bullshit."

  "You really want to do this? I can walk out of here right now."

  "And I can charge you as an accessory to murder."

  "What the hell are you talking about? I was right here with you!"

  "Sure, good cover," Quinn said. "Maybe you were working with this guy. Best alibi in the world, sitting next to him while he poisons this poor girl. It's only water, you told her. Sure it was. Maybe you knew all along."

  "Come on."

  "What do you know?"

  "I told you—"

  "You've got to know something!"

  "There isn't anything else," Gage insisted. "Just a lot of guesses."

  "Give me guesses, then!"

  Gage sighed. "Fine, let me think out loud here. We know Marcus and Omar had some kind of falling out over eTransWorld, which was why Marcus sold out to his brother. Marcus was meeting with Miranda in New York, or at least that's the best guess. Maybe these things are connected, maybe not. Miranda was with a powerful man and somehow she and Marcus met, fell for each other, decided to run away together—the old story. They meet in Crescent City but this powerful guy sends some people after them, kills Marcus. Miranda survives somehow, maybe by hiding ... " He shook his head. "It doesn't add up, does it?"

  "Why?"

  "Well, if this powerful guy sent some people after them because he was jealous, then they would have found her on the boat. No way she could have hidden. So maybe it wasn't Marcus who sent the guys. Maybe it was Omar "

  "Because of their falling out over eTransWorld?"

  "Maybe. Maybe something bigger. Omar was trying to take out Marcus. He might not have even known about Miranda until you called to tell him about his brother's boat turning up here with amnesia girl on board."

  "So his anger is all an act?" Quinn asked.

  "Makes sense, doesn't it?" Gage replied. "I mean, what else is he going to do? He may have thought she was just some random woman Marcus picked up on his journey until he saw her in person. Maybe then he knew she was fake Conroy's girl, maybe not. Depends on whether Omar and fake Conroy are really connected and how much they knew about each other. Maybe Omar and this guy had cooked up some kind of scheme and Miranda got wind of it. She told Marcus and he found a way to stop it."

  "That's a lot of maybes."

  "I told you all I had were a lot of guesses. Remember the rumors are that eTransWorld was working with certain terrorist organizations. Maybe Marcus and Miranda were trying to steal it for themselves. We don't know. We do know that the FBI was working on Marcus, but he wouldn't betray his brother. Maybe he wasn't willing to send Omar to jail, but he still wanted to stop whatever eTransWorld was up to."

  Quinn chewed at his bottom lip. "Okay. I believe at least one thing now. You're not holding anything back. It's all a mess. So back to our D.D. Conroy double. If he didn't come here to kill Miranda for revenge, then he did it to, what, prevent her from eventually remembering him?"

  "Probably
for both reasons," Gage said. "He risked a hell of a lot killing her this way. My best guess is that he was tying up loose ends. If we couldn't identify her when she was alive, then we're going to have an even harder time identifying her now that she's gone."

  "Well, then mission accomplished. The person to talk to now is Omar. Maybe we can get him to ... to ..."

  Quinn trailed off. They both looked at each other suddenly, and Gage knew they were undoubtedly thinking the same thing.

  Omar was another loose end.

  * * *

  They roared over Highway 101 in Quinn's patrol car, sirens blaring. It wasn't necessary to voice their suspicions. They would know soon enough whether what both of them was thinking was true.

  With the traffic parting before them, it took less than two minutes to reach the Inn at Sapphire Head. They screeched to a stop under the covered front entrance, another patrol car pulling in behind them, and soon all were barreling through the gusts of wind into the plush lobby. A gaping clerk directed them to Room 317 and Quinn barked at him to come along with the key. Rather than wait for the elevator, they clambered up the stairs, Gage holding his cane and biting his lip at the knife jabs of pain in his knee.

  Quinn, reaching the door before everyone else, pounded on it.

  "Police!" he shouted. "Omar, you in there?"

  There was no answer. He knocked even harder, but still there was nothing.

  Quinn nodded at the clerk and the kid fumbled the key card through the reader. Quinn pulled out his Glock and the two cops with them took it as their cue to do the same. A cleaning woman down the hall emerged from one of the rooms with a cart, saw what they were doing, and ducked back inside.

  Standing to the right of the door, Quinn pushed slowly on the lever.

  The door swung open. Peering over shoulders and between heads, Gage saw tan carpet and off-white walls, a framed picture of two sea lions, and a white sheen billowing in front of a partially open patio door. He heard and smelled the ocean ... and then something else, too, something more foul. Putrid, like a sewer. Everyone recoiled from the odor, one of the cops pressing his nose into the sleeve of his uniform, the clerk lunging away down the hall.