by C. L. Coffey
“They’re probably jealous that you make that look good,” I grinned at him.
“You think?” he returned with a smirk.
“You know,” I retorted.
Although he was rolling his sleeves up, Joshua was looking happier. “I spoke to Missing Person’s about Alexander Ramsey Senior. Apparently, his son was his only next of kin, and vice versa. His wife killed herself about twelve years ago.”
“What do they think happened to him?” I asked, carefully.
“No movement in his accounts, but the IRS was starting an investigation against him and his company. They were set to come in next Monday.”
“Do you think that’s why what’s happening tonight is happening tonight?” I asked.
“I do. They think that Ramsey got wind of it and used his shipping connections to get out of the country. Depending on what country he went to, it’s reasonable to say that’s why his accounts hadn’t been touched – they think he’s on a boat in the Atlantic Ocean somewhere. Or at least, they did, until I told them about Alex Junior,” Joshua explained. “Either way, if Missing Person’s knew, there’s a very good chance that Asmodeus does too.”
We returned to A. R. International. There were only a handful of cars there today, but it was the same lady on reception when we walked in. “You’re back,” she said, looking worried.
“I apologize for yesterday, ma’am,” said Joshua, calmly. “We hadn’t been informed of Mr. Ramsey Senior’s disappearance. Unfortunately, his son was found murdered yesterday morning and it looks like he was either coming from, or going to work.”
“Little Alexander?” the woman gasped, her hands covering her mouth. “How awful.”
“I’m sorry to deliver the bad news. Is there anyone we could talk to so we can verify his work pattern?” Joshua continued, sympathetically.
The woman frowned. “His manager, Ryan, isn’t in work until this evening, but the other shift manager might know. Just a moment.” She reached for something behind the desk. It was a small radio. “Earl, it’s Sandra. Are you receiving?”
“Go ahead, Sandra.”
“Can you come to reception? There are some police officers who need to speak to you about Alexander.”
“Just let me get this carton secured. I’ll be about twenty minutes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Madeleine Sophie
It was closer to thirty minutes when Earl, a short man, maybe in his late forties, appeared. He was trying to wipe away some of the grime and sweat that covered his face as he walked in. “How can I help you, detectives?”
“Earl…?” Joshua asked as a hand was offered.
“Cook. Earl Cook. Sandra said you needed to speak to me?” he clarified as they shook hands.
“I have some bad news about Alexander Ramsey Junior,” Joshua said.
Earl nodded. “I thought you might when he didn’t turn up for his shift last night.”
“He was found murdered yesterday morning,” Joshua confirmed. “If you’re feeling up to it, I need to ask you some questions.” Earl nodded. “It looked like Alexander-”
“Junior,” Earl corrected him. “He’s Junior.”
“Junior,” Joshua amended himself. “It looked like Junior was either on his way to or from work.”
“Yesterday morning? Yes, he’s got the night shifts this week,” Earl confirmed. “Tonight is the last night, then a few days off before switching to days.”
“And what time do the night shifts finish?”
“We do twelve hour shifts: six until six.”
“Do you know if Junior had any enemies?” I asked.
Earl stared at me, taking his time before answering. “He didn’t discuss that with me.”
“Is there anyone he might have had that conversation with?” Joshua asked.
“Maybe Juan or Chris?” Earl shrugged. “I can get Sandra to provide you with their contact details.”
“Were you working last night?” I asked suddenly. “You said he didn’t show up.”
“I’m D-Shift. We’re running opposite to B-Shift, so I found out when I was giving their manager the handover. And before you ask, after leaving here yesterday, I had a late dinner with my family, then spent the whole night in bed. My wife can verify that,” Earl responded, defensively.
“You said Sandra could provide us with a contact list?” Joshua quickly asked. We waited for Sandra to print out the information, and then left her and Earl. “You were direct with him,” Joshua noted. “Did you pick up on something?”
I shook my head. “Not in an angelic sense,” I told him. “I thought he was a bit weird when he said he didn’t discuss any enemies of Junior’s. Oh!” I exclaimed. “That list! Is there a Madeleine Sophie on it?”
Joshua looked, scanning it over, and then shook his head. “Only one woman on the list, but as far as I can remember, it doesn’t match any of the names from Asmodeus’ calendar.”
He handed it over and I checked. “No, not a match.” I leaned back against the car, staring out at the river. From where this building was located, it offered a view of the river, the Mississippi’s brown waters visible between stacks of shipping containers. “Perhaps Junior’s murder is one of those weird coincidences and it’s not directly related to what’s happening here tonight. We should see if anyone else has managed to uncover-”
“Stella!” Joshua blurted out.
“Who is Stella and why would we want her uncovered? Why are you thinking about uncovering a woman?” I asked, carefully.
He looked confused, but his attention was on something in front of him. He pointed and I looked, expecting to see a woman walking past, but there was nothing but a boat in the distance. “The container ship,” he said, still pointing.
I looked out to the water. I just caught the back end of the ship before it disappeared from view… and the name painted in white on its back end. Stella. “The boat is called Stella?”
Joshua turned to me, nodding. “It’s a ship, not a boat, but yes.”
“Is it named after someone you know?” I asked, really not getting his excitement. “Or do you go ship spotting in your spare time?” I knew train spotting was a thing, so maybe ship spotting was too? Either way, he was getting far too excited about a boat – sorry, a ship.
“Madeline Sophie?” he said, rolling his eyes at me. “What if those names in his diary are names of ships?”
My eyes went wide. “That’s genius!”
“I’m not just a pretty face, darlin’,” he beamed.
“I never thought you were,” I assured him.
“Good,” he said. “Now let’s get back to that convent so I can get in some air conditioning.”
* * *
“We think the women’s names are ships,” Joshua explained to Cupid and Leon a short time later. “We went via the Harbor Master and they’re going to email over a list of all the ships that passed through the Port of New Orleans in the last six months.”
“Did you ask about Madeleine Sophie?” Cupid asked.
“Due in tonight at eight o’clock,” I grinned. “We know where, we know when, and we know how.”
“We might be able to find out what,” Leon said, pulling out his phone. “I’ve worked with the Harbor Police several times now. It’s amazing how many people think that throwing a body or evidence in the river will dispose of it for them,” he explained as he scrolled through his phone and dialed. “Joey, it’s Leon… how are you doing…? Look, I need a favor – there’s a ship coming in tonight. Can you tell me what the cargo is?” There was a large pause. “Yeah, that’s fine, but you need to be discreet… Joey, there was nothing discreet about that!” Leon laughed and hung up. “He’s going to call me back.”
“Can we trust him?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Leon, simply.
“What are you thinking?” Joshua asked, folding his arms.
“What if we could stop the boat from docking?” I suggested. “Maybe get everyone evacuated off it –
I guess maybe someone could start a small fire? It would hopefully get everyone off who wasn’t one of the Fallen.”
“Then what?” Cupid asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. How many cherubs would it take to empty the ship?”
“That wouldn’t work,” Cupid sighed. “It would take a couple of hours maybe, and people would start to notice when the containers started to disappear.”
“I don’t think we need to stop the ship,” Leon said slowly. “I could probably get the ship delayed long enough for some of us to get onboard to look around, but given the times Asmodeus had down in his diary, I’d bet his containers would be the first to be unloaded: it would take all night to get everything off.”
“What we need is a delay in those items leaving the port. We need to know if they’re getting loaded onto a train, or straight onto the back of a truck,” Joshua said.
Leon nodded. “Let me call Joey back and see what I can find out.” He stepped out of the room.
Before he could return, Garret and Veronica appeared. “Is Asmodeus on the move?” I asked her.
“No, Garret has something to say,” Veronica declared, barely listening to what I had asked. She was fuming. “Tell them.”
“I don’t understand what the problem is,” Garret actually whined.
“It’s breaking and entering!” Veronica yelled, stamping her foot.
“You broke into somewhere?” Joshua asked.
Garret glared at him. “You couldn’t arrest me, even if you wanted to.”
“Arresting you is really not what I want to do when I see you,” Joshua snapped. Even though he wasn’t alone in that sentiment, I sank into a chair, rubbing at my temples. How did parents do it? Forget that, how did teachers do it?
“What’s all the shouting?” Leon asked, hurrying back into the room. “Oh, the children are back.”
“We’re not children,” both Veronica and Garret objected.
Could have fooled me.
“Well you’re certainly acting like children,” Leon pointed out. “So unless you want to calm down and act like an adult, you can leave the room and let the adults talk.”
Damnit, they listened.
“Last night I entered the Ramsey Shipping offices,” Garret said. “But there was no breaking in.”
“Just because you can get yourself in and out faster than a person can blink doesn’t mean it’s not classed as breaking and entering,” Joshua hurriedly pointed out.
“I told you so,” Veronica sniped at Garret.
“Whatever!” Garret shrugged. “If you don’t like it, I just won’t share the information. See if I care.”
I was about to say something, when I noticed Leon was looking on the floor for something. “Have you lost something?” I asked him.
“Don’t mind me,” he said. “I’m just looking for the pacifiers these two spat out.”
I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. When I looked at the two cherubs and saw their mortified expressions, I just laughed harder. Eventually, I calmed myself down, though not before wiping the tears from my eyes. Who knew Leon had such sass? “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “But that’s the best thing I’ve heard all day. Your daughter must love you.”
Leon smiled. “I spoke to Joey again. He’s got the cargo manifesto for the Madeleine Sophie and it is only registering electronics from China. It’s arriving via the Panama Canal, which isn’t completely unusual, but raw materials tend to be shipped in over finished goods: it’s nothing that is raising alarms with Harbor Patrol. Either way, the breakdown of what’s going where once it’s been unloaded is up to the shipping company. That information is not shared with him.”
“Until you interrupted me, I was going to say that I had that information,” Garret jumped in.
“What did you find out?” Joshua asked, when it was evident that Garret wasn’t going to just share that information.
“I thought you didn’t want to know.”
“Garret, stop being an idiot and please just share with us whatever information you got,” I sighed, wearily.
“The Madeleine Sophie has 4080 containers on it. The majority are staying on it – the Port of New Orleans is just a stop along the way. Most of the containers coming off are split up in fairly big chunks between different companies. There are fifteen that have single container orders.”
“So we need to work out which one is Asmodeus’,” I said. “That makes it a lot easier.”
Garret pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket, opening it out and holding it up. It looked like a delivery note of some kind. “Seven Princes Limited.”
“Does the ego of these guys have no limit?” I said, mouth gaping in disbelief.
Leon peered at the paper. “We have a container number and onward bound instructions: it’s getting loaded onto a truck and taken to Georgia.”
“Not if we get to it first,” I said.
“We should go get kitted up,” Joshua said to Leon. I shot him a look, but he shook his head.
“Can’t blame a guardian angel for trying,” I sighed.
* * *
We waited until the cover of darkness to go to the port. The night shift had started an hour prior to our arrival. Even though I knew they were going to be unloading part of the cargo ship and it would take them most of the night, I had been holding onto the hope that there would be less people about. The area was also well lit.
My sword was tucked into my jeans, the handle already accessible, but my main weapon was my bow. Both Cupid and I had taken high vantage points. He was on an unused crane at the far side of the dock, while I was a bit lower down. He’d dropped me off on top of a stack of three containers with Joshua. The way they were stacked meant that we’d be able to get down relatively easily, but our current position had us lying on our stomachs.
I was glad the sun had set at this point, because the metal was still warm. Beside me, Joshua had finally ditched the turtleneck for a black t-shirt, but he was now wearing a bulletproof vest, and I could see from the sweat beading at his temples that he was still hot. I had suggested he could be cooler by staying at the convent, but he had ignored me.
Okay, I’d said I wouldn’t physically try to stop him, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to make suggestions to the contrary when I could.
“That looks like it,” Joshua suddenly whispered. He’d been watching the water, but as soon as he had spoken, he had picked up his binoculars. “Yeah, that’s the one.”
I looked out to the water. Almost parallel to the dock was a boat. No, ship was definitely the right word: a boat implied something small, like the little tugs rushing out to meet it. This ship was enormous and the closer it got, the bigger it got.
Whenever I’d seen the ships passing along the Mississippi, they’d always been in the center of the river. I knew they were big, but I’d seriously underestimated the size. No wonder it took all night to unload one. The other thing I’d never noticed was how they docked. I guess I had been imagining them driving (sailing?) up to the side of the dock, but it turned out the little tug boats were there to push it in. Who knew?! I was pretty disappointed that I wasn’t going to see them unload it, especially when these weird four-legged crane things started driving up.
Thankfully, it took that long, I managed to get my bewilderment under control, and return my focus to the dock. In addition to what I assumed were the dock workers, there were two guards. “Do you think that’s normal?” I whispered at Joshua, pointing.
“Maybe,” Joshua said, though he sounded doubtful. “It is supposed to be electronics, so I guess it makes sense. We just haven’t heard much about theft in the precinct.”
My gut was telling me they were most likely Fallen. Of the twelve dock workers, I figured maybe ten were either Fallen or nephilim. Two humans would be easy enough to keep safe. More might be a little trickier, but then there would be less bad guys. Just when I was starting to feel a little hopeful, I realized that I’d forgotten about the ship’s cre
w. “Crap,” I muttered.
“What?” Joshua whispered.
“The ship’s crew. I forgot about them.”
Joshua frowned, squinting out at the boat. “I doubt there will be many Fallen on there.”
“Which means we need a way to keep them on the ship and keep them safe,” I pointed out.
Joshua pulled out his phone, using me to hide its glow behind. “Leon says it’s not normal for many to disembark, especially when this isn’t the end of their route. They’ll be busy helping unload from on the ship.”
At that point, a metallic clunk echoed across the yard as the mammoth ship docked. I hoped Leon was right – there wasn’t much time to change anything. All too soon, the cranes were springing into life, picking various colored containers up from the ship and settling them on the ground. “Can you see it yet?”
Joshua was studying the containers through his binoculars, looking out for a number painted somewhere on its side. “No… wait, yes. It’s the blue one they’re lifting up now.”
“Cupid, it’s that blue one.” I told Cupid while Joshua once again sent a text message to Leon.
“It looks like they’re going to load it straight onto that truck,” Joshua said.
I scanned the area, spotting the truck reversing, close to us. That was good. “Hopefully, if they have any health and safety sense about them, they’ll wait for the driver to get out of the truck before they set it down, in case they drop the container on the cab. That should make things easier for Garret and Dion.” They were in charge of taking care of the driver and taking control of the truck.
Sure enough, the driver vacated the cab… and walked straight over to one of the guards.
“That’s three Fallen,” I mumbled. Four of the cherubim had stayed watching Asmodeus. I’d insisted that another four were stationed at Bee’s, watching Beelzebub – just in case. That left nine cherubim, one archangel, two humans, and me. Having fought one of the Fallen, this didn’t fill me with confidence.