“Yes, there’s footage. And you can call Bernie right now, or you can take my word for it. I haven’t been to look at the evidence yet, but I intend to. You can get together with King Productions now or come with me and see the footage later. Your call.”
She really wished it would be professional just to slap his determined and impatient face.
Another deep breath. “It’s my call, yes,” she said. “But I will come with you. As you pointed out, I can see the footage later.”
He stood his ground but seemed slightly taken aback, something of a smile almost curving his lips.
“We’re not on opposing sides,” she said. “It doesn’t matter who makes what call. We’re here to find out if a murder has occurred, and if an investigation is necessary. I’m here for Brady Laurie, Agent Chan, not for a pissing contest with you.”
Now his lips did curve into a full smile. “Sorry. But the M.E.’s findings were just too easy.”
“Look, if there was no reason to suspect foul play, his findings really weren’t negligent.”
“You’re defending him because he’s an M.E.”
“I’m only saying what’s true, especially in a big city where you can have days when the bodies just pile up,” Kat said.
“All right. I’ll apologize when I see him again—if I see him again—and let’s pray I don’t. As to the rest, time can mean everything in this kind of investigation.”
“I know. But I’m not sure whether we can answer all the questions we need answered or if those answers will lead to more questions. If we find air in the tank…”
“Then there’s a good chance he was murdered.”
He’d turned already. She suddenly hated the fact that he was as tall as he was. Keeping up with him was an effort.
“Even if the air is gone, we can’t be certain of what happened. The air might have bled out after he died,” she said, catching up with Will. “And if there is air in the tank, it still doesn’t prove that the regulator was ripped from his mouth.”
He stopped so abruptly that she plowed into him. He reached out one hand to prevent her from falling.
“No, we won’t prove anything one way or another, not without additional evidence. But it will be interesting to find out if there is or isn’t air in his tank and to take a look at the regulator.”
“You have a car?” she asked him.
“You don’t?”
“I got into my room around midnight. I took a cab from the airport.”
“I’m in the garage.”
He started walking again. This time, she kept a certain distance.
He’d rented a Honda. When Kat climbed in, he indicated a folder thrust between the seats. “Notes from my meeting with Amanda Channel and Jon Hunt at the Chicago Ancient History Preservation Center—and what I’ve dug up from recent newspaper clippings.”
Kat quickly leafed through the folder while he maneuvered the car out of the parking garage. The center sounded like a truly commendable enterprise. Nonprofit, it was dedicated to preservation. The staff was small and included three researchers, a receptionist and a general assistant. Grad students came and went. Of course, now with Brady Laurie gone, it was down to two researchers.
“Landry Salvage and Simonton’s Sea Search,” she murmured, skimming various articles written about the elusive Jerry McGuen. “These can’t be the only two parties interested in finding the ship.”
“I’m assuming that over the last century, countless individuals and companies have tried. Think about discoveries in the past. Both the Titanic and the Atocha took years and years of fruitless searches before finally being discovered.” He glanced over at her. “Laurie must have been a brilliant historian and scientist.”
“But not as brilliant a diver,” Kat said. “He shouldn’t have gone down alone.”
Will shrugged. “Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe the first person to come across the treasure was supposed to die,” he said cryptically. “Or maybe his coworkers weren’t supposed to be so close behind him, who knows? But I believe we’ll find out.”
“You have a lot of confidence,” Kat told him.
He flashed her a smile that was surprisingly charming. “That’s what we do—find things out. So far, my team hasn’t stopped until we’ve gotten the answers. Don’t tell me your team gives up so easily.”
“We haven’t given up yet!” Kat said indignantly.
His smile remained in place as he drove.
At the station, they were led first to one desk and then to another, and finally to the officer in charge of the accidental death investigation, Sergeant Riley. His supervisor had advised him to expect fed agents, and while he was pleasant and seemed to have no problem offering them assistance, he was confused about why they were there. “Sad, but the way the papers tell it,” Riley said, “Laurie went down on his own and drowned. You would’ve thought he’d know better. Every year, every damned year, there’s a diver lost somewhere in the lake, some fool so convinced of his own ability that he just goes down—and comes up dead.” Riley was in his early thirties, tops. He was medium in height and size, and wore a white tailored shirt with the sleeves rolled up. “At the moment, the personal effects found on the corpse are in the evidence room. We’ll go sign them out and you can study them all you want.”
“Were you there when Brady Laurie was brought up?” Kat asked him.
“They were on the lake. Our marine unit went out to the site. He was declared dead at the hospital, but there’d been attempts at resuscitation before that. I took over the investigation when his wet suit and dive tanks were sent to us, and I’ve been awaiting the medical examiner’s report, but…I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting anything to come of it,” Riley said.
He walked them back to the evidence cage, where they were introduced to the officer in charge and signed in. “Was the equipment tested for leaks?” Will asked.
“Immediately. No problems.”
“Fingerprints?”
“Um, no.”
“Ah,” Chan said.
Riley frowned. “Is that a problem? I doubt we’d have gotten anything, anyway, since divers in the lake wear gloves. And then, of course, our technicians worked with the equipment to find out if it was faulty in any way.”
“But it wasn’t?”
“No.”
In the evidence area where the tank, regulator and buoyancy control belt had been stowed, along with Laurie’s weight belt, Will looked back at Kat. “May I?”
“Go right ahead.” Laurie’s equipment had not been disassembled; the “octopus” with the regulator, secondary system and computer console was still connected to the air tank.
Will examined the computer at the end of one of the hoses. He grimaced and beckoned to Kat. She came over and stood next to him, staring down at the dials. Brady Laurie had died with five minutes of air still available.
“There was air in his tank,” Will explained to Riley. “After it was checked out for leaks.”
“Well, so there is,” Riley said. “Then he must have panicked and spit the thing out.”
“Experienced divers don’t panic when they have a regulator and air. He had a secondary system, too,” Kat said thoughtfully. “Properly attached to his BCV.” Riley was looking at her blankly. “This,” she said, indicating the buoyancy control vest. “He could easily have reached for it if he’d had difficulty with his main regulator,” she said, pointing to the mouthpiece. “It allows for the flow of air.”
Riley shook his head. “We really think it was just a tragic accident.”
Kat stepped in front of Will. “I’m sorry, Sergeant Riley. We don’t.”
“You’re taking over the investigation?” he asked. To Kat’s astonishment, he sounded hopeful.
He must have read her mind. “Hey, big city here, folks. I have my hands full, so…the chief already sent down orders to set you up in one of the conference rooms.”
&
nbsp; “Good,” Will said. “Thank you.” He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket. “Can you see that we have access to this equipment, and a technical officer if need be?”
“Whatever you want that we’ve got,” Riley assured them.
“Can you also connect us with the officer in charge of the marine patrol unit?”
Riley was happy to do so. He was happy, perhaps, to do anything that would make them someone else’s responsibility.
Outside the station, Kat took out her phone. “I’ve got to tell Logan I can’t say for sure that Laurie died by accident,” she explained to Will. “Do you need to call in, as well? Now might be a good time.”
He shrugged. “I don’t have anything to report yet. Jackson Crow knew I’d be staying on for a while.”
“Oh?”
“Hey, I happen to love Egyptian history,” he told her.
“You seem delighted that there might have been a murder,” she said sarcastically.
“Death never delights me.” His voice had grown serious. “You came into this expecting an accidental drowning—which is also what the police believed. But whenever there’s big money involved and a massive black market, I expect trouble. We need to put a stop to it or it’s going to continue.” He studied her for a moment. “Hey, this is what we do,” he said. “You shouldn’t be in this if you can’t hack it.”
“I can hack it just fine,” she snapped. “You forget I’m a doctor—a certified medical examiner and forensic pathologist. I’ve studied all manner of deaths.”
“No, I didn’t forget,” he said. “I couldn’t possibly—you constantly remind me.”
He walked away so she could make her call.
Kat looked after him, frustrated, her temper soaring again. Then she flushed and turned away. Was she afraid she didn’t have control of the situation? Mental note: quit reminding people that I’m an M.E.
Wincing, she made her call.
She told Logan that yes, it appeared that they should investigate, although she had nothing solid as yet. He promised that more team members would be there within twenty-four hours. “I’m assuming that you’ve met Agent Chan?” Logan asked.
“Oh, yes.”
“And he’s capable and professional?”
“All that,” Kat said drily.
“And what else?”
“He’s an ass,” Kat said. “He stomped all over the Chicago M.E. I try to speak first now to protect us from the wrath of local authorities.”
Logan chuckled softly. “I know Chan. I met him at our special units base in Arlington. He’s, shall we say, irreverent, but apparently excellent at what he does. He’s familiar with film, video and computer alteration, so he’ll be great with the film crew. And he dives, which is a major asset on this case. Are you going to see the Jerry McGuen soon?”
“If I know Chan, very soon,” Kat said, glancing over at her new colleague.
“Keep me posted on any developments,” Logan told her. “I should be there by midafternoon tomorrow.” Then he rang off and Kat returned the phone to her purse, signaling that the call was finished.
Chan approached her seconds later. “Ready?” he asked.
She nodded.
Their next stop was the harbor, where the police search and rescue boat that had brought in the body was docked.
The harbor and the lake were beautiful that day. Summer was still with them but would begin to fade in the next few weeks. Today, though, the water glistened under a benign sun.
They were able to see all four officers who’d been on the search and rescue boat. Officer Aldo Reynald had been in charge, and he seemed sincerely interested in their queries.
“When we got there, the woman was crying her eyes out…Amanda. Yeah, Amanda Channel. She was kneeling over the dead man. She said she’d done CPR, but she didn’t think it helped. She said we had to save her friend. The other guy, Jon Hunt, was walking around the dock, rubbing his chin, scratching his head. I tried CPR as we got him to shore. No luck. We have a state-of-the-art truck to deal with emergencies like this. You get a lot of divers who think they know their stuff and don’t, or divers who are used to the tropics and get into trouble in the lake. And naturally we have boating accidents, so…we’re prepared. We used every possible method of resuscitation on the way to the hospital, but…then we got there and they called it.” He shook his head glumly. “I’m assuming we’re going to have to be vigilant as this whole thing proceeds because diving a wreck is inherently dangerous, and a newly discovered one even more so.”
Reynald was lean and fit; he was obviously experienced, practical—and compassionate.
“But you believe he was dead when you arrived?” Kat asked.
He nodded grimly. “Dead as a cold mackerel, I’m afraid.”
“How long?” Will asked next.
“He couldn’t have been dead more than half an hour or so,” Reynald told them. “I’m not sure what I’m basing that on, other than that I’ve pulled more than a few bodies out of the lake. Like I said, he was declared DOA at the hospital.”
“Were there other boats near the dive spot?” Will asked.
“Boating on a good day on Lake Michigan? You bet.”
“Close to the dive site?” Kat continued for Will.
Reynald drew in a deep breath. “Yeah, near enough, I think. The other Preservation Center boat was there—as well as the one the dead man had been on. Oh, and the film crew has a snazzy research boat, too. There was a sailboat maybe two hundred feet away and others farther out….”
One of his fellow officers chimed in. “There were two motorboats nearby. One was a Cigarette—nice speedboat. I noticed that because I always wanted one. The other…a little cabin cruiser. Looked like the people aboard were fishing.”
“Fishing,” Kat echoed dubiously.
The officer grinned. “Not that long ago, Lake Michigan was so polluted you could die from eating fish you caught out there. But it’s cleaned up. You’ll find lots of people fishing in the lake now.”
“Did you notice anything else about the boat?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I’m afraid I didn’t.”
“Either have a dive flag up?” Will asked.
“Neither,” the second officer replied.
“We were called in on an accident, and rescue was our main objective,” Reynald told them. “I feel like a fool because we’re also law enforcement officers. Do you suspect it was more than an accident?”
Kat answered carefully. “We’re not sure yet. We’re just investigating at this point.”
“Well, we’re here anytime you need us,” Reynald said.
They thanked him. As they headed back to the car, Will seemed thoughtful. He glanced over at her. “You tired? You want to call it quits for the day?”
She scowled back at him. If she’d been falling off her feet, she’d never have admitted it to this man. “I’m fine. What do you have in mind?”
“Two quick stops—Landry Salvage and Simonton’s Sea Search. Neither may really help. Salvage companies don’t usually drive around in Cigarette speedboats, but…”
“And if someone else is searching for treasure, that person may not be involved with a salvage company at all,” Kat added.
He paused at the car door, looking over it. “True. But you have to know something about diving to get down there. You’d have to follow the research to find the ship—and you’d have to follow Brady Laurie out to the site…and gone after him right away.”
“Maybe it’s someone who works for a salvage company,” Kat suggested. “Not the company itself.”
“That would be my bet.” Will grinned as she joined him in the front seat. “Your choice—Landry or Simonton’s Sea Search first?”
“Simonton’s. I like the alliteration,” she said.
Simonton’s was just north of the pier. There was a massive vessel with all kinds of cranes and netting at the dock. The office itself was small and looked more like a sea shanty than a professiona
l building. Inside, Kat was surprised to see that it was nicely outfitted with modern office furniture and file cabinets that occupied most of the wall space. The walls were decorated with old anchors, flags and other boating paraphernalia. A receptionist who introduced herself as Gina led them to a back room, where the walls were decorated with sea charts and maps, and the rear wall held the figurehead of a beautiful siren.
The man standing behind the desk was in a windbreaker, deck shoes and jeans. His desk was strewn with papers, despite the computer that took up at least half of it. “Hi. I’m Andy Simonton,” he greeted them. “What can I do for you?”
He was young, maybe thirty, with slightly shaggy blond hair and bright blue eyes. He swept out a hand to indicate the chairs in front of his messy desk. They sat.
“You’re with the FBI?” he asked curiously. He didn’t seem afraid or threatened in any way, but rather intrigued.
“We’re looking into the death of Brady Laurie,” Will said.
“Sad affair, that drowning,” Simonton murmured.
“This is your company?” Kat asked him.
Simonton nodded. “My father’s company, really. He wants to retire. I’ve been handling the business for about a year.”
“And what is your business, exactly?” Will asked.
Simonton looked confused. “Um, salvage.”
Will had the grace to laugh. “No, I’m sorry, what type of salvage? What are you working on now?”
“Oh!” Simonton said. “We’re conducting two recovery missions. A Florida boater underestimated the power of the lake and sank a sixty-foot sailboat, and we’re also working on recovering the cargo from the hold of the Mystic Susan—she’s a merchant vessel that went down with crates of high-fashion clothing,” Simonton explained.
“That does sound like work. Not terribly exciting,” Kat said sympathetically.
Simonton gave a nonchalant shrug. “It pays the bills, and quite nicely, too. Oh, and Mrs. Ciskel—she’s the wife of the Florida boater—is furious because she had a lot of jewelry aboard when their boat went down. I’d like to find that cache myself. To return to her, of course. She’s promised a massive bonus if we get back all her jewels.” He frowned. “Now, what’s this all about?”
Krewe of Hunters, Volume 2: The Unseen ; The Unholy ; The Unspoken ; The Uninvited Page 61