by A. J Tata
Mahegan studied the group closely, not really paying attention to the babbling deputy anymore. He saw four preteen kids with fishing poles who were on their way to the sound when one of them saw the lights and then the dead body and said, “Cool.”
He saw one of the four whip out a cell phone, do some texting, and within five minutes seven of their buddies showed up along with some local adults that Mahegan recognized from the restaurant and infrequent visits to town. A jacked-up truck with knobby tires pulled up behind the cop car and two twenty-something locals jumped out, whooping and saying, “What we got here, Rollie?”
Rollie. As in Roland Williams, Mahegan figured. Mahegan looked back at Williams, who hitched up his pants and said to Mahegan, “I’m talking to you, boy. You got a name?”
Then he looked back at the two guys who had jumped from the truck. Both were bare-chested and wore backward-facing ball caps. One sported a fuzzy goatee and the other had a soul patch under his lip. Goatee was barefoot. Soul Patch wore some type of sandals. Both looked to be Williams’s age.
It was already well into the warm afternoon and Williams took a step toward him and began reaching his hand out to turn Mahegan in his direction.
“Don’t touch me,” Mahegan said. His voice was just above a whisper.
Williams hesitated just enough for Mahegan to know that he was calculating what to do.
“I’ll do whatever the hell I want to do,” Williams said. But he didn’t touch Mahegan. “You might even have something to do with them attacks in South Carolina this morning. Now let me see your identification.”
Mahegan raised his arms in a half shrug. His swim trunks hung low below his navel and a solid year of swimming and running, rehab as he called it, had further refined his powerful, cut frame.
“I told you I was swimming. I don’t have ID on me,” Mahegan said. “Name’s Mahegan. What happened in South Carolina?”
“Don’t let him give you any shit, Rollie,” Goatee razzed and then whooped again, this time with a fist pump. “Damn, a dead body.”
“Everyone back away,” Williams said. “This is a crime scene. The nation is under attack, just like nine-eleven.”
Mahegan knew it wasn’t a crime scene but he supposed that the deputy had to consider that perhaps it was one. And what had happened in South Carolina?
“Is that a first name or a last name? Mahegan?”
“Chayton Mahegan.”
“Chayton?” Soul Patch said. “Is that some kind of gay name?”
Williams looked at Goatee and Soul Patch, smiling as if Soul Patch had just landed a good punch on Mahegan.
Mahegan stared at Williams, then turned away, calling over his shoulder, “Tell your boss to call me if you need me for anything else.”
“You stay put,” Williams directed. “Right now you are the number-one suspect in this.”
“Oh, give me a break, Rollie,” Sam Midgett said. The owner of the Queen Anne’s Revenge had walked the hundred meters toward the sound after listening to Mahegan call the police from the lobby of his guesthouse. He was wearing khaki shorts, white socks, brown deck shoes, a short-sleeve, button-down shirt, and a yellow Windbreaker. He had thick white hair parted on the side. “This boy’s staying with me, doing some groundskeeping, and he called from my place. Why in hell would he call you if he had something to do with it?”
Then Midgett turned to Mahegan. “Fort Brackett got bombed this morning. It’s on the news.”
Mahegan looked at Midgett, and then noticed the black pickup truck cruise by the scene without stopping. The tinted windows prevented him from registering who was driving the vehicle. But it was the same one he had seen cruise his apartment twice.
“He’s still a suspect, Sam,” Williams protested. “And with those bombings at Fort Brackett, we can’t be too careful.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Midgett replied.
Mahegan had taken a couple of steps away from the deputy, but was still watching the pickup truck. He nodded again, as if to second Midgett’s words, all the while processing that Fort Brackett had been attacked.
Mahegan noticed in his periphery that by now the crowd was probably thirty people, mostly kids. Because the street was a dead end, he knew the truck would have to turn around and give him another look. North Carolina didn’t require front plates, so he was going to have to try hard to get the back plates if he could get a view past the crowd.
“You may be an accessory, Sam, if you don’t watch it,” Williams said, still basically standing about ten feet from the body, unsure of what to do.
“Handled many dead bodies?” Mahegan asked, again quietly, trying not to provoke.
“Mind your business, stray dog,” Williams said.
Stray dog. Mahegan figured it was a reference to his unknown status in the eyes of the locals. He knew that in the Outer Banks there were locals who grew up there and scratched out a living; rich homeowners who vacationed there in their second homes; tourists who came and left within a couple of weeks; and drifters, stray dogs, who were somewhere in between all of that. He suspected that Sam Midgett knew something about him, maybe that he was former military, but no one else in this town had a clue. He had trimmed hedges, mowed the centipede grass, and planted a few shrubs in the less than two weeks he had been on Roanoke Island. That was enough to merit free room and board.
“Either charge me or I’m leaving,” Mahegan said.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Williams protested.
Mahegan noticed the black pickup truck had turned around and was cruising slowly past them again. No plate on the front. Ford F-150. Through the front windshield he saw two men with short hair. The tinting made it impossible to determine anything else. He kept following the truck and thought one of the men locked eyes with him, though he wasn’t certain. They didn’t look like Coast Guard and that was his main concern, given what had happened on the Ocracoke ferry less than two weeks ago. His position in the crowd would single him out as someone of import or concern. He was juxtaposed from the deputy sheriff and triangulated with the body. Sam Midgett had come closer, but was still part of the horseshoe-shaped throng that continued to grow.
Another siren was wailing now, not because there was an emergency, but because there was a line of vehicles and gawkers coming from all corners of the island, Mahegan guessed. As the pickup continued, a maroon Buick Riviera with the flashing bubble in its windshield passed just as Mahegan would have been able to see at least part of the license plate.
No joy.
Mahegan noticed the Buick driver’s head swivel toward the pickup as they passed one another. After coming to a stop behind the crowd, an older gentleman jumped out of the Buick and walked quickly to Williams.
“Talk to me,” the man said.
“I’ve got a dead man laying right here in the grass. This man here claims to have found him in the sound when he was swimming.” Williams pointed at Mahegan.
The man turned to Mahegan.
“Swimming?”
Mahegan looked at the man, who was dressed in civilian clothes consisting of dark blue work pants and a light blue, short-sleeve denim shirt. He was wearing work boots not unlike the ones on the dead man. He had white hair and a weathered face that spoke of the relentless sun and wind here in the Outer Banks. Mahegan gauged he was maybe sixty years old, but in good physical condition.
On his lapel was a badge that read: DARE COUNTY SHERIFF.
Before he could say anything, the sheriff asked, “You the one who’s been out there in the channel every day?”
“That’s me,” Mahegan said unaware that anyone had actually noticed his early morning swims.
“Sheriff Mitch Johnson here,” he said. “Garland Grimes sees you in the morning from his shrimp boat. Says you’re crazier than a loon out there swimming. He wants me to arrest your ass just for that.”
Mahegan didn’t respond.
“What’s your lot in this, Sam?” Johnson asked, looking at Midgett.
&nb
sp; “Hundred yards from my property and the boy’s been staying a week or so in the garage apartment, tending to the place.”
“Staying with you?” Johnson eyed Mahegan suspiciously. “A drifter?”
“Look at that prison tat on his left arm, sheriff,” Williams said. “Got a shiv cut, too.” Williams and the prison lingo didn’t fit. Johnson leaned toward his left arm and took in Mahegan’s Ranger tab tattoo and the scar.
“Ranger?”
Mahegan nodded. “Army.”
“Still in?”
“No.”
Mahegan watched Johnson go through a series of mental calculations which he figured went something like: drifter, stray dog, ex–Army Ranger, biggest guy in the crowd, dead body at his feet, Sam Midgett standing up for him, I’ve got a county to run and a reputation to keep up.
“Going to have to take you in, son, if only to get your statement.”
Mahegan nodded. “I understand.” He turned toward the maroon Buick as Johnson opened the back door for him.
“Need the knife, son,” Johnson said.
Mahegan stopped, bent over, and began pulling at the Velcro straps that secured the knife to his lower leg.
“Slowly!” Williams shouted, rearing up with his pistol.
“Oh, put that away, Rollie, for crying out loud,” Johnson said.
Mahegan finished removing the knife and briefly considered flipping it at Williams, securing his gun, jumping in the sheriff’s tricked-out Buick, and getting an early start on Arlington and Colgate’s gravesite. Sometimes thoughts like those galloped through his mind, barely controllable. Maybe that’s why he wouldn’t have ever made it past the rank of captain. He was too primal. Or maybe he was still sick over Colgate’s death and revenge wasn’t in the anticipation at all, as Mark Twain had argued, but in the execution. Regardless, he reined in the maverick notion and handed the sheath and blade to Johnson.
“I’m getting this back,” he said, locking eyes with the sheriff to remove any doubt that he was handing over a prized possession.
Stepping inside, he found the vehicle interior to be the same as a standard black-and-white police car. No lock tabs on the two back doors, steel mesh separating front from rear, and bulletproof, opaque glass behind the headrests of the driver and passenger seats. He spotted two personal digital assistants that looked like smartphones plugged into an aux power source that was slaved to the cigarette lighter. What could have been mistaken for a citizens band radio, Mahegan knew to be a high-frequency radio, and suddenly he understood more.
As Johnson situated himself in the driver’s seat after a brief conversation with Williams, Mahegan said, “You’re Dare County, not just here on Roanoke, right?”
Johnson turned, his thin silver hair adding contrast to the tanned, creviced skin.
“That’s right, son, but we’re headquartered about a mile away, so we’ll get your statement ASAP. You want a lawyer? I can call ahead and have one standing by for you.”
He kept his eye on the radio. Dare County ranged about one hundred miles from north to south. The sand spits jutted into the Atlantic Ocean like the right side of a parenthesis. Further inland were Roanoke Island and the chunk of land called Dare Mainland he had swum to this morning. The sheriff would need an HF radio to talk to all of the minor municipalities from Hatteras to Duck and monitor what mostly consisted of tourist-related crimes and problems.
“Don’t need a lawyer,” Mahegan said.
Johnson gave Mahegan a wry smile that said, “I’ve heard that a million times.” They arrived at a flat cinderblock building painted brown. A big sheriff’s badge was painted on the side to remove any doubt that this was the headquarters. Mahegan could see a newer structure built onto the back of the older building, which he guessed was the jail, where he presumed he was headed.
Johnson processed him quickly. First, the sign-in roster. Next came the mug shot, then fingerprints, and a quick Q-tip swab inside the cheek for DNA. Johnson then moved him beyond some metal bars and sat him in what he guessed was the interrogation room. The idea of being questioned made him think about Hoxha the bomb maker, whom he had killed and not questioned. That made him think about Colgate, which reminded him that he needed to be out of here in a few hours so he could get to Arlington.
Johnson came back once and said, “Why don’t you have a middle name?”
“I go by Jake, but ask my father.”
“We looked. Can’t find any record. Your mother’s dead, but your dad, nowhere in the databases.”
Mahegan shrugged.
“No other family?”
“Just me . . . that I know about.”
“Town of Maxton. That makes you Lumbee Tribe, right?”
“Partly, I guess. Originally from Frisco.”
“Saw that. Chayton. That an Indian name?”
“I think the politically correct phrase is Native American or American Indian, but yes.”
“Why you got blond hair and blue eyes, then?”
“Dominant gene? Manifest Destiny?”
Johnson thought about it, and then smiled. “Good one. Okay, I’ve got to head over to Duck. Some congressman’s wife beat the shit out of him at their beach house. She showed up and the mistress is there, too. Should be fun.”
Shortly after Johnson departed, he heard Williams’s voice boom through the chamber that separated the new structure from the old building.
“Looks like we got us an A-one dee-lemma.”
Mahegan watched as Williams turned a key in the metal door and stepped through with a large uniformed African American man by his side.
“Why you looking at him?” Williams prodded. “He’s your prison bitch, dude.”
Mahegan made a small turn of his lips, as if to smile, but that was about all anyone would ever get out of him. Williams placed his hands on the gray metal table where he was seated and leaned forward, putting his face inches from Mahegan’s.
“Think it’s funny, stray dog? You want Johnnie’s nightstick up your ass?”
“You his boy?” Mahegan said to the tall black man. Johnnie had his arms crossed, which, coupled with his shaved head, made Mahegan think of him as a black Mr. Clean. The blue uniform told Mahegan he was a local cop, not a county officer, which told him that Williams had found the biggest guy possible to try to come in here and frighten him.
“Ain’t nobody’s boy. Don’t talk to me,” Johnnie said. The voice didn’t match the man. He sounded more like Michael Jackson or Mike Tyson, high-pitched and effeminate. Mahegan strained to see the man’s name tag, which was turned up beneath a beefy forearm.
“That’s right, stray dog. Now answer me this,” Williams began as he sat down. “How is it that for over two years we have no suspicious deaths in this area and you show up and suddenly we’ve got one dead body and one missing person?”
Mahegan thought about it a minute and then said, “I only found the one.”
“But you killed two? Is that what you’re saying? Did we catch you before you were able to try and hide the other one?”
Mahegan kept his anger at bay, but he felt a storm offshore.
“Not my problem you’ve got one dead, one missing,” Mahegan said. He looked at Johnnie, who had lowered his arms so that he could read the name tag, which spelled WALKER. Mahegan wondered then if Johnnie was his real name or a nickname someone had given him a long time ago.
“You must not be listening, punk. This is exactly your problem. You are in this prison because you are the number-one suspect for both of these murders.”
“I reported it. At first you said one dead, one missing. Now you’re saying two murders?”
Mahegan believed the one he had found was a murder. The rope around the ankles was the primary clue, and he had never heard about people killing themselves by tying a rope and cinderblock around their legs, which seemed to be a hell of a lot more trouble than just about any other way.
“We got us a prime A-one forensics team. Gunshot to the head for the first one
. When we find the second one, we’ll know. The missing person is the nephew of a prominent Roanoke Island citizen,” Williams said. “And you reporting the dead body? All that does is move you to the top of the list. One of them voyagers.”
Voyagers? Mahegan figured Williams meant voyeur. He knew that killers often had a penchant for returning to the scene of the crime; their prime motivation for murder was to watch the drama, the chase that played out all because of them. It was not unlike combat in many respects. You plan a mission, execute it, and then follow up. The Army had taught Mahegan to call it “battle damage assessment.” He had to watch the aftermath to determine whether he destroyed the target or not.
Changing tack, Mahegan asked, “So you haven’t found the other body?”
“Where’d you hide it, dog?”
No longer stray. Just dog. Mahegan looked down at the man’s pistol, and then thought about the fact that they had not handcuffed him. He played it out in his mind. Before Williams could move, he could grab the pistol, shoot Williams, fend off Johnnie Walker, and probably escape in one of the police cruisers outside. Yes, it would be stupid, primarily because he doubted if Williams’s gun was loaded, but also because he would have to fight his way out, which he could do, but not without taking some time on Walker. By then he would probably have more police coming in with weapons, which would get ugly.
He recognized it as one of his overreactive fantasies and was about to respond when he heard a sharp female voice on the other side of the passageway from where they sat. His hearing was in the top one percent of every hearing test in every decibel range. Mahegan felt fortunate, given the amount of loud machinery he had been around for the last ten years. He attributed this finely tuned sense to his Native American heritage. He listened to the high-pitched voice carry over a softer bass tone that he recognized to be Sheriff Johnson’s.