Two Down

by Nero Blanc

  Rosco opted to sit on the right side of the horseshoe-shaped bar. He noticed that no one sat with their back to the door, and followed suit, leaving two empty stools between himself and the next customer. Then he spun around slowly on the stool, appearing to study a collection of neon domestic beer signs littering the walls while he waited for the bartender to amble over—an event that took a good five minutes.

  The man was balding, in his late forties or early fifties with a hefty build, bulging gut, and arms that were preternaturally long, giving him a decidedly apelike appearance. He hadn’t shaved for several days; suspicion was etched in his scruffy face. “Are you from down Baltimore way, or just looking to get your neck broke? This is Red Sox country, pal.”

  Rosco removed his hat and pretended to ponder the black-and-orange oriole. “I work out of Maryland a lot. Don’t pay much attention to baseball. It’s functional.” He placed the hat back on his head.

  “What kind of work.”

  “Chesapeake stuff. Stripers and blues, mostly. Crabs when those slack off.”

  “What brings you to Newcastle?”

  “On my way to Maine.”

  “Yeah? What’s in Maine?”

  Rosco shook his head slightly. “Death in the family . . . Not that it’s any of your damn business.”

  They exchanged an icy stare that lasted until the man to Rosco’s right tossed a five-dollar bill toward the bartender.

  “Hell, Vic,” he said, “give the Oriole a beer on me. Closest I’m ever gonna get to Cal Ripkin.”

  With a show of dismissal, Vic reached below the bar, uncapped a Budweiser long neck, and slid it toward Rosco. No glass was offered. As he turned to the cash drawer, the front door of the Red Admiral flew open and a huge man strode in. He was thick-shouldered, bullnecked, ham-fisted, and padded with as much fat and muscle as a prime steer; he was also probably only twenty-one years old. A toothy smile was pasted to his blubbery face, and a wad of cash stuck in his upraised left hand. He slammed the money down on the bar. “The Sally-B is back, and Charlie Yarnell’s buying the beers.”

  For the next two hours the atmosphere resembled that of a stag party. It took Rosco that long to get the patrons to accept him—without noticing he wasn’t keeping pace with their alcohol consumption—and another hour before the subject of the Orion was introduced. Naturally, it was the newly returned Charlie who instigated the discussion; despite being a regular customer, Yarnell’s questions elicited only the most evasive answers from Vic Fogram. “I don’t know more than they’re saying on TV,” the tavern owner kept repeating.

  “Was she burning when you found her?” Rosco finally interrupted, making the question sound as disinterested as possible.

  “Nah . . . We hit a surprise squall that night. Short and sweet . . . Happens all the time out in Buzzards Bay. Could be that’s what doused the fire. Who knows? Hell, we almost ran smack-dab into her. If the moon hadn’t come out, we would have.”

  “Well, you’re a better man than me,” Rosco said, hoisting his beer, and attempting to slur his words. “Me . . . ? I would have just radioed the Guard and left the tub right where I found her.”

  Vic gave Rosco another cold stare. “Yeah, well, that’s you, pal. We do things different in Massachusetts.”

  “Come on, Vic.” Charlie laughed. “What’d you three geezers do with them two babes? I seen that show on TV . . . The one with the black hair was a real looker. Too old for me . . . but you guys . . .”

  “Didn’t see ’em.”

  “Ahhh, get off it . . .”

  Charlie’s laughter was infectious; another patron joined in to tease Fogram. “Tell me another one, Vic. I’ll bet you old fogies have them cuties stashed away for a rainy day.”

  Vic’s simian face suddenly flushed; he spun toward the man in anger. “I’m telling you I didn’t see those broads. And I’ll tell you another thing. If I’d known it was Tom Pepper’s wife who’d chartered that boat, I would have done just like Baltimore here said.” He pointed at Rosco. “Except I would’ve gone one better. I wouldn’t’ve just left that wreck out there . . . I would have blown it clear out of the water!”

  8

  On Wednesday morning, Belle stood in a sunny window of the converted rear porch that served as her home office. Her eyes drifted across the small patch of greenery that composed her garden. Broken twigs and branches—the detritus of Monday night’s storm—made the area look as though giants had been playing pick-up sticks and become bored with the game. Sparrows hopped exuberantly among the wreckage, discovering tasty new sources of sustenance, but Belle shuddered as if chilled. The sunlight, the lingering green of the grass, the gilding of the autumnal leaves did nothing to dispel an ominous sense of doom.

  Her brow furrowed and her wide eyes narrowed. She’d felt the same palpable fear ever since her conversation with Rosco the evening before. Something was amiss, and it wasn’t simply poor nautical “procedure,” or an accident that could have befallen any unlucky sailor. Without intending to, her mind conjured a litany of maritime disasters: shipwrecks, collisions, winter gales, freak waves. Why didn’t Genie and Jamaica use that cell phone? her brain demanded. Where could the inflatable tender have gone? Why disengage the locator beacon?

  Belle sighed aloud and returned to her desk—a hodgepodge of graph paper, open dictionaries, empty coffee mugs, and one conspicuously denuded platter upon which three deviled eggs had recently rested. The plate had a crossword design—as did the mugs, and a seriously tilting lamp shade. In fact, the entire room was a symphony—perhaps, a cacophony—of black and white: curtain fabric with bold, black letters on a white ground, two deck chairs in white-and-black canvas, a wood floor painted to resemble a crossword grid. Belle had lived with this unusual decor so long, she assumed it was normal. Besides, as she liked to boast, her bathroom was worse; there, the cryptics theme had run seriously amok: black-and-white ceramic tiles running up, down, and across.

  Belle stared at the empty plate, muttered a quiet, “Darn. I don’t remember finishing them,” then opened her “bible,” the Oxford English Dictionary, her much-thumbed O.E.D. She’d been attempting to create a crossword on a garden theme—thus her stroll to the window—but her fascination with botany rivaled her love of cooking. If it was green and survived without human care, a plant was her friend. If it required nurturing, it would need another home.

  Suddenly she glanced up. She had a horrible sense of being watched by sinister eyes. She looked through the windows. No one. Captain’s Walk with its row of tidy homes and quaint, secluded gardens was as silent and peaceable as ever. She turned toward the door leading into the near-naked living room. Nothing. No sound. No stir of air. Belle’s eyes spun over the shelves of research books: the Larousse, Harrap’s Italian Dictionary, Roget’s International Thesaurus, the atlas, her treasured Encyclopaedia Britannica—the famous eleventh edition. The books stared dumbly back.

  She returned to her crossword, a work combining horticulture and women’s names. Whither Flora? was the puzzle’s name. Black-eyed SUSAN, she scribbled on a pad, LADY’S slipper, VENUS flytrap, Queen ANNE’S lace, Christmas ROSE. Belle’s mind began making double and triple connections, then her head jerked up again. She was certain someone was prowling around outside.

  “Okay,” she announced. “Enough is enough!”

  She marched through the living room and yanked open the front door, intending to storm outside and berate this unseen and unnerving presence. But a piece of paper stopped her in her tracks. Tucked under a corner of the doormat was a hand-drawn crossword puzzle. Still standing in the entry, Belle quickly scanned several of the clues: Hunter . . . Call to Aladdin’s lamp? . . . “Evil in the Deep” . . .

  ORION, she silently ticked off, GENIE . . . She was in her office with her trusty red Bic pen in hand before she knew it.

  PUZZLE 1

  9

  Belle’s pen almost flew from her hand as she inked in the puzzle’s final clue. To her mind, the cryptic screamed complicit
y in the mystery surrounding the Orion’s fire. JAMAICA, she recited silently, BOAT; YAWL; WAVE. Who wouldn’t immediately recognize the value of this piece of evidence? Her hand was on the phone and punching in Rosco’s number before another second had passed.

  “They’ve been murdered,” she announced the moment he answered. “. . . Or maybe kidnapped.”

  “Whoa . . . whoa . . . I take it you’re referring to Genie Pepper and Jamaica Nevisson?”

  Belle, in her office, stared dumbfounded into space. “Of course I am.”

  “And, what might you be basing this theory on, if I may be so bold as to ask?” Amusement crackled through the telephone line.

  “Very funny, Rosco . . . Obviously, I’m talking about the puzzle in my hand.” Belle waved the cryptic in the air, although Rosco, of course, didn’t observe the gesture. “14-Across: the answer is ORION; the clue is Hunter. That was the type of boat the women chartered, wasn’t it? A Hunter 380, or something? And named Orion? Could anything be more plain—”

  “Mind if I interrupt for a moment?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Rosco heard more than a hint of irritation in Belle’s tone. It was difficult for her to understand thought processes more methodical than her own. “Can we go back to the beginning?”

  A brief but tolerant sigh greeted the suggestion. “There was a puzzle on my front porch . . . under the doormat . . . No, wait . . . There’s more to the story . . . I was working on Whither Flora?”

  “Whither Flora?”

  “Never mind . . . And I thought I was being watched . . . But when I went to the door to chase whoever it was away, I found the puzzle.”

  This time it was Rosco’s turn to groan. “Belle, if you believe you have a prowler, you don’t personally try to scare that individual away . . . I think we discussed this situation a couple of months ago?”

  “But that was a murder case—”

  “Didn’t you just use that term in reference to the Orion fire?”

  Rosco heard a mumbled, “Well, yes, but—” Belle hated to admit that she was often a rash and reckless human being.

  “Look, Belle, I’m not saying the disappearance of two women is analogous to the Briephs murder—”

  “But it might be, Rosco. That’s just the point. This puzzle has crime written all over it—and Jamaica’s and Genie’s names!”

  A mechanical click interrupted them. Rosco said, “Hold on a sec. I’ve got another call,” then disappeared while Belle thrummed impatient fingers on her desktop. When his voice returned, she opened her mouth to resume her tirade, but Rosco beat her to the punch. “It’s the Coast Guard,” he stated. “They have a ‘priority situation’. . . Look, let’s have supper tonight . . . We’ll discuss your theory then. In the meantime I want you to be careful, okay?”

  “I am careful.”

  “I’m serious about this, Belle.”

  “I’ll see you tonight,” was all she answered before ringing off.

  Rosco tapped his phone pad, putting the Coast Guard on speaker. “Rosco Polycrates,” he said.

  “Sir, this is Chief Warrant Officer Osborne, assigned with Lieutenant Evans. I’m over at the Green Point Station . . .”

  “Yes?” Rosco shuffled some papers on his desk, and found a note he’d scribbled on Monday. “Right, I spoke with Lieutenant Evans earlier.”

  “Yes, sir, the lieutenant is absent from the op center at the moment. I’m presently directing portions of the SAR-Op.” Osborne spoke with the standard unmodulated drone that the military liked to affect when speaking with civilians.

  “SAR-Op?” Rosco asked.

  “Search and rescue, sir.”

  “Right . . .How do things look? Any sign of the women?”

  “I’m not calling about that phase of our operation, sir. Although I can assure you that we have all available personnel dedicated to the SAR.” Osborne took a beat and added, “I’m calling in reference to Mr. Pepper.”

  “Mister Pepper?”

  “You are an employee of Mr. Pepper, am I correct?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes . . .”

  “Well, sir, we have Mr. Pepper in the lieutenant’s office here at Green Point. He’s being confined for security reasons. I was hoping that you might be able to conduct him home. I don’t believe he’s in the proper frame of mind to operate his own vehicle.”

  “W-w-what’s going on?” Rosco stuttered.

  “Mr. Pepper drove through our gate half an hour ago. We were encouraged to restrain him. His behavior is not advancing our efforts here, sir. Now, I could call the Newcastle police, but the lieutenant would prefer not get into that kind of paperwork at this point in time.”

  Rosco glanced at his watch and said, “I can be at Green Point in ten minutes.”

  “Thank you, sir. Inform the gate that you’re here to see me. They’ll direct you to building six.”

  CWO Osborne took a few minutes to brief Rosco on the “situation,” then walked him down a tan-colored interior corridor to Lieutenant Evans’s office, where the door was unlocked by a chief petty officer. Tom Pepper sat on an aluminum chair with his wrists handcuffed to a filing-cabinet drawer. Not a word or smile was exchanged. Rosco resisted the temptation to chide his employer for being so stupid as to storm a Coast Guard installation single-handedly. Instead, he held up one hand in a gesture intended to keep Pepper from speaking. It didn’t work.

  “Dammit, Polycrates, I want a list of everybody in this damn base before we leave. I want every last one of them court-martialed.”

  “Mr. Pepper, I think the best plan would be for us to leave quietly. I’m sure they can supply a personnel duty roster if we need to reference it for names—”

  “That’s the one.” Pepper suddenly jutted his chin in CWO Osborne’s direction. “He’s been withholding information from the git-go. When I phoned the station earlier, he hung up on me—twice. Him and that Evans character . . . It’s my Genie we’re talking about, not some goddamned weather buoy.” With that, Pepper lunged toward Osborne, nearly dragging the filing-cabinet drawer off its runners. Rosco was forced to interfere, physically restraining Pepper while the chief warrant officer drew back and squared his shoulders. Every inch of his perfectly pressed uniform glittered disdain.

  “Mr. Polycrates, sir, kindly remove this civilian from the installation immediately. I have an operation to run.” Then Osborne barked an order to the chief petty officer. “Uncuff him and conduct him to the detective’s vehicle.” CWO Osborne turned on his heel and stalked into the corridor.

  “I’m going to get your bars for this, Jack!” Pepper shouted after him. “You can count on that!”

  “All right, let’s take it easy.” Rosco’s hands still gripped Pepper’s arms. “We’re not accomplishing anything here.” He waited another forty seconds until Tom showed signs of cooling down. “Let’s walk out of here quietly . . . Then we’ll go back to your house and regroup . . . All right?”

  Pepper nodded slowly, but didn’t speak.

  “Good. I have my car outside. Okay, Mr. Pepper . . . ?”

  Accompanied by the chief petty officer, the two men walked to the Jeep in silence. It was only as they drove through the gate that Pepper’s surly humor revived. “What about my car?” he demanded.

  “You brought it onto the base . . . They’re holding the keys. It’s their prerogative.”

  “Dammit.” The word was bitten and irate. “Dammit.”

  “I’ll send someone over to pick it up later, Mr. Pepper . . . Now, if you don’t mind my asking . . . What did you intend to accomplish back there?”

  Pepper let out a long, weary sigh. “I’m sick and tired of waiting, Rosco. I want to know where my wife is . . . Is that too much to ask? . . . I pay taxes. I pay those bozos’ salaries, but they disconnected me every blasted time I called . . . I just wanted to look this Osborne character in the eye, and see if he was telling me the truth . . . I know when people are lying, Rosco, and when they’re not.”

  �
�What would the Coast Guard have to gain by lying to you, Mr. Pepper? They want to find your wife as much as you do.”

  “What if they already picked her up and aren’t telling anyone?”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she’s badly injured. Maybe they injured her with their damn ‘SAR Op.’ Maybe they botched their rescue attempt, and they’re covering their tracks . . . They should have found Genie and Jamaica by now. It’s clear as a damned bell out there!” Pepper pointed back toward the Green Point base. “They’re lying for some reason, Rosco. I could see it in Osborne’s eyes. He wouldn’t look at me . . . And where the hell is Evans hiding?”

  “Mr. Pepper, the lieutenant is in charge of a huge operation.”

  “Osborne couldn’t look me in the damned eye!”

  Rosco continued in a calming tone. “I spoke with CWO Osborne before I picked you up. I talked to Lieutenant Evans earlier. These men are professionals, Mr. Pepper. Let’s give them some leeway . . . Now, they both explained that a rubber dinghy, like the one on the Orion, will not sink. Even if it’s been deflated, the rubber still floats and the outboard motor isn’t heavy enough to take it down. Trust me, they’re doing everything in their power to find it—and your wife.”

  “Sixty hours . . . She’s been in that water sixty goddamn hours.” Tom turned his anguished face toward Rosco as the Jeep passed the Yacht Club and headed out toward the point. “Do you think it’s possible for anyone to stay alive for sixty hours in October in Buzzards Bay? Be honest, Rosco . . . I’m losing my mind with this thing.”

  “People have survived for months in an open boat, Mr. Pepper. There’s also a possibility your wife and Miss Nevisson were picked up by someone sailing a boat without a radio.”