by Nero Blanc
“Oh, yes!” Kerr’s thick lenses glinted.
“Could you report this conversation? . . . Drop it into your Biz-y Buzz column as if it were a piece of Newcastle gossip.”
The black-rimmed glasses bounced up and down. “I can picture the lead,” he nearly sang. “And maybe a pull quote—to catch the readers’ attention . . . Of course I can, my dear! Bartholomew Kerr to the rescue. But . . .” The glasses drooped; the head sagged.
“But?” Belle asked.
“But the earliest I can get it printed is tomorrow’s edition. This afternoon’s is already trundling its way to the news vendors.”
“Friday is fine, Bartholomew.” Belle beamed down at the tiny man. “And let me know, won’t you, what other information you hear from Reggie Flack?”
“The very moment, Belle. The very instant . . . Reggie has met his match.”
The woman’s hand shook as she punched in the telephone number. Semidarkness obscured her features and the room around her. All that was visible was the outline of an unmade bed, a low chest of drawers, and a lamp with a dented shade. The lamp had not been lit.
A seemingly interminable amount of time passed before the call was answered, and another several silent seconds elapsed before the woman decided to proceed.
“Is it all right to talk?” she asked. Her voice was low, a monotone created by purposely compressing the larynx. The accent was equally difficult to ascertain; there was an undertone of a Tennessee drawl overlaid with the crisply bitten consonants of Maine.
The male speaker at the other end produced a disturbed, nervous laugh. “Hey! How are ya?” Then the register dropped to a whisper, and the collegial tone became bitten and hard. “You’re not supposed to call me here . . . It could be traced in a second. That was the deal—”
“That was the deal.” Her voice caught with a sound like unexpressed tears. “But what am I supposed to do? You left me high and dry here—”
“Look,”—the voice was barely audible—“I don’t know who’s nearby . . . I can’t talk.”
“Then find a time when we can—”
“That’s impossible! You know the rules. No contact until this is over.”
“They found the dinghy.”
“They were supposed to find it, remember?”
In the small bedroom, the woman’s free hand clenched spasmodically against her thigh. She started to speak, but only produced a strangled groan that finally gave way to a gasp of desperation. “Something’s gone wrong,” she said in an accent clearly approaching her own. “Hasn’t it?”
“I can’t tell yet . . .” Then the man’s voice changed timbre again, becoming loud, robust, and businesslike; he was obviously talking to someone else. “Okay,” he called out. “I’ll be there in a minute . . . Tell them to hold their horses . . . Okay . . . Okay . . . I get the picture!”
Another moan broke from the woman’s throat; this one was more like a snarl. “I can’t stand this!”
“Well, try!” was the biting response.
“We should have had a contingency plan . . . I shouldn’t have listened to you!” she spat back.
“Hey, babe, whose idea was this?” was his equally vicious reply.
Her voice descended to a weeping whimper. “I’m going crazy here.”
“I’ve got to go,” he said.
“When will you—”
“I don’t know. Don’t call me again. I’ll find a way to contact you . . . And listen, next time work on your voice—”
“I’m going crazy here,” she sobbed again in response. But he’d hung up before she’d completed the sentence.
15
Even though the autumn days were growing shorter, Rosco believed dawn was now purposely arriving earlier each morning. Sunlight radiated through his bedroom blinds long before the clock radio produced its annoying and persistent buzz. Friday was no different; at six forty-five A.M., when the alarm finally sounded, Rosco was already awake, sitting up, staring at the blinds and wondering what kind of sick mind would create the puzzles Belle had received.
He reached over and tapped the clock’s Off button, causing the radio to switch to the Imus in the Morning program. The I-Man and his merry band of jesters were laughing so raucously at some lascivious witticism that Rosco could barely make out a word of conversation. On this particular day, Rosco found the gang a little too happy for his liking. He dispensed with Don, Charles, Fred, Bernard, and Company and walked grimly into the bathroom to shave and shower. He wasn’t looking forward to his meeting with Tom Pepper. After perusing the inflatable tender the previous day, Rosco felt that he, and the world, had let Tom Pepper down.
At seven-thirty A.M., Anson opened the front door of the Pepper estate. “Ahh . . . Mr. Polycrates . . . It’s good to see you again. I trust you had no trouble forcing your way through our media encampment?”
“I think they recognize me as a nonplayer.”
Anson smiled in a formal fashion that made him look both uncomfortable and deceitful. Again, Rosco was struck by the way the man’s appearance belied his position. Whatever Anson had been before his arrival in the Pepper household, it hadn’t been a butler. “A nonplayer,” he echoed. “Yes, sir . . .” Then he added a hasty: “Please come in. Mr. Pepper is expecting you.”
“Okay, okay,” Tom barked from somewhere in the invisible interior. “Take the man’s jacket, Anson . . . Rosco, I want to see you in my office . . .” His voice disappeared, leaving Anson holding the offending jacket while Rosco found his way to the command center on his own.
The moment the detective entered the room, Tom’s forceful speech resumed: “I appreciate the hell out of you coming so early, Rosco. I’ve got a heavy workload today. Sit down.”
Rosco remained standing. “I’m all right.”
“Suit yourself. So . . . what have you got for me?”
“Well, nothing more than what you’ve heard from the Coast Guard . . . They’ve suspended their search. There’s an oil tanker—”
“I know all about the Japanese sailors. Cigar?” Tom opened a humidor and offered one to Rosco.
“No thanks.”
“The only way to start a day.” He lit up, inhaled, and leaned back in his chair. “You know, Rosco, I can’t help but laugh at the irony of this situation. My old man was stationed at Pearl Harbor in December of forty-one. He was lucky to come away with his skin . . . Now our guys are ditching my wife in order to save a bunch of sailors from Yokohama.” Pepper pronounced the word “yoo-koo-haa-maa” with a long sarcastic emphasis on the final diphthong.
Rosco felt his temperature rising; he was well acquainted with prejudice, but he held his temper in check. “The Coast Guard has been examining all facets of the situation, Mr. Pepper. I realize it’s not a pleasant thought, but in reality no one could survive for ninety-six hours in Buzzards Bay. From a tactical standpoint—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know . . . My Genie’s gone. No doubt about it.” Tom took a long hard pull from his cigar. “End of chapter. End of story. . .” Pepper inhaled again. “My frankness probably astonishes you, doesn’t it? Look, I’ve had a night to sleep on this thing—or not sleep, as the case may be. I know a great deal about these past ninety-six hours. I’ve been personally involved with each one of those nasty buggers . . .
“But I’m a businessman, Rosco. The clock is either my biggest enemy, or my savior. This week it beat me—but good . . .However, I’ve had time to think things through . . . Think about what Genie would have wanted . . . What she would have insisted on. You didn’t know my wife, but she was one hell of a lady . . . a racing skipper . . . You know that? . . . A real gutsy gal and all-around class act . . . Jamaica, too—” Pepper’s voice broke. After a long, and icily quiet moment, he regained his eerie composure.
“I’m not a whiner, Rosco. I’m a self-made man, and I’ve never asked anyone for sympathy or help . . . and I’m not one of those damn depression addicts—popping pills and feeling sorry for myself . . . Genie’s dead. Nothing I c
an do will bring her back—”
Rosco started to interrupt with words of consolation, but Pepper overrode him:
“However, I can make whoever was responsible pay. Big time.” His left fist slammed the desktop and remained clenched there while his right hand continued to grip the cigar. Rosco was surprised the hand-rolled cylinder didn’t snap in two. “So I’m asking myself . . . what’s the next step? Where do we go from here? What would Genie have asked me to do?”
Rosco recognized these as questions he wasn’t expected, or encouraged, to answer. He gave his shoulders a slight shrug while watching Tom suddenly stab the tip of his cigar into an etched crystal ashtray on the center of his desk. Although Pepper appeared cognizant, even resigned, to the loss of his wife, Rosco found his behavior alarming—the antithesis of the man ranting about the ineptness of the Coast Guard and the intrusiveness of the media two days earlier. Rosco began to wonder how long this pseudo calm would last; in his experience, grief always took its toll. Sooner or later Tom’s tough facade would crumble. What would replace it, the detective didn’t know.
Pepper continued. “So what we do is this: We take that SOB Ed Colberg to the cleaners. I don’t care what it costs or how much time it takes; he’s going to pay and pay big. I want him out of business. I want his inventory seized, and I want him in jail. And then I want the damn media crawling down his throat. I want him to burn . . . What have the police found?”
“Why don’t we discuss this later, Mr. Pepper? After you’ve had time to adjust—”
“Hell, no! We want this creep, we’ve got to strike while the iron is hot!”
“Well . . .” Rosco reluctantly began. “There’s a forensics team scheduled to go over the Orion this afternoon. They’ll also examine the fishing boat that towed her in . . . The department is pressed for personnel right now, so the detective working on the case is from homicide. You couldn’t ask for a better man—”
“I want you to stay on top of them.”
“I plan to be at Mystic Isle Yachts when they examine the boats.” Rosco caught himself about to add “sir” to his answer.
Pepper dragged on his cigar again. His chest swelled; he seemed to be holding everything inside: smoke, sorrow, rage, guilt, grief. “Good,” he finally said. His jaw looked tight enough to crack.
“They have the inflatable tender in the police lab for tests as well.”
“What?”
“The dinghy.”
“I know what a damn inflatable tender is, Polycrates! Why didn’t you give me that information the moment you walked through my door, dammit?”
Rosco was about to reply, but Pepper cut him off. Again, his demeanor had suddenly altered. The voice was now quiet to the point of exhaustion. “Why the hell are they wasting their time with that piece of junk? Genie’s gone . . . Studying her final last seconds on earth won’t bring her back . . .”
Rosco allowed a moment of silence to elapse before he answered. “Well, Mr. Pepper, for one thing, they’d like to determine what caused the gash in its side. It might give them an idea of how far your wife might have traveled from the wreck.”
“And what’s that going to prove? Listen, I don’t need to know all the gory details of how Genie died . . . I don’t want those media bloodsuckers speculating on half-truths. The whole situation’s ghoulish enough as it is.” Again, the determined stance showed serious signs of breaking. Rosco watched sorrow and frustrated rage etch themselves across Pepper’s face. “I’m not a religious man, Polycrates . . . never had much time for it . . . And now? Well, I don’t know . . . But the dead should be allowed to rest in peace. I don’t want to imagine my wife’s last breaths . . . terrified, alone on a huge, hostile ocean . . . sharks, whatever . . .” Pepper shut his eyes tight. When he opened them again, his expression had resumed its determined serenity. “Who’s this homicide detective? How well do you know him?”
“His name is Lever. We were partners when I was with the department.”
“Good. Then we can use this clown.”
Rosco squinted and said, “Clown’s not a word I would use for Lever.”
“Whatever . . . See if you can get him to concentrate on the Orion and the fishing boat . . . That’s how we get Colberg—and that’s the key to this situation . . . not wasting precious time on some dinky rubber boat . . . Genie died . . . my Genie died because of a maritime fire. We find the cause and affix blame.”
Rosco recognized the anguish Tom was experiencing. “I see your point,” he replied gently. “But if Colberg was negligent in providing proper safety equipment for the Orion, i.e., the tender, it could be an important factor in establishing blame—”
“Who’s paying you, Polycrates! I’m telling you I don’t want to know about the inflatable!” Pepper’s voice had risen ominously. “We go after the yacht—and that’s all . . . If I have to see pictures of that damn rubber raft spread all over the tabloids, I think I’ll lose my mind . . . Now, do I have to call Lever myself?”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Good. Make sure you do.” Pepper sagged in his chair.
Rosco cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose you know your wife’s blood type?”
Tom turned in his chair to face a desktop computer. “I have it here somewhere. What do you need it for?” He made an entry on the keyboard.
“There was some blood on the Dixie-Jack . . . A positive.”
Tom studied the computer screen. “Nope . . . Genie was O negative.”
“Well, that’s—”
“Excuse me, sir,” Anson said as he tapped lightly on the mahogany door. Rosco had not closed it when he’d entered.
Pepper answered with an aggravated: “What is it?”
Anson stepped toward Tom’s desk. In his left hand he held a business-sized envelope. “This just arrived for you, sir. I was told it was most urgent.”
“Now what?” Tom groaned, then stared hard at the handwritten address. A spasm of pain shot across his face. This time he couldn’t conceal it. He pulled a long letter opener from the middle desk drawer and quickly slit the envelope open. His hand was clenched, his face gray. He stared at the butler. “You’re not needed here.”
After Anson left, Tom looked at Rosco. “Nosiest man in the whole damn world,” he said bitterly. “I hired a butler, what I got was a snoop. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to sell his story to those harpies outside . . .” Pepper slid a piece of paper from the envelope, unfolded it, studied it for fifteen seconds, then tossed it onto his desk toward Rosco. It was a hand-drawn crossword puzzle, worked out on single-sided quarter-inch graph paper. Tom gritted his teeth. “There are too many sick people out there, Polycrates.”
“I’ll be right back.” Rosco sprinted from the den, then returned three minutes later.
“What was that all about?” Tom asked.
“I wanted to speak to whoever delivered it.”
“Well . . . ?”
“He was gone. I couldn’t catch sight of him. Anson said he’d never seen him before. A kid in a Red Sox hat driving a beat-up Honda. A Grateful Dead fan, judging by the amount of stickers.” Rosco picked up the puzzle and shook his head slowly.
“What is it?”
“Belle has already received two anonymous puzzles like this.”
Tom jabbed his cigar into the ashtray and lurched forward in his chair. His voice had become exhausted and gravelly. “Dammit, man! Why haven’t I been told about this?”
“Our assumption was that they’d come from a sicko . . . Someone to be wary of, yes, but better off ignored . . . What made you say that about sick people?”
“Look at it, it’s addressed to Genie.”
Rosco glanced at the envelope.
“And the graph paper has today’s date on it. Four days after her disappearance.”
Rosco watched Tom for a second or two. His hands were trembling, and his controlled demeanor definitely beginning to fail. “Do you ever do these puzzles?” Rosco asked.
“N
o.” A hard laugh accompanied the word. “But Genie did . . . She was a member of a crossword club or something. I don’t pay any attention to this stuff, but clearly, whoever sent this must have the information . . . a mailing list . . . I don’t know. The person who did this is after something, Rosco. I sense it . . . I don’t like this. I don’t like it one bit.”
“What could they want?”
“Money? Notoriety? . . . A sadistic thrill? . . . Hell, I don’t know what these Looney Tunes want!” Pepper jumped to his feet and pointed at Rosco. “That’s what I’m hiring you for, dammit! To get me some answers!”
Again, Rosco could feel his own irritation escalating, but the sensation was mitigated by Pepper’s pain. Rosco picked up the puzzle and placed it in the envelope. “Do you mind if I take this? Belle can fill it in . . . Then I’ll compare it with the other two and return it.”
After what seemed like a long silence Tom mumbled, “Don’t show it to the police.”
“Pardon me?”
He raised his voice. “I said, don’t take that thing to the police. At this point it’s privileged information shared between you and your client. If this ends up being some sort of bizarre extortion plot, I’ll handle it . . . I just don’t want . . . I don’t want . . .” Pepper’s voice broke, and he sank back into his chair.
“Sure, Mr. Pepper . . . If that’s the way you want it . . . In fact, until we get this puzzle solved, we have nothing that would interest the police. But I feel it’s my duty to inform you that if this turns out to be an extortion attempt, the police and FBI have far greater resources at their disposal. They have—”
Tom lifted his hand and stopped Rosco in midsentence. “This is my show, Polycrates, and I’m running it. After that stupid puzzle’s solved, we’ll discuss the police. But I don’t . . . I don’t want . . . Why would someone do a horrible thing like this? Two women are dead . . .” Pepper’s head fell back into his leather chair. His eyes stared glassily into the ceiling. “I’ve got work to do,” he muttered, “a busy day . . . Get that snoop of a butler to show you out.”