The Whale's Footprints - Rick Boyer

by Rick Boyer

  "And the part where she's sold as a slave girl is great," said Joe. "I really hate that what's-his-name—"

  "Raoul Estevez?"

  "Yeah. That guy. Wow Mary! You've really got some great characters going."

  "Charlie says it's too shallow and sex-ridden."

  "What does he know? Doc, what do you know?"

  "Nothing, I guess. What's Moe's opinion?"

  "He loves it, Charlie. Loves it."

  I shrugged my shoulders and looked straight down. Twenty feet below the boat were a mother whale and her calf. The calf was swimming along her left flank, never leaving her side, exactly like a heeling dog. The calf was small, perhaps twenty-some feet in length. I called attention to them, and everybody looked over the rail at the touching sight. Jack said the little tyke was growing, though—gaining weight at the rate of a hundred pounds a day. When they disappeared, diving down into the shimmering green, getting smaller and smaller and smaller until at last they were out of sight, Joe stepped back from the rail and lighted a cigarette, taking out his ever-present notebook and flipping through the pages.

  "Can we talk?" he said in a low voice. "I've got some stuff to tell you, and with all the rushing around I haven't had a chance until now. Okay?" We went and sat down on a bench next to the engine-room bulkhead.

  "Got some more stuff on Slinky," he said. "He's older than he looks. Twenty-eight. Divorced; no kids. Lives in Pawtucket. Five priors, mostly stuff on the low end, and nothing that stuck. Not employed . . . by anything straight, that is. Claims he's in the construction business. In the organization he might be what we'd call a junior vice president. What he's been brought in for is strong-arm extortion, loan sharking, gambling, bookmaking, small-time stuff. So far, there's nothing to indicate he's into drug dealing. If he was, then the DEA could come down on him."

  "Seems to me you're going to have a hard time getting anything on him."

  "With connected guys like this, even the low-level ones, it's damn hard. They can come up with witnesses, pay off or threaten prosecutors, you name it. The only success we've had, especially at the federal level, is making deals with stoolies."

  "The Witness Protection Program?"

  "Right. The feds wait till they've got a live one in the net . . . a high-ranking mobster who's nailed dead to rights and faces life without parole. They cut a deal with the guy: we'll let you entirely off the hook if you testify against the mob. In return, in addition to letting you walk, we'll set you up under different cover and protect you for life."

  "That really works, doesn't it?"

  "Oh sure, if you've got the guy nailed. But I don't think we're ever going to get enough on Falcone—a.k.a. Slinky—to nail him to the barn door."

  "So what you're saying is, chances are he'll walk anyway."

  "Unfortunately, yes. That's what it comes down to."

  "Well, too bad. Because I really think that drug-running scenario of yours makes sense. It explains just about everything."

  "Yeah. I heard from Paul Keegan this morning, too. He admitted that things up in Boston were looking bleak. Hartzell remains a suspect, but Paul will come back here without an indictment unless something dramatic unravels."

  I said nothing, but my gaze fell. If Hartzell got out of the hot seat, I knew Jack would be back in.

  just then an enormous humpback, not more than twenty yards off our beam, hunched its back up in a tight curl, rolled forward, and sounded, leaving behind its curious "footprint" of swirling water. I pointed at the whirlpool, the inverted cone of swirling brine and foam.

  "Know what that is?" I asked Joe. "That's the whale's footprint."

  He leaned over the rail skeptically. "The what?"

  "The whale's footprint. It's the whale's calling card he leaves when he sounds."

  "Hmmmph!" he muttered, blowing smoke into the sea breeze. There was a few seconds of silence while Joe smoked, watching the footprint on the water's surface disperse and fade.

  "Some footprint, Doc," he said. "Now you see it, now you don't.

  That's what this Cunningham case reminds me of: the friggin' whale's footprints. Leads keep appearing and then disappearing. Driving us nuts. I'm going inside."

  "Why?"

  "To read the next chapter of Hills of Gold, Men of Bronze. Why else?"

  "You've gotta be kidding. You'd rather do that than witness this spectacle?"

  "Yep. That book's great. Can't put it down."

  "Thanks, Joey," cooed Mary, who'd overheard the tail end of the conversation. "By the way, I'm thinking of changing the title. I'm thinking of calling it The Men."

  "The men what?"

  "Just The Men. Whadduyuh think, Joey?"

  "Great."

  "Please," I said. "How about Maria Makes Matamoros? You know, kinda like Debbie Does Dallas?"

  She told me my humor was not appreciated, and they both went below to discuss the magnum opus—or is it magnus opus? Isn't that second declension?

  TWENTY-ONE

  OUR VACATION was due to end with the arrival of September, which rolled in with some surprising hot and muggy weather down on the Cape. This unusual heat was another incentive to return to chez Adams in Concord, where at least there was air conditioning. So on Saturday, September 2, we called it quits and headed back toward Boston after breakfast. Mary and I were in her car followed by Joe in his cruiser. Moe, driving his twelve-year-old lime green Dodge, brought up the rear. Moe had made a rather mysterious trip down to Woods Hole and back early in the day, and it had me thinking. I had a theory about why he'd gone down there. But what Joe had to tell us when we stopped for coffee in Wareham drove it from my mind completely.

  Just before we left, I phoned Keegan at his office in Hyannis," said Joe, lighting a cigarette and sipping from the steaming cup. Mary, Moe, and I leaned forward intently. "The D.A.'s letting Hartzell walk. Sorry, but that's it. No indictment, mainly because there's no hard evidence. They admit he appears to be unstable—that's the word they're using—but the fact that he was away on a three-day conference with Art Hagstrom, the MBL director, right when your cottage was burgled didn't help the case at all—"

  "What?"

  "Apparently, Hartzell was one of the people who went with Hagstrom down to the jersey shore. Weren't you the one who told me Art Hagstrom was down there?"

  "Good God," whispered Mary. "He went down there with Art."

  I recalled Art mentioning his imminent departure in our dormitory room. He said he was going down there with 'several other scientists.' And now it turned out Hartzell was one of them, which meant that Hartzell had not—couldn't have—ransacked the Breakers. He was in the clear and could not be detained any longer.

  "What's Keegan say about all this?" I said, trying to hide my disappointment and fear.

  "Not much, obviously. Now he's got his ass in a sling with the brass for moving too fast; he should've checked Hartzell's whereabouts more carefully before he collared him. And Art Hagstrom's mad, too. This is off the record: Art's mad because he wanted Hartzell removed from the MBL's roster of visiting fellows. He can't stand him, and he told Keegan that everyone else in Woods Hole is fed up with his temper tantrums and paranoia. It's ironic that it was Art's own statement that let the air right out of the case."

  "I must say it doesn't surprise me much," I said. "What's the latest development on Slinky and the Rhode Island police?"

  "I'll find out more next week. I wouldn't be surprised if we have a joint meeting with the state guys from Rhode Island about Falcone. They want to use Andy's death as another means of leverage against him and the families. They're thinking if they throw enough stuff at him, maybe they can shake something loose."

  "Eddie didn't kill anybody," said Mary. "You guys are looking in the wrong direction there. Trust me."

  Joe and I were not pleased to hear Mary defending Slinky but we just eyed each other, neither of us in the mood to cross swords with her on the subject. We arrived home at one-thirty. Mary and I made a cold lobster salad, whi
ch we served in heated sub rolls along with chilled white grapes and a hunk of Vermont Cheddar. Before lunch, I noticed Moe slip away and walk back to the driveway. The second time he excused himself, I went into the living room and watched through the window. I saw him go to his car, lift the trunk carefully, and peer inside. I had an ominous hunch what was in the trunk. My suspicions were heightened when I saw him take a coiled electric cord and snake it from the trunk over to our outdoor wall socket on the side of the house.

  Sneaking out of the house and around the lawn, I crept up behind him and peered over his shoulder. I spied three big cardboard cartons resting in the trunk. Each was filled with a big plastic bag. The tops of the bags were gathered with wound rubber bands and plastic tubes snaked into each bag. I heard the purring of an electric pump and the muted sounds of bubbling. Moe didn't know I was behind him.

  "We're almost home, kids," he whispered lovingly to the cartons. "Then Daddy's gonna give you all a big lunch. Yeah . . . "

  You tell me this guy's not wacko? You wonder why he's allowed to practice psychiatry? It's possibly crossed your mind?

  "Okay Moe, what the hell's this?" I said.

  He spun around fast, gulped, and tried to close the trunk. But the extension cord was in the way and it wouldn't shut. I stepped around him and raised the lid, then leaned over the nearest carton and peered into the cloudy bag. A pair of hideous beady eyes glared back. Fanning around the eyes were waving fins and speckled, blotchy tendrils of undulating flesh. Spare me. I turned and looked at him. He had on his bird-of-paradise outfit again: Roman sandals, Day-Glo Hawaiian shirt, yellow shorts. Unbelievable.

  "Moe, you're a living monument to nausea."

  "C'mon, Doc, shut dat trunk. The light's not good for 'em. They could die."

  "What a shame."

  He disconnected the cord and slammed the trunk lid down.

  "Know why the sunlight's bad for them?" I asked. "Because they're bottom feeders. Every last one of 'em! You got those pluguglies from Smitty, didn't you? You sucked up to him and his staff so they'd let you have all the sea slime you could carry home." I pointed at the trunk. "Every fish in there is a dropout from God's plan."

  "Not so," he sniffed. "You're just narrow minded."

  "Look: I don't know where you managed to hide those, but— "

  "Ha! You admit it! I knew you and Joe were sneaking into the supply shed to try to find these and dump them. But I hid them in a lab in Lillie Hall. So there!"

  "What's going on?"

  We turned to see Mary coming from the front door. I explained. She told me it was none of my business. That I should leave Moe's hobby entirely alone. And so on. And on.

  But then she went and looked.

  "Sweet Jesus, Moe, dump 'em!"

  So Moe left in a huff. As he got behind the wheel, I told him not to reappear until he had dumped the fish and changed his clothes. He leaned out the window and loudly thanked Mary for the hospitality. Then he glared at me silently, rolled up the window, and left. His old Dodge snorted, backfired, and blew clouds of blue smoke. The shocks were gone and at the foot of the drive, the back end jumped up and down, scraping on the road.

  "Poor Moe," said Mary.

  "Don't give me poor Moe. That guy can afford a brace of Porsches annually."

  "No he can't. You know he gives all his money to charity. That's why he drives that old car and lives in a trailer."

  "And buys his clothes at K Mart. No, wait. It must be Western Tire and Auto."

  "You shouldn't be so mean to him, Charlie."

  "I'm the one who's gonna have to look at those fish, Mare. Right in our office suite. The place where people come to get well, not sick. C'mon, let's go inside."

  We found Joe on the phone in the sun porch. He nodded and grunted into the receiver, then rang off.

  "I'm going to be meeting with Keegan Monday. We've got the composite computer-generated sketch furnished by the Isaacsons. He's been showing it around Woods Hole with no success. We'll try New Bedford next. Then the towns in Rhode Island."

  "I just might spook around myself on Monday," I said, "I've only got a couple of patients."

  "Where are you going?" Joe asked.

  "Maybe New Bedford."

  "Why? Don't you think Keegan and I can do our jobs?" he said with a touch of belligerence.

  "Look Joe: the spotlight is shifting away from Hartzell back to my son. Three guys in the field are better than two. Besides, I said maybe."

  Sobbing, Maria tugged at the cruel chains that bit into her flesh. Her cries were in vain, and with tears streaming down her face, she accepted her fate. She sank down onto the straw-covered floor of her cell and wept bitterly.

  Later, she heard footsteps in the dreary stone hallway outside. Then there was a brassy rattle of keys, the sound of the thick iron bolt being pulled back, and the heavy, iron-bound oaken door crept open on groaning hinges. Flickering torches that smelled of pine pitch shot golden light on the stone walls. The two men entered.

  'Hah! There you are wench! Come! On your feet! The auction begins! " said the coarse jailer. He stank of ale, and as she staggered to her feet, he pulled her forth roughly by her chains. As he pulled her up the gangplank, she bit her lip to keep from cursing him and crying out . . .

  "Is it getting any better?" asked Mary. She asked nicely, and she was lying on her side, rubbing my back. We were naked in the heat.

  "Much better." What else could I say?

  "Where are you?"

  "At the auction."

  "Mmm. Wait till you see what happens next."

  "I've got a pretty good idea. I mean, she mostly gets laid right and left. And I have also observed that she doesn't put up too much of a struggle, either."

  The hand stopped rubbing my back. Uh-oh. It started again, working down below my waist this time. A skilled hand at that . . .

  "Keep reading, Charlie."

  There were four women on the auction block. But it was clear to Maria from the way the men were leering at her that she was the most desirable. A pretty blonde next to her was weeping. Maria swayed on her feet from hunger and thirst. Through clenched teeth she offered up a prayer, and her eyes clouded over with tears. The auctioneer came up on the block, pacing from one slave girl to the next, turning them around this way and that, so that the bidders could get a good look.

  "Oh Virgin Mary! Save me! Save me."' she cried, and she closed her eyes in terror.

  Through her delirium, she heard the sound of rifle shots off to her left. There was too the pounding of horses, many horses, galloping closer at high speed. The shots grew louder, and mingled with the surprised shouts of the crowd below her. Opening her eyes, she saw a black stallion, wild-eyed and covered with foam, leap up to the auction block. The rider was clothed in black, his face hidden by a wide sombrero. The auctioneer, plainly fearing for his life, tried to flee. But a rifle butt swung around over Maria's head and knocked him senseless. She half swooned, and then felt the iron arms reach down and pluck her from her shame . . . the iron arms she recognized instantly as they swung her up onto the saddle. They leaped of the platform in an instant and she heard the ring of silver spurs as the rider, who gripped her tightly from behind, drove his steed through the dazed crowd, who fled before them, screaming.

  In her half conscious state, she was aware that they rode long and hard. Then the pace slowed; she opened her eyes and recovered her senses. The horse trotted along the high plateau, and stopped at a winding brook, gleaming gold in the setting sun. Nervously, Maria turned her head. Was it him? Or was she foolish to even hope for it? She dared not look! What if it was the evil Raoul Estevez! Oh God! She couldn't—

  "So, my little desert flower, you thought could run away, eh?" came a familiar voice. Maria turned her head; she was looking up into the cruel, coal black eyes of Fuente. She gasped, and cfered her mouth to his. They kissed passionately, and then Fuente dismounted, pulled her down, and kissed her again as he threw his coat onto the ground. Kneeling with her, hi
s voice grew rough as he panted in his desire. The stars shone brightly in the golden air. The night birds sang. "I love you," she whispered. "I love you, Fuente . . ."

  "You will forgive me, my love, I cannot wait. There is so much to do . . . so little time . . . " And he pushed her down on the coat, a love bower in the wilderness—

  "How's it coming?"

  "I think somebody's about to," I said, turning the page. "That happens a lot in this book."

  "Art imitates life," she sighed. Her voice was soft and purring. She was rubbing my legs now. I lowered my head on the pillow and closed my eyes.

  "So? Whadduyuh think?" she asked. The rubbing was more intense, and I was beginning to feel the effects of the book and her hands. Good thing I was lying face down.

  "It, uh, has its moments, I guess," I admitted, trying not to hurt her feelings.

  "Zat all?"

  "Yeah . . . it's uh, pretty good in spots."

  Suddenly she grabbed my hip with her right hand and spun me over on my back.

  "Ha! I thought so, Charlie. You can't fool me."

  Then she was kissing me, the way only Mary can kiss, and I couldn't talk. But leave it to Mary to throw a twist on it at the end. Just before she plunged over that warm, wet waterfall into the scarlet mists, she cried out.

  "Ohhhhhh, Fuente! . . . Fuente, I'm yours!"

  TWENTY-TWO

  MONDAY MORNING I got up early, went into the office for two patients back to back, then returned to the house before ten to change clothes and grab a cup of coffee before heading out. Mary saw me off at the front door; we walked down the steps onto the flagstone walk. I noticed she carried a parcel under her arm wrapped in brown paper. In size and shape, it resembled a giant cigar box.

  "My manuscript," she said, patting it proudly. "After last night, I know it's ready to send off. You know, Charlie, I bet this is the only romance novel that's actually been field tested." Then she grabbed me.

  "Hey, not out here in public, Mare—"

  "Nobody's looking, dummy. God, it must be hell being a WASP. Anyway, be careful down there in New Bedford."

  We kissed, and I hopped into the car for the eighty-minute drive. Once in New Bedford Center, I parked and walked to the Seamen's Bethel Church and Isaacson's Pawnshop. It was the pawnshop incident that kept sticking in my head. The kid who'd swiped the radio had gone to Isaacson's to hock it. Of course, pawnshops are a natural place to fence stolen stuff, but why this one?