Bullet Beach

by Ronald Tierney

  Taupin came over to Cross, but not to engage him. He appeared to be checking the restraints. That was all. When Cross looked directly at Taupin he saw the eyes of an insect.

  ‘Carolina,’ he called as he retreated into the hallway. He picked up a phone, pressed a button. ‘Carolina, could you come down please.’ His voice was calm. Normal. No stress. ‘Carolina!’ he shouted something in Spanish. There was no threat in his voice, but it was a firm request one wouldn’t normally deny an employer.

  Cross hoped the girl was not foolish enough to hide in the house. He hoped that she was not only able to escape and save her own life, but also to seek help. Taupin stood in the hallway, looking back at Cross. His head was cocked as if he were listening for something. The sound of Carolina moving probably. Cross only had a few moments to think. He wiped away thoughts of the farm in Eaton, his parents and little Maya trying to find her way in the world without him. He wiped away the despair that was creeping into his thoughts and tried to think as clearly and coldly as Taupin.

  It was stone quiet, except for the light rain that pattered against the kitchen window.

  Taupin has a daughter, Cross thought. Where was she?

  Taupin went to the kitchen window, which overlooked the lake. His eyes followed something and Cross thought that he could see a slight furrowing of the man’s brow. Cross was convinced the man wasn’t mad. He was coherent. What he was doing was part of a plan, one that would solve a problem or provide an opportunity for gain. Cross believed that Taupin’s actions had a coherent purpose. He was not planning a shoot-out with the police. With Cross’s gun, Taupin shot the security person – who probably knew too much. With Cross’s gun, Taupin shot his wife. She had made the mess, it seemed, and Raymond Taupin had to clean it up. She may have also been a witness against him.

  The reason Cross was still alive was also part of the calculation. Cross figured that Taupin was smart enough to make sure the medical examiner would conclude the two victims were dead some amount of time before Cross, himself, was killed. The story would be about Taupin coming home and discovering what Cross had done. In self defense Taupin managed to shoot Cross who, as no one would doubt now, shot the son-in-law and the unknown woman.

  There would be no one left to contradict Taupin’s story. It would be all tied up in a bow as Kowalski suggested, but in the wrong box. Taupin understood that the perfect crime is one likely committed by one person.

  Cross watched as Taupin grabbed a kitchen towel and wiped down Cross’s pistol. He came back over to Cross and, without saying a word and standing to the side, forced open Cross fingers. After a brief struggle, Cross’s finger was placed on the trigger. With Taupin’s pressure, Cross involuntarily pulled the trigger. The bullet zinged through a cupboard on the far wall of the kitchen.

  Taupin took the weapon, wiped off all but the handle and the trigger. Fingerprints and gunpowder residue would indict the detective. Taupin was both thorough and, in his own way, creative. He inherited a problem and turned it into an opportunity, just like those books that tell you how to be a success in business. Taupin would not only rid himself of all this pesky murder business, but likely as not cash in a large insurance policy on his wife. Using the towel to hold the tip, he put the weapon on the counter.

  He still had not acknowledged Cross as anything more than a piece of the plot. Other than the necessity of putting Cross’s identity on the murder weapon, he had ignored him. But Cross hadn’t ignored him, watching how Taupin had methodically worked his plan. How long Cross had to live he didn’t know. Taupin, knowing it was still early morning and knowing that he had plenty of time, probably wouldn’t gamble on the medical examiner’s expertise in the interpretation of the time line. After all, he was in no hurry. Maybe Cross had as much as an hour. Maybe not.

  Taupin disappeared. It would do Cross no good. His wrists were taped to the chair arms and his ankles were taped to the legs, all limbs wrapped several times. He might be able to scoot, but what would happen when he got to the door? He couldn’t open it. And if he did, he couldn’t get down the steps. He envisioned his head smashed against the concrete walkway after the tumble. The alternative version wasn’t any better. A bullet in the head. Taupin would come back in moments. And that would likely be it.

  ‘Well Pauline, I see you are on the tracks again,’ Kowalski said coming in the lakeside entrance.

  Cross gave him as intense a look as he could.

  ‘Don’t worry . . . oh shit . . . ,’ Kowalski said, seeing the two corpses. Then, more distracted than usual, he continued. ‘The asshole is up putting some clothes in his car.’ He pulled the tape from Cross’s mouth.

  ‘Blood spatter,’ Cross said, smarting from the tape removal. ‘He needs to get rid of the clothing with blood spatter. It wouldn’t fit his story. He needs new clothing for my blood to spatter on.’

  Kowalski went to the kitchen counter, pulled a knife from the woodblock, began to cut his friend’s arms free. He did so with an approach far less casual than his entrance.

  ‘And why are you still alive?’ Kowalski asked.

  ‘Time of death. The story is that I killed them and he finds me hovering over the body and shoots me.’

  ‘His problems are solved he thinks,’ Kowalski said. He started to reach for the gun on the counter.

  ‘Don’t,’ Cross said. ‘We’re screwing up all sorts of evidence. Why are you here?’

  ‘You want me to leave?’ Kowalski smiled. ‘I tried calling you at about five this morning. Your phone is dead. I thought it’d be a great ride up here. And it was. Nice lake.’

  Taupin had come in and had done so quietly. He apparently saw that the chair was empty and he ran for it, back out the street-side door. They heard him hit the door. Kowalski and Cross went in pursuit, but could only watch as Taupin, in his Toyota, headed down the road.

  ‘A Toyota, for God’s sake!’ Kowalski said as he pulled out his cell phone. He checked the time, punched in some numbers. ‘Not even a Goddamn Lexus. The cheap-ass bastard. Lauren Saddler,’ he said into the phone. He waited. ‘Kowalski.’ More time. ‘Get me Saddler right now. It’s about a couple of homicides.’ He turned to Cross while they were fetching the assistant DA. ‘You have a lot of s’plainin’ to do, Lucy.’

  He advised Lauren Saddler to grab the sanest of the homicide detectives and come up to Lake Wawasee. Told her to get a chopper if she could. He also told her to take care of the locals. He had no idea who policed the lake community. Saddler would have to take care of that angle.

  TWENTY-TWO

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ Maureen said, ‘you found your brother. You had a nice chat. He said he had something to do that would keep him occupied, really kind of telling you to stay out of his business. And he said that you should go on home.’

  ‘Yes,’ Shanahan said as they walked down the quiet beach. It was empty. They had spent the day before – after Shanahan woke up – shopping and eating and generally being in a crush of people on the other beach. This morning they were the sole inhabitants.

  ‘Yet you bought a gun?’ she asked.

  ‘I rented a revolver,’ he corrected her, instantly regretting it.

  ‘Oh, that changes everything. Now I understand.’ She picked up the pace of her walk, temporarily leaving Shanahan behind.

  ‘You think we should go back?’ Shanahan said.

  She stopped, turned back.

  ‘He was here last night, but we don’t know if he’s still here. Even if he is, it is doubtful we can find him. And if we find him, we might lead whoever he’s running from directly to him. Strikes me he knows what he’s doing. He’s managed to stay alive roughly the same number of years as you.’

  Shanahan nodded. ‘All true.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘An uneasy sense. I can’t explain it.’

  ‘I don’t really want you killed.’

  ‘That’s very sweet.’

  ‘You have a few good years left,’ she said, smiling.

  �
��I hate to see him not enjoy the prize of his life,’ Shanahan said.

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I have my prize,’ he said, kissing her on the forehead.

  ‘I think we can allow you to skip ahead a few grades. I’ll talk to the principal.’ She paused to look at a large ship sliding along the horizon line.

  When he looked back he saw four people coming their way. He couldn’t see their faces. An early morning haze erased the detail. He was pretty sure they were the Germans from the other day. He was pretty sure they were drunk.

  Shanahan touched Maureen’s arm. ‘Let’s go up,’ he said.

  She gave him a look of amused puzzlement.

  ‘Up, away from the water.’ He looked toward the forms and her eyes followed his. The stumbling forms shouted in German. ‘Probably nothing,’ Shanahan said. ‘But they could be trouble.’ Had Maureen not been with him, he would have traveled on.

  She nodded and the two of them moved up the slight hill and into the tall, coarse dune grass.

  ‘You have your gun with you, right?’ she asked.

  ‘No. But I wouldn’t want to shoot them anyway. Too much paperwork.’

  In a few moments the four Germans were passing below them. He could not understand a word they were saying.

  Shanahan and Maureen were quiet until they were out of earshot.

  ‘You don’t think they are connected to what your brother is doing?’ Maureen asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Shanahan said.

  ‘There are thousands of people here from all over the world. Tourists, expatriates . . .’

  ‘Criminals,’ Shanahan added.

  ‘Being at the same bar. Isn’t that just too coincidental?’

  ‘The bar wasn’t open yet,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Bar wasn’t supposed to open until noon. That’s what the sign said, that’s what the bartender told me when I stopped back.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘We were there a little before ten,’ Shanahan said.

  ‘Maybe the kid had an agreement with the owner.’

  ‘The Germans were there before we were. Again, that may be nothing. But it’s not necessarily a coincidence. And why are four Germans hanging around with each other night and day? They might be obnoxious tourists, but they’re not expat-riates, drunk day and night and sticking together like that. If they were expats, they’d have at least some semblance of a life.’

  Back in their room, while Maureen poured some orange juice and doused it with a shot of rum, Shanahan took the ‘Peacemaker’ apart. It was rusty and corroded. There was every likelihood that if he fired the damned thing, it would explode and kill him rather than the person he wanted dead.

  He knew enough about weapons, especially old, simply engineered revolvers, to make sure all the pieces were there and once they were cleaned and oiled, put back where they belonged. The hotel’s resident handyman was able to supply him with some fine sandpaper and oil.

  By the time he was done it was afternoon and Maureen was pleasantly buzzed, a condition that normally produced a cute silliness he enjoyed. However, he was concerned for her. Things seemed to be getting more serious. He didn’t understand it himself. He had nothing to base it on. However, his awareness was heightened, his focus tighter, narrower. This usually preceded a real threat.

  They were in the chairs, looking out over the ocean.

  ‘Maureen?’ He tried to sound casual. However, he knew he wasn’t good at nonchalant. She turned toward him. She was in a pleasant space, it seemed. Good, he thought. ‘I was thinking. I have a few loose ends to tie up, but we’ve pretty much done all we can do. Don’t you think?’

  Her look went from curious to suspicious.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And,’ Shanahan continued, ‘I was thinking that maybe . . . you might want to go back, check in on the animals . . . I mean both of us being away . . .’ He struggled. She knew it.

  ‘What loose ends do you need to tie up?’ she asked.

  He continued his struggle for words.

  ‘Out with it,’ she said and he wasn’t exactly sure what kind of smile she had on her face.

  ‘I want you to go home. I think it could get dangerous.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’ she asked.

  ‘I can’t explain it. I have this sense that . . .’

  ‘Intuition?’

  ‘Well, not exactly intuition.’

  ‘Not like women’s intuition?’

  ‘Exactly, not at all like women’s intuition. More like a hunch.’

  ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Men have hunches.’

  ‘Your right eyebrow is raised.’

  ‘I suspect it is.’

  ‘Why is that, Maureen?’

  ‘It does that when people are disingenuous.’

  ‘Well, put it down and we’ll talk about it.’

  ‘You’ll be your usual candid self from now on?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK, as long as we’re being up front about this, I’m not sure I should leave.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re not thirty-five anymore.’

  ‘Not for awhile now. But you did say I had a few good years left.’

  He knew what she was driving at. He couldn’t be trusted on his own in a difficult situation. That was why she came along in the first place.

  ‘And how is it, that after all these years you’ve suddenly become your brother’s keeper?’

  ‘I can’t explain any of this. None of it. Maybe I’ve lost my last marbles.’

  Neither would say, at least out loud, that maybe what he was doing was only a show of his independence, a statement to her and to himself, that he could still make a difference.

  ‘Me too. And I’m being selfish. If I’m here with you and can keep an eye on you, then I’m not worried. If I’m home, I would be worrying all the time.’

  ‘So, no matter what we do, one of us is going to worry?’

  ‘We could both go home,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t do that. Not again.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Feelings are complicated things, aren’t they?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, and it’s your fault. Before you none . . .’

  ‘Sssshhhh,’ she said, putting her finger to his lips.

  ‘I’ll go.’ There was no self-pity in her comment, nor was it guilt-laden. She had come to that conclusion.

  Even so, Shanahan felt like the heavy.

  ‘It’s something I have to do.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’ve put you in too much danger already.’ She looked at him in a way that he didn’t understand. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t live without you. No point.’

  ‘And me?’ she asked. ‘It’s the same.’

  ‘Let me do this,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t stop you.’

  ‘You could, but . . .’

  ‘I understand,’ she said. She kissed him.

  Shanahan didn’t want her going back through Bangkok. He didn’t trust anyone at the moment and who knew what would happen at the airport? They, whoever they were, could use her to get to Shanahan and to Fritz. Maureen found a flight leaving that afternoon leaving Phuket, headed to Singapore, where she would change planes for the U.S.

  The goodbye was awkward. For the first time neither knew what to say and for the first time they were frightened by the silence.

  ‘It will work out,’ Shanahan finally said.

  ‘We’ll be fine?’

  ‘We will. Call me when you get home.’

  She nodded.

  Shanahan waited at the airport until he was sure the plane had taken off. He looked around, saw no one especially suspicious. He knew that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone there to be wary of. He took a taxi back to the hotel, carrying with him a sense of loss. In his desire to keep Maureen out of danger, had he smothered the unnamable spirit they shared? It was something he had to do
.

  He was about to enter his room, when the maid hurriedly interceded. She carried a pail with bottles of cleaners inside, a mop and a small vacuum cleaner. She spoke apologetically in broken English – something about not getting to the room yet. Shanahan turned to walk away, maybe down into Patong for something to eat. He needed a distraction to lead him away from depressing introspection. He had gone a few feet when he felt immense heat and his body lifting off the ground. Then came the sound . . . the world was ending, had to be the world was coming to an end.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The room held several people whose physical presence seemed larger than life. Lieutenant Collins sat on the corner of the conference table, his expensive pants sharply creased and shirt starched. He appeared to be in charge. This, despite the fact that Lauren Saddler was an assistant DA and looking both highly professional and very formidable. Cross’s friend and attorney James Fenimore Kowalski was no slouch in the intimidation department either. He was a big man, bearded. His black, swept back hair had a streak of silver, as did his beard. He could have been cast as Zeus in a Greek drama.

  Also in the room, seated at the far end of the table, was Raymond Taupin who seemed to possess none of the materiality of the others. He was almost a minus presence, yet it was Taupin who had been the powerful destructive force. His attorney, Anthony Zarga, sat next to him. He looked competent, smart, comfortable. There were two uniformed IMPD officers and the police chief from the jurisdiction that oversaw residents of Lake Wawasee. They had, at Saddler’s request, allowed Cross and Taupin to be taken to Indianapolis as part of an investigation of the crime that seemed to have originated in Indianapolis. The crimes were obviously related.

  ‘Ms Saddler and I are here this late not because we get overtime,’ Collins said, ‘We don’t. We’re here because it seems most likely that the truth about these deaths is knowable and that the truth is in this room.’

  Cross was impressed with Collins. He didn’t dress like a cop and he didn’t talk like one.