by Glenn Trust
“We will need to get to his door again.”
“No problem. Come on over, and I’ll get you up there like before.”
“One more thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
“He may not answer the door … probably won’t. We need to get in whether or not he opens up.”
“Without a warrant?” Cutshaw asked.
“Without a warrant.”
“You saying you need to do a wellness check, John? You know that’s the only way I can open the door without a warrant. And wellness means there has to be a real concern … not some pretext … not with a U.S. senator.”
“It’s a legit wellness check, Jimmy. Someone killed his assistant, made it look like a mugging. You say Sillman is holed up in his condo and hasn’t been out for days, and we know he isn’t answering the phone. I’d say that’s sufficient reason to check on his well-being.”
“And ask a few questions along the way,” Cutshaw said.
“That too.” Sole nodded.
“We run a tight operation here, John. No one gets in or out without us knowing. No one has been up to his penthouse to do him harm.”
“I know, Jimmy. No one is suggesting you don’t have things under control. What we don’t know is what is going on inside his condo.”
“Or what he knows about the murder,” Cutshaw, threw in.
“That too,” Sole agreed.
“All right. Come on over. I’ll get you up to the penthouse. If he doesn’t open, I’ll get you in, but don’t get me fired from this job, John. It would really piss off my wife.”
“Got you covered, Jimmy. We’ll give you the paperwork to back it up. See you in fifteen.”
“You ready?” Sole looked at Travis.
“I was born ready.”
*****
James Sillman huddled in the corner of a dark bedroom, away from the windows. He cringed at every footfall in the hallway. Every ring on the telephone sent cold fear through his gut. His heart raced. His breath came in shallow, panting gasps.
The police had contacted Wilson Bettis’ assistant, Nancy Stark and questioned her about Bettis’ schedule. Who had he met with that day? Was he meeting anyone after work? Was there anyone who might have had hard feelings towards him?
She spent an hour answering their questions. When the Detectives left, she called Sillman.
It took several tries before the phone’s chiming made its way through the bourbon haze. Sillman fumbled past the empty bottle of I.W. Harper on the table beside his chair and answered, wondering why Nancy Stark was calling and not Bettis.
“Yes?” he croaked in a whisper, cleared his throat and croaked louder. “Yes?”
“Something terrible … just awful, Senator.” Stark was in tears, barely able to speak.
“What?” Sillman sat up straighter in his chair.
“Wilson … Mr. Bettis … he’s dead.”
The world receded around him, drew back, leaving him floating in the dark. The lights outside the window seemed too distant, like stars a trillion miles away. He was alone in the universe.
“Senator?” Stark said when he made no response.
Sillman’s heavy breathing on the line was the only sound.
“Senator Sillman? Are you all right?”
“I … I’m fine …”
“Should I call someone for you, Senator?”
“No … no, don’t do that … call no one.”
The line went dead in Nancy Stark’s hand. Wilson Bettis dead and Senator Sillman losing his mind. It occurred to her that she might want to start looking for another job tomorrow.
Sillman managed to get up from his chair and pull the blinds on the bank of windows. Then he retreated to a spare bedroom. His mind whirled, uncertain about what to do next. The thought came to him that he better check in with Wilson Bettis.
But Bettis was dead, his foggy brain reminded him. A mugging? Could he believe that? A mugger killed Bettis?
He struggled to come up with a plan. Call Bebé Elizondo? His body trembled at the thought, and his hands shook as he pulled the cork from another bottle.
No, the last voice he wanted to hear right now was Elizondo’s. The only plan he could devise was to stay huddled in the chair with another bottle of bourbon at his side. He was safe there. The bourbon and the dark made him safe.
The phone rang. He ignored it, not wanting even to check the number to see who called.
It rang again. He ignored it again.
The bourbon helped his mind drift into near unconsciousness. When the doorbell sounded, he almost jumped from the chair. Then there were knocks at the door.
Would Elizondo send someone to knock and ring the doorbell? He wasn’t about to go to the door to find out. He pushed himself deeper into the overstuffed chair in the dark corner. Stay quiet. Whoever it is will go away.
A key clicked in the front door lock. Sillman froze, his breathing suspended.
Frantic, his eyes snapped from side to side searching around the room for a place to hide. Even if he had found one, he knew his legs would never lift him from the chair and carry him. His rubber knees would collapse him to the floor, and there would be Alejandro Garza, standing over him, his cold eyes sparkling in the dark like a cat about to pounce on its prey.
Blinding light filled the dark room. Sillman squinted, whimpering in the chair, his head turning from side to side as if that would make the intruder leave.
“Hello, Senator.” It was the detective, the one called Sole, standing in the doorway, hand on the light switch, scanning the room to make sure no one else was present. “Are you alone here?”
The whites of Sillman’s eyes were like spotlights, unblinking, wide, and terrified.
“Senator, have you been harmed?” Sole persisted.
Seconds passed. Sillman’s head drifted side to side in slow motion.
“Good.” Sole stepped into the room followed by Travis and Jimmy Cutshaw. “We were concerned for your safety.”
The senator’s eyes darted from one face to another, trying to comprehend. “You’re …”
“Investigator Sole with Atlanta Major Crimes. We met a few days ago. This is my partner, Investigator Travis.” He nodded at Cutshaw. “I believe you know Mr. Cutshaw, the building security director.”
“Yes … he, uh …” Sillman nodded, attempting to shake off the confusion and the terror that gripped his guts with an iron fist. “I mean, why are you here?”
“As I said, just checking to make sure you are safe,” Sole said. “You have heard about the murder of your aide, Wilson Bettis?”
Sillman nodded.
“Did they give you the details?”
“Mugging … something in the parking lot.”
“That’s right, a mugging.” Sole stepped closer to Sillman, still huddled in the chair. “Seems like you would want to be with your staff at a time like this. I’m sure they are traumatized after what happened to your chief aide.”
“Yes … I, uh … I was planning to go in later … meet with them … make arrangements.” Sillman became conscious of his white-knuckled grip on the sides of the chair. He moved his hands to his lap, and then crossed his arms, his fingers tapping his elbows in nervous agitation. “Wilson and I were very close. I am devastated.”
“I’m sure you are.” Sole nodded. “That’s probably why you haven’t asked if we caught his killers.”
Sillman looked beyond Sole, focusing on the wall behind, avoiding the piercing eyes. “I thought you would tell me if you caught him.”
He prayed that the next words out of this pushy detective’s mouth were that Alejandro Garza was stashed away in a jail cell, but they weren’t.
“Him?”
“Yes, the killer.”
“What makes you think there was only one?”
“Well, I … that is … you said killer, so I assumed …”
“Assumed what?” Sole shook his head. “No, I said, killers … plural. Is there someone you are afraid
of, Senator? A particular person who might be the killer?”
“No, nothing like that. No one I know of.” Sillman shook his head rapidly. “I must have been mistaken then.” He managed to rise from the chair without toppling over on his wobbly legs and ran his hand through his tousled hair. “This has all been quite a shock.”
“I imagine it has.”
“As you can see, I am quite well.” Sillman glimpsed himself in the mirror hanging over the dresser and realized that he did not look well at all. The image staring back at him was red-eyed and gray-faced. The amber stain of spilled bourbon down the front of his shirt was still damp. He pressed on anyway. “There is no need for concern. I will meet with my staff later to see to their needs and make arrangements for Wils … Mr. Bettis. Thank you for checking, but I have to get ready now.”
His work done, Jimmy Cutshaw took the hint from the building’s most prestigious tenant. He turned to leave while Sole and Travis stood their ground.
“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” Sole said.
“Why?” Sillman forced himself to look into Sole’s eyes.
“You may know something … something you aren’t even aware of that could help us find out who killed Wilson Bettis.” Sole paused, letting the dread build in Sillman’s red-rimmed eyes. “You might even tell us who the ‘him’ is that you thought we had apprehended.” Sole smiled. “Or, who you hoped we had apprehended.”
“I assure you I do not.” Sillman’s Adam’s apple worked up and down as he tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “For the last two days, I have been here, working on the drug enforcement legislation. I’ve only spoken to Wilson on the phone. Who killed him or why they would do such a thing is beyond me.” He stepped to the side and moved around Sole and Travis heading for the hallway door. “Now I must ask you to leave.”
They followed and stepped out into the hallway. Sillman threw the bolt behind them before they could ask any more questions.
“Well, that was interesting. What do you think?” Travis asked on the elevator. “Guilt or fear.”
“Both,” Sole said.
50.
Eyes Above
The trip out was more relaxed this time without Esteban Moya’s glowering presence and threatening looks. Hermie and Paco were loose and happy to go about their work on deck. Even pale-faced Julio looked a trifle less green around the gills.
Tully Sams gave the Sara Jane her head, pointing her bow to the east with the wheel lock engaged while he leaned back in the helmsman’s seat, smoking a cigarette. Hermie and Paco kept watch on deck, bantering with each other like old shipmates, checking gear as if they were indeed out hunting for Royal Red Shrimp in the deeper waters off the coast. Occasionally, they stopped by the deckhouse and spoke in broken English to Tully Sams.
Sometimes they asked questions about this or that piece of gear. Other times, they used hand signs to show the differences between shrimp trawling on the Atlantic coast and working the fisheries of the Pacific banks.
As he watched them move around the swaying deck on experienced sea legs, Sams allowed himself to imagine they really were headed out to hunt for Royal Red Shrimp. It was a pleasant thought, but it evaporated when Julio came into the deckhouse from the galley.
“Here.” Julio gave a sheepish smile and pointed to the coordinates on his GPS device, and then a spot on the chart fastened to the console beside the wheel. “Go here.”
Sams noted the position on the chart and made a slight correction to his course. “Okay, it’s your charter,” he said, mimicking Julio, tapping the chart and making a mark with a pencil. “Here.”
Julio disappeared below again. Sams watched him with a smile. Give him a little time and he might make a seaman of him yet.
Sams nudged the throttle forward and made a quick estimate of time and distance to the point marked on the chart. Another twenty-five miles at just over six knots would put them there in about four hours.
Then he would sit back while Hermie and Paco worked the load onto the trawler. Once the bundles were transferred, and they sank the pontoon raft, he’d steer a straight line for the offloading dock up Fancy Bluff Creek. He figured a few more trips like this and Sillman would have his financial problems solved.
Maybe then he would let old Tully out to do some real trawling, even take on Hermie and Paco for real. He knew he could never pay them what they earned working for Moya and his drug bosses, but at least shrimping was honest work, something a man could be proud of.
*****
Twenty-five thousand feet above the Sara Jane, Commander Tom Hunt, the pilot of the Coast Guard HC-144, a Coast Guard Sea Sentry maritime surveillance aircraft, keyed his mic to broadcast over the secure frequency. “CG six-seven-niner-three-zero on station.”
“Roger. CG 6-7-9-3-0 on station.” The response from the cutter on patrol forty miles off the Georgia coast was immediate.
The six-man crew on board the Sea Sentry settled in for the duration. With a range of two thousand miles, they could cover a lot of open ocean. This mission was different. The target area today did not extend beyond fifty miles offshore.
They had plotted the surveillance grid to cover the area the Sara Jane could reach at maximum speed. The DEA and Coast Guard surmised that if there were drugs on board, they would offload them as soon as possible, somewhere close along the coast. They limited the search area to the distance offshore the trawler could reach and then return from before daylight.
The Sea Sentry cruised at high altitude, mimicking a commercial airliner, using different vectors each time it crisscrossed over the target area. With all eyes on the Sara Jane, they tracked her movements, and those of every other vessel close enough to come in contact with her.
The cutter had already identified the Sara Jane and was staying just below the horizon while its chopper popped up from time to time to check the trawler’s course from a distance. The helicopter never approached the trawler and always traveled away from her to disguise its intent.
The surveillance subterfuge worked. When the trawler was thirty miles out, it slowed and started cruising in a circle two miles in diameter. There were no other ships in the area.
“Something’s happening,” Chief Petty Officer Sonny Thurwell supervised the surveillance crew comprised of the radar and infra-red operator, the navigator, and the flight engineer who served as the visual spotter.
“Report, Sonny.”
“The target is circling … not headed anywhere right now.”
“Trawling for shrimp?”
“Negative. I don’t think so. Net cranes are lowered, but there’s no sign of nets in the water.”
“Thanks, Chief. Good work. Check for other targets in the area.”
“On it now, Skip.”
Hunt switched to the broadcast frequency, calling the cutter below. “Target appears to be in a holding pattern … circling and waiting.” He gave the coordinates.
“Roger that. Do you have any other targets in the area?”
“Checking now. Stand by one.” The pilot said, then toggled the intercom back to Chief Thurwell and the spotter team. “Any other targets approaching, Sonny?”
“Could be, Skipper. Stand by.”
The Sea Sentry’s radar operator handed a set of coordinates and direction of travel to the navigator. It only took a few seconds to plot the container ship’s course.
It was not a direct line to the trawler’s current position. Instead, it was heading to a point in the ocean a few miles over the horizon from the trawler. If the Sara Jane had continued her previous course, the two vessels would have intersected.
Thurwell keyed his mic. “Possible target, Skip. Container ship … would be on an intersecting course if the trawler had not stopped to circle below the freighter’s horizon.”
“ID the ship yet?”
“Working on it.”
“Roger.
Commander Hunt relayed the information to the cutter. The freighter’s presence proved nothing. It
could be heading to a port up the east coast or to a regular transatlantic crossing route. By the same token, the trawler might circle for many reasons—checking gear, testing engines, or because the captain was a crazy fuck who enjoyed riding around in circles on the ocean.
Still, with no other shipping traffic in the area, and the Sara Jane holding its position for no apparent reason, the freighter’s course made it the object of intense scrutiny. On board the cutter, DEA’s Gene Cusins requested another interdiction ship as a precaution. The Coast Guard was more than happy to comply and dispatched a cutter working out of Savannah with orders to proceed at high speed and take up station east of the intersection point in case the freighter made a run to escape.
*****
Unaware of the eyes overhead and the patrolling cutter below their horizon, Tully Sams and his crew on the Sara Jane spent the afternoon practicing their pidgin English-Spanish and hand signals. Sams figured that if he could give them a command, and they understood, then maybe they wouldn’t have to put up with that asshole Moya on board his boat again. He had started to think of Hermie, Paco, and seasick Julio as his personal crew.
The sunset was rapid. In a sky devoid of clouds, the glowing orange sun descended into the ocean like a torch being extinguished.
The night followed it, falling over them like a cloak, shutting out the rest of the world. Stars in the billions burned fierce and bright in the dark. Sams stepped out of the deckhouse, lit another cigarette, and stretched, arching his back until he was looking up.
The navigation marker lights of an aircraft blinked high overhead. He followed it, noting its course, west towards the coast. Just before disappearing from view, the plane made a wide turn to the south.
Could be an airliner turning toward Jacksonville or Fort Lauderdale, or even Miami, loaded with tourists coming back from Bermuda. From up there, they only saw the blackness below, featureless and empty.
They had no idea what it was like to be down here, part of everything, the living water rising and falling, carrying the Sara Jane on its breast, its heart beating with the thrum of the engines. They missed it all, isolated in a metal tube twenty-five thousand feet in the air.