Lake Effect

by K C Gillis

  “Yes.”

  “Let me see it.”

  MacGregor picked it up and gave it to the chief. “I think it still works.”

  “I don’t give a shit if it still works. I want to know how it got here and who was flying it.”

  “It was probably some kids goofing around. I never actually saw anyone.”

  The chief turned the drone over in his hands. “Is this a camera here?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never really seen a drone up close.”

  The chief didn’t believe that for a second. “It looks like a camera to me. How do you know the reporter didn’t fly this thing in here?”

  MacGregor put his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know for sure. But it doesn’t matter because there’s nothing important they can see from outside the buildings.”

  “Are you sure of that? Show me where you found it.”

  The chief followed MacGregor to the spot and took stock of the available view.

  “From outside, there’s not much to see,” said MacGregor. “Looking through the windows, it would be hard to know what you’re looking at. The other side of the building has the fish tanks, but from outside, there’s no way to know what’s inside the tanks. They just look like big metal containers.”

  The chief walked around to the end of the building with the large door. It was closed. “This door is usually closed, right?”

  “Unless we’re moving something in or out. It’s part of the policy here. Mainly so we don’t get wild animals inside.”

  Being suspicious was part of the chief’s operating model. Jordan Reed poking around elevated his baseline suspicion level. So he didn’t really buy MacGregor’s story. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the first time something like this ever happened was while she was stirring up trouble.

  “I want to see what’s on this camera. How can we do that?”

  The chief saw a momentary flash of fear in MacGregor’s eyes. He was hiding something.

  “Um, I don’t really know. I think you need an app and an account that allows a connection to the drone and the video it captures. Whoever used the drone would own the account, so I think we would need that person to see what’s on the camera.”

  “Really? There’s no way to see what’s on it just by plugging it into a computer?”

  “I doubt it, Chief. You know everything’s wireless these days.”

  The chief looked at the drone more closely. “What’s this?” he said, pointing to a USB connection.

  “Probably a charging port,” MacGregor said.

  “Do you have a cable that fits this connector?”

  “Not here. I do at home. I could bring it in tomorrow.”

  “Are you fucking serious? I want to know now. This port looks like the same connection I have on the Garmin GPS I use when I’m hunting. I’ve got it in my Explorer. Why don’t you go fire up a computer, and we can hook this up. See what whoever was flying this drone saw.”

  The chief saw what looked like defeat on MacGregor’s face. Whatever really happened wasn’t what MacGregor said. As they headed back toward the main building, the chief made a bet with himself that MacGregor would crack before he got to his vehicle.

  He won the bet.

  “We don’t need to look at the video,” MacGregor said. “I know what will be on it.”

  The chief stopped and turned to face MacGregor. Despite the chief’s height deficit, his body language demonstrated dominance. “Tell me, Drew, what would we see if we looked at the video?”

  The chief saw MacGregor swallow. “The inside of the testing building.”

  That wasn’t what the chief had thought MacGregor was hiding. “I thought the door was closed?”

  “It should have been. But I was going in and out a lot this morning and left it open. It takes too damn long to open and close. It’s a real pain in the ass.”

  The chief took pleasure in being right, but the implications of what he was hearing overshadowed his satisfaction.

  “Do you know for certain this drone went inside?”

  “Yeah. I had been in the front building and went to the back to get the forklift. As I came around the back corner, I nearly walked right into the drone as it came out from inside.”

  “Did you knock it down? How did it crash?”

  “I didn’t touch it. When we almost collided, the pilot must have panicked. The drone jerked back and forth and then crashed. It landed upside down. I picked it up and turned it off.”

  “You saw no one?”

  “Nope. The pilot must have been off the property.”

  “Close to the road, I bet. They’ll be long gone now.”

  “I’m sorry, Chief. I fucked this up. We’ve never had any trouble here, and I was lazy with the door. I don’t want to get fired.”

  “Fired may be the least of your worries. What exactly is there to see inside?”

  “Basically, all of our test animals. That includes the fish tanks, plus dozens of other animals we use for testing.”

  “The fish tanks are where the fish you dumped came from?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck. I don’t know exactly what you’re testing here, but I’m sure news getting out is a big problem. I need to know how big. Are any laws being broken here?”

  “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “I need to know. I don’t want to go down with the ship.”

  “Technically, yes, laws are being broken here.”

  “Technical matters. Laws are technical. What’s the minimum you can tell me?”

  “The minimum? I guess the minimum is that chemicals are being tested on animals without FDA approval. Chemicals to significantly increase yields on food animals. But it looks like they also kill them.”

  “What about people?”

  MacGregor’s face looked troubled. “Hard to tell. It’s possible. Some of the synthetic hormones are pretty potent. I can’t imagine they wouldn’t have some impact on people.”

  “That’s fucking great. Why the hell do you do this?”

  “You have to see what they pay me. I get a healthy six figures for this job. And the options I have in the company will make me a millionaire if NeuSterone can turn this into a product.”

  “Of course.” The chief turned and headed to his Explorer, drone in hand. “Don’t tell anyone about this. Not a fucking soul. I’ll handle it.”

  The chief left with the drone.

  The chief couldn’t ignore the seriousness of video footage from inside the main testing building getting into Jordan Reed’s hands. He also couldn’t deal with it alone. He needed Chris to agree on next steps.

  The chief often forgot he and Senator Chris Chisholm went way back. At least to middle school. He also never thought much about the fact that he, Chris, and Mike had been best friends through much of high school. The chief was the football star, Chris was the rich kid who got straight As, and Mike was pretty much a friend to everyone. Especially Alice.

  When that relationship went beyond friendship and Alice dumped Brian, the group had disintegrated. Brian cut Mike out of his life completely, leaving Chris in the untenable situation of having two good friends who were no longer friends with each other. Brian’s bitterness took a toll on all of his friendships, and he and Chris had drifted apart by the time they graduated from high school.

  Now, thirty years later, the three former friends were connected again, though only the chief knew all the pieces in play. That gave him a fighting chance of getting out of his screwed-up situation intact.

  “Brian,” Chris Chisholm said as he answered the chief’s call. “I wasn’t expecting you to call. What’s up?”

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Is that why you’re calling me and not Francis?”

  “Middlemen slow things down. You’ll want to hear this right away.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Someone was exploring your testing site. With a drone.”

  “How do you kno
w?”

  “I have the drone.”

  “Shit. How did you find out?”

  “MacGregor called me. He found it this morning. He tried to hide what really happened, but I got the truth out of him.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Near as I can tell, someone did some remote exploring of the NeuSterone site. They shouldn’t have been able to see very much, except MacGregor had left the big door on the back of the testing building open. He saw the drone as it was flying out of the building.”

  The chief could hear the frustration in Chris’s voice. “That stupid asshole. Once we get through this shit, he’s gone. But for now, I need him to keep things running. Do you know who had the drone? Was it Jordan Reed?”

  “I don’t have any proof yet, but she had to be involved. Whoever it was, they had a great view of the inside of that testing building. I assume that’s a problem for you?”

  “It’s a big goddamned problem. Our testing isn’t approved, and the science isn’t exactly well documented. Which leads to mistakes. As you might guess, the FDA wouldn’t be a big fan of that.”

  “So that’s what happened to those fish? A mistake?”

  “You could say that. What we’re doing can be applied to most animals. With all the challenges of diminishing commercial fisheries, we knew there was a huge opportunity if we could get it to work on fish. Plus, animal-rights activists don’t get too riled up over fish. Hurt a baby cow, though, and they’ll try to shut you down.”

  “So how do you want to handle this? If the drone was Jordan Reed’s, then the walls are closing in. She almost has enough to expose NeuSterone. And you with it.”

  “Don’t forget yourself in all this. Like it or not, you sink or float with me. It’s in your best interest to make sure this doesn’t see the light of day.”

  “Shit, Chris, you think I don’t know that? I never should have agreed to help you hide that place.”

  “Then you wouldn’t be the highest-paid police chief in Connecticut, would you?”

  “I’m not so sure the money is worth it.”

  “Too late for that. What are our options?”

  “Do you want to hear the legal options, or every option?”

  “Just give me the ones that make this all go away.”

  “Well, at the top of the list is making Jordan Reed go away. Literally. Next would be to convince her not to publish anything with what she’s found. That could be done with money, or it could be done with threats. Either to her or someone she cares about. Someone like her sister, who is also here at Copper Lake. Or we could try to get our hands on everything she has and destroy it. But she probably has multiple copies, so we’d never be sure we got it all.”

  “Is the first option possible to do cleanly? How hard would it be for her to have an accident?”

  The chief was afraid the senator would go down this path. Adding murder to his list of recent crimes wasn’t something he wanted to do. The quiet extortion he was helping Robbie Vitali orchestrate didn’t feel so much like a crime. At least not with Mike as the victim. Murder had to be a last resort.

  “That’d be risky. She’s not here alone. If we had enough time, we could plan something that wouldn’t raise any alarms. But we only have a day or two. Setting up the kind of accident you’re suggesting would be hard to do quickly. Her absence would be noticed.”

  “You’re right. What if we give someone else a reason to want her to have an accident?”

  “Like who?”

  “The Vitalis.”

  The chief nearly drove off the road at the mention of the Vitalis. Why the hell would Chris even mention them?

  “The Vitalis from New Jersey?”

  “Who else? I learned that someone from the family—likely the son, Robbie—is trying to buy Mike’s marina. This is a problem, since I have a group of investors who want to do the same thing. So I made sure that the Vitalis learned there was another bidder. Actually, more than that. The Vitalis will think Mike is leaning toward selling the marina to me. They should be good and pissed. I expect someone to come up to try to convince Mike to sell to them instead.”

  “What’s that got to do with Jordan Reed?”

  “What if the Vitalis thought she’d found out they were trying to buy the marina and came to Copper Lake to do an exposé on their family? Create some bad press. The Vitalis would deal with her if they thought she was a threat.”

  The chief’s head felt like it would explode. He had kept his Vitali activities separate from protecting Chris’s testing site. They were disconnected, so it wasn’t difficult. But with Chris now sharing he also wanted to buy the marina, and knowing the Vitalis were a competitor, everything was becoming tangled. His many secrets had more risk of exposure.

  “How would we do that?”

  “Same way I fed the story about Mike selling me the marina. I’d have a source feed the story to the Vitalis’ attorney, the one who met with Mike. Make him think Jordan Reed is in Copper Lake to get dirt on the Vitalis and make sure they don’t get the marina.”

  The chief had to concentrate. A wrong move would expose him.

  Chris didn’t know the Vitalis were trying to force Mike to sell with the vandalism scheme the chief was managing. The Vitalis knew about Jordan Reed being in Copper Lake, but only to investigate the fish. The chief could actually help Chris, without telling him, by tipping off Robbie Vitali that Jordan Reed had figured out he’d ordered the marina accidents. That would give the Vitalis more than enough motivation to take her out. The only unknown for the chief was if Robbie would ask him to do it or have one of his own guys do it.

  “I think that could work,” the chief said. “But you have to make them think she knows something more specific.”

  “Like what?”

  The chief saw a path where he could skate through this whole mess and come out clean. It was a long shot but worth the risk. “Well, Mike thinks some recent accidents that have happened at the marina might not be accidents. That they happened on purpose. Maybe have your source say that Jordan Reed thinks the marina accidents were part of the Vitali strategy.”

  “That’s pretty good. Do you think there’s any chance it’s even true?”

  The chief couldn’t tell Chris the complete truth, but he could get close. “Who’s to say it’s not possible? I wouldn’t put it past them. I’m sure they’ve done worse.”

  “Good enough for me. I’ll make sure this gets out right away. Whoever from the Vitali family goes to Copper Lake should be primed to act. Jordan Reed will make a perfect target for their rage.”

  “Let me know what you hear. Are you coming up here tomorrow?”

  “Yes. I need to talk to Mike and try to convince him to sell the marina to me. Most of my backers have approved an offer, but it won’t matter if Mike won’t sell.”

  “I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  33

  Jordan and Travis pulled into the marina around one p.m. They didn’t go straight back after the drone adventure in case someone spotted them while they sped away. Jordan figured if the chief had been on to them, she’d have known immediately. After twenty minutes of driving around, there was no sign they were being followed.

  In the frenzy of the last couple of hours, Jordan hadn’t given Rachel any sort of update. She wondered what her sister thought of her unpredictability. She valued Rachel’s opinion and advice and hoped that she wasn’t disappointing her. It was different with her brother. He looked down on her, thinking she’d given up on achieving something greater. He didn’t get it that any perceived greatness of her job wasn’t what motivated Jordan. She needed to do something where her work could make a difference to people around her.

  Jordan turned to Travis before getting out of the car. “Let’s find Rachel and regroup. I think I still need actual evidence from that site, but maybe the video is more incriminating than I think.”

  “I’m all for that. Getting through one of your stories without someone getting kidnapped or
worse would be an improvement.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll be safe.”

  “I was actually thinking about you. Taking risks that you shouldn’t comes too easy for you. I’m worried you’ll be the one who gets kidnapped, hurt, or something else.”

  Jordan faced Travis. “Are you serious? You think I’m in danger?”

  “Not specifically. It’s not like we know someone is trying to hurt you. Not like with those guys from GenPhage. They were dangerous. But you seem to be ready to jump into any situation, no matter the risk. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  Travis’s comments reminded Jordan of the real risk of pulling him in to help her. Their past relationship would always complicate things. It wasn’t that she didn’t care for him. But Jordan was sure his feelings were stronger than hers. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t wind back the clock to the time before she’d ended their engagement.

  “I don’t have a death wish, and I’m not trying to put myself in any real danger. Sometimes I have to get my hands dirty. Like with this story.”

  Jordan knew Travis wasn’t the mushy type and sensed the conversation had gone as far as he was comfortable. “I made my case,” Travis said. “I need some food and a drink.”

  They got out of Jordan’s car and entered the marina grounds. As they walked past the tables on the dining patio, a man heading in the opposite direction passed them. He wasn’t much taller than Jordan, and with the baseball hat he was wearing, she couldn’t really see his face. But he was wearing a black hoodie.

  Jordan’s first thought was: How could someone wear a hoodie when it’s so hot out? It was well north of eighty degrees, and she was plenty warm in a tank top. But something about the man’s posture, combined with the hat and hoodie, seemed familiar. She couldn’t remember from where, but the connection was real. Maybe it would come to her once she had some food and time for her nerves to relax.

  “There’s Rachel,” Jordan said, spying her sister at a table near the bar.

  “Right behind you.”

  Rachel looked up from some papers on the table as Jordan and Travis approached. “Hey there. I thought I’d lost you guys. Ever hear of a phone?”