One Way Out: Scout Ledger Thriller

by Elleby Harper

  “Thanks, CC, but I’ll make the call.” Ledger would be damned if she let someone else do her dirty work.

  Bogel kept a beady eye on her as she rang through to the Sheriff’s office in the small seaside town of Oyster Bay. Once she was connected and talking, Bogel made a show of rounding up the three other agents and taking them for a drink. That made it clear Ledger was expected to finalize the paperwork for the forthcoming bust. Bogel thought his actions were a punishment. What Ledger found a punishment was scrounging enough small talk to fill in the silences between her and work colleagues who were still strangers. Not to mention keeping her language civil around Bogel.

  Ledger was surprised to be put straight through to Sheriff Chuck Dallenbach. She had expected to relay a message through his office staff.

  “My name is Officer Scout Ledger with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. This is a courtesy call to let you know our officers will be calling on a resident in your jurisdiction, Maria Garcia, with a warrant.”

  She heard Dallenbach snort down the line. “Maria Garcia? Are you kidding me? No doubt you’re going to arrest her in front of her kids at home! Well, sure, why not, what else does ICE do except break apart decent families?”

  Ledger felt her face burn, even though Dallenbach couldn’t see her. Her biggest problem was that she couldn’t in clear conscience refute his claim.

  Maria had come to ICE’s attention because she had been deported from the country eleven years ago as a young woman. She had re-entered the US and subsequently married Enzo Garcia. They had settled in Oyster Bay and become hard-working, law-abiding citizens raising two kids. Both the Garcias worked in the local oyster industry. Since re-entering the country, Maria hadn’t racked up so much as a parking ticket. She could serve as a model of respectability and even volunteered at the local youth center on Saturday nights and both her children were American. Despite that, once ICE got its hands on her, Maria would be facing deportation and separation from her husband and kids.

  Ledger knew that Dallenbach was familiar with these facts. Hell, he probably knew all 1900 residents of Oyster Bay personally. Ledger had no words to defend Bogel’s orders. Instead red-hot silence scorched down the line from Dallenbach.

  As she was about to hang up, Dallenbach gusted a hefty sigh. “Okay, you’ve given your required warning, Officer Ledger. For the record, just once I wish you lot would actually target someone in the community my office would love to get our hands on and deport.”

  “Do you have anyone in mind?” The words flew out of her mouth before she considered their propriety.

  “Are you serious? You’re saying you’d actually cooperate with my office?”

  “Give me a name and let’s test out that theory.”

  His laugh resonated in her ear. “You think I’m crazy enough to say anything over the phone?”

  “Okay, then let’s meet. Name the time and place,” she shot back.

  After a few seconds of hesitation, he said, “When I get a chance I have lunch at Captain Joe’s Seafood Bistro on Maritime Parade. I might be there tomorrow around noon.”

  Ledger smiled to herself as she hung up. This was not the outcome Whip Bogel had expected from her phone call.

  3

  Ledger undertook the drive from the Portland Field Office to the Long Beach Peninsula on the southern tip of Washington state in the company of CC. He was the only officer volunteering to partner with her. Shrugging his shoulders in a dismissive gesture at such martyrdom, Bogel sent agents Eddie Guzman and Hank Wyche off in a second black Ford SUV. The plan was to split into pairs to undertake surveillance operations.

  Under directions from Bogel, Guzman and Wyche headed to the peninsula via Highway 26. Ledger had traveled to Oyster Bay twice now. She preferred a more scenic route, plus room to overtake. When she took the wheel, she planted her foot and flew up the I-5, before following the Columbia River on State Route 4. After crossing Astoria Bridge she took a left and hooked onto Highway 101.

  Long Beach Peninsula was dotted with small villages and Ledger pulled into a gas station in Ilwaco to refuel, make a pitstop for the bathroom and grab a coffee. The trip had taken a little over two hours and they had left Portland at 8:30 that morning.

  When she returned to the car, CC had his ear glued to his phone. He nodded at her as she handed him the second takeout cup she carried. She stood and sipped while he finished his conversation.

  “That was Guzman. They’re already in Oyster Bay, sitting off on Garcia’s house, so we’ll have to stake out the oyster farm where she works,” he told her.

  “Suits me.” She tossed him the car keys. “Why don’t you finish the drive. Oyster Bay’s only five miles away.”

  CC wound off the 101 onto State Route 103, Pacific Way. They traveled north, the highway renamed as Maritime Parade as it threaded its way through Oyster Bay. The town stretched two blocks east and west of this north-south running main street. Beyond the streets on the east was a tree-shrouded landscape. To the west mudflats stretched out to the ocean. This was the village’s bread and butter. Two rival oyster farms did a thriving business, one located at the south edge and one at the northern most tip of the bay. The entire town was cradled in the curve of the estuary, ending with a light house at the north promontory.

  CC was forced to slow to a crawl as they traversed the town, swarming with summer tourists spilling over the sidewalks and ambling across the road. He was headed to Northern Shore Oyster Cannery, Maria Garcia’s employers, at the far end of the town.

  “I see why you gave me the keys for the last leg of the journey,” he grumbled. “With your lead foot you’d have mowed down herds of pedestrians by now.”

  “Going slow is not my style,” Ledger agreed. Behind her sunglasses she kept her eyes closed and tried to ignore CC’s lurching, stop-start driving as he negotiated sauntering tourists stepping off sidewalks without due regard for traffic.

  The cannery’s parking lot was busy. It appeared they had arrived as night shift was clocking off. Oyster farming was the main industry in the town. Oysters were the catch of the day, every day of the year, and provided a stable line of employment. Their team had staked out both oyster farms at various times because of the large number of immigrant workers that filed in and out of the buildings, onto boats and along the mudflats. The oysters were collected at low tide which occurred mid-morning at this time of year. They were brought into the cannery for the day shift to deal with. Maria Garcia was an oyster shucker.

  CC pulled into a parking bay at the edge of the lot where they had a view of cars streaming past. The parking lot was a public area and as such they didn’t need permission to be there.

  Ledger checked her watch, noting it was now ten after eleven. She unbuckled her seat belt.

  “I’ve got a meeting.”

  CC’s forehead ridged into a frown. “Does Bogel know about this?”

  Ledger shrugged. “Not unless you tell him. Don’t sweat it, CC. You’re capable of spying on Maria all by yourself. And if you keep my jaunt on the QT I’ll bring you back a fisherman’s basket from Captain Joe’s for lunch.”

  She was wearing a rust-brown T-shirt tucked into black chinos, with her Sig Sauer duty weapon fitted into a concealed neoprene holster at her waist. She grabbed a light-weight linen jacket from the back seat and pulled it on to provide additional cover for her weapon. The jacket wouldn’t look out of place on this summer day. This was Washington not California and the sea breeze was already ruffling her hair. She quickly drew it back from her face, twisted it into a chignon and clipped it in place.

  “You do know that Bogel’s placed a target on your back, don’t you?”

  “It wasn’t hard to guess he hasn’t taken a shine to me,” she responded with a wry smile. “Don’t tell me. He’s struggling with self-esteem issues stemming from his divorce. All women have become a crippling trigger for him. Someone needs to tell the man that advancing gender diversity is a matter of human rights.”

  She s
lammed the passenger door closed and headed back to Maritime Parade. She had noticed Captain Joe’s restaurant on the left hand side when they drove in. It was a pleasant half-mile hike along a main drag filled with quaint, traditional timber framed stores. Many of them were painted in bright pastels. Pinks. Blues. Greens. Yellows. She passed cafes and restaurants, a hardware store, a children’s play center, craft, gift and card shops. Deep awnings kept the sun off her face, but Ledger kept her glasses. She reached her destination by eleven thirty. She liked to be early for her appointments. She preferred to scope out her surroundings in case she was called on to act.

  Captain Joe’s welcomed guests with a life-sized mannequin dressed in oversized waders and a pirate hat decorated with a skull and crossbones seated on the porch, beside the front door. A white picket balustrade separated the porch from a small parking lot. A police cruiser was parked amongst the out-of-state license plates.

  From the number of people pouring through the door with paper bags and cardboard containers, Ledger guessed the café’s clientele to be split fifty-fifty between take out orders and dine in service. She scanned the café’s interior through large picture windows decorated with a multitude of neon signs. Open. Great chowder. Fish’n’Chips. Crab cakes galore.

  She noticed the lone official uniform. Dallenbach was taking his break early. He was seated, but still managed to look tall and lanky. He leaned his elbows on the table as he ate, his forearms ropey with muscle. His hat sat on the table, leaving a shock of straw-colored hair swept to the left. Ledger guessed he was somewhere in his forties. Old enough for him to have acquired policing experience, she hoped.

  A bell tinkled when she opened the door. Dallenbach threw a lazy glance her way. It quickly sharpened into focused interest as she approached his table. Dallenbach’s appreciative reaction didn’t surprise her. She knew she had a face that attracted attention. She considered herself thoroughly American, but her full lips, contoured cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes often led people to ask where she was from.

  “Sheriff Dallenbach, I’m Officer Scout Ledger,” she introduced herself.

  She watched his eyes do a fast up and down scan of her as he took her measure and she wondered about his conclusion. She was on the tall side for a woman, standing five foot nine without heels but her physique was trim, which often led opponents to underestimate her strength. She didn’t mind. In fact she often encouraged it. What most didn’t discern was that under her clothes every inch of her was coiled muscle without a spare ounce of fat.

  “Nice to meet you. You’re definitely an improvement on the last ICE officer to infiltrate Oyster Bay,” he said with a grin.

  She let her face register annoyance at the implied compliment. She knew he got the hint immediately by the redness inching up his neck. “Sorry if that sounded more sexist than intended,” he mumbled.

  “No offense taken,” she accepted his apology with an accompanying smile. She wanted this conversation to remain business-like but she didn’t want him to clam up because he resented her as a ball-breaker. To sweeten the deal, she added her own apology. “I’m sorry to interrupt your meal.”

  Another blush blossomed. “I’m just finishing up. I thought I’d eat before you got here so we could take our discussion outside. Unless you want to order?”

  “I’ll order takeout,” she said.

  “Great.” He scraped his silverware over the plate with a nervous twitch. “That’ll give me time to demolish the last of these ribs. If you’re looking for a recommendation you can’t go past Joe’s crab with the artichoke dip.”

  Ledger moved to the counter and ordered two fisherman’s baskets. She intended to keep her promise to CC. The service was fast and within ten minutes she was in possession of a carrier bag of food. She snacked on batter-crusted shrimp and fries as Dallenbach led her towards the beach.

  They left behind the tourist-inspired pastel-colored buildings of the main street. He paused at a wooden railing overlooking the beach.

  To her left she could see a massive blue-roofed building. About a hundred yards further left stood a smaller wooden structure. There were no windows in its walls and the unpainted wooden siding had been used as a canvas for colored graffiti tags.

  Ranged around one side of the larger building were several occupied picnic tables filled with tourists and townspeople relishing their fresh shellfish lunches. Spanned out behind the tables was a large pea gravel rectangle that served as a parking lot. Cars entered from a single lane gravel track leading from the asphalt road as far as the rundown wooden shack.

  To her right, a safe distance away from the fishing activities, was a long stretch of boardwalk jutting out into a jetty. Every time the sea breeze gusted, it brought a distinct smell of rotting seaweed and stranded fish their way.

  “I take it we’re overlooking the oyster factory.” Ledger commented.

  “Kendrew Shellfish Farms to be precise,” Dallenbach said. “This town depends on oysters. It’s our lifeblood. Oyster Bay is one of the country’s main fresh produce suppliers. Tony Kendrew inherited the farm from his father and grandfather before him. He’s now expanded the oyster market overseas and the company’s a major international exporter to south east Asia.”

  “The wooden building to the side looks pretty run down for such an international player,” Ledger remarked, pointing to the shed that backed onto the beach sands.

  Dallenbach laughed. “Tony’s grandfather used to run the whole operation out of that structure. I don’t think Tony’s used it professionally since well before the end of the ’90s. He keeps it out of sentiment because he learned the ropes of the business there as a kid. I think the Kendrews use it as a storage facility. At the start of the summer, some kids broke the skylights and graffitied the walls. Tony’s dragging his feet about getting the place cleaned up, but I made him remove the broken glass. The last thing I want is a group of idiot teens hellbent on breaking the rules cutting an artery and bleeding out on me while they look for somewhere to underage drink and smoke weed. I told Tony he should pull the whole thing down once and for all.”

  “It’s a shame to get rid of a town’s history,” Ledger said. “The shed’s got a lot of character. Maybe it could be turned into a museum.”

  “Now you’re sounding like the mayor. He’s in the middle of a media blitz promoting the town as the ‘Pearl of the Seas’. If you put the suggestion to him, he’ll probably leap at the chance to install a new tourist attraction.”

  “The mayor’s not happy with a bustling oyster trade? Seems to me having an international business would be good news for the town.”

  “It is. Although it’s attracted a mainly migrant work force, which has in turn attracted attention from ICE. That doesn’t make me or the mayor happy.”

  “You’re pretty concerned about keeping him happy?” Ledger raised a curved brow and couldn’t quite shut down a look of distaste. She hated how the law was becoming such a political animal, tied to the vagaries of what benefitted officials rather than the fight for justice.

  “I’ve got to work with the man,” Dallenbach snapped, red again staining his cheeks. “And his insistence on keeping crime out of the town, or at least any notoriety about it, has been handed to me to deal with as law enforcement in this town. You’ve got to understand what a tricky situation that puts me in. Oyster Bay needs these immigrant workers to keep the wheels of industry rolling. We need these people not to be scared away by ICE barging down here every other day.”

  Ledger had had enough of his excuses. “What has this to do with the matter we discussed over the phone? You indicated you have someone you want targeted by ICE?”

  Dallenbach cleared his throat and ran a finger under the brim of his hat, clearly looking uncomfortable. “Ever since this person arrived in the neighborhood, there have been some subtle changes in town, and not for the better.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “I’ve noticed an increase in the number of transients passing through
Oyster Bay.”

  “You mean illegal people coming and going more frequently? Are they bringing drugs with them?”

  “I don’t know. There hasn’t been a corresponding rise in drug-related crime in the town, but I’ve put feelers out. I’ve heard rumblings from towns further along the coast, and from the interior as far away as Idaho, Montana and Oregon, that their drug supplies are increasing.”

  “You’re talking about significant amounts of drugs?”

  “There’s only me and my deputy so it’s not like I’m putting a task force on this. We haven’t caught anyone with anything other than what we consider enough for personal consumption.”

  “Is it possible those personal amounts are what people are siphoning off a motherlode? Could Oyster Bay’s illegal aliens be serving as a conduit to move drugs from here up and down the coast?”

  “If that’s the case I’d rather they took their pipeline to some other town! Like all small towns we have our issues with drugs, but nothing largescale. And I don’t want that!”

  Ledger nodded. Of course it made sense that Dallenbach didn’t want trouble in his town, but it seemed he didn’t really care if he just migrated it out of the area and left someone else to pick up the pieces.

  “And you’re blaming all this suspect behavior on the arrival of the newcomer?”

  “He showed up at the end of winter. We began noticing the movement of more people into the area shortly after that.”

  “And you don’t mind ICE stepping in?”

  “You’re the alphabet of lesser evil. I’d never keep the mayor sweet if DEA came into the picture. If this guy’s a drug kingpin, you can target him, extradite him from the state and the entire problem goes away. It would be nice if you could keep any investigation on the down low. That is what you’re doing with our more upstanding illegal citizens anyway.”

  Ledger turned her face into the breeze, hoping the wind would blow away the sour taste of Dallenbach’s words. He wanted to use her for his own benefit. She had to decide whether it was in ICE’s best interests as well.