by Matt Lincoln
“Sorry,” Barnes apologized, “I turned it down earlier when I was helping corral the guests. What is it?”
“The passengers are leaving!” the officer, Dallas, exclaimed.
“What?!” Barnes yelled, echoing my own thoughts out loud. “On whose authority?”
“I’m not sure exactly what’s going on,” Dallas admitted. “I guess one of the passengers is related to some hot-shot lawyer who made a fuss about us not being able to detain them. Word got around, and now, all the rest of the passengers are leaving too!”
“Dammit,” Barnes grumbled.
I pursed my lips in concern. This was bad. We hadn’t had a chance to try to find the suspect yet, and now it looked like our opportunity was gone.
“Crap,” I muttered as I racked my brain for a quick solution. I turned to speak to the captain again. “We need to make an announcement.”
“An announcement?” Havisham repeated, throwing me a confused look. “What kind of announcement?”
“One directed at the rest of the drug mules,” I explained, “if there are any. Obviously, our friend in the video isn’t going to turn himself in, but if any of the victims used to smuggle the drugs are still alive, they might be willing to answer an offer of help.”
“You want us to tell them to turn themselves in?” Barnes asked.
“Essentially.” I nodded. “We should make it clear that we understand that they are likely being forced to do this against their will and that they won’t be prosecuted because they’re victims. We also need to emphasize the fact that they really need to seek medical attention ASAP. If any of them are still alive, they’re basically ticking time bombs right now.”
“Do you think they’ll actually listen if we do that?” Havisham asked me skeptically.
“Maybe not,” I replied. Realistically, it was unlikely that they would. People in these kinds of situations were usually brainwashed or threatened to the point that they wouldn’t dare speak out against their captor. “But that's all we can do since we can no longer stop the passengers from leaving.”
“I’ll see to it, then,” Havisham replied before stepping out of the security room.
“I’d better go too,” Barnes grumbled, displeasure evident in his tone. “I’m sure it’s a mess out there right now.” He stepped out of the room and followed Havisham back down the hallway.
“So, what do we do now?” Holm turned to look at me.
“We should go stake out the entrance of the ship,” I replied as I indicated for him to follow me before leaving the room as well. “The man in the video was still on this ship up to now, unless he jumped overboard.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time a perp tried that,” Holm snorted.
“That’s true,” I conceded as we walked back down the hallway toward the main area of the ship. I could already hear the voices of people as we approached the discreet door we’d walked through earlier. “But if he is still here, then our best chance to catch him will be to watch the entrance and wait for him to come out.”
“Oh, is that all?” Holm chuckled as I pushed the door open. The sound grew exponentially louder as we stepped out and joined the crowd. “Just find one person out of a few thousand? No problem.”
It was clear that everyone was rushing to get out as quickly as possible. All around us, I could hear people voicing their opinions on what had happened, their displeasure at the police for keeping them here, and wild opinions over what had really gone down the previous night.
It took a while for Holm and me to finally make it back out of the ship and onto the dock, and by then, the entire area was crowded with people. The announcement began as we made our way outside, but it didn’t seem like anyone was really listening. Everyone was too absorbed in their own issues and just seemed eager to get off the ship.
I sighed in frustration. It would be significantly more difficult for us to spot the man we were after among all these people, and there was always the possibility that he had already left as well.
“See anything?” I asked Holm. I had to raise my voice over the noise of the crowd in order to be heard.
“No!” he yelled back.
I continued to scan the crowd. I was about to suggest that we split up when I spotted something, or rather someone. He was walking quickly through the crowd, his shoulders hunched and his hands jammed into his pockets. His head was down, so I couldn’t see his face, but something about him was drawing my attention.
“Nine o’clock.” I nudged Holm on the arm before nodding over to the man. “Black shirt and black pants.”
“I see him,” Holm replied as the two of us began to make our way over to the man, slipping between and around people as we walked. “Think that’s him?”
“I don’t know,” I replied as I quickened my pace to close the distance between the suspect and us. He could just be another passenger who wanted to mind his own business and get out of here, but my gut was rarely wrong. His posture was screaming “suspicious,” and he didn’t have a single piece of luggage on him, not even a backpack. Surely an ordinary guest wouldn’t be in such a hurry to leave that they’d leave behind their bags, right?
“Excuse me,” I called to the man as I finally caught up to him, placing a firm hand on his shoulder as I did. He spun around as though my hand had burned him, and I recognized him instantly. Even though the footage had been a bit blurry, I’d made a point to ingrain the man’s features into my brain.
This was the same person we’d seen on the security video.
Before I could say or do anything, the man reached behind his back. I swore as I lunged forward, knocking the man to the ground as he produced a gun. We were in the middle of a crowd of people, and I didn’t have time to reach for my own weapon, so I needed to do what I could to protect the surrounding civilians.
Unfortunately, he still pulled the trigger even as we fell to the ground. It only took a second for the first scream, and suddenly, chaos exploded as all the passengers around us started to run. One of them ran directly into me, inadvertently kicking me in the side before knocking me off the suspect. He scrambled to his feet at once before taking off, slipping between the panicked passengers like a snake.
“Help!” a woman screamed from behind me. “Someone shot my sister!”
I turned around to find a woman on the ground, her left hand pressed to her right arm, which was bleeding heavily. Holm was already kneeling next to her, assessing the situation. The woman who had screamed was still yelling, calling for police and an ambulance.
“I’ll handle it!” Holm yelled at me. “Go after him!”
I nodded before turning and taking off after the man. A bullet to the arm would most likely not be fatal, especially with so many police officers around to administer first aid and get her to the hospital. I needed to stop the suspect before he fired again and injured someone more severely.
“Stop!” I yelled once I finally caught sight of him again, way down the side of the marina. I broke into a sprint directly toward him, shoving people out of the way as I did. I tried not to be too rough, but I couldn’t afford to be nice right now. At any moment, the man could turn around and shoot, and any one of them could die.
To my surprise, he didn’t shoot. Instead, he began to scream.
“Help!” the suspect hollered at the top of his lungs as he pointed over his shoulder at me. “Someone help! He’s trying to kill me! It’s him! He’s the one that did it!” People were watching us as we raced down the edge of the water, and I gritted my teeth as I realized what the little weasel was doing.
“He’s the one that killed all those people!” he screamed as he looked back at me. “He’s trying to kill me!”
It seemed like those were the magic words he needed to ignite the crowd’s mob mentality because a moment later, a bystander began to chase after us, then another, and then another until I had an entire group of people at my back.
“Stop!” one man yelled as he stepped directly in front of me, nearly
causing me to trip as I swerved to the side to avoid colliding with him. The distraction was enough for another bystander to catch up to me, though, and a large hand closed around my arm.
“He’s lying!” I roared as I pulled my arm free of the second man’s grip. Turning back in the direction of the suspect, I couldn’t see him anymore. I swore as I scanned the crowd in search of him, but he was nowhere to be seen. Still, I was about to run after him when the man who’d cut me off stepped in front of me again.
“Hey!” he barked as he shoved me roughly in the chest. “Why were you chasing him then? You really think you can get away with what happened?”
He swung his fist at me, but his form was pathetic, at best. I was easily able to dodge out of the way before grabbing his arm and twisting it behind his back.
“I was chasing him because I’m a federal agent, you idiot,” I spat at him, furious that he’d caused me to lose sight of the suspect and then attempted to assault me to boot. “That man was one of our prime suspects, and you just let him get away.”
“W-what?” the man sputtered as I released him and shoved him away from me. He blinked at me dumbly before his expression twisted into one of anger. “H-how do I know you’re not lying? Prove it!”
“You see this?” I asked as I swiftly produced my badge. All the color drained out of his face the moment he saw it.
“Oh,” he muttered quietly. “I… uh, well… he said that… sorry.”
At least he had the decency to look ashamed. Most of the people standing around us had similar expressions of guilt and shock etched onto their faces. With how fast they’d suddenly come after me at the man’s accusation, I could easily believe that they’d attacked that poor cook earlier when they thought he’d poisoned the food. Group hysteria was a terrifying thing.
“Get out of here,” I sneered at the man. It wasn’t worth the headache and paperwork it would be to haul him in for that punch he’d thrown, though I certainly could have. I had more important things to deal with right now. “And get that temper in check. It’s going to get you killed one day.”
The man turned red before nodding tersely and scampering off with his tail between his legs. As I watched him leave, I spotted Holm running toward me.
“Hey,” he greeted me breathlessly as he came to a stop in front of me before looking back at the man who had just left. “Everything cool? It looked like you were yelling at that guy.”
“I was,” I grumbled as I put my badge back away. “The suspect started screaming that I was the murderer and was trying to kill him. That wannabe hero jumped in and threw a punch at me without hesitation. I lost sight of the suspect thanks to him.”
“Great,” Holm groaned as he rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Just what we needed. Should we go after him?”
“I don’t think it would do much good,” I muttered bitterly as I looked back in the direction that the man had run. It was only a few steps to the end of the marina, and by now, there were a hundred different directions he could have gone. “How’s the woman who got shot?”
“She’s alright,” Holm replied as we began to make our way back toward the ship. “It was a graze, thankfully. It’ll probably leave a scar but no permanent damage. She took it pretty well, honestly. She was calming her sister down the whole time she was being patched up.”
“That’s good,” I replied, trying to look on the bright side. “At least he didn’t hurt anyone else on his way out of here. Come on, let’s get back to the office. We have a lot of information to sort through.”
We fell into silence after that, each lost in thought as we processed everything that had happened. We’d spent so long on the interviews and reviewing the footage that the sun had almost completely set by now, and the thin beams of light were casting a dreary glow over the marina that perfectly suited my mood over having lost the suspect.
We would just have to double our efforts in finding him.
5
Ethan
“Maybe you should have arrested him,” Holm grumbled as he set his tablet down on his desk with a thump. “We wouldn’t have to do this if that dummy hadn’t jumped in like that.”
He was talking about the “good Samaritan” that had come to the suspect’s rescue yesterday. It was the morning after our initial investigation onboard the ship, and we were currently poring over all the information the lab had managed to gather over the passengers. Some had been easy to find, as most of the names on the list quickly pulled up driver’s licenses, passports, and other public records. Some weren't easy, however, and it seemed like every time we made a dent, more files would arrive for us to parse through.
We had two main goals at the moment. One, figure out what the victims had in common, and two, find out who the suspect was. So far, we hadn’t had much luck on either front, so I couldn’t blame Home for wanting to punish the man that had stopped me from grabbing the suspect on the spot.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “But what good would it have done? He’d be hit with an assault charge, and we’d be hit with more paperwork to do, on top of all this stuff we already have to sift through.”
“I know,” he muttered as he picked his tablet back up. “Anyway, why are cruise ships so lax on security? Planes aren’t like this. If this had happened on a plane, we’d know everything about every single passenger on board in a second.”
“Well, a lot of ships are registered overseas,” I replied as I quickly skipped past the files on women in search of the suspect. “That helps them avoid taxes and stuff, but it also means that they aren’t as tightly regulated as one registered in the US would be, which opens the door to a lot of shady possibilities.”
“Awesome,” Holm replied sarcastically.
A second later, a familiar head of curls came bounding down the bullpen toward us.
“Hey, guys,” Bonnie greeted us cheerfully as she set a box of donuts down on the desk between us. “I brought these in for Clyde and me, but I figured you two could use a pick-me-up. You both looked so stressed.”
“Yes, thank you,” Holm replied dramatically as he lifted the lid and scanned over the contents inside.
“Thanks,” I responded as Holm grabbed one before pushing the box toward me.
“So, how is the search going?” she asked as she leaned down to peer curiously at my tablet. “Any sign of your suspect yet?”
“No,” I scoffed as I selected my own donut before putting the lid back on the box. “Apparently, they needed passports in order to board the ship, but they weren’t scanned or recorded or anything like they would be on a plane, so there aren’t any photo records of a lot of the passengers. I’m guessing there won’t be any shots of the man we saw if he’s a halfway-decent criminal.”
“I’m sorry.” Bonnie frowned sympathetically. “Is there any way I can help? Aside from bringing you the occasional fix of carbs and sugar?”
“Actually, yeah,” I replied as I suddenly recalled the comment I’d made back on the ship. Bonnie’s eyes lit up immediately, clearly excited to help in any way that she could. “How long can a person go with drugs in their stomach?”
“Hmmm.” She tapped her finger to her lips as she looked up in thought. “I guess it would depend on a lot of factors. What kind of drugs, for instance. The age and health of the person, too. I’m assuming you’re asking because of the victims. Are you trying to build a timeline?”
“We are,” I confirmed. “We need to figure out at what point the drugs made it onto the boat since I don’t think they were there when the ship initially set sail.”
“Why not?” Bonnie asked.
“Because the cruise was seventeen days,” Holm answered after swallowing a mouthful of donut. “Can a person go seventeen days with drugs in their stomach?”
“Seventeen!” Bonnie gasped, blinking at Holm in surprise before staring thoughtfully off into space. “I don’t think so. Drug traffickers do typically force mules to take medicine to prevent them from going to the bathroom, like the opposite of a laxat
ive, but seventeen days is an insane amount of time for anyone to go without defecating.”
“Which is why we suspect the drugs were not present inside the victims when they left California,” I concluded.
“The only question is when,” Holm added before taking another bite of his donut.
“Well…” Bonnie replied as she crossed her arms over her chest. “The longest a person can reasonably go before they would need to seek medical attention is about four days, maybe a few more. Though I guess if they didn’t eat, they wouldn’t have to go at all, but then the stomach acid would build up to the point that…” Her eyes went wide, and she gasped as though she’d suddenly realized something.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Stomach acid!” she proclaimed. “Everyone’s got stomach acid in their gut that breaks down food, right? Well, stomach acid is not a joke. It’s called acid because it’s extremely good at breaking down pretty much everything. Ulcers are literally the result of stomach acid eating away at your own insides. Anyway, the human body constantly produces stomach acid, right? Well, when people don’t eat, the stomach acid has nothing to do and just sits there, but the body keeps producing more and more. So if these people had bags of cocaine in their stomachs, and they’re not eating, and the bags are just sitting there in a literal pool of acid--”
“That’s why they ruptured,” I muttered as I realized what she was getting at.
“It makes sense!” she asserted. “They wouldn’t let the victims eat, which caused a buildup of stomach acid, which led the bags to burst.”
“Wait,” Holm interrupted as he set his donut down on the table. “So you think they really did make them carry the drugs around for seventeen days?”
“No,” she replied. “That still can’t be the case because if it was, the bags would have burst way earlier, on the fifth or sixth day, probably. They wouldn’t have made it as long as they did. I still think that you’re looking at around a four-day window here. Where did the ship dock in the last four days of the cruise?”