Rising Water

by Wayne Stinnett

  “Smells sweet and fruity,” he said, putting the cap back on. “If I could get it to the lab, the tech guys could run it through the mass spectrometer and tell you exactly what’s in it.”

  “A mass what?” I asked.

  “Spectrometer,” Jerry said, placing the bottle on the table. “It breaks down a substance to its basic ionic elements and provides a percentage-based report of what it’s made of.”

  “Is that something all police departments have?” I asked. “Would Detective Lettsome have access to one?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “I’m just a patrol cop, but I think those things are pretty expensive.”

  “You should get some rest,” Mitzi suggested. “We can worry about dat in di morning.”

  I knew John’s house only had two bedrooms. “I’m good right here,” I said. “A blanket and another shot of that rum, and I’ll be out like a light.”

  John went down the short hallway and returned with a blanket and a pill bottle in his hand. “Take one of these,” he said, placing the pill bottle next to the rum. “It’ll reduce the inflammation and the rum’ll let you sleep.”

  I looked at the label: prescription ibuprofen. Then I opened it, shook one of the pills out, and washed it down with a big hit from the rum bottle.

  Mitzi went down the hall and came back with another blanket, placing it on the armrest of the couch.

  “You can have my room,” she said to the Snyders. “I’ll sleep right here.”

  I don’t know why, but I’d assumed she and John shared a room. Mitzi pulled a blanket over me. I was very tired and in minutes, was fast asleep.

  u

  The smell of bacon and coffee woke me. From the angle of the light streaming through the back window and door, I knew it was late morning. Checking my watch, I saw it was 0930. I’d slept for over six hours and I don’t think I moved an inch during that time.

  Alicia was in the kitchen, her back to me. I removed the blanket that was covering me and discovered I didn’t have a shirt on, and my other boot and sock had been removed.

  The bags of frozen peas were gone, and my ankle had been tightly wrapped in a stretch bandage and taped up like a football lineman’s. I didn’t remember any of that happening.

  I located my shirt, which had been neatly folded on the table by my chair, grabbed it, and then felt around on my right side to find the recliner’s handle. I slowly returned the chair to an upright position, pulled my shirt on, and then, pushing with my hands, stood and put a little weight on my bad foot. There was pain, but it was tolerable. The tape seemed to completely restrain my ankle; I didn’t think I could move it if I wanted to.

  Alicia heard me and turned around. “You shouldn’t be up. I think you might have a torn peroneal tendon.”

  “You’re a doctor?” I asked, as I took a tentative step.

  “Fitness trainer and physical therapist,” she replied. “Sit back down. I’ll have breakfast ready in a minute.”

  “Coffee?”

  She poured a cup and brought it to me. “Sit down.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking a sip. I pointed to my bandaged right foot. “This your work?”

  “Yes, I immobilized your ankle. It might only be a sprain, but we don’t know. Replace that every couple of days for a few weeks to allow the tendon to heal. Now sit down.”

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Mitzi had to go down and open up the restaurant,” Alicia replied, turning back to the stove. “John and Jerry went with her to bring back your friend.”

  Friend? I thought. Then I remembered that DJ would be arriving this morning.

  Taking one more step, I slowly turned and tested my ankle with more weight. She might be a therapist, but she was wrong. I’d once torn that tendon she’d mentioned and knew what it felt like. This was probably nothing more than a sprained ankle. It would heal, but I wasn’t going to be running a marathon any time soon. I returned to my chair with my coffee. The smell of frying bacon was causing my stomach to rumble.

  The coffee was good. Not as good as what Rusty served back home, but beggars can’t be choosers.

  “You’re not eating?” I asked, when Alicia placed a single plate on the table in front of me.

  She flopped onto the couch. “We ate earlier.”

  I reached for the plate, realizing that the bag of pills and whatever was in the water bottle were both gone from the table.

  Alicia rose and went toward the kitchen. “This isn’t how I wanted to spend my honeymoon,” she mumbled, barely audible.

  She was pissed—I could see that. “Getting upset over something you have no control over is a waste of time and energy.”

  “Excuse me?” she said, turning.

  “You don’t really think someone killed that woman and blew up the house you were staying in just because they wanted to ruin your honeymoon, do you?”

  “That’s really no business of—”

  “You made it my business when you complained about it.”

  I’m not a big fan of complaining and couldn’t tell yet if the woman was a spoiled princess or just misguided. Either way, there wasn’t time for her to be crabby. That was my job.

  “Look,” I said, putting my fork down. “None of this is personal. I don’t know you or your husband, and odds are after this is over, we won’t ever see each other again. And I’m okay with that.”

  She started to say something else, but I raised a hand and stopped her. “You and Jerry might be in danger. Lettsome’s murder investigation looks like it’s tied to what we’re investigating. Don’t ask who Armstrong Research is, or what we do. Just consider us private investigators. Those who want to hurt you don’t know us and don’t know where we are. So, you’re safe here.”

  “Unless one of those people sees us.”

  “Just don’t go outside.”

  “Jerry’s already down there. In public.”

  I’d wondered about that. Why did John need him along? Sure, he was a cop, and John was more than able to handle himself, but these people were using RPGs.

  “Why did he go with John?”

  “Chain of evidence,” she huffed. “Now he’s involved up to his armpits; lying to the local police.”

  “Lying? How?”

  “Mister Wilson called the detective early this morning and asked about that mass spectrum thing. He and Jerry hatched a plan to tell him that Jerry had been the one who went and got the pills and whatever was in the bottle. The detective is on his way here.”

  “Wait,” I said, putting the plate on the table and limping toward her. “That makes no sense. Even in the BVI, he would’ve needed a search warrant before that stuff could be used as evidence.”

  The front door opened and John entered, followed by Jerry Snyder, DJ Martin, and finally, Detective Lettsome.

  “I see you’re up,” John said. “How’s the ankle?”

  I wheeled, ignoring the pain, and strode over to my friend and mentor. “What the hell is this chain of evidence crap?”

  Lettsome dropped a bag just inside the door. “Calm down, Captain McDermitt. It was di only way to get di information about di pills and what was in di bottle.”

  “Relax, Jesse,” John said. “We’ve done this before.”

  “Done what?”

  “My father is di magistrate on Tortola,” Lettsome said. “I called him right after John called me. He issued a surveillance warrant, based on di workings between di police department of Newport Beach, California and Her Majesty’s police, here in di Virgin Islands. Dat was di only way we could get what you found into evidence.”

  “It’s on its way to the lab on Tortola,” John said. “We’ll have the results in a few hours.”

  I glared at Lettsome. “You mean you know the evidence wasn’t obtained legally?”

  “It is di way we so
metimes do things here.”

  I’d never really been averse to taking shortcuts, so long as all the players were on the same page.

  I shrugged. “It’s your country and your laws.”

  “How’ve you been?” DJ asked, stepping toward me and extending his hand.

  I shook it and grinned. “Apparently knocked the hell out for the last six hours. How about you?”

  “Doing well, brother,” he replied.

  While I finished my breakfast, John filled me in on his and Lettsome’s late-night phone calls. Alicia still appeared upset, but Jerry didn’t seem to notice. Maybe she was a drama queen and always upset about something. But I got the impression he was just inattentive.

  “I agree with Officer Snyder,” Lettsome said. “Di pills look identical to MDMA—molly or ecstasy—dat has been turning up around di BVI. But we have to wait for di lab results.”

  “Then what?”

  “We raid di Onayan communes,” he replied with a shrug. “If dey are manufacturing drugs, dey will be arrested.”

  “Just like that?” I asked. “Is your force capable of going up against armed aggressors who have rocket-propelled grenades?”

  “Our police force is very capable,” he said, but his voice belied his conviction.

  “Okay, so we wait,” I said.

  DJ smiled. “Did I ever tell you I was an amateur botanist?”

  I knew right away what he was getting at. John must have mentioned to him what I said about the drink being made from plants they’d grown. I’d planned to go back up there today to get pictures but that was before I was detected.

  “They’ll be on the alert,” I said. “You’d never get close enough.”

  “Seriously?” DJ said, with a smirk.

  Though he didn’t look the part, with his long hair, very long goatee, and titanium lower left leg, DJ had once been with the Army’s 82nd Aviation Brigade’s long-range surveillance detachment, and had jumped into enemy territory more times than I’d jumped out of a perfectly good aircraft during my whole twenty years in the Corps.

  “It’s a hell of a hike,” I said, glancing down at his leg. He was wearing long pants, so the prosthetic wasn’t visible.

  He looked down at my still slightly swollen and bandaged right ankle. “Yeah, well, I’m fifty percent less likely to do that.”

  “Hold on, please,” Detective Lettsome said, “I’m putting you on speaker, so I can write dis down.” John and I both leaned forward as Lettsome put his phone down and got a pencil and notepad from his bag. “Go ahead.”

  “The pills are definitely MDMA,” a woman with a British accent said. “A very high grade.”

  “And di drink?”

  “The chemical breakdown is very high in sugar. Like an energy drink on steroids, yet the ingredients are mostly common juices or nectar from a wide variety of plants and fruits. Nothing illegal there.”

  “What plants?” Lettsome asked, as Jerry and Alicia came in from the back yard.

  John put a finger to his lips and motioned them into the living room.

  “You have a mixture of nearly equal parts of agave nectar, and juices from litchis, mango, and passion fruit. There are also traces of refined wheat and oats.”

  “Is dere anything unnatural in it?” Lettsome asked, scribbling in his note pad. “Any kind of drug dat would make a person angry?”

  “Yes, but let’s address the fruit cocktail first. That much sugar, even from fruits, could easily alter a person’s behavior. Blood sugar would spike dramatically. The after-effects of that, if a person hadn’t had enough rest, or was hungry, would certainly cause them to be very irritable.”

  “And di drug put in it?”

  “We found trace elements of alpha-PVP.”

  That was one I’d never heard of and I gave Lettsome a puzzled look.

  “What is dat?” he asked, with an equally bewildered expression.

  “The technical name is a-Pyrrolidinopentiophenone,” the woman said. “I encountered it once during a week-long mentorship in America. The street name there is flakka. It’s a whitish to tan powder, similar to cocaine in appearance, or it can come in the form of a rough rock, like crack. It is a stimulant that causes the user to reach an excited delirium state. They will often hallucinate, and exhibit aggressive, angry behavior. In higher doses, it elevates body temperature to the point that the organs break down, usually resulting in death. The amount in the sample was very low. But combined with the sugar spike from the juices, anyone drinking it will almost certainly experience a nearly instant rage. It’s short-lived and the crash afterward can cause emotional outbursts of sadness and uncontrollable sobbing.”

  “Thank you, Karen,” Lettsome said, then reached for the phone.

  Alicia stopped him, then pointed to the last two entries he’d jotted down.

  “One more thing,” Lettsome said. “Di wheat and oats. Thinking along the lines of making a person irritable or angry, is dere a connection?”

  “There could be,” the woman on the phone said. “Refined grains, which is what you have here, remove a lot of the essential nutrients of the grain. Good for an energy boost, but mostly empty calories.”

  Alicia nodded emphatically.

  “Thank you again, Karen,” Lettsome said, then picked up the phone and ended the call.

  “Can you reach your friend?” Alicia asked.

  DJ had left an hour earlier and was probably near the compound by now. “Yeah,” I said. “Why?”

  “Ask him if it’s possible to see what they’re feeding those people. I have a hunch it isn’t much and probably a lot of it is high in sugar and grains, like bagels, crackers, and margarine.”

  I got on the sat phone and texted DJ, asking if he could call in. A moment later, he did so. I gave him the information the lab woman and Alicia had provided.

  “I’m a half mile away,” he said. “And I’ve got enough supplies to lay out for a couple of days, if need be. Might take that long to get an idea of their eating habits. Is it important?”

  Alicia and Jerry both nodded. “Yeah,” I told DJ. “We think it might be.”

  He agreed to stay on as long as necessary and would move up into a tree when it got dark.

  We ended the call, and I turned to Alicia. “You seem to know a good deal about this. What should we be looking for?”

  She looked down at my coffee mug. “That’s your third cup. Coffee is a stimulant, just like sugar. What happens when you don’t have your coffee?”

  “Point taken.”

  “Then there’s hunger and sleep deprivation, both of which can make a person irritable. Throw in the high sugar drinks and foods, and the drug use, and you have a boiling cauldron of negativity when the sugar high wears off. And the sugars found in most fruit absorb quickly. If they do this for a period of days, the mere suggestion of “blowing off steam” could send a person into a raging tailspin, not directed at any one person or thing.”

  I remembered what the man had said, as he and Sunna passed out the drinks. “Just after they drank it, the guy in charge reminded them that they’d be lucid and in full control, and that they shouldn’t hurt each other.”

  “Lucid, perhaps,” Alicia said. “In full control? Not so much.”

  “But with a week’s conditioning of love, peace, and harmony?”

  “That’s brainwashing,” Jerry said. “The same thing happened in Jonestown. How else do you get a thousand people to commit mass suicide?”

  “Okay, so why the dead girl?” I asked, addressing the elephant in the room.

  Everyone looked to Lettsome. “We haven’t disclosed dis to di public,” he said. “But we are treating dis as a murder investigation. Di limbs were severed using a saw.”

  “Could you tell what kind of saw from the kerf marks?” I asked.

  Lettsome looked at me, surprised.
“You know about tool marks on bone?”

  “I found an arm once while I was out swimming,” I said. “The ME educated me on how they could match the marks made on bone to the tool that made them.”

  He nodded. “Meaning we would need di tool dat made di marks—in dis case, a small chain saw. What kind is unknown, but it was definitely a chain saw.”

  I texted DJ. Keep eyes and ears peeled for chainsaw.

  “So, why did the woman have to die?” I asked. “And why go to that length to make her body unidentifiable?”

  “The body can still be easily identified through DNA,” Jerry said. “If they have a sample to compare it to. But to answer the first question, it could be anything; she broke some rule, made someone angry, tried to escape, might even be a cover up of a natural death...”

  “Or it could be some sicko,” I said. “Someone who likes to kill and who found a way to lure the right kind of prey to him.”

  “Kidnapping for murder?” Jerry asked. “You mean a serial killer?”

  Detective Lettsome only sat back, listening. But I could tell that he was processing everything, comparing it to his own thoughts, intuition, and suspicion.

  “It would explain the disturbance outside the bar last night,” I said. “The look on the girl’s face was one of fear. I got the impression she didn’t want to be there.”

  Being laid up made me edgy. I found my boots and socks and put them on, lacing the right one as tight as I could.

  “Where you going?” John asked.

  “Outside,” I replied. “I don’t think well with a roof over me.”

  Standing, there was little pain, but there was absolutely no mobility. It was like I had a metal brace on my lower leg. I could walk easily enough, but all my weight was being transferred from my foot to my calf through the stiff tape and my boot. Being unable to move my foot meant I’d lost my natural agility, if only for a while.

  “You should be in bed,” Alicia said. “You’ll never heal if you don’t rest.”

  Ignoring her, I stepped out onto the front porch. I’d suffered much worse injuries and continued the fight. But I’d also been younger.