by Tom Shepherd
“So, what’ll we do?” I said.
“Antonucci’s boat…” Tanella leaned against the window, trying to peek through a crack in the plywood. “Wonder how badly it’s storming by now?”
I shook my head. “No way. We ain’t marching into that hurricane.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Bennett. We’ll keep your secret.” Tanella pushed through the French doors, crossed the lobby and raced into the downpour.
Nineteen
Before I could catch up, my crazy friend reached the old wharf and teeter-tottered down the floating deck, making for Peter Antonucci’s boat. Walking the pier was like crossing a rope bridge over a giant washing machine. Frothing waves, dirtied by the storm, slapped at the underside of the see-saw deck. Rain battered me mercilessly, soaking my clothing, collapsing my hair until I felt like a waterlogged rat. Even the smell of salt and rotting fish vanished, rinsed by cycles of rain.
Tanella hopped on the boat, but I steadied myself on the rolling, rain-swept planks by grabbing a rope-wrapped pillar. Thick hemp scratched my wounded hands, making me pay a pain toll for the privilege of clinging safely.
“Tanella, this is stupid—we’re gonna drown. I've never drowned twice in the same day!”
But she was gone, swallowed by the cabin cruiser.
“Oh, God! I don’t like this.” When the pier and boat rose again, I leaped over the rail, bounced onto Antonucci’s wet deck, and ducked into the cabin, totally grateful to be out of the downpour.
Antonucci’s boat was smaller than Mrs. Bennett’s. Narrow stairs descended to the main deck, where I found a single cabin with a small kitchenette. Three pairs of socks, none matching, hung from a brass lamp over a bunk bed, separated by a single-step deck space from a big chest of drawers. At the far end I could see a waterproof chest and a desk with an old manual typewriter, and beside the writing space there was a rattan waste basket stuffed with squashed aluminum cans.
My nose curled in self-defense. “What’s that awful smell…burning plastic?”
Tanella went to the stove and walked her fingers down the counter to the source of the bitter odor. “Smoked coffee pot.” She flicked off the warmer light. “Check the desk, I’ll snoop in the kitchenette.”
The desk drawer slid open until its rollers hit a stop; a logjam of pens and pencils clacked against the front of the drawer. A black notebook tumbled over the edge, caught itself and dangled with one leaf in the drawer. I picked up the ring binder and opened to the first page.
“Tanella, this looks like a diary.”
“Look there. Shelf over the desk.” At least twenty notebooks of the same size stood side-by-side, soldiers retired from duty in the drawer. “Antonucci must’ve kept a journal. Find the last entries.”
A moment later, I hunched at the desk, deciphering Peter Antonucci’s script. “We drove the beach again this afternoon looking for Loggerhead tracks. No luck. My nephew’s not a compassionate man, but he understands the plight of the Caretta.”
“Carsten O’Malley,” Tanella said.
“You’re kidding!” I flattened the notebook against my chest. “Antonucci was his uncle?”
“Remember? Moses the bartender said O’Malley was driving around with Peter Antonucci. Read more.”
“C. believes he’s going to have a lot of money soon. Talked about buying C.B.’s hotel and retiring here. Maybe he still carries a torch for O.B. I can understand. A body like hers lingers in a man's mind. I would dearly love to fondle—”
“Skip that part,” Tanella said.
“Jeez Louise!—it’s just getting good.”
“Skip it!”
“You need a checkup, girl. You gotta have some parts missing.”
Tanella glared at me, like a samurai who’s just had raw egg poured into her shorts.
“I’m skipping! I’m skipping! Here we go—last page. ‘Carsten thinks he has something big to sell. No gold in Davidson’s mine.’ What does it mean?”
She shrugged. “Anything else?”
“Final paragraph. Scribbled, hard to read.”
“Like your handwriting.”
I grunted. “Thanks, Miss Perfect Penmanship—Oh, God, Tanella! It’s the murder. Antonucci witnessed the murder! ‘When I saw my nephew stumbling on the deck, I wanted to help. But the hymnal knocked Carsten out, then rolled his body overboard.’ What hymnal?”
“Keep reading!”
“‘I was terrified. What if I was seen, peeping out my window? The water was shallow enough, I thought, ‘Carsten can’t possibly drown.’ But I was wrong. At least I know who did it.’ Wow—he saw the killer!”
Tanella shivered. “Poor man!”
“Here’s the finish: ‘I’d like to kill them. Push them under the water until their faces explode. My sister’s boy deserved a month or two in a drug/alcohol rehab center, not death. How can I get back at them? Maybe I’ll sell my silence, agree to forget what I know if they’ll give money to save the turtles. At least Carsten will have died for something good.’ Oh, nuts! He never fingers the killer.” I thumbed back and forth, scanning the pages.
“Did he really write, ‘How can I get back at them,” Tanella said, rolling the mmm.
“Yeah. Who’s them? Druggies? Arabs? What ‘hymnal’ knocked O’Malley out?”
“This is a tough quiz.” She opened her hand and I gave the notebook. “We have hard evidence, but it doesn’t name anyone.”
“The word hymnal is badly scribbled,” I said. “Could be a name—Harry, Hermie, Hymie, Henry—”
“Extra-credit question.” Tanella studied the pages. “You’re right. The name is indecipherable.”
“Think whoever chased us down the sewer also killed Carsten O’Malley?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did the same guy drown Peter Antonucci?”
“I don’t—”
“Think, think, think! You always figure it out when you—”
“I’m not God! I don’t know everything.” She was near tears. “My father is accused of murder, and I can’t solve this equation.” She put her face in her hands.
“I’m sorry.” I’d been such a fool not to see how much pressure she was carrying. I touched her arm. “I always loved you, Tanella, ever since we met in third grade. Not because you’re a freakin’ genius, but because you always try so hard to do what’s right. You’re the best person I’ve ever known.”
Tanella smiled and squeezed my hand. “Let’s see what else we can find.”
“Antonucci was planning to return pretty quick,” I said. “Didn’t even unplug the coffee brewer.”
“Wait a minute—these notebooks must represent years of diary entries,” she said. “Why did he stack something so valuable on the shelf helter-skelter with a waterproof chest available?” The box was about twice the size of a school wall locker, but lay on the deck like a mini-coffin.
“Maybe he needed them all for research,” I said. “Maybe he was gathering evidence from his—”
Tanella opened the waterproof box and yelped. “Look at this! We’ve found the local Drugs-R-Us franchise.”
I peeked over her shoulder. Someone had jam-packed book-sized bundles, gift wrapped in newspaper and tied with twine, into the chest. My friend drew a pocketknife from her belt bag, snapped the twine, and peeled back the newspaper. The inner wrapper was thick, red plastic. Cutting away the package, she revealed the corner of a white block, a big square aspirin. Tanella handed me the plastic package. I was surprised at how heavy the block felt in my hands, like a barbell weight. And when I touched the white tablet it felt dry as a tampon, so dry the chunk sucked the moisture from my wet fingers.
“Wash your hands after handling with bare skin. It’s cocaine,” Tanella said.
“No! I thought cocaine was white powder.”
“They compress it with 50-ton hydraulic presses to this density. Just pour it into molds and squeeze.” She apparently saw the amazement on my face and quickly added, “According to the Atlantic Magazine.”
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br /> “Glad you haven’t broken bad,” I smirked. “So, what’s it doing here?” I returned the white block, went to the kitchenette sink, and scrubbed hard.
Tanella carefully re-wrapped the bundle. “Either Mr. Antonucci was doing a little creative fund raising for his turtles, or the druggies killed him to stow their shipment here.”
“Because they’re stuck on Barrier Island, too?” I felt my stomach trying to crawl up my throat and escape.
She nodded. “His boat’s a good place to hide drugs. Peter Antonucci isn’t coming back, and the Channel is too rough to use this as an emergency vessel. If Barrier Island goes under, the boat will either float free or be crushed by the waves. No problem either way. The packages are double wrapped, moisture-tight, and tucked in a waterproof chest.”
“Dry, white euphoria.” I rubbed a knuckle down the stack of bundles, bump-bump-bump. Tanella raised an eyebrow, as if surprised I knew a four-syllable word. “So, what can we do?”
“This cache is worth a lot of money.”
“About a hundred thousand?” I said.
“Not even close. One gram of white cocaine costs over a hundred dollars on the street.”
“So,” I hefted a package, “is this sucker a couple grams?”
“You really don’t do metrics, do you?”
“Math is your department. How much does it weigh?”
“Probably five condensed kilos—five thousand grams.”
“Uff-dah!” I whispered. “That makes it worth—what?”
“North of half a million dollars.”
“Each friggin’ package?”
“Of course.”
“But there must be a hundred of them! Worth…what?”
“A metric ton of money.” Suddenly she laughed. Not a typical nerdy I-know-better laugh, but a seriously demonic cackle. “I’ve got an idea!”
Tanella sat at the desk and threaded a sheet of white paper through the roller of the typewriter, centering the page.
“What are you typing?” I demanded.
She laughed again and jerked out the page, handing it to me.
The deal is off.
I’m keeping it all.
“Tanella, you are totally wicked.”
“Now, let’s hide the dope. Whoever finds the note will probably get mad enough to confront his partner in crime.”
“And one of them killed Clancey Beaumont!”
“Right,” she said. “Not a perfect solution, but it’s the only tool we have to pressure the bad guys.”
We found two man-sized canvas sea bags under the bunk bed, and as a surprise bonus we discovered a pair of Army surplus ponchos, which we pulled over our wet clothes. During the next two hours we lugged six loads through the rain to the hotel. As Tanella dropped the last newspaper bundle in our hot tub, I pulled off my poncho, drew the shower curtain to hide our stash, and flopped on the toilet, panting to catch my breath.
“If...if anybody finds this...we’re...we’re going to jail.”
“Think positive,” Tanella said, yanking the poncho over her head.
“I’m positive we’re going to jail.” And then I had a horrible thought, and it wasn’t about the hurricane. “If the druggies find out what we did, they’ll whack us like Walter White did the Pollo Loco guy.”
“You’ve got to get over this Breaking Bad melancholy. It’s fiction.”
“These are real drugs! There have already been four real murders. I don’t want to make it six!”
“You’re hyperventilating. Calm down. God will protect us.” She thought a few seconds and added, “I think.”
“Think? Now you start to doubt your faith, facing death or worse?”
She laughed, and it made me crazy. When I could breathe again, I went to the bedroom window and peered into the storm. Rain fell in sheets now, breaking against the Y-shaped complex of buildings like sky surf. Around the semi-circular driveway that bordered the lawn, palmettos, pine and live oaks danced in the wind, flashing their green skirts in Hagar’s direction.
Tanella sat beside me on the window ledge and we talked and watched the storm until street lamps started lighting around the horseshoe curve of the lawn.
“How long ‘til the hurricane hits?” I said.
“Hagar is predicted to make landfall in four or five hours with Force Five winds. The full moon and high tide will worsen the storm surge.”
“Oh, great.”
Whop-whop-whop echoed across the croquet green. Faint at first, lost in the wind and rain, but the sound grew until the storm’s howl yielded to thudding thunder when an olive-drab Army helicopter shuddered over the hotel. Hovering in the heavy rain above the soggy grass, drifting slightly seaward with its red rotating beacon whipping the rain, the aircraft descended.
“Thank God!” I said “We’re finally rescued.”
“We can’t leave,” Tanella said. “We haven’t solved the murder.”
“Bull-loney. Stay if you want—I’m outa here.”
I pushed open the double windows for a better look. Bad mistake. The storm gods snatched my offering and swung the wood frames away from my hands. First the windows bashed against the roof, then slammed shut, like the wind couldn’t decide how best to shatter the panes. Tanella and I pulled the windows tight, locking them. Meanwhile, the Army helicopter’s twin-rotors settled beneath the treetops and whipped dwarf palms into a frenzied ballet.
Just as the rear wheel of the bus-shaped aircraft touched the soggy lawn, a glob of Carolina pine branches broke free and whirled up, sucked into the currents of rotor wash, slamming into the rear disk. The chopper lurched left and bounced on the green, rotors spinning down.
“This is very bad,” I said as the engines quit their whining. “Well, maybe they’re saving fuel.”
Eric crashed the door without knocking, waving his headphones.
“Did you see that? I heard the pilot say, ‘Blade strike.’ The rotors are screwed. They’re shutting down.”
“Crap!” I flopped on the bed. “Were not leaving before horrible Hagar gets here.”
Tanella smiled faintly. “Neither is the killer.”
“This could go wrong hella fast. Can I remind you, we got millions of dollars in drug bundles stacked in the bathroom—” I caught myself mid-sentence, but it was too late.
“You got what?” Eric howled.
Tanella grabbed him gently but firmly by the T-shirt sleeve. “Eric, you can’t tell anyone.”
“You gotta brief me. I’m on your squad.”
She pointed to a chair and he sat. In about five minutes she brought him aboard our expanding drug cartel. Tanella said he needed to keep the secret at all costs, because it was our only lead to find the real killer and clear her dad of murder charges. I thought he would be scared, but the little dweeb got so excited he bounced in the seat. She let him go to the bathtub and inspect the packets, which cooled him down a little.
“You understand what we’re doing?” she said.
“Yeet! Hundo P. This is totally savage. What’s next?”
“We wait,” Tanella said. “Somebody will go to the boat looking for the drugs and find my note soon.”
“And until then?” he said.
“Keep monitoring your radio frequencies. Let us know if anything else happens.”
“I’m on the job.” He bounded away to his listening post.
“What can I do?” I said.
“Read a book.”
Grumble, grumble. “I didn’t bring any.”
“Here’s something from your heritage.” She opened her book bag and handed me a tattered paperback. It was an anthology of short stories based on myths from Scandinavia.
Didn’t feel like reading, so I lay back on the bed, listening to the rain pound the roof like Thor’s hammer. No use trying to sleep. Killers on the loose. Trapped on Barrier Island. Full moon, high tide, Force Five, storm surge, Tanella had said. But the words of Moses the bartender echoed in my mind. “They’ll be a bad moon rising tonight.”
Twenty
By seven o’clock that evening the wind roared like a pride of lions prowling between the wings of the hotel. The gusts blew so hard the bay window in our TV room bulged in and out, pulsing with the storm. Rain blew horizontally and shingles from the roof whizzed past in the faint light. Soon tree limbs and sheet metal flew by like feathers.
Then the trees began snapping, each with a great crunch, like pretzel sticks. Two big Palmettos broke off leaving stubs like headless parking meters. Live oaks danced wildly, throwing off arms, smearing the pavement with bark and wet leaves. And the pine trees. God, they died like soldiers cut down by machine gun fire. Snap! Snap! Their trunks burst open, spilling yellow splinters, jagged fingers of living wood startled by sudden death.
I realized night had come when, along the driveway that curved below our window, a power line broke and beat the water which flash-flooded the street. A snake belching fireworks, strobe-lighting the raindrops. Soon the sparks died and darkness blindfolded us to the violence below.
Once, we got another look at the destruction outside. As the storm screamed louder and the window began to shake, an electrical transformer on a pole blew like a grenade, blossoming into fire, a flaming orange popsicle stick. In the light of the burning transformer, I watched a tall chimney rip free from the hotel wing facing us. The downpour of bricks crushed an air conditioning unit between the buildings, but rain quickly doused the flames and we could see nothing more.
“My God,” Tanella said softly. “What power.”
We tried talking a little, but the deluge was hypnotizing. All we could do was listen to the rain batter the roof of the hotel. I can’t say it came as a surprise when the Island Club power failed.
Soon, Moses the bartender came up to our loft with candles and matches. He called Eric from his room and spoke to the three of us.
“Inspector Borkowski wants everybody down in the main dining room,” he said. “Guess he figures with them pillars holding up the ceiling and all, makes it the safest place. I figure ain’t no safe place on this Island.”
“We'll be right down,” Tanella said.
