Ghost River

by Jon Coon

  “Right. So we invite SWAT to play. What else?”

  “Fast boats, depth charges, grapples, rat poison . . .”

  “We bring our boats and a chopper or two. With door gunners.”

  “Sounds good,” Bob said. “I’m on it.”

  “Next we need several simulated computers. We’re going to put trackers on them, throw them in from where Bodine would have been standing and see how far the current carries them. Then we can guesstimate what the current would have done when it was at storm surge and have a better idea of where to search.”

  “What search pattern do you want to use?” Nick asked.

  “Jackstay is the most reliable. That’s what we’ve been using. Agreed?”

  “Jackstay it is. I’ll start rigging the weights and buoy lines. This time let’s use the inflatable boats as buoys, and we’ll keep extra sets of eyes on our work area.”

  “Good. Can we be ready to go by daylight tomorrow?” Gabe asked.

  “I’ll get the guys in the shop to start on the computer replacements this afternoon. We should be ready by sunrise. It’s a good plan. I like it,” Nick said.

  Gabe smiled, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  Gabe stopped at the dive locker and picked up his gear. Jim was there. Gabe briefed him on the plan and cautioned, “We need to keep a tight lid on this, Jim. We’ve got good intel that Bodine’s laptop has everything on it. Enough to nail the coffin on Conners and his goons.”

  “Roger that. I’ll keep it quiet. No problem.”

  “Okay, see you in the morning.”

  It was lonely that night without Alethea, who had gone back to New Orleans, or Carol and Emily, who had retreated to their house. Gabe sat in the RV eating a TV dinner and talking to the dogs who were hoping for snacks as they listened with great interest to his rambling. “Ben Franklin was right, don’t you think. It’s all right there in the lists. According to his process, we’re supposed to be together. Why doesn’t she see that?”

  Smith raised her head on a tilt, waiting for his answer . . . or a piece of chicken.

  “We saved Emily. Isn’t that enough? It wasn’t my fault Wyatt took her . . . was it?” He paused to reflect. Smith pawed his foot expectantly. Without thinking about it, Gabe cut a piece of chicken and gave it to her. Wilson nosed in for her share and got it.

  Then he remembered telling Wyatt about the briefcase. “Dumb. Maybe it was my fault after all.”

  He cleared away the aluminum tray and went up the three steps to the bedroom. The closet was empty of the girls’ clothing as was the dresser. He sat on the bed soaking in his sadness and realized he had, for the first time, tasted real love. Tasted and lost.

  Night birds called from stately bearded trees. The rising sun had not yet melted the ghostly fog from the water, and deer cautiously drank before dissolving into the protection of the predawn darkness. On the bank state police trucks launched boats and SWAT team members erected deer stands and took up watch. A chopper made a low pass over the McFarland barge and landed on the barricaded road approaching the bridge. Birds exploded from the trees, calling their angry response to the chopper’s intrusion.

  On the barge a deeply tanned, tattooed barge hand placed a call. “Something’s up. The cops have a friggin Navy out here. Looks like they’re setting up another dive operation. A big one.”

  Released from protective custody on bond, Conners was back in his office. “I’ll find out what’s going on. Just keep your eyes open, and call me if you see anything.”

  CHAPTER 46

  0800

  The River

  In their makeshift basecamp at the river’s edge, across the river from the McFarland barge, Gabe examined the weighted plywood computer mock-ups with trackers. “Nice job. Are we ready to test them?”

  “Soon as we get the big boat in the water,” Nick said. “They’re launching it now. This is quite a show. Biggest dive operation I’ve seen in a while.”

  “That’s the idea. I want anyone who’s interested to know how serious we are.”

  “What are you up to, Gabe? We could have done this with half the crew.”

  “Right. Let me know as soon as the sonar boat’s ready. And have someone get a reading on the current. We’ll need to factor in the effects of the storm surge after that last storm.”

  “So you’re not going to tell me. Okay. I’m on it.”

  Gabe took a small pair of binoculars from his pocket and scanned the McFarland barge. Barge hands and welders were cutting away the mangled crane boom and repairing the damage its violent crash had caused.

  Hope I won’t be getting a bill for that, Gabe thought as he continued scanning the barge. Standing alone behind the crane Gabe saw a larger pair of binoculars looking back. Realizing he’d been seen, the watcher turned abruptly and disappeared from view.

  “Hello,” Gabe smiled. They know we’re here.

  Nick returned. “We’re about ready. Let’s get up on the bridge.”

  They drove from the launch area on back roads to a smaller highway bridge, crossed over, and got on the interstate. When they came to the barricades at the bridge, a trooper waved them through. They drove out to the river’s edge and parked.

  Nick got on his radio, and the sonar boat reported they were ready. Gabe threw the first lap top simulator like skipping a stone. It sailed, landed, drifted briefly, sank, and continued to slowly sink to the bottom. Nick was sitting on the tailgate with his laptop. “Got it. Ready for the number two.” When all six had flown, Nick showed Gabe the landing pattern.

  “Now, let’s run simulations on double, triple, and quadruple the current speed.”

  “Got it. I had the IT guys set it up for us.” Nick checked his notes, then keyed in the commands. Gabe came to look at the screen.

  “Done. There are the target areas. Nearly a quarter-mile beyond where we were looking. Let’s set an inflatable on the first one and get wet.”

  On a twin of their smashed Boston Whaler Outrage dive boat, Nick and Gabe dressed with Jim’s help and stepped to the side entry above the dive ladder.

  “Good luck,” Jim said. In scuba, with large bail-out bottles, they would be able to work the jackstay search pattern without tangling an umbilical. “Let’s keep it tight,” Gabe said to Nick as they prepared to enter the water. They were using the new wireless com system with a somewhat limited range. They would be able to talk with each other even if Jim couldn’t clearly hear them.

  Gabe jumped first and waited for Nick, who was only seconds behind, and they drifted back to the inflatable, caught the anchor line, did a final equipment check, deflated their vests, and dropped fins first to the bottom, sixty feet below.

  “Now it gets real,” Gabe said as the chill settled in. He quickly repeated his prayer and was ready to descend.

  “Yep, an hour of this is going to be plenty,” Nick answered.

  On either side of a bottom line, stretched tight between two buoy lines, completely blind, they crawled forward, one hand on the line and the other sweeping into the bottom muck and silt. They kept low and wide, covering a double arm span swath, on either side of the line as they moved forward. At the end of the hundred-foot line, Nick picked up the mushroom anchor and, keeping tension on the line, walked the anchor six feet to the right. As they worked back down the line they would double cover every inch of bottom as they crawled, groping in the mud, until they finished the grid or found their target.

  The first hour passed. They came up on a buoy line, did a safety decompression stop, and waited for the Outrage to pick them up. As the boat approached Gabe saw Jim finishing a phone call.

  “How much of a surface interval do we need?” Gabe asked.

  Nick got a blue Navy binder from his dry bag and checked the tables. “Looks like two hours and thirty-seven minutes on surface will give us fifty minutes working. Let’s get lunch and check on the troops.”

  “Done. Jim you want to come with us or should we bring you something?”

  �
�I’ve got a sandwich; you guys go ahead.”

  Two hours and thirty-seven minutes later they were back on deck waiting for Jim to finish the equipment checks. When he gave his two-tap approval they stepped in, did a quick in-water gear check, followed with a final okay, deflated, and dropped. Back on the line they worked the pattern for another forty minutes until Gabe felt the smooth computer buried in the slime. He said loudly into the com, “Found it.”

  Gabe sent up a small yellow buoy, opened an evidence bag, and secured the small stainless laptop inside it.

  “Okay, let’s go up.”

  They ascended up the buoy line beneath the inflatable until they reached fifteen feet for their safety stop. Attached to the line was a black bag, identical to the one Gabe used for the computer. They did five minutes on the safety stop then surfaced beside the Outrage.

  Gabe handed the evidence bag up to Jim and said, “Don’t let this out of your sight until we get it to the lab. There’s a lot of jail time waiting on that hard drive.”

  Nick and Gabe went into the boat’s small cabin to change and get hot coffee.

  When he returned in dry clothes and with two mugs of coffee, Gabe handed one to Jim and said, “That was a good day’s work. With any luck, we’re finally going to end this nightmare.”

  “Roger that,” Jim replied.

  “Will you take the computer to the lab and get it logged in? Tell the lab guys we need that hard drive working as soon as possible. I want to get back to the RV before the dogs go nuts. They’ve been inside all day.”

  “No problem.”

  “They didn’t try to stop us,” Nick said as they drove back to the locker.

  “They didn’t have to,” Gabe said. “They had a better plan.”

  Bob was driving when the call from the CSI lab came in. “I thought you said this had been submerged for nearly two weeks. Can’t be. It’s bone dry.” Bob thanked the technician then turned to Gabe. “We were right. Looks like Jim swapped the computers. The one he gave them was an antique from the evidence locker. It hadn’t been booted up in years. Nothing but games and porn on the hard drive.”

  Nick looked up from the computer in his lap and said, “Turn right in two blocks.” They were following a little red dot on Nick’s computer screen as it moved over a map of Tallahassee. The tracker in the computer Gabe gave Jim was working perfectly. It was right on course to McFarland’s office building.

  Gabe’s phone rang. He answered and then filled in Bob and Nick. “It’s the FBI lab I gave Bodine’s computer to. Wyatt and Janna were right. It’s all there. Names, ranks, serial numbers, dates, political contribution amounts. We’ve got ’em. Let’s go make some arrests.”

  SWAT came through McFarland’s front doors, they rounded up the security guards, and ordered them away from the phones. With the lobby secure, Bob’s team followed to the elevator and used a confiscated guard’s key to access the top floor executive suite.

  Gabe followed the SWAT commander through the doors of Conners’s office. Jim was standing beside Conners behind the desk. The computer Gabe had given Jim was on the desk unopened. Jim put up his hands and shook his head in dismay and disgust. “I’m sorry,” Jim said when he was caught in Gabe’s glare. Then he turned his eyes down in a look of shame.

  “Why, Jim?” Gabe began, but then he recognized the surviving shooter from Captain Brady’s sitting in a corner chair. The big man had one arm in a sling and bruises on his face. Wyatt had been right. Johnson wouldn’t be in shape for spring training. Big, dumb, and stupid, he went for the gun under his coat and was met with red laser polka dots. He wasn’t that stupid, and he withdrew his empty hand.

  “Mr. Johnson, it’s good to see you again,” Gabe said. “Down slow, hands on your head.”

  “What right do you have to come busting in here?” Conners demanded.

  “It’s all right there on Bodine’s computer. You wanted it badly enough to kill him for it. Don’t you want to have a look?” Gabe answered. “Go ahead, boot it up.”

  With its happy little bells the computer booted, and on the screen was a large font message, which began, “Mitchell Conners, you have the right to remain silent.”

  DA Jessica Carruthers greeted Bob and Gabe with a welcome smile and fresh donuts in her office the next morning. “We’ve got them. With the notebook, Peterson’s files, the bogus inspection reports, and the lists of payoffs on Bodine’s computer, it’s a clean sweep.”

  “And with Janna’s testimony and the information she found, it’s a lock,” Bob added.

  “Janna?” Gabe asked surprised.

  “That’s what I was going to tell you. The best way to protect her was to let Conners think she was dead. We gave a cover story to the press. She’s still recovering, but that cast and arm sling are going to play well for any jury.”

  “What about Jim?” Gabe asked. “How did Conners get his hooks in our guy?”

  “It wasn’t much. He got busted for pot when he was a juvie. His record was expunged, but Rogers found out about it, and that would have been enough to get him fired for lying on his application. So they had leverage to make him give them information. Like your meeting with Captain Brady, finding the notebook and what was in it, and the plans to search for Bo’s computer. Giving Conners that computer, well, that’s another matter. The good news is, he didn’t try to kill you when he had the chance.”

  “I guess the last question is . . . who burned the river house?” Gabe asked.

  “That big guy on Conner’s security team, D. B. Johnson, is trying to make a deal,” Bob answered. “After the girl shot him, Rogers had him stashed in a dumpy motel in the big bend near Perry. Rogers got an old army medic to dig the bullets out, but it was messy.

  “Then Wyatt Bodine found him and worked him over. Johnson went to an ER claiming he’d had a hunting accident. With his face looking like rotten hamburger and the gunshot wounds, the ER called it in and we got him. The dog bite on his arm ties him to Captain Brady. Mickey ID’d him from a photo.

  “When we told Johnson Rogers was dead and he was most likely next on Wyatt Bodine’s list, he sang like the proverbial canary. He told us Rogers sent him to find out what you were up to and collect anything they could find. They tossed the river house and came up empty. But they couldn’t open your gun safe.

  “They guessed a fire would destroy whatever was in it, so destroyed was as good as found. One of them put a few rounds in Carol’s car on the way out the door. Oh, Johnson doesn’t like dogs. He’s afraid of them. He shot the captain’s shepherd and Smith. I told him you might want to have a word with him about that.

  “He’s one tough hombre,” Bob continued. “I’ll give him that, but he didn’t want a rematch with Wyatt Bodine. With Rogers dead, we had him on a short leash to see if he’d connect Rogers to Conners. He did. They’re toast.”

  Thank You that it wasn’t Paul or Cas or Zack who burned the house, Gabe prayed silently. Carol will be very relieved.

  “With the list you got from Peterson, the state is looking at every construction project McFarland touched,” Carruthers said. “It’s going to take a while, but if there are more bridges or buildings at risk, we’ll find them before disaster strikes. Good job. You may have saved more lives than we ever realized were at risk. I’m sure the governor will have something to say about your work.”

  “And Congressman Conners . . . will we be hearing from him?” Gabe asked.

  “Only from a prison pay phone,” Bob answered. In Peterson’s files we found spreadsheets of payouts. We’ve had a look at his financials, and there’s a match. He’s toast too.”

  “And Bo? Do we know who killed Wyatt’s dad?”

  “We got a real surprise there. Conners’s daughter stepped up and threw her dad under the bus big time. Says she saw the whole thing but was afraid to talk. Now she’ll testify it was Conners and Rogers.”

  “Well played, Catherine,” Gabe said. “Daddy’s gone. It’s all yours.”

  “What?” Bob aske
d.

  “We may want to dig a little deeper there. She’s not be as innocent as Wyatt wanted us to believe,” Gabe said and scratched his chin.

  Back in the big RV that night, Gabe sat with the dogs staring at the dark screen of the television. It was off. He’d called Alethea three times and had left messages. It was just before ten when his phone rang.

  “She’s in the hospital,” Cas began. “They don’t know what’s wrong. She passed out at home, and I called an ambulance.”

  “I’ll come—”

  “Not yet, Gabe. She’s resting, and she’s not ready to see you.”

  “Cas, I need to apologize. I thought you burned the house. Now I know that wasn’t true.”

  “I thought about doing that and worse, but Ma Mére would skin me alive if I ever really hurt you. She said you and Carol broke up. Is that true?”

  “I think so.”

  “Is there any chance you’ll be coming home?” Her voice was soft.

  “Cas, I—”

  “It’s all right. I’m still mad at you. I love you, even after the way you hurt me. But I can’t force you to do anything. When your heart tells you, you’ll come home. Until then, truce. We’ll always be family.”

  He let that soak in for a moment before answering. “Thanks. That means a lot. Cas, I’ve been thinking about what you said at the bar. I’m just as guilty as you are, but forgiveness is something we both need to learn a lot more about. I think there’s still hope, even for people like us. Please let me know when your mom is well enough for visitors.”

  The night had cooled, and Gabe turned on the fireplace and sat with Smith and Wesson watching the simulated flames, wondering if Alethea had made a deal with the baron. Was Cas telling the truth now, and could he trust her? Or like the fake fire was she all just smoke and mirrors?

  Gabe showered, put on sweats, and picked up a Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas novel from the nightstand. The ghosts in Odd’s life never speak. Do ghosts have to be wet in order to talk? Still hungry after his share of the TV chicken dinner, Gabe got up and made a peanut butter and honey sandwich and poured a glass of milk. As he finished the snack, his phone rang. He checked his watch. It was just after eleven.