Tidal Rage

by David Evans

  Only that morning she had received a secure call from Cheryl Ross telling her that any information that came in from this investigation that she deemed to be important was to be either e-mailed across to her, or she was to telephone if there was any critical news.

  Analysing the transcripts and realizing that this information was not just critical but hit at the heart of the company, as it was highly personal to Cutler, Fabienne followed orders and telephoned Cheryl Ross.

  “E-mail me the transcript immediately,” were Cheryl’s last words before her world changed forever.

  The door flew open, and Esme Ross screamed and ran towards Cheryl, who dropped to her knees and burst into tears immediately.

  It was several minutes of Cheryl crushing her baby close to her chest, sliding her hand down the back of her hair, and kissing all the available skin on her forehead and face before she said, “I don’t understand.”

  Standing there was Tuck Walters. The tough Maori wiped a tear away from the corner of his left eye as he witnessed the highly charged scene.

  “Maybe this card will explain,” Tuck said, as he handed her a large card hidden within a large pink envelope. Cheryl would not let go of Esme, and between them both they managed to open the envelope. It said, ‘Congratulations, Mommy’. Cheryl missed a breath and caught a sob, as her little girl could not read or write when she left. How much she had missed!

  Again, Cheryl let Esme read the card, albeit a little slowly, and some words were accentuated as Esme broke the words down into sizeable chunks, ‘A-pol-o-gise’.

  Cheryl could read the message far quicker than it was being related to her, but she would not interrupt her baby, not for the world.

  ‘Hope this makes up for not being as open and honest with you, I apologize. Enjoy and have a wonderful day and a beautiful life together,’ it read. It was signed by Max Cutler.

  Cheryl kissed Esme once again. She moved away from her slightly and adjusted the Minnie Mouse hair ties and looked her little girl up and down. How lovely she looked in her polka dot outfit. And then she hugged her again as the tears began to flow. Cheryl looked up at Tuck. “How?”

  “Wyatt Rockman, Cutler’s old recruiter from the Secret Service. Evidently, he was a qualified lawyer, and on leaving the Secret Service was fast-tracked as a circuit judge. He is now quite a senior judge for Dade County. Cutler approached him after we had caught the two boys who killed Don and relayed your story. Since then, the judge has moved heaven and earth to get you both reunited, and here she is, yours forever.”

  The final words became too much, and she clutched Esme tightly again and wept. And because she wept, Esme wept and hung onto her mommy ever so tightly. Tuck smiled and wiped away another tear, a tear of satisfaction.

  I am going soft, he thought.

  Cheryl somehow came back to reality and let one hand unglue itself from Esme and pointed at the printer.

  “Transcript on the printer. Crucial, Tuck.”

  Tuck pried his eyes away from the cosy scene, and went to the printer to retrieve the e-mail from the top of the stack. He read the contents, becoming increasingly aware of the importance of the e-mail and the likely stratagem that Cutler would put into motion. He went back to Cheryl, kissed her on the head, and stroked Esme’s hair.

  “Going to leave you two alone to get reacquainted. See you later,” Tuck said, on his way out the door.

  The night was hot and humid. Even though Tuck had shorts and a T-shirt on, he started to sweat as he left the air-conditioned house. He walked the short stretch to the seafood restaurant that sat atop the inlet from the river system, and asked the waiter for a private table where he could not be overheard.

  He sat down and ordered a Coors beer and a bucket of boat trash, his favourite: crab legs and lobster tails with prawns and scampi, and the odd crustacean he had never learned the name of, nor wanted to. From the laptop bag he had grabbed on the way out of Cheryl’s office, Tuck removed an iPad and iPhone.

  Cutler had issued each member of MIDAS with such a bag. Also inside was a satellite phone for when they were in areas with no mobile towers, and a laptop and external hard drive that were both encrypted with the latest security software.

  He video-called Matt Rice first, and after several seconds his face filled a good portion of the screen. After the preliminary banter, Tuck explained what he wanted, and then he phoned Ghislaine, followed by Nathan Colton, his backup in the Hilton case.

  Colton was back in Nassau, spending the money he had earned from the Hilton job, and was eager to help, as the cash was draining away fast. Colton was forty-two years of age, and his various appetites, which only excluded drugs, matched the size of his broad shoulders.

  Several hours later, Tuck returned to Cheryl’s. She was awake and lying prone on the daybed, a sleeping Esme wrapped up in her arms. With some minor protests from Cheryl, Tuck lifted Esme up from her arms and took her into the spare bedroom and put her to bed, fully clothed, and still with the ponytails in her hair.

  On returning he found Cheryl quietly weeping and sipping homemade lemonade.

  “Thought wine or champagne would have been flowing?” Tuck asked.

  She ignored the question. “I know what you’re planning, Tuck.”

  “You know what Cutler is like, Cheryl; he isn’t going to walk away while his parents’ killers are in the same town, you know it as well as I do.”

  Cheryl would never leave Cutler exposed, nor would she ever try to influence Tuck’s decisions, although part of her screamed inside her head to tell him not to go.

  Tuck put his arms around her shoulders and pulled her in tightly. “You just got your daughter back; spend some time with her and let me sort this out.”

  “You have to be careful; you’re going to be a father,” she said.

  “I would be honoured to be Esme’s father, and glad you think I can fill the role. We’ve come a long way in a short time, Cheryl, and believe me, I’m not one to say this lightly; I love you.”

  “And I love you, too. You will make a great father to her, and that is why I want you to be careful. This has been one of the best days of my life. I have my daughter back, and I got some news this morning; looks like you are going to be a father twice in one day. So, it is lemonade, I am afraid. Champagne will have to wait for nine months.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Robert Stahmer was a methodical, instinctive, and dogged investigator. He realized early in the Classical Canta Libra investigation that, among all the people he and Ghislaine would interview, there was a high probability they would interview the killer. He was also astute enough to know that the person who could plan the lifeboat explosion would not give himself up willingly in an interview. They were dealing with an extremely intelligent person, with a talent for planning.

  Stahmer requested and received the employee digital profiles from the Classical Canta Libra human resource director via Sean Wright. He had forwarded them to Fabienne. He asked Fabienne to add some lines to her software to include the fields on intelligence ratings.

  He knew the average IQ was 100, and that an IQ of 132 put a person in the top two percent for intelligence. Stahmer reckoned, based on the planning and cunning used in the lifeboat fire, his target had an IQ at the top half of the scale, between an IQ of 110 to 125.

  Stahmer was also aware that probably none of the employees aboard the ship would ever have been tested, but there were parameters Fabienne could build into the software to identify previous awards and exam grades, and from this they would certainly be able to exclude some of the employees from the suspect list.

  At first, Fabienne had resisted; it was a natural state for her to resist. The work involved was far more in-depth than a few lines of code to the software. She would have to hack and extract information on the subjects from numerous educational facilities across the globe. She constructed an add on software application in a day that would do this while she slept.

  Within two days of Stahmer’s request, the code
had been written. Fabienne did as she did each evening; she went to one of her three favourite restaurants. Tonight it was Domiciles, in the business district of Geneva. She had a routine, and the head waiter always obliged when possible. She would be seated in a quiet area of the establishment, and would eat while working on her iPad. Tonight, she feasted on a cheese fondue slab that melted down onto a drip tray, which she mopped up with Parma ham. It was during this meal that her software search program, Speedy, extracted and highlighted a significant clue.

  Stahmer had not ceased his pedantic search for the truth, and this had taken him and Ghislaine to three countries in four days. Stahmer wanted to interview the bereaved families of the victims of the lifeboat disaster. First, they went to France, then to Iceland, and then to England, to interview Christie Rooney and Pam Carter’s families, the two entertainers from the Classical Canta Libra.

  The interviews in France and Iceland had not shed any light on the investigation; they were simply bereaved parents who were looking for answers as to why their loved one had died. None of the families believed the official version, and indeed it had been they who had forced Classical to bring in MIDAS.

  Stahmer and Ghislaine first travelled to Snow Hill in Birmingham to visit Pam Carter’s mother; the father had died of a heart attack shortly after Pam’s death, and the mother quite openly blamed the loss of Pam for his demise. The interview was like the previous two, devoid of information they had not already collated.

  They travelled by hire car from Birmingham the hundred or so miles to Borehamwood, a suburb on the outskirts of London made famous by Elstree Studios. The hour was late, so they took rooms in the Travelodge to freshen up before interviewing Christie’s parents the next day.

  They took two rooms, which cost less than a third of what one room would cost ten miles further towards the main city of London. After freshening up, they met in the restaurant situated at the end of the parking lot. No sooner had they begun to share a bottle of Chablis and hot buffet of several meats, Yorkshire pudding, and a variety of vegetables than Ghislaine’s phone started to pulse. Tuck was on the end of the line.

  Ghislaine explained to Stahmer that she was needed urgently and was to get herself on the next flight to Geneva. They finished the Chablis, and Stahmer ordered her a black cab taxi to Heathrow to catch the red eye to Switzerland.

  The following morning, Stahmer went the short distance to the house of Christie’s parents. The dwelling was a typical suburban, semi detached house. It had neat lawns to the front, and a man older than his years was stooping down to weed the flower beds.

  Stahmer introduced himself and was shepherded into the front room, which seemed smaller than he had first thought, but put this down to the forty-two inch HD television that took pride of place above the mantle.

  Mrs Rooney had the appearance of a homemaker in her apron, which had speckles of flour over it; she had obviously been baking in the kitchen. Stahmer accepted the offer of English tea, and was delighted to try the scones she had just baked.

  Stahmer did not want to interrupt, as Mr and Mrs Rooney first talked about their daughter, and then got out the photographs from when she was a baby, to the last images of her on stage on the Classical Canta Libra.

  Stahmer probed whether she had made any enemies, maybe a jealous performer, but the Rooney’s assured him that she was loved by everyone. Not everyone, Stahmer thought.

  Just as Stahmer feared it had been another wasted foray, a tall, handsome young boy of no more than fifteen appeared. He was introduced as Christie’s brother, and offered Stahmer his laptop.

  “Christie e-mailed me every week. Maybe there is something in the e-mails,” he offered.

  For the next hour, Stahmer read through the last three months of e-mails. Stahmer was a little uneasy; it was like reading a private diary, he thought. She obviously loved her brother very much, as she had laid out her highs, her lows, and some of her secrets, too.

  The words struck him straight away; just one line, but one that stood out from the rest. It was the first significant clue he had had since interviewing all the families.

  “The Grim Reaper is back. Every trip I have been on with him someone has gone missing or died, he is a jinx,” the sentence read.

  No name, no hint of his identification, but a clue, nonetheless. Christie had been on the same ship with him more than once; more than likely a few times for her to make this remark. The Grim Reaper had joined the ship between September and October, otherwise why else would she note on it in her latest e-mail but not in prior e-mails? This was the first clue he had come across, not just after interviewing the parents of the deceased, but also the crew members. Maybe it was something, maybe it was nothing, but Stahmer’s intuition and radar were on high alert.

  Don’t get overexcited, he thought. It is only a clue, not definitive. But he knew deep down inside that he had the one clue that could lead him to the killer of all those people aboard the lifeboat.

  On leaving the Rooneys, he telephoned Fabienne, and was surprised to hear Ghislaine answering the phone.

  “Translator, investigator, and now receptionist, Ghislaine? What gives?” he inquired.

  “I know; Fabienne is involved with some crisis involving Cutler, and between us we’ll be coordinating. I’m to help out with translation and as you can hear, help with the routine matters in the office,” she replied.

  “I know you’re both busy, but tell Fabienne I need her to check who came onto the ship between September and October prior to the explosion, and to cross-match everyone in that date range against ships and cruises that Christie Rooney has undertaken, and I need it fast.”

  “You got something from the Rooney family?” Ghislaine asked.

  “The Grim Reaper,” Stahmer replied.

  For the next two hours, Stahmer sat in the café of a local superstore, drinking coffee, and doing the Times crossword as he waited with some impatience for the phone call that he knew would be coming. Finally, as he had one clue left to complete, his phone rang.

  “Hello, Robert, it’s Fabienne.”

  “Do you have some good news for me, Fabienne?” he asked directly, without his usual banter and greetings.

  “Last night Speedy discounted all those at the lower end of the IQ range. At the same time, it was running an analysis of some information that Cutler asked me to run.”

  “Cutler’s on a different case, Fabienne. I don’t quite understand.”

  “I realize that, Robert, and would not bring it up, but the information you asked me to run this morning has generated a link,” Fabienne replied.

  “Speedy analysed a greeting from Cutler’s sister’s murder. It was mistro, or matro. So, my beautiful program looked at profiles, names of the crew, witnesses, etc., and came up blank. Speedy has been set up to cross-reference all open cases against keywords, or offer some suggestions related to cruises, and it is eighty percent sure the word is Maestro.”

  “Maestro,” confirmed Stahmer.

  “Yes, and Speedy has checked all nicknames or names that are similar and again came up blank. But it did come up with a suggestion; that of a conductor, pianist, or choreographer. And guess what? When you asked this morning to check on staff members who had joined the ship in September and October, and again to cross-reference against past relationships between crew members and related cruises, it came up with one name,” she stated.

  Stahmer’s heart began to beat harder. “What name?”

  “There was also reference in the Werner tape to Elisa’s assailant pulling out a chunk of her hair and scalp, and I have asked Speedy to cross-reference this unusual action.”

  “What name please, Fabienne?”

  “Ghislaine said you would remember him; the pianist, Sebastian McKenzie.”

  “Yes, I do remember him; half-white, half-Asian, with a wig or toupee on.”

  “There is more,” Fabienne revealed.

  “Don’t keep me in suspense, Fabienne.”

  “He has a
clear link with Cutler’s sister’s murder, and guess what; he was on the ship on which Manfred Shultz’s wife went missing.”

  Stahmer took a deep intake of breath. “Are you saying there is a possibility that he is also responsible for Elisa’s death and Manfred’s wife?”

  “No, I’m saying there is a strong, causal link, firm enough to arouse Speedy to spit his name out several times and to link him to those events.”

  “You’re saying that this guy has done it before. The lifeboat incident sounds entirely different from Cutler’s sister’s death.”

  “Maybe he was covering up? Maybe someone found out about him,” Fabienne conjectured.

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “There’s more. When his name popped up, we referenced all known missing persons and events around him. We also referenced missing persons from all the geographical positions he has lived in, and the date he lived there.”

  “Very astute of you, Fabienne.”

  “We have links to another twenty missing or dead victims on the ships he has been on. In some cases, body parts have been washed up. Some had the same injuries as Elisa, hair tugged out.”

  “We’ve got ourselves a serial killer,” Stahmer stated.

  “I would say we have a serial killer with trichotillomania tendencies.”

  “Trichotillomania?” Stahmer inquired.

  “Overwhelming desire and need to pull out hair.”

  “He was wearing a wig. Ghislaine said there was something strange about his hair,” Stahmer responded.

  “Speedy also spat out another potential victim, but I’m not sure, as our pianist would have only been a little boy when it happened.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “A little girl was found twenty years ago stuffed inside a farm slurry tank. The reports state the farm had not used that tank for years, and she went missing when Sebastian McKenzie lived in the area as a child. Although the body was badly decomposed, the post-mortem revealed a head injury that is consistent with hair being ripped out. They also found a rucksack, and a capped bottle of water underneath the body.”