Pleasant Harbor

by Thomas Bloom

  “So what did we score?” Bill asked as they finished up.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Dusty replied. “Let’s just say that you were way over fifty for the first nine and much better for the second. You actually started to look like you were players. Do you have any questions?”

  Bill raised his hand a little tentatively and asked “Are you going to marry our mother?”

  Dusty was taken aback. He had not expected that. He paused a minute. “Your mother and I like each other a lot. Maybe we love each other. But marriage is a serious commitment. We’d like a little more time with each other to be sure we’ve got it right. Of course, you guys have something to say about it too. Your mother loves you very much and would not marry anyone and make them your stepfather if you did not want it. So I have to ask you, how do you feel about it?”

  Elliott answered. “We’ve talked about it. We think it would be a good thing. Our mother likes you and we like you. We understand about our dad and don’t blame you. We would like to be a regular family. Besides, then we would not have to feel guilty about getting all these free golf lessons.”

  Dusty laughed. “Thanks guys. Let’s go back and see if your mother is getting lonely. If we do decide to get married you’ll be the first to know.”

  The boys spent a half hour excitedly telling their mother about the golf round. Half way through she looked up at Dusty and mouthed a “thank you.”

  Later that day they visited some of the other attractions in the area and ended with a nice dinner in an upscale restaurant. The boys were a little intimidated by the fancy cutlery and waiters in tuxedos. Amanda ordered the simplest meal available for both of her sons. She had a sea food soufflé and Dusty had the biggest steak on the menu.

  The next day was back to Chicago to drop off the boys and drive back to Pleasant Harbor. Once they were on the road Dusty opened the door they were both trying to keep closed. “Okay, let’s get back to reality. We did not hear a word from Tamourini so I assume her team ran out of leads and folded their tents. That leaves you and me with Mr. Bad Guy. I assume he knows that the FBI left town so that tells him that the list did not work out. Therefore he knows he’s at least temporarily in the clear. Let’s give it another few weeks. That will take us up to the holidays and the end of your kid’s first semester. If nothing happens we can assume he’s gone to ground. He has nothing to gain by exposing himself to try another attack when neither we nor the FBI got close to him. Assuming the three women were his agenda he may be done for all time.

  “We can bring the boys back for Christmas and resume a normal life. They can go back to school after the Christmas break with everyone else. We can’t hide forever. I do think that maybe between your staff and mine we escort the boys to and from school for another couple of months. Oh, and we should both have a central station alarm installed in our homes—just in case. What do you think?”

  “I’m frightened to death at the thought of exposing my boys but you’re right. What would he have to gain? He’s gotten away with it and beat us all. I do want to go into Chicago for Thanksgiving and to see the boys.”

  “No problem,” Dusty said. “We’ll find something fun to do but probably not golf. Not unless we get some unseasonably warm weather. By the way, I keep meaning to ask you. Would you like to play?”

  “Yes, but we all have a full plate right now. Let’s wait a while.”

  “Okay, but you should start while you’re still young.”

  She gave his arm a backhand.

  Chapter Fifty

  Well mama, we did it. The FBI is gone and Mr. Donavan and Miss Stevens ran off to Florida. I think that when they get back the last thing they want to do is to antagonize me. They know what I can do. I know she moved her kids to Chicago and I know Mr. Donavan is the new father surrogate. They’ll probably hitch down the road. All I have to do is threaten the kids and they’ll go into a hole. I did what I started out to do and now I’m just going to lay low and mind my own business. That list of suspects was a problem but they never figured out that I eliminated my name from the files. Don’t ever tell me again that I’m a failure mama. You know different now.

  Chapter Fifty One

  The first few days back were miserable for both Dusty and Amanda. There was a mountain of paperwork to go through and dozens of cases to catch up on. They did not see each other until they could break for dinner at Porky’s on Wednesday.

  “Look, Amanda said. “I have to go back to the office. I’m still not squared away but why don’t you grab a bottle of wine and come over for dinner tomorrow. We can feel sorry for each other and cuddle a while.”

  “First good thing I’ve heard all week,” Dusty said. “Deal.”

  They were going into the last of the season. Visitors now were coming for some late season camping and to enjoy the last of the fall color. The beaches were largely empty. The rest of the visitors would be the last of the salmon fishermen and a week or so of deer hunting in November. After that the town would shut down and most of the restaurants, motels and hotels would close until spring.

  It was the middle of the following week when Dusty got a call from his 911 operator. “We’ve got a weird one here chief. A floater in the harbor. Called in by a salmon fisherman.”

  “Jeez, I hoped we were done with this.”

  “I think this is different. The caller said it’s a male, fully clothed and with all his body parts intact. He looks Hispanic, in his thirties and with a lot of tattoos. There is one bullet hole in his forehead. My gut feel is that this was a drug hit—nothing to do with the previous bodies.”

  “A drug hit? You’re kidding me. That’s one problem we haven’t had here except for some marijuana floating around the high school. Okay, I’ll get a couple officers over and have an EMT pick up the body and deliver it to the coroner.”

  An hour later Amanda called. “Hey, I’ve got an odd one here. We just had an explosion in one of the local marinas and we’ve got a yacht that’s burned down to the waterline. According to the marina owner it was named the Aztec and it was registered in Illinois. He said the guys on board were all Hispanic and covered in tattoos. They got here yesterday and haven’t done anything since then except four or five people came aboard about midday, stayed about half an hour and then left. They were driving a large SUV and a Ryder rental truck. They took a number of large boxes with them. He thinks something fishy was going on and I agree. I smell organized crime and maybe drugs. What do you think?”

  “Well that fits with the call I just got.” He told her about the body just found. “Look, I’ll be over in a few minutes and we can interview the owner together. We need to find a way to examine the remains of that boat and see if we can figure out who and what was on it.” By the time he got to the marina the remains of the boat had sunk. The water was covered with a sheen of ashes and litter.

  “We need police divers and we don’t have any. I’m going to call Sergeant Johnson at the State Police and ask for another favor. We need to get what we can out of that hull. There has to be some bodily remains and maybe some drug residue. Plus, what was the explosive. Also, let’s do some research on the boat. It has to be registered to someone.”

  Sergeant Johnson was his usual affable self. “Hey, we don’t mind helping you out but this is getting regular. Are we going to be invited to your Christmas party?”

  “We don’t do Christmas parties but for you I’ll make an exception and we’ll host one for you and your guys in Lansing. When can you get here?”

  “It’ll be tomorrow morning. I don’t have these guys just sitting around waiting for something to do.”

  Dusty and Amanda had a crane standing by the next morning. They wanted to recover what was left of the hull but could not touch it until the dive team had done their work. Fortunately, the mooring site was well away from the main channel so the wreck had been subjected to minimal disturbance by the current.

  A check with the Illinois Department of State revealed that the boat was owned by
an Edgar Gomez with a home address in Chicago. Dusty had a call in to the Chicago police department to find what they had on Mr. Gomez but his call had not been returned.

  The dive team arrived at 10:00 AM and promptly went to work. They all wore heavy wet suits and donned a full set of scuba gear and carried underwater flashlights. They took bags down with them to recover any human remains and to preserve any other evidence they found. By noon they had brought up three large bags containing human remains, several smaller bags with miscellaneous items of interest and two empty crates. They then wrapped two large cables around the remains of the hull so that it could be winched out of the water.

  They met with the team after they had changed and dressed.

  “So,” Dusty asked, “any conclusions?”

  “Not on the bodies. That’s up to your coroner. They were heavily charred. The small bags are mainly papers and some personal stuff that may have DNA. There was no obvious sign of drugs. The interesting thing is the two crates. We’ve seen these before and they look a lot like shipping containers for rifles, in particular AK-47’s. They didn’t burn because they are aluminum.”

  “So they were dealing guns and not drugs. That makes no sense. We have no organized crime here. You can buy AK-47’s in any gun store. Why smuggle them? And who the hell would they be selling them to? There has to be something more to this.”

  “No clue chief. We’ve done our bit. The rest is up to you. But I do have a question from Sergeant Johnson. He wants to know when you’re planning that Christmas party so we can schedule accordingly.”

  “Tell him I’ll be in touch. I was half kidding but, you know what, you guys have been of great help several times. I think we’ll do it. I’ll call him.”

  After they left Dusty and Amanda set down with the marina owner, a man named Dennis Ralston.

  Dusty started. “We need everything you saw and everything you know from start to finish. Take your time and think about it.”

  “Well, like I told you, they came in the day before yesterday about mid-afternoon and wanted a slip for two days. They paid cash. Only one guy came to the office but I saw several others on deck. He didn’t give me his name but he signed the agreement. It’s just a scribble. I can’t make anything of it but I’ve made a copy and you can have the original. I spoke to him only briefly and never talked to the guys on the boat. From what I could see they all looked Hispanic and they all had tattoos. That’s why I got nervous. They looked like gang members. The name on the fantail was ‘Aztec.’ I checked that and it was registered in Illinois.

  “Today I didn’t see them or any activity until late morning. Then one Ryder rental truck drove up followed by an SUV with four guys in it. These were middle-eastern types, dark complexioned, dark hair, some beards and some mustaches—no tattoos that I could see. Anyway, two guys got out and went aboard with one of them carrying a briefcase. They were there about half an hour and then the whole group started to off load boxes—a lot of them. They must have almost filled the truck. Some of the boxes were heavy. It took four of them to move them. At that point I had some business in town to take care of and left. About a half hour later my secretary called and said we had a boat on fire at the slip and that she had called the fire department. I raced back and when she told me the whole story, including the explosion, I called the police. You guys know the rest.”

  “What was the car?” Amanda asked.

  “I’m not sure. It was a big SUV—black but I’m not sure of the make.”

  “You didn’t happen to get any plate numbers, did you?”

  “I’m afraid not. By the time I was sure we had a problem they were gone.”

  “Would you recognize any of these people if you had to identify them?”

  “Only the guy who came into the office. All the rest were too far away.”

  “Okay, thank you for your help. We’d like to talk to your secretary also. Call us if you think on anything else.”

  The secretary was a slim, grey haired lady with over-sized glasses named Emily. She was obviously nervous.

  Amanda took over. “Hi Emily. We just need to ask you a few questions. You’re not in any trouble or anything we’re just trying to find out as much as we can about what happened yesterday. Can you tell us everything you saw that had anything to do with the boat that burned or the men who loaded the cargo into the truck?”

  “Well my office window doesn’t face the marina so I wasn’t watching them all the time. I did come out for a cup of coffee after Mr. Ralston left and I saw them closing up the truck. Then three guys got into the SUV, one guy got into the truck and one guy went back on board the boat. The guy who went back to the boat was carrying a briefcase. Now here’s what I’m not sure of but I’ll tell you what I think I saw. One of the Hispanics was on deck on the far side of the boat from me. I couldn’t see anyone else. I saw the Arab looking guy lift up the briefcase with his left hand and then pull something from his coat pocket with his right hand. The next thing was the Hispanic guy disappeared and the Arab guy took the briefcase and threw it into the well where the steps lead down to the cabin. Then he got into the SUV and they all left. The next thing I knew there was an explosion and the boat was on fire. That’s when I called 911.”

  “Could you see exactly what the man pulled from his pocket?”

  “Well it was a funny looking pistol. It had a very long barrel like no pistol I’ve ever seen. But I didn’t hear any shot. If he had fired it I think I would have heard it.”

  “Thank you Emily, that was very informative. Do you think you could identify any of these people in the future?”

  “No ma’am, not really. They were just too far away. I mean I could say that someone looks like one of those guys but I couldn’t swear absolutely it was him.”

  “Thank you so much for your help. If you think of anything else, here’s my card. Please call me.”

  After Emily left the room Dusty and Amanda looked at each other. “What the hell do we have here?” she asked. “Chicago gang members and a bunch of middle-eastern types buying weapons. Then the Arabs kill the Chicago guys. Why? That pistol that Emily described surely had a silencer on it.”

  “They wanted to cover their tracks,” Dusty said. “The real question is what the hell do they plan to do with the weapons? Whatever it is, it’s surely no good. I think we’re in over our heads here. This is not a Pleasant Harbor problem it’s a U.S. problem. I think we call agent Tamourini and invite the FBI in.”

  A half hour later, in Amanda’s office, they had Tamourini on the phone and explained the situation. “Look,” she said. “This is over my pay grade. Let me make some calls and I’ll be back to you. In the meantime, guard the hull, the bodies and the evidence the dive team got with your lives. This could be a big time issue.”

  “We figured as much,” Dusty said. “Call us back when you decide what you want to do.”

  “Where are the bags of evidence the dive team brought up,” Dusty asked.

  “In the trunk of my cruiser,” Amanda responded.

  “Okay, let’s figure out a way to guard the stuff. It’s all water soaked. We should do something to preserve it but I have no idea how to do it.”

  “Give me a few minutes,” Amanda said. “It’s amazing what you can find on the web.” She turned to her computer and started typing. Ten minutes later she said “Read this. We can do this.”

  “Do what?” Dusty asked.

  “The key thing is to dry the papers as soon as possible and touch them as little as possible. Here’s the plan. Bring the bags in here and just hold them by the top. Open the seal and empty the water out and then use a knife to slit open the bag but don’t touch the paper. While you’re doing that I’m on my way to Walmart to buy some hair dryers.”

  “Is this really the time to be working on our dos?” Dusty asked.

  Amanda gave him a withering look.

  “I’m on it,” Dusty said.

  In addition to the body bags the dive team had brought up t
hree zip lock bags. An hour later they had a hair dryer blowing on each bag which lay flat on a table with the bag cut away from the contents. One bag held a stack of miscellaneous sized papers. The second had a note pad with some writing on the top page. The third had an assortment of cigarette butts, wrinkled up cigarette packages, candy and gum wrappers and what appeared to be wadded up Kleenex.

  Within an hour the top pages of the first bag had dried to the point that they could start removing them. They took off the first page using tweezers and laid it on a table covered with a towel. After a few more minutes they could remove the next page. One by one the pages became recoverable. In all they had twelve pages from the first bag. The second bag had nothing except some notes in Spanish on the first page. The third bag they ignored for the moment.

  “Before we touch anything we need to photograph each page,” Amanda said.

  They struck gold in the middle of the first batch. “Wow, look at this,” Dusty cried. It was a list of weapons:

  AK-47 modified—sixteen

  Sniper rifles—four

  RPG launcher—with ten rounds

  IED—six

  Grenades—90

  Ammo for AK-47 (100 twelve shot clips) and sniper (200 rounds)

  Nine mill. Pistol--sixteen with 2,000 rounds and 48 clips

  “Okay,” Dusty said. Not much question here. They’re planning something big and bad.”

  They called Tamourini again. “More grist for your mill.” They told her of their find.

  “Well this ices it. We’re still waiting to hear back from Washington but when they here of this the only question is how much they want to throw at it.”

  “One suggestion,” Dusty said. They got that Ryder truck from someplace. Can we get a copy of every truck rental for the last month or so? I would start with Dearborn. It’s a Detroit suburb with a very large Arab population.”

  “We’re well aware of Dearborn. In fact we have some resources there.”

  “What do you want us to do in the meantime?” Amanda asked.