by William Cook
A mile outside of town, he got the call. “This is your lucky day, partner. Chiara may have just saved your bacon. She is most definitely our Honorary Detective. I think we should buy her and her fiancé dinner, at the very least.”
“I can almost see her standing next to you with that big grin on her face.”
“You got it right, Charley,” Chiara said. “Tony put it on speaker, and I heard that.”
“She grins any brighter and I’m gonna have to put on sunglasses to protect my eyes!”
“It’s not a slam-dunk yet, but I think we got you covered, Boss. There’s a new viral video out there that’s making all the news. The Mayor said she would schedule a meeting Thursday with Nathan’s mom and her attorney. Legal will bury that complaint so deep they’ll never find it.”
“You’ve made my day, darlin’. I can’t wait to hear all about it. And dinner is the least I can do for you. Where would you and Sammy like to eat?”
He heard a brief silence on the other end of the call, then Chiara’s voice, sounding somewhat timid. “Well, we’ve always wanted to try The Mahina, but Sammy’s student budget never stretches quite far enough.” As if realizing a mistake, she added, “But that’s way out of our league.”
“Nonsense! Our Honorary Detective is worth every penny, and then some. The Mahina it is. I’ll pick you up a gift certificate on the way in.”
“And before I forget, Charley, I got something else for you.” It was Esperanza, sounding like a school girl who had just heard a bit of juicy gossip about her rival’s boyfriend. “I found out who owns the Smaug, and most likely Mid-Coast Seafood.”
“I’m all ears, brother.”
“An outfit called Dragon Brothers Fisheries, LLC. Paul and Gideon Drake. Crabbing, whale-watching, and soon to begin charter service for tuna and halibut fishing. Paul is here in Driftwood, 27918 Hillside Court. Gideon has a place in Depoe Bay, 233 Terrace Avenue. We got ‘em, Charley. Our prime suspects.”
“Fantastic! This may just be the best day in months!” Whitehorse gave a victory shout that echoed over the radio.
“Easy on the ears, man,” Esperanza chuckled. “’Course we got lots more police work to do. We’re still a long ways from finding Carmody.” He paused, then added almost sheepishly, “Or proving our crabbing friends were murdered.”
“Yeah, yeah. But the trail just got a whole lot warmer.”
“You got that right.”
As he concluded the call, Whitehorse laughed aloud. More than just clearing his name, he would have positive evidence to share with the Mayor, proof that this investigation was not a wild goose chase, not a waste of taxpayers’ money. Now, if we can just find Patricia Carmody alive…
A disturbing thought wormed its way into his consciousness, and his jubilant mood dissipated as quickly as it had begun.
If it really is Volkov who’s after me, deep-sixing his smear campaign will make him very unhappy. He could feel the blood draining from his face. His knuckles whitened around the steering wheel.
And men like Volkov do terrible things when they’re unhappy.
18. Who’s Laying the Eggs?
THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 2019. “I see the Mayor tomorrow at ten. She has a televised news conference scheduled right after that.”
Chloe put down her fork and raised a glass of wine to her lips. “She has all the evidence clearing your name?”
“Yep. After that new video surfaced, some kid started a ‘Save Officer Whitehorse’ Facebook page. Kids started volunteering what they saw in the classroom. If that lawyer Hartman gives us any trouble, the Mayor said Legal will start subpoenaing those kids. She met with Neveah Bowling late today to clue her in. Didn’t want her going all ballistic on us when she finds out she won’t be getting any big cash payout from the town of Driftwood or from me.” Whitehorse lifted another fried oyster from his plate. “Sweetened the pot a bit, though. The Mayor offered to pay for a complete evaluation of Nathan at that fancy outfit in town, Coastal Behavioral Center. Child psychiatric workup, psychological testing, social work plan—the whole nine yards.” He smiled around his mouthful. “You cook a mean oyster, woman. Anyway, Brown also talked with Bowling’s lawyer, Hartman. He wasn’t any too happy about it, but didn’t really seem ready to go through all kinds of appeals and all that crap. I think he wants to cut and run.”
“So, we’re home free?”
Whitehorse’s smile left his face. It didn’t go unnoticed.
“What aren’t you telling me? What are you worried about?” Her eyebrows shot up. “Is this more of the ‘why-you-didn’t-want-to-ask-me-to-marry-a-policeman’ thing?”
He sighed and nodded his head. “I think it’s Vasily Volkov out of Portland who’s trying to ruin me. The biggest, meanest sonofabitch around. I can’t imagine he’ll stop after this.” He exhaled noisily. “He might actually up the ante.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means I want you and Kaitlynn to be extra cautious. If it’s dark when you get out of work, I want your security person to accompany you to your car. I’d like Kaitlynn to stick with her buddy Tessa and not go anywhere alone—at least until we see if Volkov is going to try something else.”
“You think he’d want to hurt one of us?”
“To get back at me? Sure. He didn’t get where he is by playing nice.” He put his fork down on the table. “Sorry for spoiling dinner.”
“You didn’t spoil it. I learned to change my perspective after Raven kidnapped Kaitlynn—after she did time. That little bubble I used to live in—that the world is a safe place and everybody is good—popped a long time ago. Raven, Jack, Friese—they took care of that. I just need the occasional heads-up like this.”
She stood and cleared the table with Whitehorse’s help. “Let’s not turn on the TV. Sit on the couch with me and sip another glass of wine.” As she filled their glasses, she called to the device on the end table, “Alexa, play classic blues.” Soon the room filled with the twang of B.B. King’s guitar as he wailed, “The thrill has gone, baby…”
“Like I told you before, mister. You can’t frighten me off. I’m going to marry you come September.”
He leaned over and put his arm around her shoulders. “That makes me very happy. But I won’t stop worrying.”
“How’s your daughter, by the way?” she said, changing the subject. “Haven’t seen her since Thanksgiving.”
“Sally’s doing great. Still loves her job in Seattle. I’m thinking she has a new boyfriend. She was really coy about it, so I’m not sure exactly. Oh, and she said something about visiting us on President’s Day.”
“That would be fun. Keep me posted.”
They sat for a while longer, enjoying the closeness. Whitehorse was the first to break the silence. He knit his brows and frowned. “I worry we’ve lost her. It’s been so long.”
“Who?”
“Patricia Carmody. She disappeared just after Christmas. We haven’t found her yet, and I’m beginning to be afraid we won’t. She’s been gone four weeks.”
“But I thought you just found some promising leads.”
“I did. I’m waiting on the DNA report for final proof she was in that warehouse. I found what I think was her umbrella, but the prints on the handle are too smudged to make out. Anyway, I’m already convinced she was there. So were the other missing kids I told you about. Their names are scratched in a closet.” He shook his head back and forth. “We couldn’t find out who owns the warehouse, but there are crab pots inside that belong to Dragon Brothers Fisheries, LLC. That’s a couple local guys—Paul and Gideon Drake. I’m betting they own it. And we’ve got a partial thumb print of Gideon’s on the closet key. He got accused of smuggling dope a few years back, but the charges didn’t stick. Questioning them is at the top of our agenda right now.” He drained his glass. “Did they have anything to do with the sinking of the Johnny B. Goode? My gut tells me they did. But why? Why sink a crabbing boat in a town where everybody is always looking out for every
body else?”
Chloe took a sip of wine and squinted her eyes as if deep in thought. “What if the guys from the Johnny B. saw Patricia in that warehouse or on the Drakes’ boat or wherever it was they snatched her? You know, somehow saw the kidnapping?”
“Then why didn’t they report it to the police?”
“I don’t know, darling. I’m just making this up as I go along. I think I picked that up from you.”
“Well, I love you for it.” Then he paused. “Hmmm. Come to think of it, your idea makes a lot of sense.” His eyes brightened. “Maybe that’s the link I’ve been looking for all along.” He stood up in his excitement. “Damn! I’ll bet you’re right!” He pulled her up off the couch and embraced her. “Shall we dance?”
Chloe laughed. “I’ve told you all along—we’re a team, Mr. Soon-to-be-Detective Whitehorse.”
“Indeed we are, honey.” He lifted his glass from the table. “Can I get you some more?”
“I think I’m done. Any more and I’ll be waking up in the middle of the night. You can finish it off.”
As Whitehorse walked out to the kitchen, she called after him, “You remember the movie ‘Aliens,’ don’t you?”
“Is that a rhetorical question? Remember one of my favorite movies ever? A movie I’ve watched at least a dozen times?” He entered the living room, grinning like a school boy, and sat back on the couch.
“Remember they finally asked the question no one dared to ask in the original ‘Alien?’”
“Which was…?”
“Who’s laying all these eggs?”
“Who’s…” He leaned back as his eyes went wide. “Of course! These crabbing brothers are probably just local muscle, way down on the food chain. Who’s deciding where all these abducted kids go? Who’s calling the shots? Who’s the real boss?”
Chloe sat back with a satisfied smirk on her face.
“Dear God in heaven,” Whitehorse said in a barely audible whisper.
19. Falling Off the Face of the Earth
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2018. Patricia Carmody was bored. Her boyfriend had left the hour before, claiming he had errands to run for his disabled mother. There was nothing on TV, no movies she wanted to watch, and Parker, gentleman that he was, had drunk her last beer. Her wine rack and liquor cabinet were likewise empty, their washed bottles lined up like soldiers on parade on the counter, awaiting a trip to the recycling bins in Driftwood. To add insult to injury, she had smoked the last of her weed with Parker before he left.
“Shit!” she said aloud. She looked around the 600-square-foot apartment that she called home—a kitchen she could barely fit in if she stood sideways, filled with appliances that looked as though they might have been old before she was born; a living room that just accommodated a love seat and a wobbly maple rocking chair; a single bedroom into which she had wedged her queen-size bed. To her credit, she had adorned the walls with original paintings she had done when she was attending the Rhode Island School of Design. She was especially fond of her abstracts, which lent color and an air of freedom to the otherwise cramped space.
She sighed as she recalled the disappointment on Professor Aniston’s face when she had told her she would be leaving school. “But you have the soul of an artist! You will create great things! Beautiful things! Please don’t go.”
But she did go. She always left. Friends. School. Jobs. And this time she really left—all the way across country to the Pacific Northwest, as far as she could get from her former life. She had good reason this time, but still it felt like a curse to her, this inability to see a thing through to its completion, to persevere when things became difficult. It wreaked havoc with her love life. Parker would be the latest casualty in a long line of brief but fiery alliances. Already she could feel herself tiring of him. Burning out.
“I want a bottle of wine—no—a martini and some chocolate chip cookies,” she told the walls. “I’m sick of this crap.” She stood up and stretched and looked at her watch. The little local market would be closed already, necessitating a fifteen-minute trek down 101 into Driftwood. Her initial disappointment turned to a smile when she realized she could replenish her stash of weed while she was at it. Buoyed by the thought, she retrieved her wool coat and hat from where she’d thrown them on the bed. Taking care for the curls in her blonde hair, she tugged on the teal beret she had bought in Paris, a trip that had been her parents’ high school graduation gift to her. Ready for the weather, she picked up the car keys from the counter and ventured out, locking the door behind her.
A dense, almost gelatinous fog had oozed up from the sea, congealing around everything. Moisture inside the car had condensed on all the windows, making them opaque. She shivered as she turned on the little Prius and cranked up the defrost to clear them. She ran the windshield wipers and lowered and raised each window to sweep away the heavy dew on the outside of the glass. While she waited, she selected a favorite playlist on her phone and used Bluetooth to connect it to the car’s speakers. Maroon 5 serenaded her.
Things are about to change at last, she thought, as the A/C blew warm air onto the windshield. Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life.
She recalled the Facebook ad that had started it all a week ago. It had been a rainy night, and she had been alone and bored, so she had pulled out her phone.
Scrolling through the pages, with nothing better to do, she stopped at the picture of an empty director’s chair with the initials S.S. on the back. Although on principle she never responded to ads that appeared in her feed, this one caught her attention.
Auditions for a movie here on the coast? Drama class had been her favorite part of high school. She still remembered taking bows before an enthusiastic audience after her debut performance in Little Shop of Horrors. But a movie? How cool would that be!
A modern telling of Lysistrata? What the hell is Lysistrata? She saved the link and opened up Google. There it was on Wikipedia. She read it aloud. “A Greek comedy written by Aristophanes and performed in Athens in 411 B.C.” She scanned a brief summary of the play and began to smile. “So Lysistrata is this Greek chick who figures she can end the Peloponnesian War by getting all the women in the Greek city states to refuse to have sex with their husbands and lovers until they stop fighting! I fucking love it!”
And her mind was made up. She returned to Facebook, clicked on the link, and scrolled through the pages of application forms. It wasn’t a scam—she wasn’t being recruited into making porn movies.
She opened her laptop, found the link, and began the application process, certain she wanted this more than anything she had ever wanted in her life.
The entry for emergency contact puzzled her, since she wasn’t close to anyone in Oregon. Parker is history, she thought. She decided to use her mother’s address and phone number in Riverside, Rhode Island. She also knew she couldn’t get her transcripts in a timely fashion during the holiday break, but she wanted to be among the first to respond, so she submitted her application with an explanatory note as to why it was incomplete.
And two days later, she got the phone call.
“May I please speak with Ms. Patricia Carmody?” It was a man’s voice.
“Speaking.”
“Ms. Carmody, my name is Paul. I’m an assistant to a film director whose name I cannot reveal as yet.”
S.S…Steven Spielberg? Steven Soderbergh? Her hands trembled and she almost dropped the phone. “Yes?” Her voice was a brittle croak, her throat so dry she couldn’t swallow.
“You are one of our top candidates for the Lysistrata Project. Of course, the most important element is the screen test.” He paused as if allowing her to process that information. “Can you make yourself available on Thursday the twenty-seventh at 5:00 P.M.? It will be a very busy day for us—Meryl can be so trying—but we should be able to fit you in then.”
Meryl Streep? Her tongue wouldn’t work. Her heart pounded, and she heard the blood rushing through her temples.
“Ms
. Carmody?”
“Y-yes! Yes! Of course! Where do I go?” Now the words spilled from her mouth.
“We’ve set up shop temporarily in a warehouse in Depoe Bay. I’ll call you the day of with the address and the code that unlocks the door. Please don’t share it with anyone. I’m sure you can appreciate that the paparazzi can be impossible, so keep all of this in strictest confidence.”
When he concluded the call, she fell back on her bed. “I’m going to a screen test for Steven Spielberg’s next movie!” Her shout echoed in the confines of her tiny apartment.
When the windows of the Prius were clear enough to see through, she put the car in gear and headed south from Neskowin on 101. No traffic greeted her. The fog made her feel claustrophobic, as though she were driving through a narrow tunnel or storm culvert, cut off from everything else on either side of the road. She navigated by the middle line, thankful it had been repainted last summer. The road over Cascadia Head was so dark and forbidding that she turned her radio up to drown the dread in her heart.
At last she saw the lights of Driftwood, and she breathed an audible sigh of relief. She pulled into the small lot of the State-run liquor store. Reggie, the proprietor, greeted her as she walked in.
“Hey, Patty. If you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing out on a night like this? I’ll bet the fog is so bad you can’t see past the hood of your car. And you came from Neskowin? Over Cascadia Head? You must have eyes like radar.” He was shaking his head back and forth. “These old eyes couldn’t do it. That’s for sure.”
“It’s pea soup all right, Reggie. I went real slow.”
“Well, what’ll it be?”
“I need a good vodka martini tonight. I’m celebrating.”
“You’re in luck. Just got a new local vodka in that’s mighty fine. What’s the occasion?”
“My life is changing, Reggie. Tomorrow I think I’m gonna get a part in a movie. A big movie. That’s all I can say right now. Probably won’t sleep a wink tonight.”
