A Dredging in Swann

by Tim Garvin

  “Is he back flytrapping?”

  “Don’t ask. But right now, he’s just like a feather and blowing everywhere. I want you to help him.” With one hand, she impatiently forked the corners of her eyes, which had wet.

  He thought, she has such heart. Yet he had not emerged to her.

  He said, “I’ll call him up.”

  “No, you must not call him up. You must be right in front of him, and tell him a joke, and have a beer with him. Please don’t call him.”

  “He still in that little trailer?”

  “Yes. He’ll be there tonight for sure. That’s all he does is sit in there, like a possum. But he’s got a beautiful person inside him. Also, he sings so beautifully. What a fit he would be for you guys. Don’t forget that.”

  He said, “Okay, I’ll find some time.”

  She said, “Well, I’ve had my hug.” She offered her hand, and they shook. As she turned toward her car, she said over her shoulder, “Don’t forget about Rubella.” She strode to her SUV and drove away.

  Seb swiped himself into the rear door. As he climbed the stairs his phone rang. It was Bonnie Miller, the detectives’ secretary, who worked until one on alternate Sundays.

  “What’s up, Bonnie?”

  “Downstairs just called. There’s a soldier waiting on you in reception.”

  “I’m just coming up the back stairs.”

  The Swann County detectives were divided into narcotics, with five detectives, and investigations, with three, plus a sergeant and lieutenant. When he reached the investigations area, the secretary’s desk, which sat behind an L of chrome railing, was empty. Five desks lined the wide long room.

  Marty Jerrold sat at the first desk, his fingers laced on top of his head, leaning gravely over an open lunch pail. His wife, to counter his expanding belly, had begun preparing him healthy meals. On his way to his own desk, the last in line, Seb stopped and laid a hand on Marty’s shoulder.

  “Marty, those carrots won’t eat themselves.”

  Marty looked up. He said, “Every meal is a struggle between pleasure and longevity. Write that down. That’s wise.”

  Seb, in wit-swapping accommodation, said, “What’s the use of longevity without pleasure?”

  Marty said, “Not all pleasure has to do with food, Seb.” He looked back at his lunch pail. “Just ninety percent. Doug said the New York Times called ten minutes after he issued his press release. I told you this Sackler case was going to be famous.” He unlaced his hands and laid them over his sloped chest. “Yes, I can feel it now in my breast, the unhappy warmth of envy.”

  They cocked their heads together in appreciation of this neat phrasing.

  “Where’s Bonnie? I just talked to her.”

  “Taking a leak.”

  “What did the prison say?”

  “They said come on. Tell me about the fight.”

  Seb gave select details, the handcuff swipe, the crotch kick, the push, the door.

  Marty said, “That’s why I carry an ankle piece.”

  And Seb thought, despite himself, then I would have missed that fun fight. He said, “Eat your carrots, or I’ll tell on you.” He started toward his desk, then turned, backing. “Is Kate in yet?”

  “In her lab, I think.”

  At his desk, Seb called reception on the first floor and was informed that a uniformed Marine had been waiting for him for thirty minutes but had vanished. He went down the hallway to the CSI lab, where he found Kate at her desk typing into a computer. She said, “The only prints on the ladder were Sackler’s. We finished the garbage and posted the inventory in the file. Nothing really.”

  Seb said, “I just talked to his daughter. She had been in the house, so you’ll need to print her. I doubt she’s in the system. Jose is taking her to the morgue, so you might catch them there.” Then he laid the iPhone on her desk.

  She lifted the baggie and sighed, stared at it, then looked up at Seb with a flat expression. “Where was it?”

  “Under the mattress. I found his phone receipt, and it had two phones on it. The sheriff called when I was still in the bedroom, and I told him I found it. So it’s got to be in my report. Wasn’t thinking. Sorry.”

  “Well, Ernie missed it too, so it’s only a fifty percent screwup.”

  “Plus it was three o’clock in the morning.”

  She dismissed this excuse with a grimace.

  He said, “It’s not locked. It’s got videos on it. I looked at the first one and the last one. It’s all him digging. At one point he said, nothing up my sleeve, something like that. So he was looking for something, making a record. So I think we have to keep digging. Think you can get to the videos today?”

  She opened the camera app. “How many are there?”

  “Well, he’s been out a few weeks, and he stayed some days with his daughter. So he’s been digging a week maybe.”

  “There are ten videos. That doesn’t seem like enough for a whole week.”

  “He’s probably been erasing them. But here’s the thing, Kate—somebody came out yesterday morning trying to extort him.”

  “Tell me.”

  “No identification. But Leo told his daughter someone came out when he was down in the well. It’s probably on the missing phone, which may be why that phone is missing. Also, he talks now and then to the camera, calls it ‘little friend.’ So maybe at some point he told his little friend what he was looking for.”

  “Let me fingerprint it, and I’ll get started. Don’t worry about your report. I’ll blame Ernie, and he can blame me.”

  At his desk, Seb first wrote the report about the fight with Peener, then began the murder report. As usual, he concentrated on clarity and narrative flow, so that Stinson, his first reader, would be compelled to appreciation, however reluctant. A year of Seb’s work ethic had three quarters brought Stinson around, but with looks and pauses here and there he let it be known he had a quarter left to go. He had made a speech at the murder site about the other detectives accepting Seb’s lead, but Seb got that it had been at least half duty-inspired. Plus, if it was up to him, Stinson would have put him in the courthouse until SBI investigated.

  He had gotten to his arrival at the death scene when his phone rang, and reception informed him that the Marine had stepped outside to smoke a cigarette and was back. On the way to the elevator, he stopped at Bonnie’s desk. She was a portly woman in her late fifties with a hard coif of too-brown hair.

  Seb said, “Bonnie, do me a solid. Call records and have them pull the Leo Sackler file. Tell them I’m on the way down.”

  “I will. Was he murdered, do you think?”

  “Bonnie, I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”

  She smirked.

  He smiled. He said, “He probably was. Only way I’ll know for sure is catch the killer.”

  “Lot of money out there.”

  As he started away, she said to his back, “If you don’t get him, call it a suicide.”

  He left the elevator and entered the spacious reception area. Double doors on the right led to the patrol and dispatch offices. Through a door on the left he saw Martha, the sheriff’s white-haired secretary, at her cluttered desk gesturing as she spoke on the phone. She saw Seb and waved a hand erratically, meaning either hello, stop, or come. Behind a glassed window the receptionist raised a finger, then bent it to point to a young man seated on one of the rectangular couches in the waiting area. The man was hunched forward, elbows on knees, intently reading a magazine. His head jerked up as Seb approached, and he stood fast, casting the magazine onto the couch. He was in his early twenties, his face long, the eyes close-set and alert. One side of the upper lip was freshly scabbed. He performed the beginning of a salute, hid the embarrassment of that by falling into an at-ease posture, his hands behind him, then brought his left hand uncertainly to his waist.
The stripes on his uniform indicated he was a corporal.

  Seb said, “Hello, Corporal. I’m Seb Creek.”

  They shook hands.

  “Hi. Tom Rogers. Captain Delmonico at the brig asked me to come see you. He didn’t order me or anything.”

  Seb said, “About Pass the Salt?”

  “Right.”

  “How long you been in the brig?”

  “Just the weekend.”

  “You get in a fight?”

  “Yeah. A bar fight.”

  “Were you singing in the brig?”

  “I was that first night. I was loaded.”

  “What were you singing?”

  “Really? Let’s see … I don’t know the name of it.” He thought, then pronounced evenly, “‘Pancho was a bandit, boy. He wore his gun outside his pants for all the honest world to feel.’”

  Seb said, “I like that one. You looking for help with PTSD?”

  Rogers’ face made a faint spasm. He said, “Not really.” Then: “I guess.”

  “Where were you posted?”

  “Afghanistan.”

  Seb’s phone buzzed in his jacket. “Sit a second and let me get this. We have a practice tonight. You off duty?”

  “I report tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Sit a minute. Be right with you.”

  Sheriff Henry Rhodes appeared on his phone’s screen. Through the door of the sheriff’s office he saw the sheriff’s secretary pointing to her phone and nodding to him.

  “Hey, Sheriff.”

  “Where are you, Seb?”

  “In reception, staring at Martha. What’s up?”

  “I need you to report to the Fleming Ferry gate right now. Bill McAllister is on the way to pick you up.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I’ll let you know when you get here. But I mean now, okay?”

  “Lieutenant Stinson called a murder briefing on Sackler in thirty minutes.”

  “I’ll call Stinson, and he can reschedule. Come now.”

  “On my way.”

  He ended the call. The sheriff’s secretary made the circle-finger okay sign. Seb returned to the soldier, who had remained standing. He said, “You know where the VFW hall is? Down by the inlet?”

  “I can find it.”

  “That’s where we practice. Starts at seven tonight. I’ll introduce you to everybody. I got to go to the base right now. Maybe you need a ride?”

  Seb took Highway 17 south toward Fleming Ferry. Tom Rogers sat beside him without speaking, staring through the windshield, his hands folded in his lap, his thumbs rhythmically stroking. Seb’s phone rang, and Deputy Randall Garland’s name came up.

  “Go ahead, Randall.”

  “I’m about halfway done with the canvass, just checking in. I worked down Ruin Road on the north side of Cooper Farms. Now I’m headed over to the Lands, and I’ll start working down Staunton. Going right by Coopertown. Sure you don’t want me to …”

  “No, leave Coopertown to me. And leave the Lands too. One of them worked for Germaine Ford, and I need to talk to them. The time of death was around one, by the way, so that’s your focus.”

  “So far all I got is the Parkinsons saw a blue van yesterday, and they saw a Realtor’s car a few days ago, they’re not sure. They’re out on Ruin Road and sit on the porch a good bit. Everything else was local. They don’t know the Realtor’s name, but they saw the word ‘realty’ on the side of the car. A white car. They saw the van around noon yesterday. There’s six houses on Ruin Road and no one else saw anything.”

  “Good work, Randall. Leave me the Lands and Coopertown, and email me a little report with whatever else you get. I’ll log it in. Before you knock off, okay? Later, man.”

  Seb glanced at Rogers, who sat upright, staring blankly ahead, still stroking his thumbs. He said, “Can you talk to me a minute?”

  Rogers’ head turned quickly. “Yeah, sure.”

  Seb asked if he was married—no—where he was from—Arizona—when his last combat deployment had been—six months ago—did he talk to his folks—now and then—was he in a therapy group at the base—no. Was he diagnosed with PTSD? Hell yes. He can’t sleep, his mind races, he’s jumpy, he’s mad, which is why, like an idiot, he went barhopping and loud talking, to find a fight.

  Rogers said, “I don’t expect anything from you, by the way. I came because Captain Delmonico said he’d let me go if I would.”

  “You’re hopeless?”

  Rogers stared at him. “Delmonico said you got out from under.”

  “I’m getting there. Everybody in the group is getting there. You want to know the secret?”

  “Yeah. Tell me the secret.” Rogers’ voice was dry, but he watched Seb’s face.

  “The secret is feeling. Getting your feelings back. I’ve read all the books, how trauma affects the brain, all the brain talk they do, all the sensory talk. But that’s just a map. It’s not the place itself. The place is here, right now. Where you are, always right where you are. You get in combat, you drive through bombs, you speed up, and you stay speeded up. Anger is speed, fighting in bars is speed, you can’t sleep is speed. You drug much?”

  Rogers was silent, watching.

  Seb said, “Okay, you drug some. That’s you trying to slow down, any way you can. How come you didn’t re-up?”

  Rogers did not speak, but his brow knit as he concentrated.

  Seb said, “Doesn’t matter. But me, I was like a lot of guys. I’d try home and then jump back. I got divorced. Couldn’t much be in a crowd. Then I discovered singing. Singing has a mysterious property. Only slow sad-ass songs though. What it does, it calls up the deep feelings and helps to cancel the speed. A lot of us didn’t have all that much feeling even before we enlisted. Because soldiers aren’t pussy, and feelings are pussy, right? Well, it might sound pussy, but everybody in the group’s got a case. They either killed people or had friends killed or just got exposed to too much danger for too long. We even got a couple of Special Forces. Everybody’s sped up with jump-out-of-your-skin shit. So you found the right guys. Most of us have got our drinking and drugging under control too. So far, we haven’t had one suicide. We don’t give a fuck what you did or saw or didn’t do, and you don’t ever have to tell us. Just come sing with us. This is my hurry-up speech, so don’t be put off. What do you think?”

  Rogers pursed his lips and looked back through the windshield. He said, his voice hardly audible, “Sounds interesting.”

  Seb said, “I’m the leader of the gang. And as the leader I have a selfish interest in whether you can actually sing. You can be with us anyway, absolutely. But cool if you can sing. So here’s your audition. Hit this note.” Seb sang a middle C. “Ahhhhhhh.”

  Rogers frowned, smirked, gazed straight ahead. Then he sang the note perfectly in a tenor voice.

  Seb sang another note, a third higher.

  Rogers sang the note.

  Seb said, “Cool, bro. You can sing. I told Delmonico to send me anybody, but I think he likes to send singers.”

  Rogers said, “Singers got a little pussy in them.”

  Seb laughed. “They do, no doubt. So what do you think? You going to show up?”

  Rogers blinked several times fast. He said, “Yeah, definitely.”

  “Very cool. Now then, here’s your homework. Get to an internet connection and get on YouTube. Type in ‘The Parting Glass’ and listen to the Shaun Davey version. It’s the song at the end of that movie, Waking Ned Devine. Listen to that this afternoon. A bunch of times. And show up tonight. That’s what we’re going to start working on. ‘The Parting Glass’ is a great song for PTSD. A really pussy heart song.”

  They laughed. Seb glanced and saw Rogers’ face was working against tears. He said, “Bro, we cry like babies when we sing. That’s why we sing.”

  Rogers
said, “Okay.” His voice had thickened.

  At Fleming Ferry, Seb parked in the visitor lot. Four black SUVs were waved through the gate as Seb and Rogers approached. Something to do with the crash, no doubt. Rogers made an inconclusive gesture, spoke something inaudible. He started toward the base bus station.

  Seb said, “Bro, wait.”

  Rogers turned.

  Seb said, “We got to shake hands, man. Come a day, you will want to embrace me. For now, we shake hands.”

  Rogers offered his hand, and they shook. Rogers broke into a grin.

  Seb said, “Do your homework, Tom. ‘The Parting Glass,’ Shaun Davey version. Bring that tenor.”

  Body Bag Handles

  Bill McAllister said, “A Stinger’s missing. A launcher and three missiles. We got FBI, NSA, Homeland. Even got a squad of Secret Service. The White House has given us two days, then it goes public. As you can imagine, there is a fuckload of panic and a bunch of bossy-ass big shots.” He drove his 4x4 truck past the clusters of base office buildings and barracks and into the hurricane-ravaged scrubland of the coast. McAllister was NCIS, a captain. He was in his forties, thick-bodied, and had the puffy contours of a weightlifter that quits lifting but not eating. He was currently assigned to a federal task force and wore his undercover drug-snooping costume, a Stetson atop a scraggle of blond shoulder-length hair, jeans, and plaid sports coat over a white T-shirt. During the last months of his farewell hitch, when Seb was base MP, he and McAllister had busted an assortment of pop-up meth labs, civilian and Marine.

  McAllister said, “They flew two choppers out to the beach to shoot drone targets over the ocean. Ever get to do that? It’s a kick. So here comes the rain and the big wind, and they’re in a hurry to get back to base. The first chopper, Dash One, tries to hover and keeps getting blown off the LZ, and the ground guys can’t get the belly net secured. They got two M416 trailers, one for each net, with two missile systems in each one. So four launchers and a bunch of missiles. So they finally get a two-point hookup and lift off. A mile later, one of the holds releases. Some-fucking-how. The trailer drops into a creek. That’s mistake one. Mistake two is for some insane unbelievable reason, the pilot, who’s a major, and he flew in both theaters and is way experienced, has a brain fart and makes an unannounced midair turn. He just comes about. And Dash Two is right behind him. They got their hookup first try. So bang, damn near head-to-head. Probably because his hookup took forever he thinks they’re a mile behind. But also they’re flying instruments and using night vision—that was the exercise—so he didn’t have any peripheral. But still. An immense final brain fart. They didn’t even radio about the dropped load. We had to puzzle it out. Aviation is very dejected, as you might imagine. They lost six, and the Stinger battery lost fifteen. Plus two Super Stallions.”