Deepkill

by Michael Kilian

  “I’m going to teach you how to run this boat now,” Turko said to the Uzbek he considered the brighter. “It’s really very simple.”

  The man nodded again, then got up to take the controls from Turko.

  Westman came upon three Sun and Fun stores during his drive and stopped in each, showing clerks his badge and ID and then the facsimile of Bertolucci’s driver’s license photo. He got recognition from the manager of the third store, a young man barely out of his teens who needed a shave.

  “Yeah, I remember him. He spent a lot of time picking out clothes and sunglasses.”

  “What kind of clothes?”

  “Not cool.” He pointed to a rack with brightly patterned T-shirts.

  “Do you remember anything specific?”

  “No, sir. Just that he looked kinda like a dork, only he didn’t.”

  “He did or he didn’t?”

  “Like his clothes didn’t go with his face. He had a kinda mean face, like someone you wouldn’t want to mess with.”

  “Did he pay with a credit card?”

  “Don’t think so. No, with cash.”

  “Thank you.”

  No one at the liquor store nearest the murder scene here remembered Bertolucci or his purchase of two half-gallons of vodka. Westman left them a snitch card in case the suspect came by again.

  Lieutenant Dewey leaned back against the bulkhead on the Manteo’s bridge, leaving command to Lieutenant J.G. Kelleter as they made their way back down Delaware Bay from the Memorial Bridge.

  It had been a dull day. They’d picked a couple of incoming ships at random to board and inspect, finding nothing. Dewey seldom bothered with small pleasure craft as long as they were operating legally and obeying the new emergency regulations. But he’d stopped several of those as well, keeping in mind the stash of narcotics found aboard the salvaged motor-sailor—keeping in mind the dead face of the girl washed up on the beach south of Henlopen.

  There had been nothing amiss with any of the small craft, except for some excessive drinking aboard a cabin cruiser. The bos’n in charge of the boarding party had written out a citation, much to the crusier skipper’s annoyance.

  Now Dewey was tired, and interested mostly in getting back to port and his wife. As none of the craft he encountered on the homeward leg were exhibiting suspicious behavior, he left them unmolested.

  “That’s a funny place to be fishing,” Kelleter said. DeGroot came up beside him.

  Dewey looked up and then to where their attention was focused—noting a white pontoon boat with a green awning standing off the Jersey shoreline in deep water. The lieutenant moved to the port side of the bridge, raising his binoculars.

  “They have to stay clear of that power plant—a thousand yards,” said Dewey.

  “But they’re not going to catch any fish out there in the channel. They oughta head downstream and find a place to get close to shore where the rocks and fish holes are.”

  A burst of white water appeared at the stern of the pontoon boat.

  “He must have heard you,” said Dewey. He lowered the glasses and hung them back on their hook. “I wonder what Westman’s up to today.”

  Bear Gergen watched Railroad Bob shuffle along the wharf, thinking the black man was simply passing by on one of his mysterious missions. He was an old fellow who had been a longshoreman until a crane had dropped a crate on him. He had had a cheekbone bashed in and a leg broken so badly that, two decades later, he still walked with the limb dragging behind him, giving him something of a snail’s gait. Improbably, he earned his living—paid sometimes in money and sometimes in drink—running errands along the waterfront.

  He slept in the railroad yards—no one was ever sure where—and spent his days hanging around waterfront bars. It was there that he got his assignments and there where he spent his income.

  To Gergen’s surprise, Bob turned at the steps leading down to the dock where Gergen’s tug was moored, descending them sideways. He stopped at the stern, waiting, not wishing to come aboard.

  Shaking his head, Bear got up from his chair and went aft, pausing only to snatch up a can of beer for Bob. The man accepted it thankfully and thirstily, popping the top and gurgling down several big swallows before speaking.

  “What’s happenin’, Bob?”

  “You know Homer?”

  “Sure I know Homer.”

  “He wants to see you.”

  “Why did he send you? Why didn’t he come himself?”

  “He wants to see you where no one can see him seein’ you.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “You know that big Dumpster down the alley from his place, the one beside the railroad embankment?”

  “Yeah. I used to think you lived in that thing.”

  Railroad Bob had a bad eye with a lid that drooped over it. He had beer froth on his lip, which was bisected by a scar that continued down his chin. Gergen looked away.

  “Some nights I does,” said Bob. “Homer, he wants you to come talk with him behind that Dumpster.”

  “When?”

  “He’s waitin’ now.”

  Westman took a seat at a vacant desk in the police station squad room, spreading out the computer printout the sergeant had made for him and opening a road atlas beside it.

  He eliminated the thefts where the vehicle had not been recovered—usually a sign that the thieves were professional and that the cars had gone directly to chop shops. He also ignored those that bore signs of teens joyriding, including beer cans and the remains of marijuana joints.

  Cases in which the vehicle had been recovered in a reasonably clean and intact state he circled. He numbered them in chronological order. Transferring the information to the road map, he sat a long while pondering the pattern that had emerged, then reached for the phone.

  Agent Kelly answered his cell phone on the fourth ring, just before the message recorder would have kicked in.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s Westman. Are you still in Ocean City?”

  “No. I’m way the hell over in Cambridge, Maryland. Payne got a tip, but it didn’t pan out.”

  “Well, I am in Ocean City, at the police station, and I’ve got something better than a tip.”

  “A lead on Bertolucci?”

  “Of a sort. There’s been a jump in auto thefts in Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore. I’ve had a compilation made. When you eliminate the probable chop shop and youthful offender jobs, there’s a pattern. In several cases, the abandoned car was found near the location of a subsequent theft.”

  “What makes you think it was Bertolucci?”

  “Hunch mostly,” Westman said. “But there’s logic to it.”

  “Have they made a fingerprint match with the car we recovered from the OC murder scene?”

  “No. Maybe you guys can do that.”

  There was a pause. “I’ll need Payne’s okay. And, once again, I’d better not bring you into it.”

  “Don’t. I’ll have the Ocean City police call Payne and suggest it.”

  “Good idea.”

  “You may want to move your command center.”

  “Why?”

  “The most recent thefts were in Philadelphia and Wilmington.”

  “Delaware River.”

  “Right.”

  “Think they may be after the Memorial Bridge?”

  “It’s something to worry about.”

  Homer was using the privacy afforded by the Dumpster to relieve himself. Gergen waited for the bar owner to finish before approaching.

  “What do you want, Homer?”

  The other paused to zip up his pants, looked around the edge of the Dumpster to make certain they were alone, then turned to face Gergen.

  “I got a buyer for some C-4,” Homer said.

  “I know,” said Gergen. “I sent him to you.”

  “Why? You keep a shitload of that stuff.”

  “I don’t like that guy. He gives me the creeps. I don’t think he’s goi
ng to use it for some bank job. I want nothing to do with him.”

  “But I don’t know where else I can get it. Not as quick as he wants.”

  “Sorry,” said Gergen. “No, thanks.”

  “I’ll split my cut with you.”

  Gergen shook his head and turned to go.

  “Wait,” said Homer. “I got an idea.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He don’t need to know where I got it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me take it from you and tell him I got it from somebody else.”

  Gergen screwed up his face in thought. “How much are you asking?”

  “A few thousand.”

  “I want five thousand. More if you can get it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Just like that?”

  “I don’t like him either. I just want him to go away.”

  Gergen nodded. “All right. I’ll have Roy Creed drop off a package. Leave it in your alley. Five A.M. You put the money out back in the usual place.”

  “I won’t have the money until I give him the C-4.”

  Gergen thought again. “Yeah, okay. You get it to me as soon as he’s gone.”

  “Right.”

  “And let me know if he tells you what he’s going to do with it.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  Gergen was not about to shake hands with him. “Later.”

  Homer stopped him again. “The guy wants something else, Bear.”

  “And just what the fuck is that?”

  “Automatic weapons.”

  Gergen shook his head, and moved on. “See you around, Homer.”

  The sun was sinking into the thick yellow haze in the west, suffusing everything with a golden glow. They were at last heading home. Cat was at the helm, as she had been for most of the afternoon’s search. Burt sat hunched over the sonar screen, moving so little she feared he might have fallen asleep.

  They’d gone over the second grid as carefully as Cat could manage. She’d had to double back a few times because of the drift, but she was sure she’d covered a good square mile of water.

  The sonar had detected nothing—no lawn chairs, no row-boats, no anything. At the end of the last run, she’d idled the engine and they’d talked it over. There was little to be gained in trying to cover any more ground at that hour. They’d have to come back the next day no matter what. Burt had nodded glumly, giving Cat the feeling he wasn’t sure of that at all. As she shifted gear into forward again, she was all of a sudden gripped with the strange idea that they might not come back at all.

  Her calculations had been off. They must have been. So had his. Repeating their folly would gain them nothing. She was wasting his time and hers by encouraging him. She should get on to Iowa, FAA permitting, and be done with it.

  Steering the Roberta June out to sea a little, she took a bearing to the right of the Henlopen light to avoid Chicken Shoals. She held the speed slow, keeping down the wake.

  “What are you doing, Cat?” Burt said, lifting his head from his sonar screen.

  “Just keep your eyes glued to that thing until we’re past Deepkill,” she said. “No reason to waste this last pass over it.”

  She kept her own attention fixed dead ahead. There were a couple of fishing boats approaching from the north, heading down the shore to spend the night at work. A container ship, low in the water, was steaming in from the east, its forecastle turning yellow-gold as it made its slow turn toward the mouth of Delaware Bay.

  Cat wondered if Westman had called her house. She had meant to buy a new answering machine but had put it off to save money. They’d be back in time for dinner, if he was nearby. She restrained an impulse to push the throttle up to full speed.

  When they had passed the Deepkill shoal on the seaward side, she did just that, only to have Burt shout at her.

  “Cut the engines!”

  She did so instantly. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Then why …”

  “I think we’ve found it.”

  For a long moment, Cat did not and could not speak. His words had stunned her like a blow to the head.

  He had spoken them carefully, deliberately, without excitement, but with grave certainty.

  Yelling to Joe Whalleys to drop anchor, Cat went to look at Burt’s sonar. She leaned close to the screen, her neck hurting from the angle. The bright silhouette seemed just the right shape and dimension. Cat began to wish it didn’t.

  Returning to her chair, she gazed at him somberly. “What do you want to do?”

  “It’s late. We can probably get a good fix on this position and come back tomorrow.”

  “Did we get a reading on the magnetometer?”

  He checked the paper roll in the device. “Yes, ma’am. Nice sharp spike in the pattern.”

  Turning back to the steering console, she checked the depth finder. “Forty feet of water, Burt.”

  “Almost into Deepkill Slough.” He lighted a cigarette.

  Cat could sense Amy’s eyes upon her. “All right. Let’s take a look. If it seems promising, we’ll come back tomorrow for a longer visit.”

  “You sure?”

  “I want to get this done, Burt.”

  “We could get help. Maybe that Coast Guard friend of yours.”

  The sun was setting. “Let’s just do it.”

  Westman’s next contact with local law enforcement occurred on Highway 1 between Bethany and Rehoboth. He was driving well over the fifty-five-mile-an-hour limit when a Delaware state cop pulled him over just north of Savage’s Ditch Road. Summertime was when the otherwise tax-free state government refilled its coffers with traffic-citation revenue. With the bridge incident reducing the tourist flow so sharply, the highway cops were hungry for victims. Westman’s speeding would cost him time.

  He had his license, registration, and Coast Guard Investigative Service badge and ID card in hand by the time the trooper reached his open window.

  “You’re law enforcement?” the trooper asked, surprised.

  “Yes. I’ve been working with units from your department for several days now.”

  “Working on what?”

  “The Bay Bridge case. And the three homicides who turned up on the beach.”

  The trooper examined the identification card carefully. “Just wait in your car, please.”

  He went back to his own vehicle, calling the situation in. He soon returned, handing back the items.

  “You working those cases now?” the trooper asked, remaining by the window.

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t have emergency lights you can turn on?”

  Westman restrained his irritation. “That would kind of defeat the purpose. I have a dashboard light, but I reserve that for making actual arrests.”

  “Well, you know you’re setting a bad example here.”

  Westman took a deep breath. “Yes. Sorry.”

  “Okay. You’re free to go.”

  Pulling back into traffic, Westman watched the police cruiser cross the median strip and head back south. When the car was out of sight, Westman moved the Cherokee back up to sixty-five.

  He left Highway 1 at the Lewes turnoff. There were no vehicles in front of either Cat’s house or her neighbor Burt’s. Westman’s knock at her door went unanswered. He returned to his car, sat a long moment, then drove back to the highway, heading for Wilmington.

  In relating the exploits of his hero, undersea archaeologist Bob Ballard, Westman had told Cat about the shoes.

  Tannic acid made leather resistant to the sea life that consumed the bodies and bones and clothing of those who went to watery graves. As a consequence, the last surviving vestige of many a human fallen to the sea bottom was his or her shoes. Westman said they were numerous in the eerie debris field extending outward from the sunken Titanic—a pair here, a pair there; women’s shoes, children’s shoes, lying neatly together where their owners had come to their final rest.


  “That’s all that was left of them,” Westman said. “The shoes of the dead.”

  The image had haunted her ever since.

  She had it in mind as she slipped into the water off the Roberta June’s aft ladder, holding her legs close together. Cat carried three sources of illumination—her headlamp, a handheld light she had clipped to her belt, and a portable, battery-powered flood lamp she intended to set down off to the side to create a backlight and a sense of dimension.

  Reaching bottom, she moved quickly to place the flood lamp, then turned to orient herself.

  It was then she saw the pair of shoes, just in front of her. They looked to be hiking boots or workman’s shoes. One lay on its side. The other, curiously, was set as though its owner was standing in it. She shuddered to think what might have happened to him. The shoes were close together. They hadn’t just been dropped. They might have been there since World War II, when German submarines were sinking merchant vessels all up and down this coast.

  She shuddered. Perhaps the shoes’ owner had died unconscious, terribly injured. Perhaps he’d been already dead.

  Hundreds, even thousands, had perished in these waters over the centuries. The Dutch and British had fought a nasty little war here over possession of Lewes in the 18th century. If one believed in ghosts, one could imagine many of them down here.

  When she had gone diving in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, it was in warm, clean, impossibly clear water. Whether scuba diving or snorkeling, she’d always had the sensation of flying—more of one sometimes than she had behind the controls of an airplane.

  Not so now. This was like burrowing, crawling in darkness—as good as being underground, as being buried.

  Keeping to the sandy bottom, she slowly advanced, her eyes focused downward but seeing little, finding her way as much with her feet as with her eyes. It occurred to her she was adopting the ways of deep-sea creatures.

  She groped along for about fifty feet, as far as the line she was tied to would permit. Looking up, she could barely make out the shape of the Roberta June above her. The boat’s anchor chain, at the other end, was totally obscured.

  Turning back toward the slack of her lifeline, she moved along the bottom a little faster, again going to the length of the rope. Finding nothing, she wondered at her next course, then began making a slow circle, like a yard dog on its tether, keeping the line taut.