Black Tide

by Brendan DuBois

  Then I spun a tale.

  For such a short amount of time, I was rather proud of this particular tale. I explained that I was a columnist for Shoreline magazine, and that I needed to speak to a public affairs officer. When this gentleman came on the phone, I said I was exploring some story ideas that I would later pitch to my editor (avoiding the sort of trap that Justin Dix had earlier laid for me) and could I talk to him for a few minutes? Being a polite flack, he agreed. I said that I was thinking of doing a story about a Boston police detective, one Cal Maloney, who had died so suddenly and tragically about five years ago in a traffic accident in Newburyport, Massachusetts. The story I had in mind was a retrospective of this fine officer's life, and a look at what he might have done and accomplished if he had lived. The family he might have loved, the cases he might have cracked and the other officers and detectives he might have worked with.

  When this spiel was over, I asked a few questions and there was a very long pause on the other end of the phone line. I think the public affairs officer thought I was loony, but after a moment or two he said, "I'll give it a shot. What's your phone number?"

  I told him and hung up and prepared to wait.

  And wait.

  I sat back in my chair. I sat forward in my chair. I got up and looked through the windows of my office, to the ocean and to the Samson State Wildlife Preserve to the north. Then I went around to my bookcases. I cocked my head, looked at the spines and tried to recall the plot of every book that was in the case. I wondered if I should at long last alphabetize my books by author, then I tried to decide if the bookshelves should be segregated by hardcover and paperback. And if I did that, should I subdivide it even further, into category and genre?

  And what about my magazines?

  I looked at a tiny clock on another bookshelf. About five minutes had passed.

  When the phone finally rang the morning was almost over, and I was busy scrubbing the tub in the bathroom adjacent to my office. I rubbed my hands briefly on an already soiled towel, and then I got into my office and answered the phone by the fourth ring at least.

  "Yes?"

  "Mr. Cole? Officer Wimmer, Boston police department. I have that information you were looking for."

  Hang up the phone, a perverse voice inside me said. Hang up. You don't want to know.

  But I did want to know. I uncapped a pen and found a piece of scrap paper on the mess that was my desk.

  "Go ahead," I said, and he gave me some stuff over the next few minutes about Cal Maloney's life and his family and where he went to school and how long he had been with the Boston police department. Then the good officer paused.

  "Well, one more thing," he said, and I could make out the sound of shuffling papers. "It took some digging but the man you're looking for is no longer with the Boston police department."

  "He isn't?" I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.

  "Nope," Officer Wimmer said. "Cal Maloney's partner at the time of his death is now with the Massachusetts State Police."

  "Un-hunh," and that was about the only intelligent thing I could say at the time. I was too busy praying that New England Telephone's long-distance service wouldn't pick that moment to have a system failure.

  It didn't. Officer Wimmer's voice was clear and punctual.

  "His name is Roger Krohn."

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Time is a marvelous thing. While I was waiting for Officer Wimmer to call back that morning, the red numerals on my clocks seemed to move with the speed of year-old motor oil. But when I was finished talking to him, I sat in my office, motionless, my hands behind my head, and from the way the sunlight was moving across the bookshelves, the polished hardwood floor and the white plaster walls in my office, I knew that time was going by quickly.

  I looked over at the digital clock. Almost a couple of hours. I forgot what I had been thinking about in those one hundred or so minutes. I believe I was in shock.

  Roger Krohn. I let those two words race around in my skull for a bit, and I refused to think any further. A lot of questions were screaming for attention, but I let them be for a while. I finally stirred myself and made two more phone calls, and neither Diane Woods nor Felix Tinios was answering. I got up and left.

  At Diane's condominium unit on Tyler Harbor, the two parking spaces in front of her town house were empty, but I knocked on the door anyway. No answer. A woman at the next unit, with short blond hair and wearing a white T-shirt and black tights, looked up at me. She was gently moving a baby carriage back and forth as she sat on the front doorstep to her unit. She wore only one earring.

  "You looking for Diane?" she said, her voice a bit nasal. I knew her as a neighbor of Diane's, but I didn't know her name.

  "Yes, I am. Do you know where she is?"

  The baby carriage went back and forth twice and the infant inside gurgled. Diane's neighbor smiled. "She told me this morning that she was going to take a day off and drive south for a while, just get her head untangled. She even left her pager behind, she told me."

  South. Massachusetts and Kara Miles and who knows where the two of them might go on this calm and sunny and marvelous day in August. The woman said something as I was thinking and I said, "Excuse me?"

  She laughed. "I said, are you thirsty? I can get you a drink --- iced tea or lemonade, or something stronger if you're in the mood."

  Some mood. I gave her my best smile, not wanting to scare her. "Sorry. Maybe another time."

  Diane's neighbor smiled back. "I'll still be here."

  Normally --- which around here usually means off-season --- the trip from Tyler Harbor to Rosemount Lane in North Tyler would take only about fifteen minutes, but today it took twice that, because of the long lines of cars filled with impatient vacationers who were determined to squeeze out the last minutes and seconds of this summer.

  I didn't expect to find Felix at home but I still felt a pang of disappointment when I saw the empty gravel driveway. This disappointment was also coupled with a terrible urgency to tell someone, anyone, about what I had found out about Roger Krohn. Oh, I probably could have gone to the Tyler police department and made a nuisance of myself, but I didn't have any proof, any evidence that linked Roger Krohn to what had been going on with me and Felix and Craig Dummer and the others over the past couple of weeks.

  No, I had no evidence, but I did have a strong conviction in my gut that I was right.

  Something was wrong. Sure. Just because Corelli had two cops in his pocket didn't mean that they were partners. Or that other cops weren't in his stable.

  "Damn it, Felix, where are you hiding?" I asked, but no one was there to hear me.

  I started up the Rover and left, feeling as if I was losing a race and I didn't know when it had started or how it would finish.

  It was near dinnertime when I got home. There was a blinking green light on my answering machine. When I listened to the message, I had to sit down on the couch.

  It was Felix, and the message was: "Lewis? You know who this is." There was a pause. "The exchange is on for eight o'clock tonight. Meet me at the Congregational church parking lot in York. Get there at seven and we'll go from there." Another pause. "Thanks." Then the click-click of the phone hanging up and there were no more messages.

  I got up from the couch and replayed the message three times. Felix was telling me two things on the tape.

  Where to meet him was the first thing.

  And the second was something that scared me very much: for the first time ever, I listened to what sounded like fear in Felix's voice. Something was very wrong.

  I looked at the time. About fifteen minutes away from six o'clock. I sat back on the couch and rested my head in my hands. I had this awful urge to unplug the phone and lock the doors and start working on the two six-packs of Molson that rested, cool and comfortable, in the rear of my refrigerator. The morning would come and things would be different, and I wouldn't have to do a damn thing. Just stay in this comfortable house and
get drunk, as I had been doing almost every other day earlier in the summer after I had come home from the hospital. I was almost nostalgic with the memory of how I had been only a couple of short weeks ago, when I sat on the warm deck and drank all day long, reading old books and not worrying about anything, save for my thoughts about Paula Quinn and that nagging guilt that came from not completing a column for Shoreline. That period two weeks ago seemed as simple and childlike as a birthday party when I was six years old, and I longed again for that comparative peace.

  It was not fair, not fair at all. I looked back at the clock. Another five minutes had passed. The refrigerator was in the adjacent kitchen, looking white and clean and so available. I got up and started walking past the kitchen and headed upstairs. In my bedroom I went to an oak bureau, opened the top drawer and rummaged behind the socks and underwear. I took out a flat metal box. Inside was my 9 mm Beretta automatic, loaded, with two spare magazines.

  From one of the bedroom closets I took out a lightweight blue warm-up jacket, along with a shoulder holster. I also went to the closet and from a bright red knapsack I took out a small pair of Nikon binoculars. Back downstairs, I looked longingly at the phone, and then made one more call to Diane Woods's home. No answer. I had to force myself to hang up after fifteen rings. There was no rescue party out there, no U.S. Cavalry, nothing save for me and what I had. I almost felt sorry for Felix, having to depend on me for whatever was about to happen, but I didn't have the time. The clock said I was behind schedule.

  I turned on the answering machine, and as I left, I tried not to look behind at my home. I didn't think I could stand it.

  When I crossed over to Maine I pulled to the side of the road and checked my atlas for southern York County, where the town of York is located. In addition to the fear in Felix's voice, I also noticed something else that didn't make sense. The last time we'd visited York, we had parked in the Catholic church parking lot. It was a place we had been before, and I didn't think Felix would have wasted time sending me to someplace new. He wanted me to go the Congregational church lot, and in looking at the map, I saw that it was bordered on one side by a cemetery. A couple of side streets would get me to the other side of the cemetery, and that's all I needed. I put the atlas down and resumed driving. I refused to think any further about what was going to happen in the next hour or so.

  When I got to York and was on a street called Barrows Lane, next to the cemetery, I found a parking place with no difficulty. I got out of the Rover, slipped the binoculars into my jacket, and went through an open gate into the cemetery. There was a black wrought-iron fence around the quiet plots and I remembered that stupid joke about fences and graveyards as I walked in. The land sloped up a gentle hill and through a grove of maples. I could make out the white spire of the Congregational church on the other side of the hill.

  There were gravel paths for cars (or hearses, of course, although funeral directors --- who could double as Pentagon spokesmen ---always referred to them as coaches), but I stayed on the grass, working my way past the stones and markers as I went up the slight grade. The grass was well maintained, and at many of the graves tiny American flags were flying. Veterans, from the Civil War to the Persian Gulf and whatever new fights we got into, resting at last in this rocky Maine soil.

  At this moment, I was sure that they had more comfort than I did.

  When I crested the hill I felt slightly foolish as I hunkered down and worked my way down the opposite slope, hiding myself from view. The walk was an awkward one, made so by the growing feeling that I was getting myself into something awful and bloody, and also by the weight of the pistol in my shoulder holster. Unless you're a cop or a fool, carrying a weapon always changes the way you walk.

  There were more trees and some bushes at the far fence, and I made out the blacktop of the church's parking lot. I took it slow then, thankful that there were no visitors or mourners in the graveyard at this hour. The clock was striking seven by the time I squeezed myself between a large headstone that said "Hanratty" and a bush that looked like it was holly. I sat on a mossy section of grass and took the binoculars out of my jacket. There was a light gray Lumina with New Hampshire plates in the parking lot, and when I brought my miniature binoculars up to my face, I saw that there was only one person in the car: Felix Tinios.

  Next came that white-hot flush of embarrassment when you wonder just what in hell you've gotten yourself into, and which is best described as that feeling you get when you arrive in a clown's dress at a black-tie event, convinced that you were heading to a costume party. Felix was there, waiting for me, while I played Boy Scout in the woods. It seemed I was in the process of screwing up the exchange through my paranoia. From a nearby yard there came the sound of a young boy yelling at someone who seemed to be his sister. I thought it was time to get up and end this ridiculous wait, when I caught myself and brought up the binoculars again.

  Something was wrong. I studied his face. Perhaps it was the way he was parked or maybe it was the lengthening shadows from the church spire and the nearby trees, but something was wrong with Felix's face. Parts of it looked dark. As though he had forgotten to shave, or had charcoal smeared on his skin, or he had gotten dirty.

  Or he had been beaten.

  The binoculars trembled in my hands, and I wished I had brought a stronger pair. I moved forward a bit, scraping myself in the holly, and adjusted the focus again. Felix was in the driver's seat of the car and there was definitely something wrong with his face. There were at least two dark patches, and his lips looked puffy. Both hands were on the steering wheel, and he looked uncomfortable, as if he were waiting for a dentist to arrive to give him a root canal in the front seat. His usually perfect moussed and styled hair was a mess, and there was a flickering about his eyelids that bothered me.

  "Damn, damn, damn," I whispered as I brought the binoculars down and wiped my hands, and then brought the binoculars up again. On the other side of the parking lot I could make out the traffic easing by on Route 1A. It seemed so strange to see that ordinary traffic going by, to listen to the shouts of children in backyards only a short walk away, knowing that a few feet in front of me something horrible seemed to be happening to Felix Tinios.

  I kept watch. Felix moved in his seat, and then something happened that was so odd that I raised and lowered the binoculars twice, just to make sure I wasn't seeing things.

  Felix's lips were moving, as if he was talking to himself.

  Was he going crazy? Cracking under some strain? I looked again, and then I could look no longer.

  I knew what was happening, and I knew I was powerless to do anything.

  Felix wasn't alone in the car, and he was talking to his tormentor.

  The wait went on for at least a half hour, and in those thirty minutes I ran through plans and scenarios in my mind, trying to think of someway to get Felix out of that Lumina. Leaving to get the police was the one that came quickly to mind, but there was a good chance that while I was gone, Felix and whoever was holding him captive would leave. I was tempted to walk out of the graveyard and come at the Lumina from the rear, to surprise whoever was in the car with Felix, but that assumed that the parking lot wasn't being watched by someone else. I wasn't ready to make that assumption.

  And while I was working on a scheme to get into my Range Rover and drive into the Lumina in a kamikaze-type crash --- something as unexpected and crazy as that just might work --- the decision was made for me. Felix seemed to shrug and bow his head. He started the car engine, and the Lumina left. I ran all the way back up the hill of the graveyard, wondering with fear if there were any open graves along the way.

  There was only one logical place to go, and it took me only a few minutes to get there. I parked the Rover on a side street away from Landing Lane and did the same cross-country trek that I had done some weeks before with Felix, and when I got to the safe house, sweaty and itchy from having moved through the brambles and brush, I sat down with an "oof" and wondered what
I would do next.

  The driveway was empty, and no lights were on at the house.

  Jesus. So where did they go? I sat against a pine tree and started gnawing at a thumbnail, and then shifted my seat, as the Beretta dug into my side. Where would Felix have gone, with someone in the backseat holding a gun to his head? Back to New Hampshire? To Tyler Beach and my house, to see why I didn't show up? Or a deserted potato field deeper into Maine, where Felix was now lying in the mud, bleeding to death.

  It didn't make sense. Movies and television programs love to show segments of people being forced to drive for long distances, but it's not that easy. You've got to concentrate. You've got to keep a steady hand on your weapon. And you've got to make sure the driver doesn't do something to draw police attention, like speeding or even going too slow. Forced drives are usually short drives.

  Damn it, they couldn't have gone far. It didn't make sense.

  The sound of a car engine. I looked up. For once, sense had a tiny little victory.

  The Lumina pulled into the driveway.

  I was close enough so that I didn't need binoculars, and I was glad. Even from among the trees and brush, I was horrified at Felix's condition and what had happened to him. He got out of the car, Roger moving quickly beside him. His face was drawn and he walked with a shuffling gait. I didn't want --- or need --- to see that expression close up through the binoculars.

  Roger walked right with him, smiling, holding a pistol against Felix's neck, all the way into the house. My throat was aching from everything I saw, and as the two of them went into the house and the door was shut, I quickly got angry with myself.