Storm Cell

by Brendan DuBois

  He said, “Please leave. Or you’ll end up seeing—firsthand—what kind of facilities we have back here.”

  “I’m sorry, do you have arrest powers?”

  “No,” he said, “but trust me, that’s not a problem. We can contact the sheriff’s department, the state police, or the Bretton police, depending on our mood.”

  “And how’s your mood?” I asked.

  “Rapidly turning sour.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

  In a minute, I was getting buzzed out, and I spared one more glance to the slumped shoulders of the women, holding their children close, talking to the men they couldn’t touch.

  I got home within a half hour, did nothing much of consequence, and then went to sleep, whereupon I was alone for about eight hours, just enough time to catch up on my sleep before somebody tried to kill me.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It started innocently enough. I got up when my body told me to—about eight A.M.—and after rolling out of bed, I took a long shower, where from habit, I checked my skin for any odd lumps or bumps. This was a long-ago souvenir from my time at the Department of Defense, where my intelligence section was on a classified training mission in the high desert in Nevada. Everyone, save me, was killed in an accident involving the release of a highly illegal biowarfare agent. Besides my battered but still standing home, and my previous job at Shoreline, one of the other outcomes of that dark day had been the constant threat that sometime in my future, the agent that killed my friends could turn up in my bloodstream and do the same to me.

  But this wasn’t going to be the day. My skin was smooth. No lumps. Everything seemed to check out.

  I dried off, went back to my bedroom, and got dressed in clean jeans and a flannel shirt, socks, and Top Siders. I headed to the top of the stairs and then decided to go into my office for a quick bit of info surfing before breakfast. The bookshelves in my office were up and mostly filled, and there was a metal desk and an Aeron-knockoff chair that was reasonably comfortable, along with my latest MacBook Pro and a large display terminal.

  The new windows in my new office overlooked my scraggly lawn and the rise of rocks and boulders that went up to Atlantic Avenue, and for a quick moment, things seemed to be slowly getting back to normal.

  I turned and there was a tinkle of glass being broken, and I was on the wooden floor before I knew it.

  I rolled over, looked up. There was a hole in the upper glass pane of the window, nice and round. I waited and then started crawling out of my office, keeping my head and my butt down. It didn’t take long, and I kept down until I was out of view of the office. In the bedroom my 9mm Beretta was in an upper drawer of a bureau, which was handy to grab most times, but not when there was a sniper outside.

  I waited. Tried to catch my breath. Relaxed.

  I crawled over to the bureau, and after some work wedging myself between the bureau and the wall, I managed to tip it over, where it made one hell of a large bang! It took some more work and I was able to get into the upper drawer and grab my pistol.

  I waited.

  What now?

  I was now armed, which meant if someone was to start charging into my front door, or trying to break into the rear deck, I could do something about it.

  But minutes had passed, with no follow-up shots. I slid across to the far wall and then drew the curtains, blocking the view inside.

  Okay now.

  I started taking stock of the situation when the phone rang, making me whirl around with pistol in hand.

  Damn. Maybe I was getting old.

  I went over to the nightstand, grabbed the phone, took a breath. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Cole? The writer?”

  I sat on the floor, back against my new bed. “That’s me.”

  “Mr. Cole, this is Brianna Moore. The daughter of Fletcher Moore. We met yesterday, at the courthouse?”

  “Yes, we certainly did,” I said. “And I apologize again for my intrusion. I hope your mother’s doing all right.”

  “She’s hanging in there,” Brianna said. “Look, if you’re not busy, would you mind meeting me somewhere? I’d like to talk to you.”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “What’s convenient for you?”

  “Anyplace will do.”

  “Great,” I said. “How about the Lafayette House?”

  “Sounds fine,” she said. “I’ll be there in a half hour.”

  I hung up the phone and saw something on the floor. I crawled over and saw a sliver of glass.

  I looked up.

  A hole in the window, one of those overlooking the ocean.

  Another shot, coming from the beach?

  Impossible. It would have to have been from a boat.

  Cross fire, then? A shooter on the rocks on the front side of the house, and another shooter on a boat, floating in the ocean on the other side?

  I put my finger through the hole.

  Impossible.

  I looked out the door and to the short hallway and—

  My office.

  With a matching hole in the window.

  I went back to my office, looked at the incoming hole, and then looked back at my bedroom.

  One shot, coming through my office window, and then going out my bedroom window.

  Pretty fair shooting.

  I retrieved my holster for my Beretta and went downstairs.

  Call the cops?

  Sure. And what evidence did I have? A hole in my office window, a hole in my bedroom window, and the spent slug somewhere out there submerged under the cold Atlantic waves.

  I decided to throw caution and intelligence to the wind and made the short walk up to the Lafayette House. It was a breezy morning and I spent a few minutes on my laughingly bare lawn and looked up at the slope of rocks and boulders.

  So how did it happen?

  The shooter had been up there, without a doubt. At the top of the slope the land leveled out for several feet and then met up with a sidewalk that stretched a couple of miles to the south and to the north.

  The gunman comes down the sidewalk, maybe carrying a long knapsack or something. He waits until nobody’s keeping an eye on him, and then he strolls over and descends down the rocks, until he’s in position.

  Opens the knapsack. Takes out a scoped rifle. Waits.

  The wind picked up some, chucking dirt and gravel against my feet and shins.

  And waits. Up there, an uncomfortable position. Exposed. No cover.

  Then he spots me going into my office. Fires. Sees me drop.

  What then? If he’s happy to see me drop and thinks he’s done his job, then he scrambles back up the rocks and goes on his way. But if he’s good, and patient, he waits. Then he sees movement in the bedroom, sees the bureau fall over, the curtains closed. Then he knows he’s failed, and that the cops might be rolling in soon, and so he leaves.

  That meant he was still out there.

  Probably waiting for a second chance to complete the job sometime down the road.

  I kicked at the rocks and started walking up the dirt driveway.

  The driveway went up to the Lafayette House parking lot, and I took a few minutes to stroll up the sidewalk across the street from the hotel, just to follow up with my after-action reconnaissance. A male jogger and then another male jogger went by, dressed in nice colorful spandex and both with white earbuds in their ears. It made me wonder what digital tunes or words were so compelling that they needed to drown out the sound of the crashing waves, the cry of the birds, and the whistling of the wind through the rocks.

  I passed by a NO LUCK WITH 13 sign, jammed into the dirt, and walked until I got a view of the very top of my house. I put my hands in my coat pockets. The wind picked up, and as always, there was the tremendous view of the Atlantic Ocean, rolling in and out. I stepped off the sidewalk, past the campaign sign.

  I could only go a few feet before I encountered the rock slope. Pretty rugged area to be, and somewhat exposed.

&n
bsp; Interesting.

  I went down one rock, to another, looking for anything that could have served as a sniper’s nest, found nothing.

  I turned around, almost slipped and fell on my butt, and then made it back up to level ground, and then started heading for my appointment.

  Interesting again. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that your goal is to kill one Lewis Cole. Disturbing, of course, but I’ll get beyond that just for now. How would you do it? A knock on the door, and as I answer it, a shotgun blast to my belly? Or wait for me at the top of my driveway, just as the surface goes from dirt to asphalt, and as I slow down, just walk up and start firing through the windshield?

  Or a sniper shot?

  Sounded like a scene from a thriller novel, and since I didn’t want to be part of a novel—thrilling or otherwise—I walked down to the Lafayette House and my meet-up.

  I met Brianna Moore just outside of the Lafayette House’s restaurant and lounge, which wasn’t doing much business this morning, which allowed us to get a fine table in an alcove that overlooked the lawn of the place and the rocks across the way, and once again, the top of my house. She was waiting at the host station and gave me a quick, shy smile. She was in her early twenties, it looked like, with short-styled blond hair and a tired smile.

  After we sat down, she said, “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”

  “One of the few advantages to working freelance.”

  We placed orders—coffee for the both of us, and a cinnamon roll for me, since breakfast at home had been so rudely interrupted—and when we were served, I said, “I apologize for interrupting you and your mom yesterday. I didn’t mean to cause you any more distress.”

  She gingerly sipped from her coffee. “No, that’s all right. You’ve got a job to do and we . . . well, it’s been grueling. Staying there, day after day, going through the testimony.”

  I started sawing off a piece of my roll with a knife and a fork, and I said, “Your older sister is a good advocate for your mom and dad.”

  “Hah,” Brianna said. “Too good of an advocate. I guess that’s what comes from going to law school. She’s there every day, bright and early, and she drags Mom along, even when she doesn’t want to go. ‘We have to be there for Dad,’ she says.”

  “You think your mom should stay home?”

  She didn’t say anything, just stared down at the white tablecloth. I ate a piece of my roll, not tasting a thing. “What can I do for you, Brianna?”

  “What?”

  “You asked to meet me,” I said. “Here we are. What can I do for you?”

  Brianna said, “You really going to write an article about my dad?”

  “I might,” I said, not wanting to lie to this young lady so early in the morning. “A lot depends on how the story goes, what I find out.”

  She nodded at that. “Okay. Could you do something for me?”

  “I’ll certainly try.”

  “When you write the article, will you write the truth about my dad?”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  She stared and said, “Please, don’t patronize me.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “When the article is written and if it’s accepted for publication, I’ll make sure there’s a description of your dad. Father of two daughters, selectman for Tyler, successful businessman, even the recipient of an award from the Chamber of Commerce. How does that sound?”

  Brianna looked at me like I had just started speaking in tongues. “Like I said, you’re patronizing me. You don’t know anything about my dad, anything at all. So how can you promise to write something accurately about him?”

  I took another tasteless bite of my breakfast. “I’m sorry, Brianna, I’m not following you. Could you tell me what you’d like to see in an article?”

  Her voice suddenly was laced with steel. “That he was a cheating, lying son of a bitch who treated his family like shit.”

  I had to take a sip of coffee after that.

  “My apologies again,” I said. “I had no idea.”

  “Most people didn’t,” she said. “He had lots of skills, including preparing a very careful and protective public image of who he claimed to be. Sort of what you just said.”

  “Which was wrong?”

  “God, yes,” she said. “Where do I begin? For one thing, he had other real estate interests in Maine and Massachusetts, mostly Massachusetts, that were always tied up with lawsuits and complaints. Not in New Hampshire, though, and especially not in Tyler. I heard him tell a friend of his that he wouldn’t do anything rotten here because, quote, you don’t shit where you eat, unquote. Charming, eh? Plus he was in debt past his eyeballs and up to the crown of his pointy head. By the time his will gets through probate and his debts are paid off, Mom will be lucky if she has enough to start over in an apartment.”

  “That’s . . . very surprising.”

  Another sip of coffee, though this time, the cup shook some. “Tell me about it. Oh, he put on this show of being wealthy, liked to tip a lot, buy lots of gifts at birthdays and Christmastime, but it was just a show. His office was forbidden territory, and once, a couple of years ago, I went in there, looking for a pen or something, and I found a couple of business envelopes stuffed with hundred-dollar bills.”

  “Did he catch you?”

  “Christ, no, thank God. I got the hell out of there. But another time, I woke up in the middle of the night, thought I smelled smoke. I went downstairs and there he was, in front of the fireplace, burning stuff. I saw some business statements, some other kind of ledger books. He was tearing up the pages and tossing them into the fireplace. He looked at me and that look . . . scared the shit out of me. I went to go back upstairs and he motioned me to come over. I was so scared, and I could see from his eyes that he’d been drinking. He looked to me and said, ‘You go back to bed, and you never, ever tell anyone what you saw. Got it?’ I got it, all right.”

  I let her talk on. When a young lady like this wants to talk, you let her talk. Questions or comments just get in the way. She took a breath and said, “But that wasn’t the worst of things. The worst was when Justine or I would bring our friends by, and Dad would always make it a point of grabbing them for a hug, or try to kiss them on the lips. And when we spent days at the beach, let’s just say his staring at our friends and their bathing suits got real, real creepy.”

  She paused. I gave her a few more seconds. “Your mom?”

  “Kimberly Trace Moore? Poor dear. You’ve heard of blind eye? Mom had a blind eye, nose, and sense of taste. Dad nailed anything he could get his hands on. Maybe that’s why he was so popular with the Chamber of Commerce. Most of the folks there are men.”

  I said, “One of the things I’ve checked into was the apartment where he was shot. The tenants said sometimes they heard a couple up there being . . . active. Any chance that’s where your dad met up with his lady friends?”

  “Sounds right to me,” she said. “Last year I was up in Porter, going to a party, and Dad was supposed to be in Portland for some real estate conference. I swear I saw him and his Town Car going past. By the time I turned around and followed him, I had lost him in traffic. But yeah, I could see that.”

  “This whole casino vote coming up next week,” I said. “Yesterday you said the opponents weren’t violent, that they wouldn’t have done anything to hurt your father, no matter how angry they were at the thought of casinos being allowed in Tyler Beach. But what do you think?”

  “Me?” She ran a finger across the rim of the coffee cup. “I think Dad had a business interest in what was going to happen, but one he kept quite hidden. He sure as hell wasn’t putting his name out there, backing gambling, unless he got something in return, and an increased tax base doesn’t cut it.”

  “Do you think you could find out more about what he might have been up to?”

  “Maybe,” she said, and she leaned forward. “I mean, with him gone, his office isn’t forbidden territory anymore. But tell me this. In this
article, can you nail him? I mean really, really nail him?”

  I looked into those strong and angry eyes and said, “Excuse me for saying this, but you’re not acting the part of the grieving daughter. Why the anger?”

  She sat back. “It’s personal.”

  “Oh.”

  “Can we leave it at that?”

  “Sure,” I said. “But one more question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Do you think Felix Tinios murdered your father?”

  A long pause that kindled something inside of me, perhaps a hope for a statement from her that would lead to something I could possibly use, but she shrugged and said, “Beats the hell out of me. But the way Dad operated, by the women he screwed, the business deals that went into the toilet, the people he backstabbed along his way, I know that if that guy Tinios hadn’t done it, somebody else surely would have.”

  After paying the check and with a promise that she’d contact me if she found out anything else, I decided to do my civic duty—all right, part of my civic duty—and head up to the town hall to check out the ballot for next week’s election. Like lots of communities in New Hampshire, Tyler is governed by a modified town meeting system of government. The regular affairs are run by a five-member board of selectmen, who oversee a town manager who deals with the gritty, hands-on, daily challenges of governance. But once a year, the registered voters have a voice in what they want the town to do, by voting on what are called warrant articles. Sometimes they are hellishly complex—as when the town is seeking approval to spend a large sum of money to expand sewage piping in one part of Tyler—or they can be extraordinarily simple, such as asking the town to spend five hundred dollars for a countywide environmental program.

  And the citizen-participation part is that anyone can put a warrant on the article. All you need is a pen, paper, and twenty registered voters who agree with you, and that’s it. It’s put on the list of articles along with others and gets voted on. Back in the day, a town meeting would take place in the town hall Tuesday night, or on a Saturday afternoon, with people standing up to speak their piece and rally their neighbors to vote yay or nay on something. But in this more complex world, it’s now done by ballot.