Nameless

by Joe Conlan

  Deborah was sure that Leland was responsible for some bad press directed toward Daniel when he was up for the Assistant Special Agent in Charge promotion. Daniel and Leland were working together on a task force to eradicate gang activity in South Florida’s tri-county area. After the arrest by the task force of a major leader of the Latin Kings, an article was printed in the Miami Herald by their senior journalist in the crimes division, Clifton Harris. Just before the story was released, Deborah went to Leland’s home to return a book she had borrowed from his wife. As she pulled onto the cul de sac where the Lelands resided, she passed a silver Cherokee Jeep Wrangler. Having met Clifton Harris on several previous occasions, she could have sworn it was him driving the Jeep. At the time, she didn’t really think twice about it. But, when the article came out several days later, she became very suspicious. It alleged that Daniel had been receiving protection money for years from the Hispanic gang. Direct quotes from the Latin Kings leader implicated Daniel in taking bribes in return for turning a blind eye to the gang’s lucrative drug trafficking operations.

  Deborah immediately notified Daniel of her suspicions. She even researched the type of vehicle Harris drove and had a match. Two days later, the gang leader was stabbed to death by a rival gang member inside the Dade County Jail. Since Daniel denied all allegations of wrongdoing and the gang leader was no longer around to verify his claims, the story fizzled out. A renowned and decorated federal agent’s word against that of a deceased life-long criminal with a ten-page rap sheet wasn’t much of a contest. Eventually, the Herald agreed to retract their support for the story. It didn’t, however, quell Deborah’s distrust for Leland. Though Daniel listened to what she had to say, he didn’t seem to heed her advice when he made Leland his right hand man and supervisor overseeing the criminal division. Deborah hoped Daniel was just following the old adage, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” Now that Daniel was Special Agent in Charge, Leland would have to rely on Daniel even more to further his agenda.

  “We’ve been discussing who’s going to take my place as Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the criminal division and Leland is on the short list.”

  “You sure that’s a good idea, Daniel? You know I just don’t trust the man.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. One thing you can’t take away from Robert is that he’s an excellent detective and a hard worker. I’ve pretty much decided the position’s his. I know how you feel about him. And I’m not saying you’re not right. Don’t worry. I’ll be keeping a close eye on him.”

  “I’ll just have to trust you know what you’re doing,” said Deborah rolling her eyes.

  Daniel took a glance at his watch, disappointed the visit didn’t go as well as expected. If he had thought about it for a minute, he probably could have predicted Deborah’s response. A more involved conversation about his career was going to be necessary, but now wasn’t the time. “Shit, it’s getting late. I gotta get back to the office,” he said.

  “Ok. Congratulations again, sweetie. I really am proud of you.”

  “Thanks, honey. I know you are. I’ll see you around eight.” Daniel kissed his wife, they exchanged I love yous, and he was out the door.

  A minute after Daniel’s departure, Deborah regretted the way she had behaved. He had been very clear from day one of their relationship about his dream to be an FBI leader. She was aware his career goals would require hard work and long hours at the office when she decided to marry him. Complaining would get her nowhere except maybe in divorce court. Her attitude about his job just wasn’t fair. She dropped the screwdriver onto the bed and grabbed her cell phone from her pocket. In the middle of dialing his number to apologize, she pushed the end button. Rather than use words to express her regret, she would show him tonight by fixing his favorite meal and serving it by candlelight. Her regret was flowing full force now and she was well aware of the reason for it. She had spent years in therapy in search of resolution.

  Throughout Deborah's childhood, she was plagued with weight problems. That combined with her well above average height made for a painfully shy pre-adolescence. Her poor self-image was magnified by amblyopia or lazy eye, which required that she wear glasses with Coke bottle lenses. She was an only child and had no real friends except for those naturally bestowed upon her such as her cousins on her mother’s side of the family and the girl who lived across the street, Ally Schnyder. Deborah’s and Ally’s mothers were best friends and spent a good part of the day together. Ally was more like a family member than a friend or neighbor. During elementary school and most of middle school, though the two girls made somewhat of an odd couple, they were inseparable.

  Deborah was the smart, fat girl while Ally was beautiful, athletic and popular. Fortunately for Deborah, it only took puberty to resolve her appearance issues. In the summer between eighth and ninth grade, she shed every ounce of baby fat, went from a training bra to a C cup and traded in her glasses for contact lenses. It seemed like overnight their roles had reversed. While Deborah blossomed from an ugly duckling to a beautiful swan, Ally began to put on weight and become withdrawn.

  Initially, the newly discovered popularity had no effect on their relationship. For a while, the girls continued to spend most of their free time together, though Deborah noticed a distinct change in Ally’s personality. Eventually, Ally started making excuses any time Deborah invited her over to the house to hang out. Confused and hurt, Deborah set out to find out what was up. Her efforts to pump mutual friends at their school for information resulted in a discovery that Deborah would have never imagined. Ally was seeing a boy who was a notorious drug addict. Even worse, she had become sexually active and was experimenting with drugs. When Deborah confronted Ally with the rumor, Ally admitted that not only was she using valium, she and her boyfriend were drinking alcohol on a daily basis. Deborah pleaded with her to end her relationship and to stop taking drugs but her appeal fell on deaf ears. The only thing Deborah could think to do, at that point, was to cut off all ties. It wasn’t an easy decision, but she hoped it would bring Ally to her senses. She gave Ally a choice between her friendship or the boy and the drugs. Deborah came out on the losing end in a way she could never have anticipated or imagined. She could remember the night Ally died like it was yesterday.

  Deborah had just received her final ninth grade report card. Not surprisingly, she had received straight A’s and like always, her mom and dad, Kate and Jack Tyler, were thrilled.

  “You take after your mom,” said Kate, the same comment Deborah had been hearing for years every time she came home with a great report card. “You get to pick any restaurant for dinner tonight. Money’s no object,” she continued, the reward being another typical tradition in the Tyler household.

  “I want pizza.”

  “Big surprise,” quipped Kate. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. It was pizza just about every six weeks. “What’s with the frown?”

  “This’ll be the first report card celebration without Ally.”

  “I’m sorry, honey. You did the right thing. You’re being a good friend. She’ll eventually come around.”

  “I hope. I’m really worried about her. You know, yesterday I decided to check out that creep she’s seeing. I looked him up on the computer. He’s been arrested six times for drug charges. A lot of them are still pending, but he has three convictions. I think he’s spent time in jail.”

  “He’s a dirt bag. I don’t know what her parents are thinking. I’d keep her locked up in her room for a year.”

  “Right Mom. That would work.”

  “You know what I mean. They need to do something drastic and soon, yesterday, in fact.”

  “I just wish there was something I could do.”

  “It’s not up to you, honey. That’s her parents’ job. So, wipe that frown off your face. She’ll be alright. You’ll see. Next week you guys’ll be best of friends again. Now, go get your father. It’s time for a celebration.”

  Deborah tried her best
to put Ally out of her mind for the evening without great success. Telling her closest friend she couldn’t hang out with her anymore hurt Deborah just as much or more than Ally. It had only been a few days since the conversation. The wound was too recent. All Deborah could manage was one slice of pepperoni pizza from her favorite Italian restaurant in all of Baltimore. On the way home, Kate continued her attempts to cheer her daughter up. It was starting to annoy Deborah rather than improve the situation.

  “Mom, enough. I’ll be okay. It’s just all new. Going out without her tonight didn’t help.”

  “Alright, sweetie. I was just sayin. You can’t let someone else’s problems take away from your accomplishments. But, I’ll shut up now...What are those lights up there, Jack?”

  The Tylers lived on a street that was more than a half a mile long. They had just turned onto their road when Kate noticed the flashing lights of police cars and what looked to be an ambulance.

  “Something’s goin on,” replied Jack. “It looks like it could be near our house, across the street maybe.”

  Deborah instantly perked up in the back seat. She leaned toward the middle to be able to see through the front windshield. “That looks like Ally’s house,” she said.

  The closer they got the more obvious it became that the emergency vehicles were at the Schnyder home. When they pulled up along the curb beside their house, they saw Mr. Schnyder sitting on the sidewalk holding his head in his hands. Mrs. Schnyder was in her driveway in hysterics and being held back by a police officer and two EMTs. Jack didn’t bother to park the car in the driveway. As soon as he stopped beside the curb, Kate jumped out and ran over to her friend, Terry Schnyder.

  “Terry, My God. What’s going on?” Kate almost shouted in her excited state.

  “Ally’s dead,” Terry screamed.

  By that time, Deborah was at the foot of the Schnyders’ driveway. For several seconds, her mind rejected what her ears had heard. “What?” she shrieked. “What? No, no way. Where is she?”

  Terry Schnyder reverted to crazed, incomprehensible muttering. Deborah calmly approached Ally’s dad, a man whom she considered a second father. “Mr. Schnyder, what’s going on? Where’s Ally?”

  Mr. Schnyder, without looking up, responded in an even tone seemingly barren of any emotion. “It’s true, Deborah. She’s dead. It was an overdose. She took a whole bottle of pain pills. She didn’t go to school today. She was home alone all day. They said she’s been dead since early this afternoon.”

  Deborah collapsed to the ground next to Ally’s dad. The tears began to flow freely. After several minutes, she put her arms around Mr. Schnyder and tried to hold him. Uncharacteristically, he pushed her away.

  Deborah would find out just several hours later why her best friend took her own life. Unable to sleep as it approached midnight, she couldn’t help obsessing over the potential reasons. Earlier in the evening, a Baltimore Police Department detective had paid the Tyler’s a visit. It quickly became clear he was looking for a suicide note. Deborah had told him she hadn’t received any correspondence from Ally. Now, as she lie awake, slumber a laughable objective, an idea occurred to her. She jumped out of her bed, carefully made her way through the pitch black house toward the front door and opened it. Just to the right of the door attached at shoulder level to the house’s façade was the family mailbox, the vessel of many a clandestine communication between the best friends. She reached inside with her right hand and extracted an envelope with her name written in Ally’s unmistakable cursive. Deborah switched on the porch light and read. By the time she finished, violent sobs ravaged her body. She vomited half-digested pizza onto the greeting mat.

  The letter explained that Ally was being molested by her father since she was eleven years old. She saw death as her only path to freedom. Deborah felt like her heart couldn’t hurt anymore without bursting to bits when she read Ally’s apology for destroying their friendship. Her words couldn’t be more untrue. Deborah was convinced she was the cause of it all. The signs were there as plain as the nose on her face. Afterwards, she withdrew into an impenetrable cocoon. For weeks, it was all her parents could do just to get her to come out of her bedroom.

  Much later, through therapy, Deborah learned that the tragedy had destroyed her ability to trust the opposite sex. The realization that Mr. Schnyder, a man she truly loved, could commit such a horrendous act, blasted at the very foundation of her belief system. Many boys were interested in her over her four years of high school. The few she decided to date never lasted more than a few days. Any attempt at physical contact, even a simple kiss, and the relationship was doomed.

  If Ally’s death wasn’t enough to plant a seed of distrust in men, the revelation of her father’s extra-marital affair in Deborah’s senior year in high school certainly sealed the deal. Prior to Jack Tyler’s indiscretion, the man could do no wrong in his daughter’s eyes. Her mother was able to forgive him long before Deborah finally put it behind her and then only with the assistance of her therapist. If there was one thing she should have learned from her sessions with her counselor, it was the injustice of punishing the men in her life for the transgressions of men in her past.

  Deborah decided that tonight she would do whatever she could to make up for her lack of excitement about Daniel’s announcement. As she picked up her tools to continue her repairs of the ceiling fan, she thought about how her mom always said the best way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. She knew just what she was going to cook up later and it was going to involve much more than just a meal.

  Chapter 3

  In the final quarter of 2003, King Cruise Line had become the largest and most profitable cruise company on the planet and the parent company of six major cruise lines. Its fleet of over seventy luxury ships sailed all five oceans and visited the seven continents of the world. Its net worth was the sum of the gross national product of several medium-sized countries. It employed over one hundred thousand people from more than seventy-five nations. Over the last decade and a half, the cruise line industry and King Cruise Line, in particular, had become a powerful international political force.

  Their corporate headquarters were located in the 110 Tower in downtown Ft. Lauderdale, where they occupied three floors. Annie Bryan was fighting traffic on Broward Blvd. as she headed to work at King. She used the rearview mirror to refresh her lipstick while stopped at a red light that had already gone through its cycle three times. She fumbled in her purse for her cell phone so she could warn her secretary, Rachel Bloom, she was going to be late, and took advantage of the delay to collect her thoughts about the Anderson case. She was hoping to once and for all convince Special Agent Robert Leland to close the file and classify the incident as a tragic accident.

  Though Annie’s official title with King Cruise Line was Director of Security and Press Liaison, her functions were many. Besides being the filter for any information released to the media, she was responsible for all communications and operations with the United States and foreign governments. She was the Vice President of security and the liaison between the cruise line and all policing agencies around the world. She was the undisputed best at her profession.

  The Anderson file had become a thorn in her side. Most, if not the great majority of the public was unaware that deaths occurred on cruise ships on a fairly frequent basis. This could be attributed in great part to Annie’s excellence at her job. On the average, there were ten-to-twelve deaths a month on King Cruise Line’s ships. Before every cruise, a calculation was made regarding how many body bags were to be stored in the medical department. The number varied depending on the length of the cruise and the average age of the passengers. Many of the fatalities were attributable to natural causes. On the other hand, too many, in Annie’s opinion, were of a suspicious nature. The great majority of the dubious kind was the result of losing passengers overboard. Most of those cases were deemed either suicides or accidents. On rare occasions, a death on a cruise ship was ruled a homicide. The An
derson incident was unfortunately for Annie and her company, not so easy to call.

  Paul and Alyssa Anderson were married in Hicksville, Long Island the week after New York was struck by its worst blizzard in twenty years. Their timing couldn’t have been better to temporarily escape the miserable Northeast winter. For their honeymoon, they had chosen a ten-day Caribbean cruise on the King Diamond. Upon boarding the ship on a balmy Ft. Lauderdale Sunday afternoon, they dropped their carry-on bags in their balcony cabin and headed directly for the Seafarer’s lounge located on the Promenade deck. Amongst her friends and family, Alyssa was renowned for her passion for partying. She wasn’t planning on being sober for much of the cruise. Paul rarely drank alcohol, but promised his new wife he wouldn’t be a party pooper. For the next nine days, the newlyweds had the time of their lives.

  The ship visited seven ports of call along its voyage, with two full days at sea. The weather couldn’t have been better; the service was fit for royalty. Paul’s parents purchased the bride and groom a week’s worth of spa treatments, which included their choice of massages, acupuncture, facials, scrubs, or body wraps. The food was plentiful and delicious. Alcohol was available twenty-four hours a day. Paul and Alyssa met several other couples their age, with whom they caroused on the ship until the wee hours of the morning and participated in land excursions. The newlyweds couldn’t have been happier with their choice of honeymoon. At least that was the case until the night before the ship was scheduled to return to Port Everglades.