Billingsgate Shoal

by Rick Boyer

  We called Mary and she wept. But she was glad to hear Schilling was put away for keeps. Then we got into Brian's car to head for home. I saw a cabin cruiser swing into the dock. DeGroot flung a line to a waiting cop and seconds later was jogging down the pier toward us. He rapped on the window and I rolled it down.

  "I see you're OK, Doc. Anything happen?"

  "Nah."

  "For a minute I was worried. I was listening to the VHF a minute ago; there was an explosion not far from here. For a second I thought you——"

  "Where?"

  "Some boat ten miles offshore from here. Blew apart and sank."

  "Was her name Coquette?"

  "How'd you know?"

  "I'll bet you that blue and white boat we saw last night had something to do with it. Did anyone report seeing it'?"

  He shrugged his shoulders and then asked what all the blankets were for.

  "To cover the bodies, you dummy. Listen, thanks for calling for help. Can you make it back to Cape Ann alone? I gotta go home and rest. I've been puking and bleeding too much."

  * * *

  At home I hugged Mary hard and lowered most of myself into a warm bath. I sat there and soaked and poured a hot toddy into self, telling her everything. She stared wide-eyed at me, shaking her head slowly, murmuring. Then I crawled into bed and passed out. I awoke in late afternoon.

  The phone rang. It was the Globe. They wanted the story on how I'd smashed the gun-running ring. I told them to speak with Brian Hannon. That would keep them busy. It rang again. It was a man with a husky voice and thick accent.

  "Gott-damn good, Doc! You chop them up really good, eh!"

  "Who the hell's this?"

  "Roantis."

  "Hi, Liatis."

  "You chop them up real good. Nice"

  "I heard you were in some kind of trouble. Tommy told me. You OK now'?"

  "Hmmm. I got to go to trial. Dat's all."

  "How's the uh, guy you hit?"

  There was an uncomfortable silence. I heard him sigh in a resigned way.

  "Well Doc. I gott some bad news I tink—"

  "Oh God. You mean he's dead?" `

  "No. He lived."

  "Now c'mon, Liatis—"

  "No dat's the bad news. He dint die. I'm getting too old to fight I tink. But other real bad news, Doc. The boy was killed with you, he was Tomrny's nephew."

  I sat up in bed. I felt too weak to hold the phone.

  "Liatis, don't kid me."

  "ReaIly, Doc. It was Tommy Desmond's li'l nephew. The cops they found out it was Larry Heeney."

  "I didn't know Tommy even had a nephew."

  "I dint either. But he was."

  "Tommy's gonna kill me, Liatis. But honest, I didn't—"

  "No Doc. He's proud of you. Dint you know where those guns were going?"

  "Uh huh. They were going to Ireland,. to be used against the Republic—"

  "Yeah Doc. That's what Tommy told me. They been after this bunch for years now. And that man was with you, who was also shot?"

  "Stephen O'Shaughnessey—"

  "Yeah. He is with the Irish police I tink."

  "Right. And who told you all this stuff, Liatis?"

  "Ask Tommy; Desmond. But I tink you did real good, Doc. Nice job the way you chop them 'up."

  "Thanks, Liatis. You've made my day."

  I lay back in bed and stared at the ceiling. I wondered what Tommy Desmond had to tell me. How much had he known all along about the IRA's operations in America, especially in Boston and Southie? But I didn't have long to consider it because the phone rang again. It was Brian Hannon, telling me the press was all over him and his staff, and could I get down there, too, because I was in part responsible for cracking the whole thing. In part. . . "

  "In part? Gee, Brian, I'm glad you saw fit to mention my name."

  "Hey c'mon, haven't I always given you a fair shake?"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I FINALLY HAD my brother-in-1aw right where I wanted him: in the rearmost booth of Frankie Caeserids Happy Landings saloon in Marblehead, Mass. We were busy killing brain cells. When I estimated the Body Count was to my liking, I was going to make a suggestion to him. The proverbial "offer he couldn't refuse."

  It was three-thirty, peee emmm. The few sailing boats left in Marblehead Harbor rode on the gray slick outside the picture window of the Happy Landings. A bevy of local housewives were drinking and laughing up front, at the stand-up bar. They all had tennis outfits on, having no doubt just come from lessons given at one of the indoor clubs. They wore little skirts that flipped up when they wiggled their hips, and showed their panties underneath. Joe and I liked this, and kept our eyes glued on the set of thirtyish women, some with tipped hair, who shook and strutted at the old-time men's bar. We waited—like buzzards on a limb—for a glimpse of the curve of buttocks, the smooth sweep of inner thigh, the bounce and jiggle of bosom.

  Middle age is a terrible, terrible affliction. Thank God Senility, Decrepitude, and Death put a stop to it.

  "Another drink, gentlemen?" asked the cocktail waitress, who had a pretty interesting outfit herself.

  "Gee. . ." Joe began, "I really don't think—"

  "Sure, why not? I'm buying. Two more of the same."

  She grinned and took the two tall-stemmed glasses back with her. She switched away from us, wearing an exaggerated (and, I might add, extremely abbreviated) eighteenth-century maid's uniform. It was sexist and tacky and revealing. It was extremely popular. I saw she was wearing the shiny pantyhose that I like so much. The ones worn by barmaids and stewardesses on the less-well-known airlines. The ones that catch all the shiny highlights of the legs, and feel slick to the touch if you happen to brush across them. The ones Mary maintains are cheap and tawdry. Yep, they're my favorite.

  Via several longish talks with O'Shaughnessey, I'd found out a lot about the Kincaid/Schilling outfit during the past week. Some of the interesting stuff confirmed early suspicions I'd had. For example, the Laura Kincaid/James Schilling affair. Perhaps it was Laura Kincaid's expensive face 1ift operation and her desire—her fetish rather—to remain imperially slim that planted the initial seed of suspicion. Certainly it was remarkably parallel to Schilling's quest for physical perfection and eternal youth. Walter Kincaid had borne the affair for some time with an almost parental patience and aloofness. But finally his pride and possessiveness forced him to fire Schilling. The fact that his wife didn't file for divorce and follow her lover must have told Kincaid something, i.e., that she placed extreme value on her plush surroundings. To give up Walter Kincaid was to part with the fortune he'd made. So they lived together much as she had described when we first met, with her taking off for long—and not-so-secretive—weekends with Schilling while he spent his spare time aboard the Windhover searching for artifacts and treasure.

  "So what made Schilling pull the disappearing act in Alaska?" asked Joe as he cradled his third whiskey sour, which had just been placed in front of him.

  "Because he'd just made contact with an old army buddy of his who'd pulled the first of a series of armory heists. Schilling was attracted to breaking into armories for several reasons. One, it allowed him to hurt the army, which had given him a D.D. and hurt his chances for landing any decent job. The fact that Kincaid overlooked it, or didn't know about it, was perhaps the only reason he got as far at Wheel-Lock as he did. Second, one of Wheel-Lock's biggest contracts ever was obtained during the early Vietnam buildup. Wheel-Lock designed the complex locks and security devices for armories. Since Schilling knew the systems and locks, he knew how to get around 'em."

  'And by disappearing he could be more mobile and invisible."

  "Yep. And leave his wife and be with Laura. I figured he came back to New England shortly after his 'death' on the Kenai Peninsula to make contact with arms buyers. Right away he uncovered two hungry sources with lots and lots of dough: The French Separatists in Quebec and the Irish Republican Army. According to O'Shaughnessey he'd even trucked with
the Mob for a while, but found that too risky, or scary. Dealing with foreign buyers was cleaner, safer. But there was one thing he needed badly to do it right: a boat. He didn't have the money for one big enough to range as far as he wanted."

  "And that's when they decided to kill Kincaid?"

  "Maybe they never planned to kill him. But in early summer two events occurred that forced the issue. One: Kincaid's company began a sharp decline, one that perhaps was irreversible. Two: Kincaid found the jackpot he was seeking."

  "Yeah bullshit."

  "Wait. Wait, I'm getting to that."

  "I want my two grand back, Doc."

  "And you'll get it, whether or not I sell the Rose. But anyway, Kincaid decided that by disappearing, he could rid himself of his wife, his failing company, and all the unpleasantness he'd endured for the past several years and skip to the Caribbean."

  "It's curious he had the same idea Schilling had," said Joe.

  "Not when you consider the fact that they had the same needs and motives. With a miniature Fort Knox in bullion sealed into the Windhover's hull—which was now reshaped and named Penelope—he was going to slide down the Big Trough, skip over to Grand Cayman and deposit the fortune, tax-free, then head on over to his prepurchased condominium on St. Thomas."

  "Then why the hell didn't we find the bullion, Doc? Why? Even though we cut up that hull until the Rose looks like a goddamn tea-strainer. Why?"

  "I'm getting to that—"

  "I want my two—" .

  "Shut up and listen. Laura and Schilling discovered Kincaid's plan to disappear. Since he'd done all the groundwork for them, wouldn't it be easy for them to help him along? And they'd have the boat they needed too."

  "So Laura Kincaid wasn't independently rich as she claimed."

  "Doesn't look that way. Though she thought she would stand to gain at least something by her husband's death. That's why they thought of putting the house up for sale. Though it would net them about four hundred grand, and they wouldn't have to run guns anymore. Just as soon as Schilling made this last series of hauls, they'd be home free."

  "And never bothering to check the post office box, they were ignorant of the condominium and the treasure."

  "Knew nothing about it, and couldn't open the box anyway without the key."

  "So then where in hell—"

  "But wait. Of course just about then they had the mishap at the James Longstreet, killed Allan Hart in a foolish and desperate panic, and from then on had me on their tail, poking my nose in and disrupting things. As soon as I explained my theory to Laura—who was an excellent actress by the way, surely she had untapped talent in that department—she was alarmed. She had Schilling stick himself under his car so he could get a good look at me as I left her place. There were two people who could blow their cover: Danny Murdock and Yours Truly."

  "You think Murdock helped kill Kincaid?"

  "Nah. He probably didn't even know Kincaid was killed. Probably Laura fed him some cock-and-bull story about taking over the arrangements for her husband. As far as Murdock the bombed boatbuilder goes, the only illegal thing he knew about was falsifying a certificate. BUT, they told him: listen, if a guy named Adams, who looks like such and such—or anybody else—comes asking you questions about Penelope, you call us on the double and we'll bail you out."

  "Mmmm. Hmmm," said Joe taking a deep sip and leaning back; "so the night you approached him at the bar he did as instructed."

  "Sure. And I figured later it probably took Schilling no more than fifteen or twenty minutes to arrive outside the bar and station himself there, waiting for me to emerge. What place is fifteen minutes from the Schooner Race?"

  "The Kincaid residence."

  "Uh huh. Which further strengthened the link between Laura and Schilling. No, I wasn't at all surprised to find her in that warehouse pointing an automatic rifle at my throat. Not the slightest."

  "Now how did O'Shaughnessey get involved'?"

  "Because the Garda Siochana was tracking down the rash of assaults in the Republic perpetrated by the militant wing of the UFE the Ulster Freedom Fighters. They're the Protestant counterpart to the IRA. A guy named Reggie Thompson is their leader. Reggie's a tough customer—former Special Air Service Commando. They've vowed to head south, and give the Irish a taste of their own terrorist medicine, They're already charged with about twenty murders; Claim to have a base somewhere in the Wicklow Hills. . ."

  "But I still don't see how—"

  "How it links to America? Because Schilling switched sides. After dealing with the IRA for two months or so, he discovered another group who'd pay double for the same merchandise."

  "Reggie Thompson and the UFF?"

  "Yep. So he told the IRA he was fresh out of small arms—even those he'd promised to deliver some time ago. This was a big mistake."

  " 'Cause the IRA found out he was supplying weapons to the enemy."

  "Exactly. Actually, O'Shaughnessey tells me it was Laura who made the initial contact with UFF's men. That's why the IRA was so anxious to put her away. It wasn't long before the Provos, and their stateside contacts in Boston and Southie had discovered the double-cross on the part of the arms suppliers and put the hit notice out on both of them. They were dead ducks from that time forth. It was O'Shaughnessey's job to infiltrate the ring with a faked identity, then lie in wait to make the big haul, getting everybody in the organization, including most especially the UFF contacts. How successful he ultimately was only time will tell. But the big guy who saved my life—"

  "What was his name anyway?"

  "O'Shaughnessey won't tell me, although he knows."

  "They that close, the Garda and the IRA?"

  "Not close at all. Stephen says if I knew the man's name my life would be endangered. And I believe him. But as I was about to say, Thug Number One, the Big Man, made a mistake when he stole Schilling's cruiser and blew up the Coquette. There was nobody from UFF on board. The boat, as its French name implies, belonged to the other customers—"

  "The militant French separatists?"

  "Yeah. The Provo blew up a bunch of Quebec nationalists who were, O'Shaughnessey thinks, going to take Ms. Kincaid and Schilling up to the Maritimes."

  "While they left the Rose Boating temptingly in Gloucester Harbor."

  "Yes, and tempting enough so I bought her at state auction."

  "With some of my money." .

  "With some of your money. Which you will get back."

  "Who the hell'd buy that spaghetti strainer now?"

  "I am going to have it repaired and sold, don't worry. The electronic gear, fittings, and engine alone are worth more than what she cost us."

  "And you still believe Kincaid hit the jackpot. . ."

  "I'm convinced of it. The letter from A. J. Liebnitz which you have laid eyes on should convince you as well. You yourself saw the space along the Rose's keel reserved for the treasure. Now if you're ready, I want you to phone the Essex Realty Company of Manchester, and ask for the key to the Kincaid domicile. Say it's an investigation and we're taking a crew in to get prints and the like. We want to go alone, with no salesperson."

  He rose and swaggered toward the pay phones.

  "Remember, Joe. Official police business. No salesperson—we want the key only."

  "Whaddayuh think I yam. . .dummer somethin'?"

  Gee, I hoped he wasn't too bombed to convince them. . .

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EYGHT

  AT QUARTER TO six, after the last visitor had left the Kincaid mansion, we were allowed to proceed there—alone—with the key. I jingled it in my hand, happy as a kid on Christmas morning, as we trudged up the curved walkway and then around the side yard, with its creeping bent lawn, marble statues, and Japanese garden. Under my arm I carried a Polaroid SX-70 camera.

  "Christ Almighty, some spread."

  "Now look over there."

  "What? That patch of earth? A buried treasure'! C'mon Doc, you've read too many Argosy magazines. He wouldn't bury it for Ch
rissake, use your—"

  "'Course he wouldn't. He buried an oil tank there. I know because I checked with the realtor earlier for records of any recent house improvements. I called the company that installed the tank. I know the tank was connected to the appropriate pipes too."

  "Well then why—"

  "But. I also checked a bit further. I even spoke with the man who operated the backhoe prior to the installation. The tank measured just under ten feet long. Pace the turned earth and you see it's about eighteen feet long. What else is down there'?"

  "Look. After losing two grand on that old [fishing boat I am not about to get a shovel and start digging."

  "We're not going to do any digging. When I first started really thinking about this, I was on the phone for an entire day calling various stores, supply houses, and rental agencies. Walter Kincaid, in his own name, rented an air impact hammer and a small compressor last April. He also rented a small cement mixer. The agency has the records. But the really interesting thing is this: he bought a septic tank."

  "No shit."

  "Ah, the very phrase I was seeking. That indeed is the interesting part: no shit; The town of Manchester has had sewers for almost fifty years. Ergo: no need for cesspools, septic tanks, so forth. So why the septic tank?"

  We went inside. It was just dark. The expensive furniture was covered with white dropcloths.

  "It was the backhoe man who tipped me off about the septic tank. It was dropped in the hole and covered before the oil tank even arrived. You know I had to phone almost twenty septic tank companies before I found the right one? Kincaid had paid for the thing in cash. The company is in Stoneham. He sure didn't want to leave any tracks. While the oil tank was public and official, with records to prove and document it, the septic tank was strictly on the QT."

  We descended into the basement—which people in New England call the cellah—and I located the southwest corner of the building, then paced off eight steps. We were in the furnace room.

  We paced around the place for fifteen minutes. Zilch.

  "Yah know, Doc, you're the best bullshitter I've ever known."