Deadly Waters

by T. Alan Codder

  “Milking it?”

  “What do you know about the riverkeepers?”

  “Not a thing. Never heard of them until a few minutes ago, when Officer Langley mentioned it.”

  “Riverkeepers are a non-profit group that monitor water quality all around the country. Maybe around the world for all I know.”

  He found her tone interesting. “I take it you think that’s a bad thing?”

  “Not a bad thing in and of itself. The problem I have with the riverkeepers is their funding depends on donations, so the more trouble they can stir up, the more they keep their name out there and have people think they’re protecting the environment, the better for them. Thacker’s accusations were totally unfounded, but that didn’t keep him from getting his face on the television, yammering on about how Brunswick was polluting the water, etc., etc., etc. The city could show we were operating in compliance with our permits, and we hadn’t had an NOV in years until then, but none of that mattered. The—”

  “NOV?” Sean interrupted, saying it like Maggie did and pronouncing each letter individually.

  “Notice of Violation. That’s the state saying, ‘You screwed up.’ Normally you get a fine along with it, but we weren’t even fined because after the state’s investigation, they realized there was nothing we could have done to prevent the spill. That, and the fact that dozens of other plants spilled as well. Anyway, we tried to get that information out there, but that’s not good copy. Where Thacker was on the front page, our response was buried back on page ten somewhere. Where he was the lead on the local news, complete with video, we’d get a two-sentence mention at the end of the story.”

  Sean grinned and took another sip. He’d seen his captain dealing with the same issues with the press in Boston.

  “I feel your pain.”

  “While all this was going on, we had a bunch of protesters out there in front of the gate. We haven’t had any in the last couple of months, but there for a while they were marching around and waving signs almost every day, and of course the news was here filming it all. Boyd, he was calling for criminal prosecution against me, demanding access to the plant to review our records, and generally being a pain in the… rear,” Maggie said.

  Sean’s lips cracked into a half grin because he had the impression the way she paused there at the end, she changed what she was going to say at the last moment.

  “When he found out the city wasn’t even fined, he really hit the roof,” Maggie continued. “He got himself arrested a couple of times for being disruptive in city council meetings, accused the town of a cover up, and filed a couple of lawsuits. Because nothing was happening, and the state gave us a pass, he was starting to be ignored. Now this happens. This is going to stir up the crap again, I just know it.”

  “So, you and he didn’t get along?” Sean asked, his grin spreading.

  She blew out a puff of air from between her lips. “Hardly. Having him outside my gate, talking to people on a bullhorn, accusing me of all kinds of misdeeds? I won’t say I’m glad he’s dead, but don’t expect me to attend his funeral, either. I wanted to sue him for slander, but the city attorney said that was just what he wanted because it kept the story in the news, and for me to ignore him.”

  “Anything else you can tell me?”

  “No, not really. I know that, except for the crazy environmentalists, nobody liked him.”

  She paused, considered her coffee a moment as she frowned, and then looked back up.

  “That’s unfair. Maybe he was a good guy, doing what he thought was right, but he sure didn’t endear himself to anyone who worked at the wastewater plant or on the city council.”

  “Did you hear anyone threaten him?” he asked.

  He watched her, and he could tell she was carefully considering her answer.

  “Yes,” she finally said, drawing the word out slightly. “But none seriously. By that I mean, I heard several of my guys say things like how they’d like to have five minutes alone with him out behind the plant. I probably said similar things myself. But you know how it is. You’re mad at someone and you say something like, ‘I could kill that guy!’ but that doesn’t mean you’d actually do it.”

  “Understood, but nobody said anything that made you think they’d actually do it?”

  “No. Absolutely not. It was just mouthing off because he was basically questioning the competency and integrity of every person who works here.”

  Before he could say anything else, his phone rang. “Excuse me a minute,” he said as he stood and dug the phone out of his pocket. “Sean.”

  “Chief, the coroner’s office is here,” Fish said.

  “I’ll be right there,” he replied then ended the call. “The coroner is here. I need to talk to him. Thanks for speaking to me. We’ll line up some interviews and we’ll come here to minimize the disruption. Do you have a room we can use where we won’t be disturbed during the interviews?”

  “You can use my office I guess.”

  He smiled. “Thanks. This is a formality, but we have to do it.”

  “I understand. Just let me know what you need and I’ll make sure my guys know to cooperate.”

  “Thanks, Maggie. We’ll try to stay out of your way as much as possible.”

  He stepped out of Maggie’s office, walked briskly to his car, and then drove back around the edge of the plant before stopping behind the coroner’s truck. He walked up to the heavyset, balding, man wearing a coat with Coroner written on the back in bright yellow letters.

  “Sean McGhee, chief of police,” he said, introducing himself.

  “Jerome Schell, Siouan County Coroner’s Office,” the man responded, holding up his hand to show the blue nitrile glove instead of offering his hand. “You took over for Bill?”

  “Yeah. Two weeks on the job.”

  Jerome chuckled. “Nothing like breaking you in right at the start. Your guy there is pretty chewed up.”

  “Yeah. They found him in the works a few hours ago.”

  “I did a quick look and didn’t see any gunshot or stab wounds, though he’s in pretty rough shape, so it’s hard to know for sure. Normally, in a case like this, I’d ask if there was any reason to suspect it was anything other than an accident, but the weights zip tied to his hands and feet…” Jerome tsked and grimaced. “I think that pretty much answers that question.”

  “Any guess on how long he’d been in there?”

  Jerome made a face, his nose crinkling and lips curling in disgust. “As bad a shape as he’s in, I’d normally say weeks, but in that soup? I have no idea. It could have only been days for all I know. Dr. Chambly might have a better idea on how much being in there speeds up the decomposition.”

  Sean’s face crumpled in disgust, causing Jerome to chuckle.

  “Yeah. Twenty years doing this and I thought I’d seen it all, but this is a new one on me,” Jerome said, looking at the body.

  “Officer Fisher is the lead on this.”

  “Okay. He’s already given me all the ID information for the stiff and his contact info.”

  “How soon can you let us know something?”

  “I can’t say. I just pick ‘em up, but the normal turn around on a suspected murder is usually only a day or so.”

  Sean nodded. “Okay, thanks. If you have any pull with the Medical Examiner, have him make it as fast as he can.”

  Jerome grinned. “I don’t, but I bet he’ll bump this one to the front of the line. He likes the interesting ones, and this one…” He paused as he gave his head a quick jerk at the body, his lips twisting in some private joke. “It’s pretty interesting.”

  Sean nodded. “Thanks, Jerome. Hope I don’t see much of you.”

  Jerome grinned. “That’s what everyone says.”

  Three

  “How bad was it?” Kim asked through the speaker when Sean returned to the station.

  She buzzed him in and he stepped around the corner and into her office.

  The dispatch office was
small, just large enough to contain the dispatcher’s desk, the 9-1-1 computer system with its two screens, telephone, radio equipment, and not much else. Like the rest of the station, it was painted a soothing cream with pale green and ivory floors. The tiles were laid out in a checked pattern, and were supposed to look like marble, but they didn’t fool anyone.

  “Pretty bad,” he replied.

  Kim shook her head. “I’ve lived in Brunswick all my life, and the last murder I can remember was when Ben Nelson shot his wife, and that was at least ten years ago. Even then, he called us and admitted he’d done it. I can’t remember one before that, though there may have been one or two.”

  “How long have you lived here?” he asked with a teasing grin, not expecting an answer.

  “A long time. How old are you?”

  “Forty-one.”

  She smirked in return. He wasn’t that much older than the officers reporting to him, and he looked at least five years younger than he actually was.

  “Longer than you’ve been alive, then.”

  Kim was the grandmotherly type, always happy and bringing in food for the guys. She was going soft from sitting at the dispatcher’s desk, and her brown hair was turning gray, but she knew her stuff and seemed to know everyone in town. He’d looked over everyone’s personnel file when he arrived, and while he couldn’t remember her exact age, he remembered she was somewhere in her late fifties.

  “So, there’s been only one murder in ten years?” he asked, his tone making it clear he didn’t believe it.

  “None that I can remember.” Kim paused as she thought about it. “No, none that I can remember. We’ve had our share of assaults, and a few shootings, of course, but I don’t remember anyone dying. Smyth Hilliard was shot and killed a couple of years ago, but that was ruled a hunting accident. Stupid fools. Rifles and beer, not a good combination.”

  He chuckled. “Pretty safe place then?”

  She grinned. “Yeah. All the thugs and creeps go to Fayetteville or Raleigh, or someplace like that. People around here just want to be left alone.”

  “Hopefully it’ll be another ten years before something like this happens again.”

  “I hope. I can’t imagine who would do something like this.”

  “Somebody who didn’t like Boyd Thacker.”

  She sniffed out a laugh. “I think you can say that with certainty.” She paused a moment. “We have company,” she said as she nodded at the vehicle pulling to a stop outside the floor to ceiling windows of the lobby.

  Sean glanced up and sighed as he watched the bronze Lincoln Navigator pull to a stop.

  “Send him to my office,” he said before stepping out and walking down the hall.

  “Will do,” she called to his retreating back.

  “Mayor,” Sean said, rising from behind his desk as Rudy approached, two men and a woman entering his office behind him.

  Mayor Rudolph Klinger was in his mid-sixties, overweight, graying, and wearing his trademark pompadour and suit that would have been in style forty years earlier. Though Rudy was always immaculately neat, his loud suits and wide ties always made Sean think of a car salesman hawking the new, 1975, Fords and Chevys.

  He recognized the three people with him as members of the city council, but try as he might, he couldn’t remember their names.

  “Why don’t we step down to the conference room where everyone can sit down,” Sean said, motioning at the door.

  He led the four down the hall and turned into the windowless conference room, flipping on the lights before gesturing to the large wooden table with twelve black, high back, faux-leather chairs arrayed around it.

  “Please. Sit down. I’m sorry to say, I don’t remember everyone’s names.”

  “Evie Wirick,” the only woman said, offering her hand.

  Evelyn Wirick was somewhere in her mid to late fifties. She was tall for a woman, looking Sean straight in the eyes, and rail thin. Dressed in a light gray skirt with matching jacket, a white blouse, and black pumps with a low heel, she projected confidence.

  Sean shook her hand. She may look like a wisp of wind would blow her away, but her grip was firm.

  “Josh Tindle. Nice to meet you again, Sean.”

  Joshua Tindle was perhaps forty. When he said his name, Sean remembered Josh’s family owned Tindle’s, a local grocery that was hanging on against the bigger chains by being known for offering locally grown produce in the summer, and fresh meat butchered for them from local farms.

  Dressed in comfortable looking tan pants and a green button front shirt that matched the green in the Tindle’s logo, he looked happy and relaxed.

  “Steve Locoste,” the final man said, offering his hand when Sean turned to him.

  Steven Locoste appeared to be in his mid-sixties though, unlike Rudy, he obviously took care of himself and looked like he might be a runner.

  Like Josh, Steve was dressed comfortably low key, wearing a dressy looking pair of jeans, a pale-yellow shirt, and sneakers.

  “What can I help you with?” Sean asked as everyone began to take their seats.

  “I’ll come right to the point, Sean,” Rudy began, his booming voice gravelly from forty years of smoking. “We’re concerned about this unfortunate incident at the wastewater treatment plant. Was the deceased really Boyd Thacker?”

  Sean shrugged. “That’s the ID that was on the victim. That’s all I can tell you. The body was a mess.”

  “Any idea who did it?”

  Sean forced himself to not look at Rudy as if he were an idiot. “Mayor Klinger, we just found out about this five hours ago. No, we don’t have any suspects. We don’t even know for sure the victim is Boyd Thacker. We expect the medical examiner’s preliminary report later today or first thing in the morning, but it’ll take longer to confirm the identity and, hopefully, give us a time and cause of death.”

  “But you’re working on it, right?”

  Now Sean did look at Rudy as if he’d grown another head. “Of course we’re working on it. Officers Fisher and Langley are at the plant right now walking the area, looking for any evidence.”

  Rudy smiled and nodded his head. “That’s good. With the Brunswick Stew Festival coming up, we want to get this unpleasantness behind us as soon as possible. Do you think the investigation will be wrapped up by then?”

  “Stew festival?”

  “Yeah, the Brunswick Stew Festival. We hold it every year. We close down Main Street and have a Brunswick stew competition. We have games for the kids, vendors come in, and there’s an antique car show. It’s a big deal for the town. Brings in a lot of money.”

  “And when is this?”

  “The last Saturday in February every year. Nothing like a hot bowl of Brunswick stew to warm you up on a cold winter day,” Rudy said, his tone and cadence making him sound like he was pitching the idea.

  Sean looked at the calendar on his phone. “That’s less than two weeks.”

  “Right. So, do you think you’ll have caught the guy who did it by then?”

  “I have no idea. A lot will depend on the medical examiner’s report. If Thacker drowned in the ditch, that’s completely different than if he was killed somewhere else and hauled in.”

  “Okay, I understand that,” Rudy said, smiling and nodding again. “But, do you think the investigation will be wrapped up before the festival?”

  “Mayor, I just said I didn’t know. What’s the rush?”

  “The rush, Sean, is to have this wrapped up before the festival. The town got a black eye from the spill last year, and now this? The guy who was accusing us of malfeasance is killed and his body is found on city property. Not just any city property, mind you, but the very place he was hollering about. This is going to be all over the news again. We don’t want that kind of publicity, and especially not so close to the festival.”

  “What would you have me do? This isn’t like on television where the case is wrapped up nice and neat in an hour. Some investigations take years, an
d right now, we have nothing to go on.”

  “Sean, look, I’m not trying to push you, but this seems pretty simple to me. Can’t they run some tests and tell you where he died, or something like that?”

  “Simple?” Sean asked, staring Rudy down as he leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “You watch too much television, mayor. It doesn’t work like that in real life. We find, what we’re assuming is, Boyd Thacker’s badly decomposed body in a secured facility. Nobody knows how it got in there. Nobody knows how long he’s been dead. Nobody knows where he was killed. Apparently, he wasn’t the most popular person in town and plenty of people wouldn’t mind seeing him go away. That includes you, doesn’t it? You want a suspect. How about you? You’re a suspect. So, you tell me, mayor, how is this a simple case?”

  Rudy stared at Sean in shock. “You surely don’t think I had anything to do with it!”

  “No more so than anyone else. But are you going to sit here and tell me you and Boyd were friends and you’re sorry he won’t be causing problems anymore?”

  “Well, I didn’t like the man, but that doesn’t mean I killed him!”

  “No, no it doesn’t. But you see the problem? Until we get something to work with, you’re as much a suspect as anyone else. All of you are, along with the other member of the city council, and everyone at the waste treatment plant. It’s not that we don’t have suspects, we’ve got too many suspects.”

  “So, what are you doing to narrow down the list?” Evie asked, obviously trying to save Rudy from further embarrassment.

  Sean turned his attention to Evie. “We’re doing what we always do. We’re talking to people to try to find discrepancies in their stories, looking for anything that might give us a clue as to what happened, and then take it from there. Over the next couple of days, we’ll talk to everyone at the plant and try to figure out how Thacker got in there in the first place. The place is surrounded by an eight-foot fence with barbed wire along the top, so it’s unlikely he crawled over, bound his own hands and feet, and jumped in with weights on. Once we figure out how he got in, we’ll take the next step, wherever that leads. Then the next, and then the next, until we find out who, where and why.”