Deadly Waters

by T. Alan Codder

  Too late, Steve said, his voice deadly calm.

  You don’t want to do this! Thacker said, and then there were some sounds of movement. Put that down! You need to think about what you’re doing!

  I am thinking about it, Steve said, his voice almost too faint to hear.

  Wait! Thacker cried in panic. Just wait! You don’t have to do this! Stop! We can talk about this!

  There was a reply by Locoste, but it was barely audible and unintelligible, followed by silence until the recording ended less than a second later.

  Sean stared at the phone a moment, his lips thinned and narrowed. He went back another recording.

  Testing… Thacker said before the recording ended.

  He went back one more recording, but it was a meeting discussing proposed water quality standards, and Sean ended it after listening only a few seconds.

  He could see it in his mind’s eye. Thacker had snuck up and confronted Steve, and there had been a brief struggle. Thacker had been pushed, or fallen, and Steve had approached Thacker with something in his hand and hit him with it, but it wasn’t a killing blow. Thacker was likely injured, realized he was in mortal danger, and ran. Steve had probably chased him, and Thacker had tripped and fallen, or at the very least, stumbled.

  If the phone had been in a shirt pocket, which is where he’d have put it for the best chance to pick up voices, he could easily imagine the phone falling out. It was likely that Thacker had run again, since there was no other audio, but the fall or stumble had slowed him enough for Steve to catch and kill him.

  The only question was, why hadn’t Steve picked up the phone and disposed of it? He thought about it a moment and decided that there were only three possibilities. Steve had either forgotten about it in his panic, didn’t know Thacker had the phone, or hadn’t been able to find it after it had fallen from his pocket. In the end, the why didn’t matter.

  He had his smoking gun.

  Thirty-One

  Sean dialed the Lizard Lick Creek WWTP main number. “Maggie Neese,” he said when the phone stopped ringing.

  He’d tried her direct line first, but as expected, he’d gotten her voice mail.

  “She’s gone for the day. Can I take a message?”

  “Do you have her cell or home number?”

  “Who’s this?” the voice demanded.

  “Police Chief Sean McGhee.”

  “Oh! Uh… yeah… hang on, chief. It’s right here… somewhere,” the voice said.

  Sean heard the soft bump of the phone being placed down, followed by the sounds of papers being shuffled, before the handset was picked up again.

  “Here it is! You ready? Its 919.”

  “919,” Sean repeated, and then copied down the rest of the number and read it back for confirmation.

  “That’s her cell. Is there a problem?”

  “No, no problem. Thank you. Who am I speaking with?”

  “Chet Holland.”

  “Thank you, Chet.”

  “You’re welcome, chief.”

  Hearing the probable murder of Thacker on his phone had been like a gut punch. During his time as a patrol officer, he’d worked assaults, muggings, and once, a shooting. Until now, Thacker’s murder had been an academic exercise, a puzzle to solve, like the cases he worked on when he was heading up the cybercrime task force. That was until he heard his voice, especially at the end, when Thacker was obviously fearing for his life and in pain. That had made him human and real.

  He didn’t want to go home to an empty apartment, not right now. He tended to dwell on cases, and he didn’t want to think about this one until in the morning. He picked up the phone and dialed the number Chet had given him.

  “Hello?”

  “Maggie, Sean McGhee.”

  “Sean? Is something wrong?”

  “No. I was wondering if you’d care to join me for dinner? I’ll treat.”

  There was a pause. “Sean McGhee, are you asking me out on a date?” she asked, her tone mischievous and playful.

  He smiled, rather liking how that sounded. “I don’t feel like eating alone tonight,” he said, dodging the question.

  “Are you okay? You sound a little down.”

  His smile faded. “Tough day at work. It’s why I don’t want to eat alone.”

  “You know what? I just realized I don’t want to eat alone either. You want to meet somewhere?”

  His smile returned. “Sure. You name the time and place, and I’ll meet you there.”

  “You like Italian?”

  “Love it.”

  “Mangia, then. It’s a block off Main, say six-thirty? That’ll give me a chance to change.”

  He glanced at the clock. It was almost six. No way for him to get home, change and be back in time.

  “I’ll see you there.”

  -oOo-

  Sean was standing outside the entrance to Mangia when he saw Maggie’s blue Civic pull into the parking lot. He smiled to himself and wandered in that direction, meeting her at the halfway point between her car and the entrance.

  “Thank you for joining me on such short notice,” he said. “You look nice,” he added with a smile.

  Maggie was dressed in tight fitting and faded blue jeans, a pair of stylish black boots with a low heel, and a bright red sweater top. It was the first time he’s seen her in anything other than the bright blue shirt the employees at the treatment plant wore.

  “Why, thank you, Chief McGhee. I was just about to start dinner, so your timing was perfect.”

  He rolled his eyes. “If you call me that, I’ll have to call you ROC Neese.”

  “It’s ORC, Operator in Responsible Charge.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Why isn’t it Responsible Operator in Charge? That makes more sense to me.”

  She smiled and shrugged. “Government. Come on, let’s go in. It’s cold out here. Aren’t you freezing?”

  He was wearing nothing but his long sleeve Brunswick PD shirt.

  “No. It’s probably fifty-five.”

  “Like I said, it’s cold,” she said as she looped her arm around his and dragged him along.

  “Two please,” he said as they stepped into the small cozy restaurant.

  Mangia shared space in what was locally known as the Old Great Eastern Building, a large, two-story, red brick structure that had housed the Great Eastern Insurance Company when it was built in the 1920s. While Great Eastern was long gone, folded or gobbled up in mergers, its building continued on with new businesses occupying its space.

  While it was early twentieth century American office building on the outside, inside Mangia was a little slice of Italy. Its light stucco walls, cream tile floors with a dark grout, and decorative architecture on doorways, windows, and walls, made the place resemble an Italian villa.

  Spread through the room were about twenty-five small tables sporting red tablecloths and white napkins. A white tablecloth, turned at a forty-five-degree angle, was used as an overlay, allowing the red to peek out at the corners. The décor made the interior warm and inviting, and it was obviously a popular place with many of the tables already occupied.

  “Right this way,” the hostess said as she picked up a pair of menus and led them to a table under a green and white awning shading a fake window. “Your waiter will be right with you.”

  Sean, remembering his manners, held Maggie’s chair for her.

  “Such a gentleman,” she said as she took her chair, and then smiled across the table as he sat down. “So… how was your day?” she asked, teasing him about having a bad day.

  His smile instantly disappeared and she grimaced.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  He forced his smile back. “No, it’s okay.”

  “Is it the mayor again?”

  He snickered as he shook his head. “No, nothing like that, not this time.”

  He paused as he thought over what he could, and couldn’t, say.

  “It’s the Thacker case. I can’t give you
any details, but it kind of got to me today.”

  She nodded in sympathy. “I heard about Locoste. Don’t let it get to you.”

  If she only knew, he thought to himself.

  “Enough about work. If I wanted to think about that, I would’ve gone home,” he said, forcing some playful enthusiasm into his voice.

  “Good idea,” she agreed as their waiter arrived.

  They placed their drink order, Maggie ordering a tea and Sean sticking with water, then picked up their menus.

  “What’s good?” he asked.

  “I always get the lasagna or the fettuccine alfredo. They are both to die for.”

  “Is that what you’re going to order tonight?” he asked, watching her over the top of his menu.

  “Yeah, probably.”

  “Okay, you get one and I’ll get the other.”

  “So you can try some of mine?” she asked, her tone playful.

  He gave her a small shrug and a mischievous smile. “Maybe.”

  She giggled and placed her menu on the table. “So long as I get a taste of yours.”

  “What will people think, us eating off each other’s plate?” he asked.

  Her eyes narrowed slightly as her lips twisted into an impish grin. “They’ll think I want to taste your lasagna and you wanted to try my fettuccine.”

  “That’s what you’re having?”

  “Yeah, I think so. There’s enough I can take the leftovers home and have them for lunch tomorrow.”

  The waiter returned with their drinks. “What can I get you folks?”

  They placed their orders, Sean adding a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon to his order, Maggie a sweet Chardonnay. The waiter gave them a nod in approval before picking up the menus.

  “I’ll get that in for you. Would you like some bread?”

  “Yes, please,” Sean said. “One of my weaknesses,” he added to Maggie as their waiter left with their order.

  “Mine too.” She puffed her cheeks out. “I have to watch how much of it I eat or I’ll be big as a cow.”

  He snorted in disbelief. “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Oh, God yes. I’ll have to do an extra run to burn off tonight’s meal.”

  “You’re a runner?”

  She grinned. “Define runner. Do I run? Yes. Do I compete? No. I’m too slow.”

  “Oh, so like me being a weight lifter. Do I lift? Yes. Do I compete? I think looking at me answers that.”

  “At least you’re not fat.”

  “No. The BPD had fitness guidelines you had to meet.”

  “Brunswick or Boston?”

  He flashed her a smile. “Both.”

  They looked up as the waiter returned with their wine, along with a basket of bread and a small plate of olive oil with spices in it.

  “Oh, hot!” Maggie said, juggling a piece of bread out of the basket. “So, tell me, Sean, what do you do when you’re not the chief of police?”

  “Now? Not much. I haven’t had time to develop many friends. At home, I tinkered on my car and fiddled around the house. I had a little sail boat that I used to take out in the harbor sometimes. I’m looking for a house, but so far, I haven’t found anything I like. What’s amazes me is the cost of housing down here,” he said as he quickly pulled a roll from the basket. He dropped it on his plate and fanned his fingers a moment, to cool them, before ripping off a bite-sized chunk.

  “High or low?” she asked as she dipped a piece of bread into the oil then popped it into her mouth.

  “Low. My wife and I had a little two story in Newton, about two thousand square feet. For what I sold the place for, I can buy a mansion down here.”

  “Where’s Newton?”

  “Outside Boston. It’s where the Fig Newton comes from.”

  “No kidding?”

  “No kidding.”

  “I’m curious. What does a two-thousand square foot house typically go for in Newton?”

  Sean smiled as he dipped his bread into the oil, interested in seeing her reaction. “I got five twenty-five for it.”

  She stared at him a moment, her eyes wide.

  “You’re not kidding,” she finally said.

  “Nope. That’s what I mean when I said the price of housing down here is low.”

  “Wow!” she breathed. “I don’t know how people afford to live there. My house is about eighteen hundred square feet on three acres, and I think we only paid about one seventy. Of course, that was a few years ago, and the house is a little older, but wow!”

  He shrugged. “My house was built in 1923.”

  She grinned. “Okay, not that old. Mine was built in the eighties. So, you live in an apartment now?”

  “Yeah. I’m still looking. I want something small, but with a big yard. I’ve never had a yard to speak of. In Newton I mowed with an old-fashioned reel mower because I didn’t have enough grass to bother with a power mower. You know the kind, where you push it and that makes the blades spin?” He gave her a crooked smile. “I want one of those riding mowers to ride around on.”

  “Be careful what you wish for. I have to mow three acres, and I have to tell you, that gets real old, real fast.”

  He nodded in understanding. “Kind of like me and snow.”

  “Yeah, something like that I guess.”

  The waiter arrived with their food.

  “This looks good,” he said, hot fingering the small baking dish into place in front of him.

  “Wait until you try it.”

  They ate in silence a moment.

  “This is really good. Want to try it?” he asked.

  She grinned at him but gave her head a quick shake. “Yes, but no.”

  Using his unused spoon, he cut off a bite sized piece from the end he hadn’t touched yet and transferred it to the edge of her plate.

  “There. I never touched it.”

  She giggled. “It wasn’t that, but if I’m eating off your plate, this is definitely a date.”

  He grinned and shrugged, but didn’t meet her eyes. “I’ve had worse,” he said just loud enough for her to hear before taking another bite of his lasagna.

  “So, you’re a sailor?” she asked to start the conversation again and fill the growing silence.

  “I’d hardly call myself a sailor. I had a sixteen-foot Capitol Neptune I used to play around with. I never got out in the rough water. I had this idea that Stephanie, that’s my ex-wife, and I would do some sailing around the harbor. Turned out she gets seasick in a bathtub, so that was a total bust.”

  “Maybe you should have asked her about that before you bought the thing.”

  “She’d never been on the water before, at least not in something so small, so she didn’t know.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “The boat? Not a bit. Turned out I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I’d take it out once or twice a year, and that was enough to remind of why I didn’t take it out more often.” He smirked. “Do you know what boat stands for?”

  “What?” she asked, then forked in another bite of her fettuccine.

  “Bust out another thousand. I don’t know how anything that small can cost so much.”

  She grinned. “I’d always heard that a boat was a hole in the water you threw money into.”

  “That too. What do you do when you’re not the… was it ORC?”

  “Yeah. Nothing much. I watch a lot of movies. I’m a huge movie buff, so TC and I do a lot of Netflix and chill.”

  “Really? What kind of movies?”

  “Pretty much anything except slashers. Those,” she shook her head as she rolled her eyes, “everyone in them is too stupid to live and I end up cheering for the slasher guy to kill them all.”

  He chuckled, liking her wit and how her ponytail moved when she shook her head like that.

  “Okay,” he said, drawing the word out.

  “I’ll still watch one occasionally if there’s a twist on the theme. I watched Tucker and Dale vs. Evil a couple of month
s back and laughed my butt off.”

  “Haven’t seen it.”

  “It’s on streaming right now. You should watch it. It’s a pretty good flick.”

  “Maybe I’ll check it out. I started a subscription to Netflix when I moved down here.”

  They ate in silence a moment, the conversation lagging.

  “So, did you bring your boat with you when you moved?” Maggie asked, jump-starting the conversation again.

  “No. I sold it, along with everything else, before I moved. The only thing I brought with me was my Jag, clothes, cat and enough furniture for a small apartment. I’m making a fresh start.”

  She looked surprised. “Jag? As in Jaguar, the car? You have a Jag?”

  “Yeah, a ’66 E-Type.”

  She beamed, obviously intrigued. “No kidding? That’s like the one Austin Powers drove. Does it run? What color is it? Does it have the Union Jack painted on it?”

  He snickered, surprised and amused by her enthusiasm over the car and the rapid-fire questions.

  “Yes, it runs. It belonged to my dad. He bought it used in the late seventies some time. He gave it to me a few years back, when they moved to Florida, and I had it freshened up. He, and the previous owner, only drove it on nice summer days, so miracle of miracles, it was rust free. And no, it doesn’t have the Union Jack painted on it. I had it repainted in the original BRG.”

  “BRG? What’s that?”

  “British racing green. A really dark green.”

  “That’s awesome! You don’t see many of those down here. You should have entered it in the car show at the Brunswick Stew Festival.”

  “Maybe next year. Car shows aren’t really my thing. I like to look, but not sit around all day while someone else looks at my car.” He paused then gave her a sideways smile. “Want a ride?” he asked, his delivery slow and inviting.

  “Is it a convertible?”

  “Yes.”

  “Kind of chilly, don’t you think?”

  He snickered. “It has a top and a heater,” he assured her.

  She smiled and nodded. “Then sure, I’d love one. I’ve never been in a Jag before, old or new.”

  “Next time I get it out, I’ll let you know. If you’re available, I’ll come by and pick you up.”

  “Thanks, Sean. It’s nice of you to offer. Maybe I’ll put a scarf over my head, get some old-fashioned sunglasses, and have you take a picture.”