Collateral Damage

by H. Terrell Griffin

  “I had an interesting jog this morning,” I said.

  “Yeah? More of those nude people on Beer Can Island?”

  I laughed. “No. I think the police have pretty much convinced them that town ordinances don’t allow nudity.”

  “Too bad. Some of the women weren’t bad to look at.”

  “You’re a pervert.”

  “What’s your point?”

  I laughed again. Logan wasn’t nearly as bad as he wanted people to believe. “Somebody tried to kill me on the North Shore boardwalk.”

  He put down the soda he’d been sipping. “What?”

  “Guy came at me with a knife.”

  “You okay?”

  “Little cut. J.D. put a bandage on it.”

  “What happened?”

  I gave him the whole story.

  Logan sat back in his chair. “If that guy’s elbow was as messed up as you say, he’s got to have medical attention.”

  “Bill Lester’s got alerts out to all the area hospitals. If he shows up, they’ll get him.”

  “What do you think the connection is to what you’re doing about Jim Desmond?”

  “I don’t know. I guess somebody doesn’t want me knocking around in the investigation.”

  “But why you? Why now? The cops have been looking into this thing for almost two months.”

  “I don’t know that either, unless maybe my trip to Georgia got some people concerned that we might be closing in.”

  “Trip wires?”

  “Maybe. I’ve been over my trip and I can’t come up with anything unless it was my visit with the Otto Foundation.”

  “That may be it. They have all kinds of ties with the Laotian government.”

  “Yes. And the Cambodian and Vietnamese governments as well. The Otto Foundation works in all three countries.”

  “When is Jock due in?”

  “Late this afternoon. He’s flying into Tampa and will drive down.”

  “Maybe he can tell us something about Soupy and his gang.”

  “I hope so.”

  It started raining again, great sheets of water washing from the sky. I watched the wall of rain coming across the bay until it got to us and blotted out our view. Lightning flashes seared the dark sky, loud bursts of thunder following closely. Our daily thunderstorm had arrived a little earlier in the day than usual. This much rain would overwhelm the drainage system on the southern end of Anna Maria Island, and by the time we headed south for Longboat, great puddles would be standing on the road that ran beside Coquina Beach.

  We finished our meal and the waitress came to offer us dessert or another drink. “Gotta wait out the storm,” said Logan.

  “We do.”

  “Scotch would help.”

  “It would.”

  “You want a beer?”

  “I could handle that.”

  And so we idled away the afternoon watching the rain, sipping our drinks, and enjoying each other’s company. At some point J.D. called to say she had the Dulcimer file copied. I told her where we were and that since it was still raining we might be a while. She told me to call if we weren’t capable of driving when the rain stopped. She’d come get us.

  At four, Jock called. “I’m about to cross the Cortez Bridge. Are you at home?”

  “No. We’re at the Bridgetender. Come on by here.”

  “Sounds as if you’ve been there a while.”

  “Lunch ran a little long.”

  He laughed. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  I saw him as he crossed Bay Drive, dodging the puddles of water that had accumulated on the old asphalt. He was wearing black; a black silk T-shirt, black slacks, socks, and loafers. He was six feet tall with the wiry body of the runner. His skin had the texture of a man who spent much of his time outdoors. The planes of his face were sharp, his head mostly bald except for the fringe of back hair. He walked with purpose, scanning the street and the outside deck of the Bridgetender, placing every piece of furniture and anybody who was wandering by, setting it in his mind in case he had to react, dodge the danger that he always expected. He was alert, as always, a habit born of many years of clandestine operations, of the need to react instantly to any perceived threat, to be just a little quicker than his adversaries in order to stay alive.

  He’d parked in one of the parking places that fronted the little beach on the bay side of the road. I hadn’t paid any attention to the nondescript Chevrolet he’d rented at the Tampa airport as it nosed into the space. I didn’t see him get out of the car. To my mind, he was just there, crossing the road like an apparition that appeared without warning.

  Jock Algren was many things. He worked for one of our government’s most secretive agencies, so secret that it had no name. Jock reported directly to the agency’s director, who reported only to the president of the United States. He’d spent his adult life, all the days since college, in the service of our country. He was an assassin who killed our enemies when it had to be done. He was a secret agent who infiltrated dangerous cells of individuals bent on destroying America. He was ostensibly an oil company executive, using the cover of that job to move about the world without arousing suspicion. Most of all, he was my best friend since junior high school, more a brother than a friend. Somehow we were Karmically joined at the hip. We were each other’s family.

  I rose and embraced my old friend. He turned to Logan, hugged him, and said, “Looks like you guys have been at this a while.”

  I looked at my watch. A little after four. “It’s been raining.” I hadn’t really had that much to drink. A couple of beers had carried me through the afternoon. Logan had worked the Dewar’s with determination, getting a little drunker with each drink, enjoying a day with nothing to do but watch the rain and sip his Scotch.

  Jock sat and ordered an O’Doul’s, the nonalcoholic beer that he fancied. Other than the occasional glass of wine, he almost never drank alcohol. He once told me that it dulled his senses and a man in his line of work couldn’t afford to lose that finely honed edge that kept him alive.

  I was the only person in the world who knew that when he came back from an operation, when he had blood on his hands that no amount of soap could remove, when he was questioning his right to live, he would crawl into a bottle of bourbon and stay there for several days. I was usually with him, his keeper as it were, the chaperone who kept him out of harm’s way while he cleansed his system with the spirits that came from the bottle. And when it was over, when the guilt and self-loathing had worked their way out of the pores of his skin on the backs of the molecules of alcohol, he would spend a few days in frantic exercise, running, working out in the gym, taking long steam baths, healing his body. Then he’d be fine, the latest bout of conscience finished, and we’d go back to our lives, I to the beach and Jock to the vague trenches that served as the front lines in our war against the terrorists who would obliterate our culture.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” said Jock. “

  Do you remember me telling you about the medic who pulled my ass out of the fire in Vietnam at the risk of his own life?”

  “Yes.”

  “He came to see me last week.” I spent the next thirty minutes laying out all that had happened since I’d found Chaz Desmond standing at my front door. I ended with the story of my brush with death that morning.

  Jock was quiet for a moment, sipping his O’Doul’s. “What can I do to help?”

  “I’d like to find out more about this Laotian, Souphanouvong Phomvihana and his operation. Can you get anything through your agency?”

  “Sure. If he’s on the radar of any of our intel groups, we’ll have him.”

  “What if he’s not?”

  “If he’s in the poppy business, we’ll know about him.”

  My phone rang. J.D.

  “Are you sober?” she asked.

  “I am, but I’m not at all sure about Logan. Jock’s here.”

  “Bring Logan to your house and put him to bed. I’l
l meet you there with the Dulcimer file and we can see if anything turns up. It’ll be good to have Jock’s eyes on it, too.”

  I hung up, looked at Logan, said, “Want to go home to bed?”

  “Are you shitting me?”

  “You look a little under the weather.”

  “I always look like this. I’m more sober than about ninety percent of the people on this island. What did J.D. want?”

  I told him.

  “Then let’s pay up and get this show on the road.” He got up from the table, threw some bills down, and walked toward his car. Steady as a rock.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  We were gathered around my dining room table, the Dulcimer file spread out among the remains of the several pizzas we’d ordered from Oma’s on Anna Maria Island, the ones delivered by a teenager driving a new Jaguar, an island oddity that amused me and ensured a generous tip. I liked the boy’s chutzpah.

  We’d been at it for a couple of hours. The day was dying. There would be no sunset this evening, at least not one that we could see. Dark clouds blanketed our island, hanging low and menacing, giving us a slight and unformed sense of dread, a feeling that evil was in the wind that blew from the mainland, a disconnected pathos that often comes on dismal days when the sun stays hidden and our little world is blighted by the grayness of it all. Perhaps it was only I who felt the small depression working up from my gut, the blackness of mood that I knew from experience could engulf me without warning and turn a merely bleak day into a dark abyss from which I was never sure I could escape.

  I shook it off, mentally relegating the negative emotions to the oblivion that lurks somewhere deep in our minds where we banish thoughts that can overwhelm and ruin us. But I knew that dark tendrils of dread, like black wisps of some evil cloud, would play for hours at the edges of my consciousness, beckoning me into the pit. Maybe it was only the sequela of my brush with death beside a rain-swept beach on an island paradise that should not countenance violence, but was subject to it because the key was after all connected to the real world by substantial bridges that did not discriminate between predators and prey.

  We’d gone over all the documents in the file, including a copy of the Coast Guard accident investigation. Each of us had read the statements of witnesses and the survivors of the dead. Jock put down the last statement, shaking his head. “Nothing much here that makes sense. How many of the passengers did you talk to?”

  J.D. said, “As many as we could. There was no passenger list, but we did get the credit card receipts of those who paid that way. If they paid with cash, we had no way of finding them.”

  “I don’t see but a few of the passengers’ statements here,” said Jock.

  “There weren’t many,” J.D. said. “We talked to each one of the ones we could find, but most didn’t see anything or know anything. We transcribed the statements of those who had anything of value, no matter how small the nugget of information. They’re all in the file.”

  Jock held up a handful of statements. “It doesn’t look like any of these people ever saw the Hooters girl and the lawyer together.”

  “No,” J.D. said. “All we have is a few people who think they remember seeing them on the boat. We had pictures of both victims and we e-mailed them to the people we talked to if they’d already left the area.”

  “Were you able to find any kind of connection between the girl and the lawyer?” asked Logan.

  “Nothing. Nada. Zip,” said J.D. “The lawyer and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Garrison, were staying at the Colony Beach and decided on the spur of the moment to take the boat. Katherine Brewster was at a B and B on Anna Maria and was following the suggestion of the owner, a Mrs. Jeanette Deen.”

  “I’d like to talk to Mrs. Deen,” I said. “I wonder if she knows more than was in the statement.”

  “You think she was lying?” asked Logan. “No. But there aresome questions that I’d like to ask. We know more now than the officer who took the statement did at the time.”

  “What about Katherine’s parents?” asked Jock. “Yeah,” I said. “I’d like to talk to them, too. I don’t know if there is a connection between the Dulcimer killing and Jim Desmond’s murder, but that was not part of the thinking when J.D. took their statements.”

  “You’re right,” said J.D. “And I took them over the phone. I’ve never met them.”

  I was a bit surprised. “They never came down here?”

  “No. The body was shipped back to Charlotte for the funeral. There really was no need for them to come here.”

  Logan said, “Let’s think this through for a minute. As I understand it, the only thing we have that might possibly tie the Dulcimer events and the Desmond murder together is the fact that the guy who came after Matt this morning was using a knife that was similar to the one that killed Garrison and Brewster on Dulcimer. And the only way to tie the attempt on Matt to the Desmond murder is that there may be a connection to some Laotian guy named Soupy who grows poppies for heroin dealers and who may still be pissed off at Jim Desmond for kicking his ass five years ago. That’s pretty thin, Counselor.”

  “Well,” I said, “when you put it that way—”

  “Logan’s right,” said J.D. “There’s a lot of supposition going on here.”

  “The fact that the murders all took place on the same day may be important,” said Jock.

  “How?” asked Logan.

  “Don’t know,” said Jock.

  “Coincidence?” asked J.D.

  “Doubtful,” I said.

  “Why?” asked J.D. “I don’t like coincidence,”I said. “Another one of those famous Royal gut feelings?” asked J.D.

  “You scoff,” I said, “but that gut has kept me out of some bad scrapes.”

  “And got shot full of shrapnel, too,” said J.D.

  “Matt been showing his scars around again?” asked Jock.

  “Yeah,” said J.D. “Just about took my breath away.”

  “Sarcasm is not healthy,” I said.

  “Has he shown you the one on his ass?” asked Logan.

  “Not yet,” said J.D.

  “I don’t have a scar on my ass,” I said.

  “Pooh,” said J.D. “I thought I had something to look forward to.”

  “If you’re finished having sport with me,” I said, “let’s get back to the matters at hand.”

  “Are all lawyers such stuffed shirts?” asked Logan.

  “Pretty much,” I said.

  “I think I’d like to talk to Mrs. Deen and then make a trip up to Jacksonville and talk to Mrs. Garrison and on to Charlotte to meet with the Brewsters.”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” said J.D. “I’ll make some calls. Pave the way with the witnesses.”

  “When do we start?” asked Jock.

  “I’ll go see Mrs. Deen tomorrow,” I said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The bar was in full swing, raucous, the music loud, the smoke-filled air alive with bawdy comments tossed randomly at the topless girls dancing on the elevated runways, writhing on the pole, their garters packed with five and ten dollar bills, giving the guys what they wanted, a fantasy of lust and fulfillment. The men knew it wasn’t real, that it was only a mirage of sexuality. Yet a hope fueled by expensive and watered-down booze lingered in their fevered brains, a bare possibility of fulfillment that would be dashed as soon as the lights came up and the bartenders stopped serving and the dancers left with their tattooed boyfriends. The men would file out of the bar and drive to their homes, crawl into their lonely beds, and pass the night in alcoholic oblivion.

  The young man glanced at his watch, turning his wrist to catch the minimal light from an overhead fixture. It was late and his friends had left an hour ago. He wasn’t sure why he’d stayed, ennui perhaps, a seeming inability to get off his chair and leave. He hadn’t drunk much, but had enjoyed the solitude, the anonymity of the bar on the edge of town late at night where no one knew his name. And truth be told, he enjoyed the slope
of a well-rounded breast and the flexing of butt cheeks confined only by the single strap of a thong.

  His thoughts drifted. He was only two years out of a public high school and much of his worldview was shaped by that experience. He’d known the jocks, the geeks, the dweebs, the preppies, the poor kids, and the rich. He fell into a couple of those categories, rich and preppie. There had never been a question but that he’d go to college and join his father in the family business. But what about the dancers? What had they been in high school? He couldn’t place them in any of the categories. What made them become topless dancers? What drove them to undulate mostly naked on a stage and endure the catcalls of drunken men? Why were these pretty girls attaching themselves to men, boys really, who looked like societal dregs? It was all a mystery to the preppie from the suburbs.

  He was not a snob. Far from it. He understood that there were people in his world who had not had his advantages, could not look forward to a future of prosperity and community acceptance. He appreciated the fact that he had been lucky to be born into his particular family, the son of a war hero who had become a man of substance and prominence in the city of his birth.

  He was twenty years old and had, what, seventy more years to live? What he would do with those years would measure him as a man. Did it really matter that he didn’t want the future that had been so meticulously crafted for him? His bridge year, the year between high school and college, half of it spent in Cambodia helping build a school in a place that had no sewage or running water or electricity, had given him a broader view of the world, one not circumscribed by the confines of a mediumsized southern city and its power structure, its flow of people and events little noticed outside its inhabitants’ cloistered world.

  He was going to have to have the talk with his father, explain his decision to follow a path other than the one ordained for him. It would disappoint the man, but the boy knew he would accept it, even encourage his son to find his own way to happiness and fulfillment.