by LS Sygnet
"I wonder what the other divisions are like in this city. Forsythe seemed to indicate that the problem is right here in central, but that the rest of Darkwater Bay isn't as incompetent." Maybe a deeper conversation with Briscoe would shed some light.
With the particulars of Brighton Bennett's murder entered into the national database, I entered my search criteria. I had one hit – the murder I just entered.
The search function worked much slower when I changed my parameters for sexual assaults of girls aged thirteen to sixteen. I let it do its thing and grabbed my purse. I'd check the results after my conversation with Briscoe.
Myre was snoring again, this time undisturbed by the squeaky door and the snick of the lock as I left Central Division for the second time Wednesday. I didn't see his eyes following me out of the squad room.
Chapter 16
Orion flung open the door to his "office", the penthouse at the very upscale LaPierre Tower, with damp hair, bare feet, a pair of jeans hugging slim hips and a dark blue silk shirt open to the navel. Spots of damp skin made the flimsy fabric cling in places.
I cleared my throat. "Am I interrupting something?"
"Tony's in the den. You can have your secret conversation while I finish."
"The water's gonna ruin that silk shirt."
Orion smirked. "What, this old thing?"
My eyes darted around the airy space, minimalist decor, tastefully un-decorated in a fashionably expensive way. A chair here. A black or white sculpture there. Gleaming hardwood floors. Pristine white walls. Chrome light fixtures. It felt warm and sterile at the same time. "Where's the den?"
Orion pointed to a pane-glass partition with wood blinds muting the warm glow of light beyond. "Den. Door. Tony."
The aforementioned detective appeared in the doorway recently opened and gave a little wave. "Welcome to Orion's babe lair," he grinned at me.
"We need to talk, Briscoe."
"And we'd be glad to answer any questions you have." Younger Detective Conall appeared over his partner's shoulder. He eyed me with frank curiosity. "Should I be offended that your invitation didn't explicitly include me, Dr. Eriksson?"
I groaned for two reasons – first that Conall's creepy interest once again lurked at the periphery of my world, and secondly, that Orion was complicit in an unwanted third person at my party. I shot Orion a dagger or two with my eyes before marching headlong into the lair as it was. "I doubt you're old enough to have the information I need, Detective Conall. Or do my eyes deceive me? Were you a detective fifteen years ago?"
Briscoe chuckled. "Puppy was but a rookie back in the day. Oh, pardon me, we had a new class of rookies by then, Puppy. Don't get riled on me now, or I'll have to smack your nose with Johnny's newspaper.
"Come on in here, Eriksson. May as well get this over with," the old warhorse-detective beckoned with one hand.
"You know why I'm here?"
"You ought to be asking Johnny these questions. It was his case after all," Briscoe said.
"Yes, a case he was so invested in that I suspect he's never given up trying to close it," I observed. "Sit. Both of you. Unless of course you can't comprehend why I would prefer questioning someone with more objectivity in this matter than Orion has."
"I think we just got insulted, Puppy. Did we?"
"Hmm. A little bit." Conall's mouth turned downward in a ridiculous pout of disapproval. "What can we tell you about the Bennett case?"
"Right now? Nothing. I'm more interested in the history of Darkwater Bay at the moment."
Briscoe scratched his goatee and grunted. "Well if that don't beat all. You got a knack for throwin' curve balls, Eriksson. Where do you want to start?"
"The beginning would be nice." I sat in one of the chairs and stared at the sofa, waiting for Briscoe and Conall to sit.
"The beginning of Darkwater Bay?" Conall looked as perplexed as Briscoe. "How can ancient history possibly help you solve a murder, Dr. Eriksson?"
"I doubt the current city meets the archeological standard of ancient, detective. And I'll be the judge of what helps me understand the dynamic that led to Gwen Foster's murder and what didn't."
Briscoe's chocolate eyes gleamed. "I see where you're goin' with this, Eriksson. All right. You wanna know how Darkwater Bay from the beginning resulted in the era we currently enjoy."
"Very astute of you, Detective Briscoe. Something in this town turned into a magnet for the wrong kinds of people, and I need to understand what that was."
"Darkwater Bay was founded in the late 1850s by settlers who failed to strike it rich in the '49 gold rush in California," Conall said. "They migrated north along the coast and happened upon Darkwater Bay."
"The weather, so say the history books, was the major drawback for folks wanting to stay," Briscoe said. "On account of our eerie fog from sundown to mid-morning, and the fact that the cloud rises but seldom disappears. But the fishing in the bay was unbelievable back then, and still is to this day. Have you noticed the bay, Eriksson?"
I had noticed it, an unusual phenomenon that I initially thought was caused by light refraction off the water's surface until I saw the same shimmering light, like black diamonds gleaming on the water's surface, at sunset when I was returning to my hotel to meet Maya for dinner. "It's very unique," I said.
"Like a shimmery oil slick," Conall said.
"I thought black diamonds," I replied. "It was breathtaking. When I noticed it while we drove from the airport to Nightingale last night, I thought it was merely the lights on the bay refracting against the water. It wasn't completely dark when I saw it this evening."
"She's good," Briscoe said.
"Part of what makes this so visible is the soil that the Elegiac River dumps into the bay," Conall explained. "It's probably the blackest, richest soil you've ever seen. Not only that, it is rich enough to grow just about anything we plant in it without much fuss."
"The settlers here didn't know that after a few nights camped along the bay," Briscoe said. "They were more enamored with the fact that they could practically wade out and catch a feast with their bare hands. We have a tremendous population of shellfish, and other varieties of fish like salmon and trout in the bay."
"Trout. In a bay?"
"They go where the food is," Briscoe grinned.
"Bioluminescent plankton?"
"See?" Briscoe turned to Conall again. "Did I not say she's good?"
"It's a very unusual variety, Dr. Eriksson," Crevan said. "Our bay has a unique composition, you see."
"Hmm, I do," I nodded. Of course. It was so simple. "The osmolality of the water is a mix of fresh and salt water. Combined with whatever minerals are in the soil, it created an environment where the bioluminescent plankton not only evolved differently than we see in other areas, but thrived. It resulted in an ecosystem that became self sustaining and bountiful."
"Exactly," Briscoe's index finger stabbed the air in my direction. "So they might not've struck gold down south, but they hit a jackpot of another kind. They settled, and initially, fishing was the primary trade."
"Until springtime rolled around and the farmers started working the soil," Conall said. "And they discovered that they could plant just about anything and it would grow. It wasn't long before somebody figured out that the bay was rich with life because of the Elegiac."
"Interesting name for a river that brought life to the bay, wasn't it?"
"I reckon that's one way of lookin' at it," Briscoe's tone was agreeable, but his eyes took offense to even a minor criticism of his city and its resources. "On the other hand, when you consider our overall climate out here, the rains that feed the river, it's like she's dumping her mournful tears into the bay, and that was what sustained the settlers."
"Very poetic, Briscoe."
"I'm sure I don't have to tell you that people get prone to depression when the sun don't shine much," he continued, "so that too gives our river her name. This place was considered a place of sadness, solemn ground by the nativ
e population who regularly conducted their funeral rites in the area prior to the white man's settlement. It was sacred to them."
"Perhaps Dr. Eriksson isn't aware that the rain and fog in this area are unique, Tony. You can drive fifty miles away from the city and enjoy sunny, clear skies."
"Good to know. I believe you were telling me about someone realizing that the bay's unique properties resulted from the river …"
Briscoe unruffled. "Right. So they ventured along the river up to the Scabbard."
"A specific mountain, I presume."
"Uh-huh," Briscoe nodded. "They found the third source of bounty the Elegiac fed. Timber. Over a century and a half later, we're still living in an economy largely supported by those three forms of commerce – fishing, farming and lumber."
"Fascinating. And there hasn't been an issue with depletion of the natural resources?"
Conall grinned. "We've got our own ecosystem out here, Helen. Can you imagine for a minute that there aren't as many scientists as we have trees and fish monitoring to make sure that it remains healthy?"
"They got departments at both universities here in Darkwater Bay," Briscoe concurred. "They're out testing soil and counting trees in the reforestation project and makin' sure the water isn't getting polluted by commercial ships or the stock in the river and bay aren't depleted. We can't throw a speck of gravel out here without hittin' some form of environmentalist or another."
"But something brought them here." Bits of the puzzle were starting to mesh in my mind. Briscoe and Conall's shared look confirmed what I suspected.
"About twenty years ago, the majority stock holder in the biggest logging company in the state shifted hands," Conall said. "And the logging industry started taking more than the land could regrow."
"Which attracted environmentalists."
"Right," Briscoe nodded. "And leading the way was a guy out here who employed organic farming practices just like his daddy and granddaddy had before organic farming was the cool thing to do."
"Who was he?" I asked.
"The man who organized the environmentalists to protect the forests up on Scabbard Mountain," Briscoe said. "Fellow by the name of Frank Bennett."
"Bennett. As in Brighton Bennett?"
"He was her uncle," Conall said. He stared at the hands folded loosely in his lap. "Frank butted heads pretty hard with the guy who had the majority share in the logging company. For awhile, it looked like industry would win the fight."
"You haven't told me who that major stockholder was, Tony."
"I think you already suspect who he was. Mr. Fancy Pants Ivy League corporate lawyer, who breezed into town lookin' to cut a fat hog in the ass and make a fortune on his own terms."
"Daniel Datello."
"She is good," Conall murmured.
"It's hardly rocket science. What happened in the environmentalist's battle?"
"Frank used his influence with the governor and some state senators who didn't want the economy to fizzle and die in a decade or two and got reforestation laws mandated by the legislature. 'Course ol' Danny-boy weren't none too pleased –"
"Until he discovered that what they planted grew faster than anyone expected it would," Conall said. "So he realized that what Frank did to save the forest guaranteed the success of his logging interest beyond the foreseeable future."
"Fabulous. I take it he became a corporate poster child for environmentalism."
"He and Frank became good friends," Briscoe said, "so when Datello expanded his interests into the fishing business, right off the bat he hired a team of scientists who would monitor their impact on the river and the bay –"
"And Datello is a hero once more."
"Right," Tony said. "So a year later when Danny decided that he'd like to turn our fair city into something a bit more attractive to tourism, nobody put up much of a fight, not even the state legislature who legalized gambling and ultimately put our quaint little island on par with Vegas and Atlantic City."
"Enter the Island Hotel Resort and Casino, and Salvatore Masconi. How many years were the casinos open before Brighton's murder?"
"Two. Barely," Conall said. "The city thought that by restricting the zoning for casinos to Hennessey Island, it would curb crime in the rest of the city. We'd have this isolated pocket where crime was more likely to occur. They built a station run by Bay View Division on the island. And their estimation of criminal activity missed the mark by about a thousand percent."
"Hennessey Island has the lowest crime rate in all the divisions of Darkwater Bay, doesn't it?"
"Yep," Briscoe nodded. "Bay View Division, which includes Hennessey Island, Beach Cliffs, Bay View and a couple of other small suburbs is by far the safest place to live in Darkwater Bay. After that, Fielding Division and Downey are about neck and neck for crime. Darkwater proper has the city, Nightingale, Elegiac Bend and a couple others. It's the festering wound known as Central Division's jurisdiction."
"Which is interesting," Conall interjected, "because some of the oldest names in Darkwater Bay and wealthiest families live in Nightingale."
"Like Gwen Bennett Foster."
Their eyes widened.
"Apparently Flynn Myre lied to me when he said her parentage was common knowledge."
"If anybody knew, they never mentioned it that I'm aware of." Conall's eyes seemed to burn through the wooden slats covering the windows in Orion's den.
Good. He put it together as quickly as I did. Orion withheld information.
"Did you know Ms. Foster through your mutual friend, Detective Conall?"
"Crevan," he corrected me. "And I met her a couple of times. Johnny never mentioned that she was a Bennett."
"After what happened to Brighton, the whole family opted for low profile, 'cept for her mama," Briscoe explained. "And I can't blame 'em. There comes a time when folks gotta leave the past and move on."
"Move on," I rasped. How I hated that phrase.
Briscoe perched his elbows on his knees and leaned heavily. "I ain't sayin' they gave up, Helen."
I noticed the seamless transition to addressing me informally and frowned. It was too comfortable, too familiar. Too natural.
"For a fact, I know Johnny never gave up on bringin' Masconi to justice. You said it yourself not more'n half hour ago. You don't think Orion gave up on the case either. He and Gwen were thick as thieves since she was just a little kid, picked on by others at the Sisters of Mercy Academy, and Johnny, who was quite a bit older, took her under his wing and put a stop to it. That's the kind of guy Johnny's been his whole life."
"So she wasn't merely another of his infamous conquests?"
Briscoe chuckled while Conall squirmed and blushed.
"I ain't sayin' Johnny's no angel with the fairer sex. But he takes care of his friends, got even more that way after his parents died. It's like he grew his own family after his folks were gone."
"Great," I muttered. "And what signifies the difference between conquest and friend?"
Briscoe leaned back in his chair, smug expression etched into his fifty-something face. "I reckon I could tell you till the stars fall and the fog leaves Darkwater Bay forever, Helen. But there's some things a person's gotta figure out alone."
"If the person in question has any interest in that particular mystery, which I doubt exists." I paused and stared hard at both men. "So tell me. If Danny Datello owns Darkwater Bay lock, stock and barrel, is that ownership inclusive of the police department, specifically its detectives?"
Their eyes widened.
Chapter 17
Anyone trained in the discipline of psychology has an unfair advantage. Our arsenal is filled with lethal weapons, the most effective of which, I employ at every opportunity. Getting information from people who might otherwise guard their reactions can best be obtained by appearing to be soft and warm, a dash of friendliness, a little ego stroking followed by a swift transition into the cobra ready to strike.
Judging the looks on Briscoe and Conall's fa
ces, I had lulled them into a complete sense of intimate camaraderie before my hood spread and venom spewed paralytic poison in their faces. Conall was wounded. Briscoe was downright pissed, red-faced and puffing.
"I'll have you know that the department would love nothing better than to catch that smarmy creep committing a crime!" he bellowed.
I suppressed the grin that threatened, hid the delight over the bulging neck veins and the big one in the center of his forehead that started writhing in a serpentine dance of its own.
"In fact, it wasn't long after that gambling fiasco took root out on Hennessey Island that we lost a good man who knew Datello was up to no good!"
"Indeed. Tell me about that, Detective Briscoe." I folded my hands calmly in my lap and sent the most unflappable, therapeutic stare in the history of clinical psychology along with the pleasant request for more information.
He sputtered for a moment. "I … the hell with you! Apologize for that slanderous accusation, Eriksson, or by God, we are done talking!" His blunt index finger punctuated the tantrum.
"I feel no compulsion to apologize for asking a legitimate question, Detective Briscoe. I haven't even been here for 24 hours yet, and the bizarre nature of criminal investigations by the police department points to the very kind of interference I implied by my question. You're telling me that you are not influenced by the interests of Danny Datello. Fine. In the absence of hard evidence to support my suggestion, I'll accept your assertion at face value."
"Dammit," he growled and glanced at Conall. "She just insulted us again, didn't she?"
"Just a little bit, but Tony, she has a point. Think about her first impression of us. We're at a crime scene, outside our jurisdiction, fighting for control. Not to mention, I'm the alibi witness for a person of interest in the case. That fact aside, we're both friends of Johnny to boot. What would that look like to any outsider, not just any, but a fed?"
