Dead in the Water

by Glenda Carroll

  “Well, some teams are better than others.”

  “That’s not quite the response I was looking for.”

  “Sorry. I’d love to go to a game with you no matter who they are playing. But I hope it’s a good team.”

  I looked at my watch. “I need to get back to work. My lunch hour has been stretched a little too far.”

  As we started to walk toward King Street, a roar went up from inside the ballpark. We both looked up at the same time. Over the top of the right field brick wall flew a small white baseball, sailing toward San Francisco Bay. Inside the ballpark huge fountains of mist shot into the air and the deep rumble of fog horns blasted to celebrate the home run.

  Looking like a comet speeding toward earth, the baseball landed with a splash in McCovey Cove and all the kayakers and board paddlers frantically stroked toward it. One guy in a wetsuit dove off his paddleboard and reached the ball first. He was quickly followed by a kayaker who managed to run him over, pushing him underwater. But the swimmer bobbed up on the other side of the boat, raised his hand in the air, clutching the baseball in a victory salute. A cheer went up from the makeshift flotilla in McCovey Cove.

  “That’s where your cards belong,” said Justin.

  “They’re staying right where they are,” I said.

  14

  As soon as I walked back in the office, Bill tossed me a set of car keys.

  “You have a ride home. That doctor friend of yours from SF Memorial dropped off these. Guess his dad and uncle own a body shop in Pleasanton. They picked up your car and took it with them. Oh, this car he left you…he said it’s yellow.”

  “Thanks. Can’t wait to see what it is. Dr. T is an old school car fanatic, so are the men in his family. I can guarantee you that this will be a very hot car.”

  “Why don’t you go home? It’s quiet right now and I’m here for the rest of the day.”

  That’s all it took. I headed for the door.

  The round key ring had the license plate number written on a circular white tab. I walked up and down the rows of cars in the large outdoor parking lot in Fort Mason comparing plate numbers. I checked out about 50 cars parked in front of my building. No luck.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a bright yellow vehicle parked close to the lot entrance.

  “Oh no, this can’t be it.” I walked over and compared plates. I would be driving home in a completely restored 1978 Checker Cab, bright yellow, with trademark checkerboard black trim. It even had its original Checker top light on the roof.

  I climbed into the big boxy car and ran my hand along the brown supple leather. The dashboard was flat, perfectly vertical. The back seat with its two jump seats was spacious.

  “I could fit 12 people in here.”

  This would be a very interesting ride home.

  Terrel was on the phone with his father discussing cars when I walked in the house.

  “No, Pop. I don’t want those wheels. Just tell me the best place to buy tires for the Charger up here in Marin County? (Pause) Yes, she’s here. She just walked through the door. I’m sure she loves the car.”

  I rolled my eyes and Terrel smiled.

  “I’ll tell her. Now, please answer the question. Where do I go for the tires, Pop? The tires. Remember, the tires. Petaluma Swap meet? Yes, finally. Thank you.”

  Terrel clicked off the phone. “Talking to my father is exhausting. So what do you think? Great ride, isn’t it? It’s Pop’s pride and joy. He just said that if you pick up any fares, you need to split with him.”

  “Not so funny,” I said. “Two guys tried to get in the cab when I stopped for a red light on Lombard. They finally went away when I said I was off duty.”

  “Okay, you’re set. Question for you. Have you learned anything more about the swimmer that might have had a heart attack a week ago?”

  “Besides that he died? Well, I found some capsules in his swimbag, so I suggested to his sister they have them tested. I was even going to volunteer your help.”

  “Have they done an autopsy?”

  “His sister has requested one. Why?”

  “The accident victim, the woman who drove off a cliff south of Half Moon Bay.”

  “Jackie Gibson?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. Her preliminary tox screen came back. Let’s just say it isn’t what I expected.”

  “She tested positive for some type of drug, didn’t she?”

  “Do you think this has anything to do with the Waddell death?” asked Lena, walking into the room.

  “Couldn’t tell you without more information. Right now, the only connection is that they were both swimmers and they knew each other.”

  “Well, I think they are related and I am sure that the brick through my car window was a warning. And somehow Mike Menton is involved. I came by to see you today. Well, actually, it wasn’t you. Our office gave flowers to Jackie. I…uh…had a chance to look at her test results. They had been left on the computer screen by her bed.”

  Terrel shook his head. “That’s not supposed to happen. Go ahead. What else?”

  I pulled out the envelope with the results I jotted down. Terrel looked at it.

  “This tells the story of a woman whose judgment was impaired because of something she ingested. She shouldn’t have been driving. You know the old, ‘don’t operate heavy machinery’ on the medication warning labels. Her car didn’t malfunction. She did. Jackie had a very bad reaction to something, probably drugs. Her whole nervous system went haywire. My guess is that this is what caused her to have the accident.”

  “Could it have been some form of performance enhancing drugs, steroids?”

  “I could get in trouble for talking about this—privacy laws and all—but she tested positive for a crystalline tropane alkaloid.”

  “A what?”

  “She tested positive for cocaine, or at a bare minimum, a substance made primarily of cocaine. This is a very powerful stimulant of the nervous system. If you’re an athlete, you’re going to feel in the zone, like you can conquer anything. It’s possible that this is HT2, the drug that Kapoor talked about the other day.”

  I sat back and looked at T.

  “Cocaine?”

  “Yes,” said Terrel. “I’m afraid so. There’s more. It looks like the cocaine was cut with some sort of amphetamine, probably meth.”

  Lena had gone back into the kitchen and came back in with a handful of grapes. She threw one at me and one at T.

  “What are you two deep in discussion about now?”

  “Jackie’s accident might not have been so much of an accident.”

  Lena was interested.

  “Terrel thinks she might have had a bad reaction to a drug.”

  “One of your designer street drugs, right?” Lena said.

  “Unfortunately, yes. One that was made up of cocaine and meth,” he said.

  “I don’t believe it. I flat out don’t believe it. From what I heard, Jackie was a femme fatale, not a junkie,” Lena said. “She didn’t care if she finished in the top five or the top 50. She used those open water swims as a trolling ground for men. So why would she take any drugs at all? Didn’t we have this same conversation about Dick Waddell a few weekends ago?”

  “That was only speculation. At the time, I didn’t think that Waddell’s’ death was anything more than cardiac arrest. This isn’t speculation, I’m afraid. I have the test results, and now so does your sister.”

  15

  Saturday evening, I was standing next to McCovey Cove once again at AT&T Park waiting for Justin.

  “Where is he?” I wondered, looking at the crowd streaming into ballpark. As a concession to my safety-conscious sister, I took the Giants ferry in from Larkspur Landing. She thought this date was a big mistake. She brought up our conversation with Pamela, Waddell’s sister, and her less than enthusiastic expression when we asked about the guy with the Afro in the swim team photo.

  “He’s a bona fide weirdo,” said Lena.

&nbs
p; I had a return ticket just in case things didn’t work out.

  Dressed in my best SF Giants World Series tee shirt and orange and black ball cap, I waited by the ferry exit, the spot we had agreed upon. No Justin. The crowd began to thin. I could hear the sounds of the national anthem being played.

  Am I being stood up? I started to walk back to the Port Walk. At least I could watch the first three innings for free. Then, I didn’t know what I’d do for the next two hours until I could get back on the ferry and go home.

  My phone pinged. A text from Lena. “Everything okay?”

  “He’s a no show,” I typed back. I checked my messages. Nothing from Justin.

  “Jerk—him, not you,” Lena sent back.

  I tried calling him. It went right to “You know what to do. Here comes the beep.” I hit redial. Same response. “Justin, where are you? The game is starting,” I said into the phone.

  Baseball, in general; this game, in particular, had lost its luster. All that cheering and frenzied excitement were like yesterday’s garlic fries stuck to the floor in the bleachers. What was I expecting? Still looking for the prince charming who liked baseball, to sweep me off my feet and take me to an endless series of games? Guess I won’t be on TV tonight.

  I sat down on the bench we had sat on a few days ago, pulled out my 3 x 5 cards and leafed through them absently. Why do I care what happened to these people? They weren’t family. Originally, I felt a kinship because of my own thoughts about death. That was until one of them messed with my car.

  I shuffled the cards and looked at the associations once again, who connected with whom. They reminded me of a DNA molecule; there were different ways they fit together. But the results were still the same. One person was dead, another was seriously injured.

  I pulled out two blank cards. Someone else connected with each person. That was Justin. I wrote his name on the card, underlined it. On the second card, I wrote the words “my car” and walked back to the entrance to the ferry, sat on a nearby bench with my chin in my hands and waited for the game to be over.

  It was near midnight when I walked off the ferry at Larkspur Terminal. I couldn’t get away from that boat fast enough. A Giants win meant a happy crowd. This was a very happy crowd. I heard the low rumble of Dr. T’s Charger before I saw the black car. Terrel had come to pick me up.

  “Trish. Over here,” he called.

  Inside, the car was meticulously clean. I thought about the dirt on my shoes and what it would do to the passenger’s side rug pad.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Forget him. He’s not worth your time or energy.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  We rode in silence for a while.

  “I called the medical examiner at Lake Joseph’s hospital to discuss Dick Waddell. They sent the results of his preliminary toxicology screen to the sister.”

  “And?”

  “They are identical to Jackie Gibson’s. Cocaine, meth. Only Waddell had a much higher drug count in his system. The ME is going to call me with final results from the toxicological screen and the autopsy when they come back.

  “Trish, someone is selling dangerous drugs to swimmers in the open water world. This combination—cocaine and meth—it’s lethal.”

  I looked out the car window into the black night.

  “At first, I wanted to help, I really did. I felt such compassion for Waddell’s family. I tried to make sense of it before, but now I don’t know. If they want to take drugs and drive off cliffs, what am I supposed to do about it?”

  “You’ve had a tough couple of days…your car…Justin not showing up.”

  Terrel kept his eyes on the road as we headed up Highway 101 toward San Rafael.

  “I’m worried about Lena,” he said.

  “She doesn’t take drugs. You know that.”

  “She could end up a victim.”

  “The last thing Lena is, is a victim. She’s tougher than an old rawhide whip.”

  “You and people connected to you could be in danger. Someone destroyed your windshield and the side panels of your car. Coming up, I learned a lot about the justice of the streets, revenge and displaced respect. To get you to stop doing whatever you’ve been doing, they may target something or someone else you care about.”

  “Lena?”

  “Maybe. Anyway, keep an eye on her at the swims.”

  “I do that already.”

  I looked over at Terrel. “Consider this scenario. According to my very limited research, the victims, Dick and Jackie, were an item. Mike Menton and Jackie were an item. Maybe Mike wanted Dick out of the way. People do crazy things for love.”

  “That’s where your theory falls apart. With Dick out of the way, Mike had free access to Jackie. Why would he hurt her?”

  “Mike is pretty tightly wound from what I’ve seen. If Jackie goes through men—men swimmers, unless she is into other sports as well—she might have had another guy on the back burner. You know, a main man and a backup…always making sure that there is someone waiting in the wings.”

  “You think he’d hurt her because he is about to get dumped? It doesn’t make sense. Anyway, you can talk to Menton and find out about Jackie.”

  “I tried that. I called him from work. I chased him down at the Cold Water Clash and he made it clear he didn’t want to talk to me.”

  “What about Jackie?”

  “She is in no condition to talk to anyone. You know that.”

  “She must have friends. Someone on her swim team, maybe. Her coach. Bet they know a lot about her.”

  “I’m not sure this will do anything but get me in trouble.”

  “Seriously, all you have to do is have a conversation with someone. You’ve got the connections now through work. And the phone numbers. Trish, people are getting hurt. One died, one almost died. I care most about Lena and you, but this could affect anyone who comes in contact with the killer.”

  “Killer? A killer?”

  “Yes. I think you were right in the first place. None of this is a coincidence.”

  T pulled into our driveway. I got out and stood by the car.

  “You’re not coming in?”

  “No, I have the next shift at the hospital. Lena knows. Consider what we talked about, okay?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Lena had fallen asleep in front of the TV. On the screen was the classic fight between good and evil. In this case, good was a sheriff at a coastal town in New England who was terrified of water. Bad was a really big shark who was dining on the local residents while they played in the water. I watched for a while considering the plight of the reluctant hero facing an angry town who didn’t want their beach shut down over a holiday weekend and a frightening shark with a span of teeth broader than a double wide trailer.

  At least he was a sheriff, I thought to myself. He had some idea of what he was doing. Maybe T was right, but who was going to listen to me? I can’t even get a guy to show up for a date.

  I tried to call Justin one more time. No response. With that, I picked up a blanket, threw it over my sleeping sister, switched off the television and made my way through the dark house to my bedroom. I sat down on the edge of my bed looking at the shadows outside the window.

  Not tonight. Not this time. If I wasn’t able to sleep, I had a place where I needed to go. I picked up my backpack and headed outside to the Checker cab.

  It was 2:00 a.m. when I parked around the corner from Richard Waddell’s empty house in Martinez. Except for a few outside porch lights, the neighborhood was dim and hushed. A light blanket of fog rubbed out the stars and shrouded the thin slice of moon.

  I walked quickly down the path to Waddell’s backyard, unlatched the gate and slipped in. Once again, I climbed up on a garden chair next to the kitchen window. Luck was with me; the plastic window lock had not been replaced. Pushing the window open, I pulled myself inside the dark kitchen. The small flashlight attache
d to my key ring threw just enough light to lead me through the house to Waddell’s bedroom.

  I stood there quietly, listening. No sounds, except the dull thud of my heartbeat in my ears and my unsteady breathing. I was alone. Harsh deep shadows hugged the slim beam of light as it panned around the room. Moving slowly, soundlessly toward the closet, I stopped and held my breath when a skittering ‘thump, thump, thump’ bounced across the roof. The noise stilled, then started again. Probably a squirrel. More important to me, it was an alarm. Don’t screw around. Get what you came for and leave.

  Waddell’s closet was deep. His shirts, pants and suits were hung on both sides. I had seen Spencer throw the swim bag back behind the racks of shoes. I knew exactly where it was. Make that, exactly where it should have been. It wasn’t there.

  I needed to find the swim bag. I needed to get that small plastic baggie with the empty capsules. The narrow ray of light flitted across the bedroom…nothing…under the bed…nothing. I pulled open the tall chest of drawers and did a quick look…nothing.

  I sat down on the bed and looked around. What had I missed? Swim bags aren’t big, but they aren’t small either. If it was here, I should be able to see it.

  Someone…probably Spencer, maybe even Pamela, had taken it.

  I glanced at the night table by the bedside. The small drawer of the night stand opened easily. Not much there. Two pens, a crossword puzzle book, an old address book, condoms, and a point and shoot digital camera. I slipped the address book and camera into my pocket and headed back for the kitchen. I shimmied through the window to the backyard. Stopped and listened. No sounds at all except the shooop, shooop of the sprinklers in the yard. I silently lifted the latch and headed up the sidewalk to the Checker.

  16

  I followed Terrel’s suggestion and called Jackie’s coach under the pretext of writing something about her for the upcoming swimming newsletter. The coach told me to show up after morning practice to meet Theresa Renoit, one of Jackie’s lanemates. So now I was standing in the parking lot outside a swimming pool in Pacifica at 7:30 a.m. on a Tuesday and I was cold. Heavy mist hung like a damp curtain from the saturated grey sky.