She smiled like a toothpaste commercial parody— perfect white teeth with just a hint of a smirk. She started to answer, but Pretty Boy put his arm across her chest.
"Hey hey," said Pretty Boy, with a little finger point toward Pepper. "We have the right to remain silent, we know our First Amendment rights." He vapor puffed victoriously.
She pushed his arm away. "I'm sorry officer, Justin's from California. It must be about forty-five here, right? Was I going a little fast?" She even bit her lower lip a bit.
"It's thirty along this stretch. But you were pushing sixty."
"This is like profiling," complained Justin. "Harassing the famous."
"Excuse me?"
Justin pulled himself to full height in his bucket seat, like he was really going to say something important this time. But Maddie cut him off. "Officer, don't pay any attention to him. He's going to shut up now."
"Good idea," said Pepper, taking off his sunglasses and slipping them into his pocket. "Well, you need to slow this rocket down. Lots of kids on bikes along here, too many blind curves. But I guess I'll have to let you off with a warning this time. Since we're married."
Pepper didn't know whose reaction was funnier, Maddie's or Justin's. Pepper had knocked the flirty little smirk off her mouth, which was now hanging open in confusion. Justin immediately turned red, his eyes darting back and forth between her and Pepper, anger and confusion dueling for control. He slid low in his bucket seat, snapped a defiant selfie with his phone, another victim of The Man.
Maddie slipped off her sunglasses, flipped back her honey blonde hair, stared up at Pepper, finally really looking at him. Studied him. "No damn way...Pepper Ryan?" And then she smiled for real this time, with her eyes, all playful joy and energy. Like her smile when they were young.
"You're married?" howled Justin.
"It was fourth grade," said Maddie. "Married in the playground, at recess. I had a maid of honor and everything."
"And a tin foil ring," said Pepper.
"That isn't even legal..." protested Justin weakly, slipping his phone into his pocket, but they weren't listening to him anymore.
"And don't forget those two summers in high school," smiled Pepper.
She laughed back. "Never! I should have known you'd find me—I just got back to Eagle's Nest. Daddy's dying. And I'm helping host the president's daughters next week. God Pepper, I haven't seen you since that summer before twelfth grade, when I was still a brunette!"
That Saturday night in late August, before she'd gone away to a new boarding school in Switzerland, to be exact. At the insistence of her daddy, the billionaire a-hole Acker Smith, who was less than impressed with her wild, local boyfriend.
Pepper knew her father was sick, but dying? And he knew Smith was a political bedfellow of Wayne Garby, the most hated president in modern U.S. history. So Smith had recruited his own daughter to host the president's notoriously social twin daughters? That actually made sense.
"Right, not since the summer your mom died," Pepper agreed quietly. But his mind was racing with memories from that last summer. And racing with adrenaline—he suddenly felt seventeen years old again. "I just got back too. But I want to hear everything you've been doing all these years. I'll catch you later Maddie." When he handed back her ID, his fingers touched hers, almost accidentally, and she jumped a little.
Back in his cruiser, Pepper sat for a bit. Madeline Smith. Pepper faintly remembered the teenaged loss and emptiness that'd hit him that final August night, when Maddie told him on the beach below their houses she was going away. And Eagle's Nest was always a mile and a half down the beach from the Ryan home, a faint reminder whenever he drove past. Like catching a whiff of an old love's perfume. Especially when he heard the infamous noon ringing of Eagle's Nest's bell tower, her father's obnoxious sentimentality imported from the south of France for his French wife. Pepper had thought about Maddie a lot in the first years after she'd gone, then less often, then less intensely when he did.
But now Maddie had reopened the door and so of course he'd take her up on the invitation. It was serendipity, right? Pepper smiled, recalling how pissed her buddy Justin had appeared. That was okay with Pepper too. He decided he'd be visiting Maddie at Eagle's Nest absolutely as soon as possible.
Pepper hit his mike, informed Dispatch he was clear of the stop and was coming to the station.
"Roger that," replied Zula. "The Chief requested you touch base when you get in."
As feared. And Pepper hadn't connected with Special Agent Alfson.
"So, first ticket of the new week?" continued Zula's voice. "Our taxpayers will be so grateful…"
"Negative. Reduced to a warning."
"Oh, she must have been pretty! Was she, Pepper? Did you get her phone number?"
What could heart-of-stone Officer Pez say? Pepper just clicked off.
Oliver Young and his 'colleague' Croke were driving slowly in thick traffic along Route 28 late on that Monday morning, both quiet. Passing a seemingly endless parade of nautical mini-golf courses, ice cream stands and tacky restaurants.
Actually, Croke—a white-haired guy about a million years older than Oliver—was driving their Chevy Impala. Croke was a bit of a legend in their line of work, but the stories about him were all decades old. What was he—sixty? Don't hitmen retire? The brokers of this murder contract—a mob family in Queens, N.Y.—had paired Oliver with the dinosaur Croke, saying it was too big for a solo job, but maybe trusting the old-timer more than the new guy Oliver. Oliver had only completed one job for them before. Oliver had never seen Croke until two days ago and looked forward to never seeing him again after this job was in the can. The guy smelled like nervous body odor.
Oliver slouched down in the passenger seat. After a normal hit job, he would quickly be long gone. Goodbye, Cape Cod. Hello, Atlantic City? St. Louis? Wherever the road took him, as long as it was far away from the scene of the crime. And his karma had been shaky recently—why push it?
But this hit had been special—the jogger was some kind of cop—and the pay reflected it. And their bosses had instructed up front for Oliver and Croke to stay somewhat nearby because more work would soon follow. Maybe enough for Oliver to accumulate a haystack of cash so he could take a long deserved break. What he'd heard called 'fuck you' money. Oliver liked the sound of that.
So Oliver and Croke were guests at the modest Sanddollar Motel in Hyannis, about a half hour west of New Albion. And today they needed to check in with their bosses down in Queens, which was typically accomplished through quiet, mostly unused web chat sites. Phone calls with them were rare. Discouraged. Like many who earned their living in the discreet world of organized crime, they liked the internet's dark veil.
Free WI-FI was the Sanddollar Motel's biggest sales point on its sign since POOL had at some point been crossed out with a thick black line. But Oliver didn't want to shit where he ate, so to speak, and so he wasn't going to access the internet from their motel to chat about murdering people. Not even using coded language. Croke had grudgingly deferred to Oliver's suggestion to drive eastward along Route 28 and find anonymous internet access.
When they'd arrived on Cape Cod on Thursday, Oliver had expected to find a patchwork of cute little towns and villages. The footprints of wherever European settlers chose to set up, many centuries ago. Not the pilgrims exactly, but probably not too far after. Instead, he'd found Cape Cod was in fact just one long traffic jam.
Then Oliver saw a sign: Entering Chatham. Incorporated 1712. Yep, so practically pilgrims. Oliver nudged Croke who carefully parked on the little main street just after noon, practically in front of the stone steps of the Eldredge Public Library.
In Oliver's opinion, libraries were awesome. Total anonymity, privacy and protection for the general public. And librarians usually refuse to roll over for law enforcement efforts to monitor or track folks who used the library's computers, on principle. Ideal, right?
Until they got to the front door. Locked. Th
ey both tugged the door, peeped inside, all dark. Them Oliver saw the sign. Doesn't open until 1 PM on Mondays.
"Good thing they aren't trying to make any money..." Croke grumbled in his crabby Eastern European accent. Oliver's bosses had told him that Croke was from an area which used to be part of Czechoslovakia, or Slovakia, or somewhere in between.
Whatever. So they went and ate lunch nearby, pretty decent pizza. At exactly 1 PM, they were standing at the library's door again when a small, very elderly woman in a green pantsuit unlocked the front door and opened it as if they were her grandkids, finally coming to visit.
Oliver was a bit thrown and a confusing conversation began. It smoothed into what they were there for: computer access? She ushered them in and pointed them to the computer room near the magazine racks. A little peeling sticker on the computer said: No water permitted in computer areas. A little sign on the table said: No food or beverages. One person per computer.
Oliver sat at the furthest of three computers and Croke wandered away into the stacks of books. Oliver fired up the library's secure Tor Web browser. Logged on to the correct obscure, anonymous chat site.
And let out a quiet groan. The message said:
Charlie is unhappy...last surgery unsuccessful. May need corrective surgery to clean up something witnessed…will know soon. Pray...check tomorrow.
'Charlie' being their Queens bosses' weird codename for the client. Surgery unsuccessful? What was the client's problem—did the message mean there was a goddamn witness? Should Oliver and Croke call in and talk it through with them? But he knew they hated that.
The client had requested a splashy murder, the kind that gets lots of press. So sure, Oliver showed off a bit. Took the job to the next level, big time. Tried to show them how lucky they were to have Oliver on the assignment.
And yes, the clambake motif had been Oliver's idea. The client had told them to bury the body on a particular beach where a big hole would be waiting. They were also instructed to leave on the body an item that was delivered in their drop package: a red starfish. But inspiration had hit Oliver in his motel room bathroom while thumbing through a free tourism magazine, taking a dump. It had a big article with lots of pictures spelling out the ritual of a New England clambake, breaking down every step. The sheer charm of the clambake had caught his imagination. It seemed so…native.
And Oliver had never felt anything like the media response to the clambake murder. The newspaper headlines! The breathless anchorwoman leading with the story on the Boston evening news. It was more than a murder--it was a sensation, just because of the clambake angle. Even though there was no mention who the victim was, yet. And no mention about the cigar tube or the mystery note it probably held. The tube had been sealed shut when it arrived in the drop package with their boring but reliable Impala.
Sure, Oliver had murdered before. Four times. But always discreetly. Nothing to excite more attention than any other sad little crimes happening every day across America. It was just business, until now. The media coverage gave him a taste of what it'd be like to be famous. No, infamous...
But the word 'witness' in the chat room message had left Oliver cold. The client's instruction had been clear—there could be no witnesses, no fuck-ups that could lead back to Oliver and Croke, let alone the client. What'd gone wrong?
Only a few people had entered the library since Oliver and Croke arrived. The librarian seemed to have forgotten them and was away from her desk, somewhere among the shelves. Croke reappeared at Oliver's side with a book in hand. "So hey? Everybody happy?" he muttered while flipping through the book, as if to act discreet.
"Our patron requested we stand by," said Oliver.
"Our who?"
"Our patron. The client."
"Stand by?" Croke repeated, his accent sounding heavy with skepticism. Maybe the older man was still reluctant to concede leadership to Oliver.
"Stay in the area and check tomorrow."
Croke paused, thinking. "Huh, so we are coming back tomorrow. I think I'll borrow this book. Keep me busy tonight."
"Croke, you're saying you wanna apply for a library card? Where we do our anonymous online chats with them?"
Croke looked hurt. "It seems pretty good…all about the history of salt. But it's really about how people in older times got rich, I think. And also about food."
What? "Well, you're not getting a library card. Obviously. Let's go."
Croke nodded grudgingly. He stretched, then pretended to be tucking in his shirt. What he was doing, to Oliver's disgust, was slipping the damned salt book down the back of his pants.
"Okay, we go," said Croke.
What a partner-in-crime.
Old Lady Pantsuit was now back in her chair at the main desk. Oliver nodded innocently to her on their way out but she was doing something complicated with paper slips and didn't seem to notice their escape.
As Croke reversed from the parking spot in his jerky-jerky style, Oliver fished out of his pocket the special cell phone which had also been in the job's drop package. Small, blue and cool-looking. Expensive. Apparently with all kinds of encryption and other security, like the CIA uses in their spy network. A phone they'd been given in case, and only in case, the client suddenly needed to talk to Oliver and Croke directly. Which really, really should never happen. Their bosses said the client had required this special direct link, that it was a deal breaker.
But their bosses said Oliver and Croke shouldn't even think about using this blue phone to make any calls. Don't order a hooker. Don't even order a pizza. They hadn't been joking, because they don't joke. And don't fiddle with it, he'd been threatened--you try to crack open the phone case, maybe even breathe on it wrong, it self-destructs. Oliver thought they might be exaggerating about that part, maybe?
Oliver turned on the special phone. It'd been off since they received it. Not that the client would soon be calling them directly, right? This wasn't that kind of emergency. But maybe better to leave it on from now on. Just in case.
Oliver felt a surge of excitement and power. Electric, pounding adrenaline. He thought back to the crime scene, where he'd loitered anonymously for a while in the mob of gawkers, soaking in the big drama he'd created.
He decided to make the most of his time on Cape Cod. Sure, keep them happy, but completely hands off. Keep old man Croke under control and himself in charge. And if they got any follow-up assignments, Oliver would completely amaze the client, ignite the media and horrify the public.
Show the world something a little different…
Chapter Seven
Zula Eisenhower was in her pop's office when Pepper Ryan stopped in, as requested. Returning stud. Returning troublemaker. Pepper had lost his boyishness during his three years away, but that'd only made him more darkly handsome. Great hair. A big, white smile that spread from his lips to his light blue eyes. Wherever he'd been, he'd found time for workouts or hard labor—he was even stronger and leaner than he'd been during his college hockey career. Zula could see his neck muscles disappearing under his uniform shirt. She knew Pepper had been much swooned-over during his past in New Albion, and this new, mature edition of Pepper—more confident, more charismatic? He was going to be all kinds of trouble for the ladies of Cape Cod this summer…
She'd known Pepper since they were kids and had always felt close to him, although he was almost six years older than her. Maybe even kinda liked him over the years, except when he made her so mad she wanted to strangle him. But now? When she'd first seen Pepper again after his return, she'd instantly felt something different. Part raw itch, part wildfire. Zula had wanted to just grab Pepper and take him somewhere private. Or even better, have him do that to her… Her reaction had surprised, scared and exhilarated her.
"Missing Nashville yet, Pepper? That's where you came home from, right?" asked her pop.
"Just glad for a clean slate, sir. The chance to prove myself." Pepper's voice was calm and smooth, with just the right amount of bass.
&n
bsp; Her pop snorted. "Why do I feel smoke blowing up my butthole? Sorry, Zula."
Yeah, like butthole was a new one to her. Did her pop think she was ten years old?
But he was already ignoring her again, laser-focused on Pepper. "But that's not why I called you in. What'd your new partner Alfson have to say this morning? You two making any progress on the Keser case?"
"We haven't talked yet today. But I have some ideas I'm headed out to look into."
Her pop shook his head. "That explains why I have these." He waived two old-fashioned red phone message slips. "One from Special Agent Alfson—does Officer Ryan have another number? And one from Special Agent in Charge Hanley—call him ASAP. Is your phone working?"
"Yessir."
"Well when you leave my office, use it. Call Alfson. Speak into the bottom, listen at the top. Communicate, cooperate. I'll wait thirty minutes before I call these gentlemen back and I want to hear they feel happy and loved by their local liaison."
Zula could see Pepper was wrestling internally to say something other than another 'yessir'. From the flex of his forearms, she guessed he was opening and closing his fists under the table. She could pretty much imagine what he was thinking. But ultimately—good thing—he said nothing. Just nodded, his face having reverted to stone.
"You want to redeem yourself, the Ryan family name?" her pop asked in what Zula knew was his deadly serious voice. "Put away that guitar and make your dad proud this time? Here's your chance. I'm doing you a favor—this summer job…the clambake case. But I'm really doing it for your dad. So don't blow it again."
"Got it."
"You think it was funny, last time? Destroying that boat with the ice cream truck? Your one-man shitshow?"
"No sir."
Zula didn't know why her pop was poking Pepper about that again. "But that drug dealer left town and the pill problem at the schools dried up, right?" she asked.
Her pop gave her a glare to shush her. "The world's coming to New Albion this summer. Our town'll be overflowing with Secret Service. And Homeland Security, the FBI...you name it. And with the POTUS staying waterside, the Navy's here too." He grimaced. "Sure, we're the smallest turd in the bowl. The Secret Service is responsible for protecting the POTUS. But God-forbid anything goes wrong here? More dead bodies? Riots? Or heavenly-God-forbid someone takes a shot at the POTUS? It's New Albion that goes down in history with the black eye. Like goddamn Dealey Plaza. You know what this means?"
Killing Shore Page 4
