An Incident At Bloodtide m-12

by George C. Chesbro

  "Well, Harry, I'm certainly glad to see you," I replied, watching him carefully. "I have a few things I'd very much like to share with you."

  The policeman looked down at the foot of the bed. "I was on the phone down the hall talking to the dispatcher when you woke up, but I got back in time to hear most of what you were just saying."

  "You heard me say that the captain and crew of that tanker killed Tom Blaine and tried to do the same to Garth and me?"

  Now Harry Tanner looked even more embarrassed. "Yeah, I heard that."

  "You know, Harry, damned if it doesn't sound like you don't believe me."

  "It's not that I don't believe what you're saying, Mongo-although I can't see how whatever happened to you proves anything about what happened to Tom. You may even be right. But the fact remains that it was the captain and crew of that tanker who saved your bacon by hauling the two of you aboard and then calling the Sheriff's Patrol to bring you to the hospital."

  "Only after somebody on a sailboat radioed them, and they knew there were witnesses."

  "The first mate says you were warned to get away, that you were too close."

  "What about the black cigarette boat?"

  "There was a boat like the one you describe stolen from the Haverstraw Marina. They figure it was some kid wanting to take a joyride."

  "Wearing a ski mask?"

  "You're the only one who saw the driver, Mongo. They found the boat smashed up on a piling at the Tappan Zee Bridge."

  "Abandoned, just like Tom Blaine's boat. Harry, I'm telling you an attempt was made to kill us, and the men on board that tanker were in on it. They tried to murder us because we're on to the fact that they murdered Tom Blaine. The engines of that tanker came on after we were dumped into the water."

  The policeman shifted his weight slightly, pulled at the ends of his handlebar moustache, shrugged. "Mongo, I'm here because I'm a friend of you and your brother, but also because I was asked by the Coast Guard to get your statement, since you're in the hospital here in Cairn. What else do you want me to do? If you say the props were turning, then they were turning-or you thought they were. I'll put it down. But you know the captain of the tanker is going to deny it."

  "Harry, somehow I get the feeling that even if I do tell you what else I want you to do, you're going to inform me that the matter is out of the Cairn Police Department's jurisdiction. Right?"

  He flushed slightly. "The tanker's moored across the river, Mongo, servicing a factory in Westchester. We're not even in the same county. Nobody over there is likely to want to make waves-if you'll pardon the expression. The powerboat was stolen from the Haverstraw Marina and ended up in Nyack, so those two departments will look into that. But they're not going to involve themselves with what happens on the river."

  "You make the river sound like Dodge City when the marshal's out of town."

  "It's not a bad analogy, Mongo. Not a bad analogy at all. The only certain jurisdiction is the Coast Guard's, and they're literally out of town most of the time. But that's who you have to go to if you want to file a complaint with an agency that has unquestioned jurisdiction. I'm not trying to put you off, Mongo; I'm just telling you the way it is."

  I wasn't too happy about it, but I knew Harry was right. In fact, we'd already learned a lesson or two about the jurisdiction politics of the river in connection with Tom Blaine's death, so I had no reason to be shocked at what the Cairn policeman was telling me. Garth and I could have saved ourselves the sailboat ride, and unpleasant dumping, because it had gotten us nowhere. The only option we had left was the same one we'd had before going out on the river: give the photos to the newspapers and Cairn Fishermen's Association, and trust that bad publicity and a threatened court action would force Carver Shipping to stop flushing out its tanks in the Hudson and taking on river water. They would undoubtedly mend their ways-at least for a while, until they were no longer in the spotlight. Captain Julian Jefferson and a few other people might even be fired, but they would most likely only be reprimanded, since they had obviously only been carrying out company policy.

  And somebody was going to get away with murder and attempted murder.

  For all our time and trouble, all we'd received was insult and injury: Garth in a coma, the Coast Guard and police telling us they didn't have jurisdiction, or were too busy preparing for the possibility of terrorists on the river to deal with the terror that was already there. If our clients had been anybody but ourselves, I would probably have advised them to cut their losses and stop wasting our time, and I'd probably have given them back their retainer.

  "I gotta go, Mongo," Harry said quietly, reaching over the foot of the bed and gripping my ankle. "The doctors say Garth should be all right, and I'm damned happy the two of you made it through this thing okay. I'm sorry there's nothing I can do for you; I really wish there was. I love the river; that's why I live in Cairn. I don't like these rich hypocrites who live upstream and piss in our water any more than you do, but I'm just a Cairn cop, and Cairn cops don't handle pollution complaints-which is all you've got. I really am sorry."

  "It's all right, Harry. I understand."

  "I'm going to pass on what you told me to the state police and Coast Guard, Mongo. I'm also going to give the Westchester cops a call, tell them what you say happened, and ask them to keep an eye on that tanker while it's moored over there."

  "That's great, Harry," I replied, barely managing to keep my tone free of the anger, bitterness, and frustration I felt.

  Harry nodded, then turned and walked out of the room. I turned toward Mary, who was slumped in her chair, holding my brother's hand. Tears were running down her cheeks, and she looked every bit as dispirited as I felt. She whispered, "I told you, Mongo."

  "You told me what?"

  "Everything that's happened started after Sacra came to Cairn. Now maybe you can understand why I acted the way I did. He's bad luck; I don't know how or why, but he can make bad things happen, just like I told you."

  Well, that was all I needed to hear. Up until my beautiful and talented sister-in-law had decided to resume what I considered to be her inexplicable indulgence in nincompoopism, I had been lying there with my splitting headache feeling sorry for myself and raging inwardly at the injustice of it all. Now I was just raging. My fury galvanized me, and I swung my legs over the side of the bed. The reward for this minor exertion was a renewed assault on the nerve endings in my head and a sudden attack of nausea and dizziness. I closed my eyes, took deep breaths. When I felt I could stand without throwing up or falling down, I hopped down on the floor.

  "Mongo! What are you doing?"

  I wobbled over to the wardrobe in a corner of the room, opened it, and was pleased to find my clothes-which is to say the swimming trunks, T-shirt, and tennis sneakers I'd been wearing. It would be just enough to get me back to the house without fear of being arrested for indecent exposure.

  "Mongo-?"

  "Listen to me, Mary!" I snapped, wheeling on her. Fury lent strength to my legs, my voice. "Your old boyfriend, Sacra Silver, isn't bad luck, he's bad news. That magic act of his is as phony as his name. Did it ever occur to you to ask yourself why he just happened to pop up in Cairn at this particular time? Why now? Haven't you ever wondered what his real name is?"

  She frowned slightly, slowly shook her head. "To me, he was always just Sacra Silver."

  "His real name is Charles Carver, and he's the son of your fellow churchgoer, pillar of the community, and former shipping magnate, Bennett Carver. He works for the company his father founded, my dear, and my guess is that his job is to act as some kind of enforcer. I think he originally came to Cairn because word had gotten to company headquarters that Tom Blaine was about to cause them grief, and it was Charles 'Chick' Carver's job to run interference, to stop Tom. After he got here, he found out that you lived in the neighborhood, and he thought it might be fun to pass the time by visiting an old girlfriend and playing one of his little games, just to see what would happen. You'r
e rich now, and more famous than you ever were. You would be quite a prize for him, and he had nothing to lose-or so he thought, at least-by making a play for you. But I think his real reason for coming here in the first place was to deal with Tom Blaine."

  Again, Mary slowly shook her head. She seemed confused, doubting. "You're saying you think Sacra had something to do with Tom's death?"

  "It's a working hypothesis. I'm not saying he activated the engines himself, but he may have ordered it-or approved it. Either way, it would make him an accomplice to the murder. He's the troubleshooter, the one who gets the call when Carver Shipping's interests are threatened. Well, he got a call earlier today, from the captain of that tanker across the river where Garth and I were nosing around. I'm willing to bet a lot of money that it was Chick Carver who stole that boat and then tried to ram us into the ship. For all we know, that cigarette boat may not have been stolen at all; maybe it belongs to somebody employed by Carver Shipping. I'll check that out when I get the time; there can't be that many black cigarette boats with slips at Haverstraw Marina."

  "Mongo, I don't think you should just leave like this," Mary said, rising and clasping her hands together nervously. "The doctors say you suffered a concussion too."

  "If I have a concussion, it's a mild one-and it's not my first. It'll pass. I've got myself a beauty of a headache, but I can walk, and my vision is clear. I don't know how long that tanker is going to hang around, and I can't afford to waste time lying around here. I'm going to check myself out. I'll be back as soon as I can."

  I stepped behind a screen, slipped out of my hospital pajamas, pulled on my trunks, T-shirt, and sneakers. Then I stepped back out. Mary had sat down again, but her hands were still clasped tightly together. She looked very uncertain and worried.

  "I'm afraid I'm not dressed too well for travel. I'd like to go back to the house to change, if you don't mind."

  "Of course, Mongo. But-"

  "And maybe you'd be so kind as to loan me money for a cab. I don't quite feel up to jogging."

  Mary picked up her purse and rummaged through it, while I went over to Garth's side and looked down at his still form. The anger in me was deep, surging and rising like a high tide. Mary found a ten-dollar bill, handed it to me. I started for the door.

  "Mongo," she called after me, "where are you going?"

  "To look for a tall, ugly thread to yank."

  It was six-thirty when I arrived back at the house. The tanker was still at its mooring across the river; its cargo of fuel oil had been delivered, and it was riding high in the water, a broad band of rusted orange undercoating indicating that it hadn't flushed out its tanks and started to take on river water-yet. I went into the house, out onto the deck, and took a photograph of the tanker, just for the record. It was overcast, with dark thunderheads rolling low in the sky, and I took two more photographs at different exposures. Then I took a long, hot shower, dressed in dark slacks, shirt and tie, and a sports coat. I seriously wanted a drink, but suspected that alcohol wasn't the best thing in the world for my persistent, throbbing headache. I opted for three aspirin and a glass of seltzer water, then picked up the telephone.

  The man who came to the door of the soaring Victorian mansion on the banks of the Hudson in Upper Cairn had to be in his mid-eighties, but he obviously took good care of himself, and looked fit. He had a full head of wavy silver hair, and a somewhat cherubic face fit for a Macy's Santa Claus, except for the pale green eyes which were bright, suspicious, and which would not be reassuring to children who had misbehaved during the year; he looked like the kind of Santa who, while fair and willing to listen, would not hesitate to leave coal in the stocking of any miscreant. He was about six feet tall, and his body had the kind of gaunt look displayed by people who have recently lost a lot of weight in a short time. There was a definite air of authority about him.

  "I'm Robert Frederickson, Mr. Carver," I said, extending my hand. "I very much appreciate your agreeing to see me on such short notice."

  He shook my hand. "I've heard of you, Frederickson. I believe your brother is married to Mary Tree, who's a member of my church. It's why I agreed to see you. You don't live in Cairn, do you?"

  "No, sir. New York City. I'm just visiting."

  "Well, Mary is a member of my church, and she and Garth are my neighbors, and so I'm happy to extend you this courtesy." He paused, narrowed his eyes slightly. "You're not here to talk about that American flag business, are you?"

  "No, sir. It's something else entirely."

  "Come in."

  I followed him through a foyer of dark wood brightened by fluorescent lights, down a corridor, then through a door into a richly furnished library that smelled of old leather. There was a walk-in fireplace, and Impressionist oils on all four walls. The bookcases were decorated with models of sailing ships, and hanging above one was a framed captain's license. Bennett Carver, it seemed, was more than just a man who'd made a lot of money with big ships; he obviously loved ships themselves, and the sea, and knew the challenges of both firsthand. I thought it reflected well on him.

  "Would you like a drink, Frederickson?" he continued, motioning for me to sit down in one of two leather armchairs set in front of the fireplace, which was currently serving as the summer home for an enormous, flowering cactus.

  Would I ever. "Maybe a club soda, please."

  He produced a glass and some ice from a small wet bar to the right of the fireplace, poured some club soda into the glass, brought it over to me. "Let's get down to business, Frederickson," he said, sitting down in the armchair across from me. "I don't mean to be rude, but I recently had some minor surgery, and I tire easily. I usually go to bed quite early. Just what is this important matter that you wish to discuss with me?"

  "Carver Shipping."

  "You may have come to the wrong person, Frederickson. I'm retired. I took the company public a while back, sold it. I retain a substantial portion of stock, but I have nothing to do with the day-to-day operations of the company. It's run by a board of directors. I have no duties. Aside from the rights due any stockholder, I have no power, no say."

  "I understand, sir, but I suspect that you have a continuing interest in the company you founded, and that interest is more than purely financial. You seem to be a man who takes pride in the things he creates, and would be concerned with how something he had created was being managed by its current caretakers."

  "That's true. What's your point, Frederickson?"

  "Carver Shipping's tankers are illegally washing out their bilge, ballast, and storage tanks in the river after they unload their shipments of oil. Then they're refilling those tanks with river water, which they're probably selling in the Middle East-most likely to Kuwait. I can't prove if, or where, they're selling it, but I can show that the tankers are loading up on water. In fact, there's one across the river doing it right now-or about to do it. If you care to check it out, all you have to do is watch out your window for a few minutes, while there's still light." I paused, reached into my jacket pocket, withdrew the packet of photographs I had brought with me, handed it to him. "Those are before and after pictures of Carver Shipping tankers-heading upriver to deliver their oil cargoes, heading downriver after. As you can see, they're all riding just as low in the water going as coming. They're carrying something back with them, and the only thing it could be is river water."

  Bennett Carver looked through the photographs, then set them down on a glass-topped coffee table to his left. Then he looked back at me. He definitely did not seem impressed. "Water? The important thing you wanted to talk to me about is tankers carrying river water?"

  "You don't seem to take it very seriously."

  "I'm not sure just what there is to be taken seriously. River water? Do you anticipate a shortage?"

  "The water isn't theirs to take and sell, Mr. Carver. It belongs to all of us. And they pollute the river when they flush their tanks to take it on."

  "Have you notified the Coast Guard?"
r />   "They don't take it seriously either-or they don't take it seriously enough. I got the impression they feel they have more important things to worry about."

  The silver-haired man with the pale green eyes thought about it awhile, then said, "Assuming they are shipping the water to Kuwait, or some other Middle Eastern nation that needs it, some people might call it a worthwhile endeavor. It may even be legal."

  "I doubt very much that selling a public resource for private profit is legal, Mr. Carver. It's easy enough to check out. But washing out their tanks in the river is definitely illegal. You live on the river, and I'm frankly surprised you aren't offended that somebody's dumping toxic chemicals in your backyard."

  The old man flushed, and anger gleamed in his bright eyes. "You're out of line, Frederickson. I was living in Cairn, on this river, before you were born. My father and grandfather were fishermen, and our family lived in a shack that stood on this very property. So don't tell me I don't care about environmental matters. Ask the local fishermen who contributed large sums to their association, to the Clearwater, and just about every other environmental group you can name that's been set up to protect this river. I have lent support to legislation that adversely affected my own company's operations and profits."

  "But you're not running things any longer, Mr. Carver, and it looks to me like the people who are in charge now aren't following the same enlightened policies you did. I'm here speaking to you because I thought you might still care about the image of the company, and might still have enough influence to get them to stop what they're doing."

  "Will you take these photographs to the press?"

  "The thought had crossed my mind."

  "What makes you think anybody would be interested?"

  "I'm not sure anybody will be. But a thing like this can sometimes create quite a stir of bad publicity for a company, and this company still bears your family name."

  He grunted, nodded curtly. "I'll make a deal with you. I'll place a couple of calls to look into this matter, see what the story is. When I have the information, I'll get back to you. Is that good enough for you?"