Deadout

by Jon McGoran

  He nodded. “Good. Sounds like you did just what you were supposed to do. So, I can count on you to stay on the job?”

  “Well … for the time being, but I—”

  “At least until Saturday, right?”

  “Sure, but I—”

  “Excellent, excellent. That’s what I like to hear.” He led me back into the living room, shaking his head as he looked over at Percy and McCarter. “Well, you keep up the great work, and the updates. And I’ll talk to you tomorrow, right? Just call the number I gave you, right?”

  “Right.”

  Then the door was closed behind me. I stepped down onto the driveway, the sniper smiling at me. I flipped him off again.

  As I walked back to my car, I heard the rhythmic thump of approaching rotors. Out over the water, a helicopter was coming straight at us. The security types casually repositioned themselves on the far sides of their vehicles. Back doors opened, and I could see them placing their hands on weapons, big ones. I quickened my pace, not quite accelerating out of my cool-guy gait in front of the guys but pushing it close.

  As I got to the car, the helicopter banked sharply overhead. The Stoma Corporation logo was clearly visible as it swung broadside and roared away along the beach.

  The agents moved away from their vehicles, trading comments and laughing a little. I got the sense they were disappointed things hadn’t erupted into a firefight.

  On my way back to the hotel, I took a detour through the Campgrounds, past the pink house with the septic problems. The lawn was a big wet crater, with muddy tracks going around to the back. As I drove by I could see a man-sized brown smudge on the back fence, where Pug-face had climbed over it. I felt bad for the homeowner—the lawn was going to need new turf—but I laughed out loud anyway, still picturing that angry pug face. I couldn’t seem to picture it angry enough for having been flopping around in a cesspool with a dislocated elbow.

  I was so distracted trying to picture one angry face, I almost drove straight into another one. Jimmy Frank was interviewing an elderly woman in seersucker pants, and he pointed at me with his pen. Then he used it to direct me to pull over.

  I rolled down my window. “What seems to be the problem, Officer?”

  He gave me a withering look, and continued reassuring the old lady that he would get to the bottom of it.

  She walked away, and he shook his head and came over to the car, turning and leaning against the driver’s side rear window.

  “You know anything about this?” he asked without looking at me.

  “About what?”

  “Someone shot up the Campgrounds last night.”

  “Really? How do you mean?”

  He sighed. “I mean, there’s a bullet hole in the Tabernacle, one in a tree over there, a ding on that stop sign, and two ducks missing from Mrs. Farrell’s gingerbread trim.” He looked at me close. “You know anything about that?”

  “When did it happen last night?”

  He shrugged, like maybe I knew better than he did.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” I said. “Did anybody else hear anything?”

  He sighed, exasperated. “No, nobody heard a thing. A couple of people said they heard some banging noises, but they said it sounded more like a hammer on a nail than a gun.”

  “Could the hammer-on-nail sound have been the bullets hitting the Tabernacle, or the wood trim?”

  He shook his head. “They’re not going to hear the impact and not hear the gunshot.”

  “Well, unless the shooter was using a silencer.”

  He stared at me for a moment. “That could explain it, yeah.”

  “You got any ideas on who could have done it?”

  He gave me a look to let me know he did, and I was one of them. Then he sighed and hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Wesley Hotel is full of those Darkstar knuckleheads. Could be one of them’s got PTSD, or maybe had a fight with his girlfriend. No offense. You don’t have any other brilliant theories you would care to share, do you?”

  I pointed at the mud patch in front of the big pink house. “What happened over there?”

  “Well, I don’t exactly know, but the homeowner’s pretty upset about it. Having a hard enough time trying to get his septic system fixed, now his lawn’s all torn to shit.”

  “Think it could be related?”

  He eyed me again. “I’ll look into it.”

  I nodded and smiled. “I bet it would take a lot of Irish Spring to get that much smell off you.”

  He thought some more.

  “Well, I got to go,” I said. “If you need me, I’m staying at the Wesley Hotel. With all the other knuckleheads.”

  29

  I’d been hoping to get a call from Nola saying something like, “I’m so sorry. You are right about everything. How could I have been so misguided? I miss you so much. Let’s go back to Philadelphia together and do everything the way you want to from now on.” Something like that.

  I didn’t. And my bag was still in her cabin.

  I needed some basic clothes. Luckily, I found a store called “Basics Clothing.” I bought a pair of jeans, a couple of shirts, and a sweater.

  I still didn’t know what Nola had meant when said she needed a break. Fifteen minutes for coffee, or maybe we’ll look back at this and laugh in the afterlife?

  I have an almost pathologically well-developed sense of emotional self-defense, steel doors ready at a moment’s notice to slam shut against that which can hurt me. I get over things fast, but sometimes too fast. Sometimes before they’re even over. I felt like I was braced against those doors right now, trying to keep them open before they slammed shut on Nola and me, sending whatever it is we had tumbling into the past tense, into the dustbin of my emotional history.

  It didn’t help that I was about to see Annalisa. And I was about to see her. Even if there was nothing romantic between us, I liked her as a friend. And neither of us had enough friends on this island. But “friend” still wasn’t the first thing that came to my mind when I thought of her.

  Back at the hotel, I closed my eyes for ten minutes. Then I showered, changed into my new clothes, checked my phone one last time, and headed out. My head was buzzing, and as I stepped onto the porch, I welcomed the bracing breeze coming off the harbor. It didn’t completely calm me, but it slowed my thoughts enough that I could pick them out individually—could separate the anxiety about Nola from the adolescent excitement about Annalisa from the ominous backdrop of paramilitary assholes and dying bees.

  When I walked into the Alehouse, I spotted Annalisa right away, sitting at a booth. Her face looked as pensive and conflicted as mine had probably been on the walk over, but it lit up when she saw me. It had been a while since someone had seemed so happy to see me.

  She stood up, as if to make sure I hadn’t missed her, like that was possible. Everyone in the place turned to look at her.

  Of course, it might not all have been appreciative. Pete the beekeeper was sitting at a table in the back, giving her the skunk eye.

  When I approached, she stepped close, up on her toes, and put a kiss on my cheek. Her lips were soft.

  We sat opposite each other and she leaned forward, her eyes sparkling. “It’s good to see you,” she said. “Outside of work.”

  “You, too,” I said. “So how’s things?”

  “You mean apart from paramilitary goons turning the island into a militarized zone?” She leaned in closer. “Things at work are getting crazy. The tension is incredibly thick.”

  “From Sumner?”

  She shook her head and shrugged. “From him, yes, but also from above, I think from Pearce himself. You know Sumner used to own Bee-Plus.”

  “Right. You mentioned that.”

  “Well, his assistant, Julie, she’s a bit of a chatterbox. She says Sumner’s in a tough spot. He got completely overextended and ran out of money. That’s how Pearce came in and bought a majority stake. Sumner’s seriously leveraged just to own the small piece of the comp
any he still owns. Pearce is leaning on him hard to make this work, and Sumner’s still, like, tinkering with the engineering, with the genetics, which is very late in the game. But he’s put a lot of pressure on himself, too. If the Bee-Plus program fails, Sumner’s ruined.”

  “Maybe that explains why he’s such a dick.”

  She laughed at that. “He actually left this afternoon, which is nice, but I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

  “I think I saw him go. Bright yellow jet with the Bee-Plus logo?”

  “That’s him. Nothing if not subtle. Julie says he had that jet written into the deal, that he got to keep it.” She cringed and laughed. “It’s all very strange. Sad but exciting to be here in the middle of this, doing important science. Although I don’t know if anyone will take it seriously if I ever release my findings.”

  “Because you’re working for Stoma?”

  She nodded. “No one trusts that they’re not driving my results. And I don’t even know if I’ll have the resources to finish my work.”

  “Wait, I thought the upside of working with them was that you were well funded.”

  “Funding but no support. I used to have assistants. I had a wonderful assistant, Lynne, but she got transferred out when Stoma acquired us. She was great.” Her eyes welled up. “She died a few months later, in a boating accident. She was a good friend.” She took a deep breath and smiled. “Now it’s just me. They’ve said I can use Julie, if I need something specific, but she’s next to useless and very unpleasant. I got to know her a little on Samana Cay. She’s a terrible bore, and a gossip. A good source of information, but I don’t really trust her. She’s got this faux hippie thing going, totally fake. She’s actually very Stoma Corporation. And she’s not very discreet.” She shook her head and said, “Anyway,” but then her eyes drifted over my shoulder.

  I turned to follow her gaze and saw Teddy walking in, Elaine and Nola behind him. Elaine spotted me first. Almost immediately, Nola turned and looked at me as well.

  Our eyes met. Then she looked past me at Annalisa and I saw her stiffen. She looked away and sat with her back to me.

  Teddy gave me a look as he pulled out his chair. He didn’t smile, but I knew he was smiling inside. I wanted to kill him.

  As we were staring at each other, a voice said loudly, “Now look at this asshole.”

  I was about to say, “Amen, brother,” but then I noticed everyone was looking at the television above the bar, the bartender raising the remote to turn up the volume.

  I recognized the guy on the television from pictures I’d seen. He was an older man, but big, towering over the same reporter who had interviewed Johnny Blue. He seemed even bigger than his size, filling the screen and, as the volume came up, filling the air with his booming Australian voice. Archibald Pearce the head of Stoma Corporation.

  “These bees are already hard at work, pollinating the crops at Blue’s berry farm, right on schedule, and making sweet, natural honey. Bee-Plus bees are absolutely environmentally safe,” he said, holding up a printed Bee-Plus logo, “and they’re a great advance in the fight against the terrible colony collapse disorder that has been plaguing other bees.”

  He was standing in front of a stack of hive boxes, the Stoma Corporation lab units visible in the background. In the distance, behind them, was the helicopter that had buzzed Renfrew’s mansion that afternoon. Pearce smiled as a bee floated lazily around his head.

  The reporter giggled nervously, the arm holding the microphone twitching as she resisted the urge to swat at the bee.

  “And what makes your bees different?” she asked gently.

  “Scientists think lack of genetic diversity is one of the causes of the colony collapse. Most people don’t realize that the vast majority of American bees come from just six hives that came over with the colonists. They’ve been inbreeding for hundreds of years, and that has made them weak. What we’ve done is bring in some genes from other types of bees, bees that don’t suffer from colony collapse disorder, to make European-style honeybees that aren’t susceptible to colony collapse. But we didn’t have time to do it the old-fashioned way, so we did it the modern way. I like to say, we made better bees without the birds and the bees, if you know what I mean.” He grinned in a slightly bawdy, not leering old-man way.

  “And what do you say to people who are concerned about the genetically engineered bees getting out, or mixing with regular bees?”

  Pearce smiled indulgently. “Sierra, bees spread when a new queen comes along and the old queen takes part of the hive and swarms, or goes to start another hive somewhere else. Our queens have very tiny wings. They can’t fly, so that can never happen.”

  Sierra Johnson brought the microphone back to her own lips and said, “Huh,” before moving it back to Pearce.

  “There are some very smart scientists out there working to stop the scourge of colony collapse. This is just a stopgap effort, filling in until they have succeeded.”

  She looked serious for a moment before changing back to her giggly face. Then she actually giggled as she turned to face the camera. “Well, there you have it, Jim. Better bees without the birds and the bees.” She paused to laugh a little more. “Live from West Tisbury, I’m Sierra Johnson.”

  30

  The room went quiet except for the news anchors tittering at Pearce’s joke.

  “It’s not CCD,” Annalisa mumbled.

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “It’s not CCD. It’s not colony collapse disorder.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. It looks like mites, or something weakening the bees so the mites can get out of control.”

  “But wait, don’t people think mites might have something to do with CCD?”

  She shrugged. “It could be part of it, but colony collapse is a specific thing: the bees aren’t just dead, they’re gone, vanished. Mites have arguably done more to damage honeybees than CCD, and these are the worst mite infestations I’ve ever seen. But the bees haven’t disappeared. It’s irresponsible saying it’s colony collapse when it isn’t. There’s enough misinformation out there already.”

  I was about to ask whether she’d told this to Moose and Benjy when I was distracted by a commotion at the table where Pete was sitting. He was drunk and upset. His friends were trying to calm him down, but his face was flushed and his eyes were angry.

  “It’s bullshit and it’s not right,” he said. “I can’t just lie down and take it, whatever’s causing it.”

  “But the island needs you,” one of his friends was saying. “The farmers need you. Especially now. You’re the only bees we got left.”

  Pete shook his head, a stubborn and childlike motion, but there was nothing childish about the anger and the anguish in his eyes. The emotion was raw and compelling, radiating off him like heat. The rest of the people in the dining room were just turning to look at him when we heard the thump, thump, thump of rotors. I knew without a doubt it was Pearce, and I think everybody else did, too. Most of them had been at the dock when the bees arrived. Some had probably seen the helicopter arrive that afternoon.

  Heads looked up at the ceiling, tracking the noise as it grew louder and passed overhead.

  In the midst of the commotion, Teddy took out his phone and put it to his ear. He smiled at first. Then his brow furrowed as he listened, a finger in his other ear. Recognition materialized on his face, and simultaneously a variation on fear.

  “I don’t need this crap,” Pete said loudly, almost like he was reminding everyone that they had been paying attention to him before he was so rudely interrupted. It seemed to work, too, as everyone focused back on him, except Teddy and me.

  Teddy tossed a couple of twenties on the table and headed for the door. Nola looked up at him, but he seemed oblivious.

  I looked from Teddy to Annalisa, and realized she was already looking at me.

  “I have to go,” I told her. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

  “What?
Where are you going?”

  I put two twenties on the table as I stood, realizing immediately it was way too much.

  “I have to go take care of something. I’ll tell you later.”

  Pete was getting louder as I made my way to the door.

  “If that asshole wants his Frankenbees on this island, he can have it. I’m out of here.” He brushed his hands against each other. “I’ll take the bees I have left to the mainland. Find somewhere safe to keep them.”

  As I approached the door, Nola turned around and our eyes met. I broke her gaze and slipped out the door.

  By the time I got outside, Teddy was at the end of the block, turning left. I jogged up to the intersection and stopped, peering around the corner. To the left was the Wesley Hotel, to the right, a long pier and the Oak Bluffs ferry terminal. But Teddy was walking briskly straight ahead, toward Oak Bluffs Harbor.

  I hung back and watched him cross the road, ducking back as he looked all around him. I gave him a little space; then I hurried to catch up, but the only sign of him was the throaty sound of an outboard motor idling. By the time I figured out which boat he was on, it had taken off, racing across the lagoon.

  I ran along the promenade, watching as the boat slipped out of the harbor. I watched for a moment as it disappeared onto the ocean, then I turned and walked back the way I had come.

  By the time I got back to the Alehouse, Annalisa was gone. So was Nola. Jimmy Frank was there, though, sitting at a table in the corner. He waved me over to join him and before I could decline, he ordered me a beer.

  As I stood there, I got two texts from Annalisa:

  WHERE ARE YOU? followed by WENT HOME. I’LL CALL YOU IN THE MORNING.

  I texted back, SORRY.

  “They left around the same time,” Jimmy Frank called out. “The ladies, I mean.” He laughed. “But I don’t think they were together.”

  * * *

  We closed the place, sitting at that corner table.

  I learned a lot about Jimmy, about his days on Boston P.D., the rise and fall of his marriage, and the fact that he could put away a lot of liquor. Actually, he didn’t tell me about that so much as show me. Although the topic did come up. I brought it up.