by Lyle Howard
“Sure, thanks, Steph, I owe you one.”
“Don’t mention it … bye-bye.”
Julie rested the microphone in her lap while she waited to be connected. “Be careful there!” she warned the paramedics hoisting Kaplan between them. “He’s a good friend!”
“Julie,” Lance’s voice crackled out of the speaker on the dashboard. “What’s the matter? Are you alright?”
The sound of his caring voice brought a lump to her throat, but she had to keep herself together. “Lance … there’s been another one.”
“What are you talking about?”
Julie could hear a deeper, unfamiliar voice in the background asking Lance, “Another what?”
“Another fire … incineration … I don’t know … whatever you want to call it!”
“And your engine company was called to the scene?” Lance asked.
“It didn’t have to be.”
Lance’s voice sounded confused. “Calm down, Julie. You’re not making any sense.”
“It happened here, Lance.”
Lance could tell she was overwrought and flustered, and being impatient would do nothing to help her mental condition. “You haven’t told me where ‘here’ is, Julie.”
“The house.”
“Whose house?”
Julie began sobbing. “My house!”
The other voice, the low-pitched one, was crystal clear in the background. “That son of a bitch!”
There was a long pause and Julie could tell Lance was covering his end of the microphone and disagreeing with the other man. “Are you alright, Julie?” Lance asked, calmly.
“I wasn’t hurt, but I’m afraid I can’t say the same thing for Harry Kaplan.”
“Who the hell is Harry Kaplan?” She could hear who she assumed to be Sergeant Lincoln.
“Harry Kaplan, your next-door neighbor?” Lance tried to confirm.
“He had no way of knowing about the ferret,” Julie said.
“This time it was a ferret?” Lance asked.
Julie could feel the ambulance sway as the rear doors were opened and Harry was loaded inside. “It was awful, Lance. I saw the whole thing.”
“We’re on our way to Eddie Dolan’s place, Julie. Everything seems to lead to him. I’m sorry I can’t get over there right now. Are you going to be okay?”
“I think so.”
“That’s a good girl. Just fill out your report in as much detail as you can, and try not to leave anything out.”
Julie couldn’t hide the fear in her voice. “Why was he after me, Lance? Did he think, that you lived here, too?”
“I don’t know, Julie, but I sure as hell am going to find out!”
The driver walked around to the side door and gestured to Julie. “I’ve got to go, Lance. They want to take Harry to the hospital now.”
“Maybe you should go with him in case he says something.”
Julie shook her head. “He’s totally incoherent, Lance. He keeps repeating the same word over and over. It makes no sense at all.”
“What word?”
“Cone.”
“Cone?”
“Yes, cone. C-o-n-e … cone.”
“As in, an ice cream kind of cone?”
Julie frowned as she motioned to the driver that she would only be another second. “That’s what I said when I heard it, too. It doesn’t make any sense to me, either.”
“Well then, if you don’t think it’ll do any good for you to go with Kaplan, then just stay put, and I’ll be in touch with you at the house as soon as I’m through here.”
There was another long pause before Julie answered him. “You take care of yourself, Lance. I don’t want anything happening to you.” If she could have yanked those last few words back into her throat, she would have. Even with the heartbreaking experience of last evening still fresh in her memory, she’d never understand why Lance Cutter couldn’t deal with someone getting too close to him.
“Got to go, Julie,” came the static-laden, dispassionate response. “I’ll call you later.”
Julie stared blankly at the microphone before she set it back in its cradle.
“Are you through?” the driver asked.
“Yeah,” Julie sighed. “I think we might be.”
NINETEEN
“What the heck is that smell?” Lance asked as he returned the microphone back onto its cradle.
Abe Lincoln fumbled in his pocket for a lighter as he slipped a Camel cigarette between his lips and tossed the rest of the pack onto the dashboard. “You’re just noticing it now?”
Lance sniffed at the air. “Aw, don’t tell me….”
Lincoln turned the car onto Federal Highway and headed south. “It was the only official car I could get my hands onto with such short notice.”
Lance swiveled around and stared through the metal mesh separating the front seat of the police car from the back. The German shepherd was fast asleep, oblivious to the fact that he had become the center of conversation. “You borrowed a canine unit?”
Lincoln flicked the lighter, but it refused to ignite. “Purloined it, would be a more appropriate assessment of the situation. But hey, beggars can’t be choosers, you know? My car was in the shop.”
Lance rolled down his window and let the humid evening air fumigate the car’s interior. “I honestly don’t know how those canine guys can drive around with this stench all day.”
Lincoln adjusted the rearview mirror. “Yeah, I guess it takes a special kind of cop to request this duty.”
The gray and brown police dog let out a yawn and stretched itself along the back seat.
“You couldn’t have left the dog at the station?”
Lincoln shrugged. “What’s the matter? You don’t like dogs?”
Lance watched the lights from the city of Fort Lauderdale roll past his window. “I like dogs.”
“Then what’s bothering you?”
Between the stale odor of Lincoln’s cigarette smoke and the dog’s pungent aroma, Lance’s uncommonly keen sense of smell was making him queasy. “I just think you could have found a place for the dog, that’s all.”
“The dog’s name is Rex. He’s got a name … use it.”
Lance glanced back at Rex, who was so deep in sleep that he was blissfully unaware of anyone’s presence. “Rex looks like a real ferocious animal.”
Lincoln pulled the car to a stop at a red light. “Hey, pal, I wouldn’t want to get on his wrong side. I’ve visited perpetrators in the emergency room who have had to have limbs sewn back on because of dogs like that!” He pressed down on the accelerator as the light changed to green. “Trust me: you don’t want to screw around with Rex.”
Lance reached over and turned down the volume on the police radio. “How much longer until we get to the marina?”
Lincoln looked at the address that he had clipped to a note holder on the dashboard. “Shouldn’t be too much further.”
Lance hung his right arm out of the window and let the breeze blow through his fingertips as the lights of the city of Dania whizzed by. “I just want to put this whole thing to rest once and for all.”
Lincoln nodded in agreement. “Not trying to change the subject, but what do you think that Julie meant by the word cone?”
Lance looked over at the curl of smoke rising from the tip of Lincoln’s cigarette. “You mean what Harry Kaplan said to her?”
“Do you think he was just babbling?”
Lance shrugged. “Probably. He was in shock.”
Lincoln rolled down his window and flipped his cigarette butt into the street. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Lance wiggled his fingers in the air. “Do you feel it?”
Lincoln passed the Fort Lauderdale International Airport and turned east onto Dania Beach Boulevard. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m not sure. It feels like there’s a change in the weather.”
Lincoln had to jam on the brakes at an intersection in front of the imposing
structure which housed the Dania Jai-Alai Fronton as a crowd of slow-moving pedestrians crossed the street. “You worry me sometimes, Cutter. You really do.”
“You don’t feel the moisture in the air?”
Lincoln took the steering wheel with his right hand and stuck his left arm out the window. “Jeez, Cutter, we’re a mile from the water. Of course there’s moisture in the air! I think you’re dreaming; I don’t feel a thing.” In the back seat, Rex rolled over. “I don’t think Rex does, either.”
Lance frowned. “I don’t think that dog could find his way out of the Holland Tunnel.”
Lincoln grabbed the pack of cigarettes off the dashboard and lit one of his last three. “You’d be surprised at what that dog is capable of, buddy-boy. You’d be mighty surprised.”
Rex broke wind. Lance frowned. “He seems to do that pretty well!”
Lincoln decided to keep his window rolled down. “Aw, Rex!”
A bridge over the intracoastal waterway was uncrossable and traffic on the boulevard suddenly came to a standstill. Lincoln rapped his fist on the steering wheel. “Ain’t this always the way?”
“How much further?” Lance asked impatiently.
Lincoln pointed at the bridge. “Just a half-mile on the other side.”
“So, what did you end up telling your wife?”
“Huh?”
Lance turned a bit in his seat to face the detective. “You said you were going to have to make up an excuse to tell your wife, and I was curious as to what you came up with.”
Lincoln flipped the transmission into park since it looked like they were going to be stalled for a few more minutes. “I always have a plan.”
Lance grinned. “And what, may I ask, is this jewel of a plan?”
Lincoln reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out a slip of paper and handed it to Lance. “Be careful with it.”
Lance unfolded the note. “Grant Long’s autograph?”
Lincoln was smiling like a cat that had cornered a mouse. “A couple of months ago, I had to work a security detail at the Miami Arena, so while I was there, I snuck into the Heat’s locker room and got all of the player’s autographs.”
Lance looked at him skeptically. “I don’t understand.”
Lincoln pointed to the paper Lance was holding. “I had them each sign individual autographs, so that whenever I’m late, I just tell her that I had to work at the arena again and I give her one of those. I’ve got four of them left. She just loves basketball.”
Lance studied the signature. “But you could have forged this thing. Doesn’t she realize that?”
Lincoln snatched back the slip of paper and stuffed it carefully back into his jacket pocket. “Why should she? She trusts me!”
Lance watched as the towering mast of a sailboat gracefully glided through the uplifted bridge span. “Well, it’s good to see a relationship nowadays that’s built on such unshakable faith.”
The red lights on the barricades began flashing as the bridge started to close. “It’s about time,” Lincoln complained.
“Relax, Abe. The bridge goes up every half-hour on the quarter-hour during the summer.”
Lincoln rolled back the sleeve of his jacket to reveal his coffee-colored forearm. “How would I know that? Do I look like a yachtsman to you?”
“Well I…”
“When was the last time you saw a black man at the helm of a sailboat? I mean, other than one who wasn’t running some tyrannical island government?”
Lance suddenly felt uncomfortable. “Can we drop this conversation?”
Lincoln shifted the car into drive as the traffic began to crawl again. “I was just kidding.”
“You’ve got a warped sense of humor, Abe.”
Lincoln flipped his second cigarette butt out of the window and lit his last one. “Damn! You’ve got to learn to ease up, Cutter! It was only a joke!”
In the back seat, Rex opened his eyes and took a nip at something bothering him on his coat. “It sounds like Rex has decided to join the party,” Lance said.
Rex whined at the mention of his name. As the tires hummed over the bridge’s steel grating, Lincoln tilted the rearview mirror so that he could see into the back seat.
“Hey, boy,” he praised Rex. “How ya’ doing, boy?” The dog huffed as he dragged himself over to the window and looked out.
As the passing street lights strobed through the car’s interior, Lance stared out at the rambling river of water known as the Intracoastal Waterway. What a difference the day of the week could make, Lance thought to himself. On the weekends, this narrow channel would be turned into a churning thoroughfare of white wake as hundreds of pleasure boaters would pitch and yaw to avoid colliding with each other, heading for the sanctuary of some secluded anchoring spot, or the joyful bedlam of one of the local beaches. But on a quiet evening like this, there were only a handful of slow-moving sailboats and pleasure crafts lazily cruising past each other, as their occupants took in the beauty of the palatial homes that dotted the shoreline.
“You look deep in thought,” Lincoln commented, noticing the apprehensive expression on Lance’s face.
“I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
Lincoln tried to sound confident. “You’re not worried about catching this guy, are you? That’s why you’ve brought me along for the ride, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know … I’ve just got this uneasy feeling. Forget I ever mentioned it, you wouldn’t understand,” Lance said, shaking his head. “Something’s just not right. “
Lincoln fluffed off the reluctant remark with a wave of his hand, then switched on the right turn signal as he swung the car south onto route A1A. “Kid, let me tell you something … If you didn’t have butterflies in your gut, I wouldn’t respect you. The reckless guys are the ones that get taken home in body bags.
Lance gazed out on the ships floating by on the water. “I don’t feel reckless … maybe troubled would be a better description.”
Lincoln pulled the green and white police car onto a gravel-covered parking lot. “Well, it doesn’t really matter what you’re feeling anymore, kid, ‘cause it’s time to fill up your tank with some high-octane fearlessness … we’ re here!”
The Hobart Marina was an oppressively lit harbor, and as Lance stepped out of the car, he could see that it wasn’t the sort of place that Donald Trump would ever choose to berth the Trump Princess. The wooden docks were mere skeletons of what they had been in 1953 when they were built. Over the years, the corrosive salt air, gale-force winds, and a few too many mooring accidents had taken their toll on the flimsy-looking docks.
“So, what do you think?” Lincoln asked as he slammed shut his car door.
Lance conscientiously surveyed the deserted parking lot. With the exception of an old jet-ski that had the words “rent me” spray painted on its side, it appeared that the parking lot was empty.
Lance almost missed what he was really looking for. The motorcycle was just an indistinct mass, shrouded by the shadows that cloaked the parking lot. But then, after Lance’s eyes had a chance to adjust to the insufficient lighting, he spotted it. “There’s a motorcycle chained up against the fence over there, but I don’t see any sign of a van.”
Inside the car, Rex paced back and forth anxiously on the back seat. “What are we going to do with him?” Lance asked.
“He’ll be okay. Let’s see if the plate is a match,” Lincoln said, walking over to the bike.
Lance’s shoes crunched on the rocky surface as he stepped up behind Lincoln. “Well?”
The detective ground his last cigarette out under his heel. “You didn’t happen to see a cigarette machine when we drove in here, did you?”
Lance could see that the motorcycle was a Yamaha. “Forget your damned cigarettes! Is the license a match?”
Lincoln looked down at the crushed cigarette butt on the ground and made a sour face. “Yeah, it’s a match.”
Lance could hear Rex barking i
nside the car. “Then what are we waiting for?” he asked.
Lincoln stared at the cigarette butt like he had just lost his best friend.
“Abe?”
“Huh?”
“Let’s go get him!” Lance urged, as he pulled on the detective’s sleeve.
Lincoln’s lips had suddenly gone dry. Now he knew what a junkie must have felt like when in desperate need of a fix. He licked at his parched lips to moisten them. “Sure, kid. Let’s do it.”
“What was the slip number?”
Lincoln read from the computer printout. “13-C.” Less than a third of the rundown docks appeared to be occupied. From somewhere off in the distance, a chorus of ship bells clanged in rhythmic harmony with the rolling swells that passed under their ship’s hulls. Perhaps under different circumstances, the scene could have been termed peaceful, but just knowing that a Eddie Dolan was only a short distance away spoiled the appeal of the tranquil panorama for both men.
The moon was in its third quarter, sending radiant streaks of bone-colored light shimmering across the inky-black water of the channel. A gull perched atop a flagpole at the end of one of the piers squawked at the two confused trespassers as they began exploring the boatyard.
“Where the hell is 13-C?” Lincoln asked.
Lance surveyed the decrepit seaport. “There are only four rows of docks, so I think it would be safe to assume that the third one has to be C.”
The dock planks sagged and creaked under the strain of Lincoln’s two hundred and fifty-plus pounds. The smell of rotting fish floated like an invisible cloud on a gentle breeze from a bloody gutting board located somewhere downwind. “I hate the water,” Lincoln complained as he pinched his nostrils together.
“Don’t you ever go in the ocean?” Lance asked as he walked past the decaying husk of an old commercial fishing trawler that had seen far better days.
Lincoln had to step over a plank that had rotted away. “Why would anyone want to swim where fish screw? I’ll take a pool anytime, thank you!”
Some sort of marking on the docks would have been too much to hope for. Most of the lights that edged the landings had long since burned out, and the thin sliver of moon wasn’t casting nearly enough illumination to see clearly. Lance, on the other hand, could see like a bat in the dark. Turning onto the third row of docks, he began counting each slip they would pass. There wasn’t one boat in what Lance would consider in decent shape floating anywhere in this harbor. It appeared that this marina was one stop away from the scrap yard for most of these battered sloops and rusting barges.
