A Shroud of Tattered Sails: An Oregon Coast Mystery (Garrison Gage Series Book 4)

by Scott William Carter

  "Figured you'd show up," Alex said. He nodded toward the screen. "There's already a bit about it on the Bugle's website."

  Gage leaned his cane against the counter. "They have a website?"

  "Yes. A lot of people do now. This Internet thing has really taken off. You should try it sometime."

  "Will it work with my manual typewriter?"

  "It might. I hear there are even aboriginal tribes in Africa with high-speed satellite access. You know, for when they might want to order loincloths from Amazon.com. Coffee? I've got some of that Irish cream you like so much."

  "Of course," Gage said.

  Alex shuffled to the back of the store and returned a minute later with two superhero mugs, handing a green one featuring the Hulk to Gage, keeping the blue and red Superman mug for himself. The mug was hot enough that Gage set it on the glass counter, watching the rising tendrils of steam, breathing in the intoxicating aromas of dark coffee and sweet almonds. Alex promptly picked up Gage's coffee mug and slid a paper towel under it, muttering a bit about smudging the glass, then he dipped his hand in the paper sack and retrieved one of the chocolate donuts. With his glasses hanging from their red strap, Alex settled back into his chair, his mug perched on his lap with one hand, his donut in the other.

  "Well?" Alex said.

  "Well, what?"

  "Give me the nitty gritty details."

  "There isn't much to tell," Gage said, then explained everything that had happened, from his first encounter with the boat to his last conversation with the woman in the hospital room.

  It went so fast that Alex was still nibbling on his donut by the time Gage finished. He ate the last of it, then licked his fingers with great pleasure.

  "Amnesia, huh?" Alex said.

  "It does seem a little farfetched, doesn't it?"

  Alex wiped his hands on a paper towel, tossed it in the trash, then settled back into his squeaky chair. "Depends on what happened to her," he said, taking a long sip of coffee. "I worked a case once where a couple teenage girls completely blacked out all memories of their parents. Talking to them, you'd think they'd raised themselves. Of course, their parents were abusing them in all kinds of terrible ways—until the teens dumped gasoline on them while they were sleeping and lit them on fire. When I saw the bodies in the morgue, there wasn't much left—like they'd been incinerated by flame throwers. The kids didn't have memory of that either."

  Gage risked a sip from his own coffee and found it still mildly scalding but at least tolerable. He placed the mug back on the counter. "Sometimes I wonder if you scorch your coffee with a flame thrower. How do you get it so hot?"

  "It's my heat vision," Alex said. Grinning, he held up his Superman mug.

  "I see. Well, you must have taste buds of steel to drink it like this. So, these kids, how did you know they weren't faking?"

  "We didn't. No way to know for sure. Their attorney had two different psychiatrists testify that their memories did appear to be blocked—called it a psychotic break. That and the circumstances of the case got them a pretty light sentence, just time served and probation. Considering what kind of monsters their parents were, nobody was really upset about it ... until a year later they set their foster parents on fire, too."

  "Yikes," Gage said.

  "Yeah. They claimed not to remember that one either. The jury wasn't so forgiving a second time."

  "So what are you telling me? That I need to be careful?"

  "No, I'm telling you to stop complaining about my coffee. I'm gone two weeks and that's all you can think to say? Of course I'm telling you to be careful. Someone can seem sympathetic, can even be a victim, but still do very bad things. The owner of that boat is missing. Maybe he just fell overboard and the trauma of it made her black the whole thing out."

  "And throw out all of their things?"

  "It's possible. People do strange things when the primal part of their brain takes over."

  "The owner of the boat's name is Marcus Koura. Out of San Jose. You think you can check in with your friends at the FBI, see what they can dig up?"

  "I don't have many friends left at the FBI. That's what happens when you stop going to the Christmas parties. But, yes, I'll try. I'll also do some digging of my own on that Internet thing."

  "I appreciate it," Gage said. "I'd like to have as much information as possible before the cops run her fingerprints."

  "You think they'll do that? Without a warrant?"

  "Wouldn't you?"

  Alex rubbed his mustache. "Yes, but I wouldn't say anything unless we got something. It wouldn't be the worst thing, I guess. Even if she has a criminal record, at least you'd know who she was."

  "I'm concerned about a presumption of guilt before all the facts come in."

  "Like the whereabouts of Mr. Koura," Alex said.

  "Exactly." Gage took another sip of his coffee and found it had cooled enough that he could actually enjoy the taste. "She's nice, though," he murmured.

  "Uh oh," Alex said.

  "What?"

  "The way you said that. You had a certain tone. I've heard it before. She's a looker, huh?"

  "What's that have to do with anything?"

  "Everything, if she's your typical love interest."

  "I didn't realize I had a typical love interest. I've dated blondes, brunettes, redheads—"

  "Superficial details," Alex scoffed. "You're drawn to beautiful, broken women who need help being put back together."

  "Give me a break."

  "It's true. You fix them, or at least help them fix themselves, then you look for the next broken woman. If you had even one ounce of self-awareness, you'd agree with me. Think of all the women who have been in your life. I've known quite a few of them."

  "This is ridiculous. I've never liked weak women."

  "I didn't say they were weak. Most of them were actually pretty strong, deep down. They just happened to be broken. They needed help getting strong again."

  "Janet wasn't broken. I married her."

  "My point exactly."

  "What, you're saying she wasn't my type?"

  "No, I think she was exactly your type. You were just wise enough to realize it for once."

  "But you just said—"

  "I didn't say anything about type. I said typical love interest. You fix 'em, then leave 'em."

  "Hey! Most of those women left me."

  "If that's what you tell yourself," Alex said, taking a sip of his coffee.

  Gage hated the smug look on his friend's face. He wasn't willing to concede anything, wasn't even sure he understood what Alex was really saying, but he did know that it was making him angry. Was he really that predictable? He'd never had much interest in sitting in a psychiatrist's chair, or some other silly excuse to waste an hour so that someone who'd spent too much time in college could pay for their trip to Paris each year. What did it matter? He was what he was.

  Outside, an eighteen-wheeler rumbled up Highway 101, the vibrations rippling the surface of his coffee. He picked it up to take a sip, then changed his mind and put it back on the paper towel.

  He said, "I want to talk to you about Zoe."

  "Ah," Alex said.

  "I think she's spending way too much time working for you."

  "Well, don't beat around the bush, Garrison. Just tell me what you really think."

  "I appreciate you giving her a job. I do. After what happened, she needed a bit of a break from college. But it's been six months. It's time for her to get on with her life."

  "Maybe this is her life."

  "Now you're just trying to make me angry."

  "I'm not saying she won't go back to school," Alex said. "I'm saying she has to find her own path. We all do, eventually. Knowing Zoe, if you try to force the issue, she'll just push you away."

  "I don't know how much more she can push me away."

  Alex studied Gage's face, steam rising from the mug in his lap. "So that's what this is really about, then."

  "Oh no, here
we go. You have another diagnosis, Dr. Freud?"

  "You're having a hard time letting her go."

  "I wanted her to go away to college!" Gage insisted. "At least to OSU or U of O, which would have been hours from here. How's that having a hard time letting her go? She would have been in a different city, maybe even a different state. She's so smart, she really needs to go to a school that will give her the best opportunity to succeed."

  "Yeah, that would have made it easier for you."

  "What?"

  "I'm seeing some definite parallels here to the other thing we just talked about."

  "Oh God," Gage said.

  "If you can send her away, you can consider her all fixed, then you can move on."

  "Jesus! Are you trying to get me to punch you? I'm not going to move on from Zoe. How can you even say such a thing? She's like a daughter to me."

  "Like a daughter?" Alex said.

  "What now?"

  "Why not just ... daughter?"

  "Come on, Alex. It's just a way of putting it. It means the same thing."

  "Does it?"

  Gage sighed. "All right, I've had enough of this. You're obviously going to be no help whatsoever, and I've got to get to the hospital. I want to be there when the police question her. Will you at least think about giving Zoe a nudge? I know you like having your own personal slave, but I think she could do better than changing sheets and shelving romance books."

  "Now who's being unfair?"

  "Will you talk to her?"

  "Nope," Alex said.

  Gritting his teeth, Gage snatched up the paper sack. "Fine. I'm not bringing you any more donuts. They seem to make you punchy."

  "It's the chocolate," Alex said. "It's like meth to me. Say hello to your new fixer-upper. I look forward to meeting her."

  With a snort, Gage grabbed his cane. He needed to make a quick exit before he could no longer restrain himself from beaning Alex on the head. Maybe that would make him a little less flippant, a little less likely to share his homespun psychoanalysis. Gage hadn't hit anyone on the head with his cane in a long time. It would certainly feel good. He opened the door, cool air flitting inside, then turned and glared at Alex over his shoulder.

  "You're just lucky I like Eve so much," he growled. "I'd give you a black eye, but I'd feel bad that she'd have to look at your sorry-ass face all day."

  "Good to know," Alex said. "Oh, and that reminds me. Eve wants you to come to dinner on Friday. She's making that pistachio baklava you like so much. You up for it?"

  "Will I have to listen to more bullshit about my love life?"

  "Probably."

  "I guess I can't miss it, then."

  "Excellent. Oh, if she's able to by then, you can bring your fixer-upper, too."

  "I'm leaving," Gage said.

  "I love you, Garrison."

  "Shut up."

  Chapter 3

  The police were already questioning their mystery woman by the time Gage arrived at the hospital, a whole half hour before Chief Quinn had said he'd be there.

  Gage had no doubt the move was deliberate. Quinn was probably hoping to get her alone. He'd also brought his best detectives with him, Brisbane and Trenton, which, of course, wasn't saying much. The young male cop from the beach, the athletic one with the baby face, was also there, the four of them looming over the bed like buzzards in gray trench coats—even the kid, who wore his coat over his police uniform while the others were all decked out in open-collared shirts and dark slacks.

  Irritated at how many of them there were, Gage rounded to the other side of the bed, nudging past Brisbane to stand as close to the woman's bed as possible. The morning chill had gotten to his knee, producing a dull ache, and he leaned against his cane for support. He hated having to rely on the damn thing in front of so many testosterone-driven knuckleheads.

  "These bullies bothering you?" he said to her.

  She smiled at him, and he was pleased to see that a night's sleep had done her a world of good. The morning light, slanting in from the window, fell in the gap between them and lit up her face like a soft-glow spotlight. She looked even better than yesterday, more color in her cheeks, more shine in her eyes. She'd obviously showered at some point, her red hair fuller, more vibrant.

  "Not even a little," she replied. "They're actually very nice."

  "Give them time," Gage said.

  Brisbane groaned. If there had been a casting call for someone to play the opposite of the baby-faced cop, they'd found their man in Brisbane. Rumpled, wrinkled, and perpetually bedraggled, he always made Gage think he slept in a bus depot. The bags under his eyes were so deep they could have stored loose change. Not once had Gage seen Brisbane make an attempt to comb his thinning gray hair—not that it would have mattered much, there was so little of it. "I was really hoping you wouldn't show up," Brisbane said. "We could do without your smart-ass remarks for once."

  "Aw," Gage said, "I think that's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me. Besides, if I'm not here to say smart-ass things, then there wouldn't be anything smart said at all, would there?"

  Trenton shook his head. Where his partner resembled a pile of dirty laundry, Trenton was like a stack of shirts that had been washed with too much starch then ironed to a flat dullness. His trench coat, at least six inches too short, made him seem even taller than he was, and that was plenty tall—a full head taller than Gage, who topped out at around six feet on his best days. Trenton also had one thing in common with their mystery woman: bright red hair. It didn't suit him nearly as well. "I don't see why you feel the need to be part of this," he whined. "All you did was find her. It's not like you have anything new to add."

  "I want him here," the woman said.

  They all stared at her, nobody bothering to argue. What could they say? Gage smiled warmly at her.

  "Thank you," he said. "If I could, I'd snap my fingers and make them all disappear."

  "Oh, don't say that," the woman said. "They want to help, too."

  Still smiling, Gage peered across the bed at Quinn. "I'd like to believe that," he said.

  The chief sighed. He had also tidied up since last night, his face clean-shaven, the grease-stained T-shirt replaced by a bright white dress shirt and thin blue tie. "We all just want to find out what happened here, Gage. We don't need to make this more difficult than it has to be."

  "But making things difficult for you is my purpose in life," Gage said.

  "Tell me about it. Anyway, we were just asking ..." Quinn trailed off, looking down at the woman. "You know, until your memory returns, or we get some information about who you are, you're going to have to come up with something for us to call you."

  "So still no memory then?" Gage asked.

  "No," the woman said, and for the first time since he'd entered the room, her face darkened. "I'm sorry. I've been trying."

  "How about we just call you Jane Doe?" Brisbane asked.

  "No," Gage said.

  "You got something better in mind?" Brisbane said.

  "I'll let her decide," Gage said, "but it certainly won't be the name you give to unidentified dead women."

  "We could call her Hope," the young cop said.

  He'd blurted it out so suddenly that they all gaped at him. He blushed. It was an honest to God blush, not some dusting of pink but a deep crimson that spread like wildfire across his cheeks and down his neck. Gage could only imagine the ribbing that kind of blush elicited from the grizzled cops he worked with every day. He felt sorry for the kid—to a point. The kid was a cop, after all.

  "Gage," Quinn said, motioning to the kid, "this is Officer Zachary Gilbert. He's in training to be a detective, so you might see him tagging along now and then."

  "I remember you from the beach," Gage said.

  "Yes, sir," Zachary said. "Nice to meet you, sir."

  "Don't call him sir," Trenton said.

  "Yes, sir," Zachary said. "I mean, what should I call him then, sir?"

  "Don't call him anything. P
retend like he's not here. Pretend like he's wallpaper."

  "Oh, please don't," the woman said. "I really don't want you all arguing. Hope is a very nice name, but I'm ... I'll think of something. Hope is a little too ... I don't know, cheerful than I feel right now. I'm trying to stay positive, but I … I don't know ..."

  "Fine," Quinn said, "we'll skip it for now. Maybe it will all come back to you today anyway. As I was saying, we were just asking if she had any memory at all of Marcus Koura."

  The woman took a deep breath. "And I don't, unfortunately."

  "I imagine," Gage said, "that you've all done your own research into the whereabouts of Marcus Koura?"

  Quinn studied the woman's face, as if he was deciding something, then shrugged. "I'm going to be honest with you, ma'am. It doesn't look good right now. Marcus Koura is missing. The last time anyone in San Jose saw him, he was on that boat a month ago, starting what was supposed to be a voyage to Puerto Vallarta, then up to Seattle and back. I guess he was practicing to sail around the world, taking his time about it. That's what his brother told us—Omar. He lives down there, too. They were partners in an e-commerce company, something about money transfers. I don't know. Sounded too much like gobbledygook to me, but apparently they made a ton of money. Any of this ring a bell?"

  "No," the woman said.

  "Well, I asked Omar about you. He didn't know you. He said Marcus sailed out alone and he was there to see him off. Marcus had broken up with his long-term girlfriend a couple months before he sailed and she didn't look anything like you."

  "Strange," the woman murmured.

  "Isn't it?" Quinn said. "See, I'm trying to figure out where you entered the picture. And where, exactly, Marcus left it."

  "Maybe she hitchhiked aboard," Gage said.

  "I don't know," the woman said. "I wish … I am telling you the truth. I really don't know."

  "Don't get upset," Quinn said. "I know this is hard. But you have to understand how it looks to us. The sooner we find out what happened, the sooner you can focus completely on your recovery."