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

by Scott William Carter

  Finally, she placed her hand out, palm up.

  "Give me her picture," she said.

  "What?"

  "Miranda's picture. Give it to me."

  "Why?"

  "There's no reason for both of us to follow Troy home. I can show her picture around, see if anybody recognizes her."

  "No," Gage said firmly. "I don't want us splitting up."

  "We can get more done this way."

  "I just don't like it."

  "Why? Don't tell me you think Crescent City is a dangerous place. Come on, Garrison. I want to help and this is the best way."

  She tapped her open palm with the other hand. He had to admit that there was no logical reason to be hesitant, but there was still something about splitting up that really bothered him, a little voice whispering in his ear that letting her out of his sight was a bad idea. At the time, with his pulse still racing from that lingering kiss, he tried to attribute this reluctance to pent-up sexual desire, but he knew that wasn't quite it. There was something more.

  In the moment, though, he could not think of a good reason to say no—and he could tell by the look on her face that if he didn't have a good reason, she was going to be extremely disappointed in him. That was not an emotion he wanted her to experience at the present time. Or any time, really.

  He took the photo out of his inside jacket pocket and placed it in her palm.

  "Thank you," she said, smiling. That smile was almost enough to get him to forget that nagging feeling—almost. "How about we meet at the Apple Peddler down the road in an hour. That long enough?"

  "Should be," Gage said.

  "Good. It's a date then."

  She gave him another quick kiss, then jumped out of the car as if she was afraid he was going to change his mind. At the highway, she waited until there was a break in traffic, then, after a last wave to him over her shoulder, hurried across the road.

  He watched her go, thinking maybe he should have been following her instead.

  Chapter 11

  Gage didn't have long to wait. Five minutes after six o'clock, and three minutes after Tatyana disappeared into the office of the Best Western down the road, Pirate Troy hustled out of the marina office and climbed into a maroon '80s-era Mercury Cougar. It might have been bright red rather than maroon, but enough dust and mud caked the rusting exterior that it was hard for Gage to tell. If that wasn't enough to make it easy to spot, red duct tape had been used to replace the left brake light.

  Troy cracked open the driver's side window and lit a cigarette, puffing away as he headed to the highway. When he turned north, Gage let a couple of cars pass before he pulled in behind him.

  The sun floated like a bright orange basketball just outside his driver's side window. Gage reached for the sun visor and found it missing, then remembered it had fallen off a few months earlier and he hadn't gotten around to replacing it. It seemed he and Troy had a lot in common when it came to cars. Maybe they were destined to be good buddies. His old Volkswagen van, with its bright mustard color and loud cantankerous engine, was not the ideal vehicle for tailing someone.

  But then, Gage seldom did things the ideal way. Somehow, despite this, he still managed to get the job done—at least that's what he told himself.

  Staying just far enough back so that he could keep the Mercury Cougar in sight without losing it, Gage followed Troy as he turned left away from Highway 101, following him past the usual signs of suburban life—several small strip malls, fast food restaurants, a Wal-Mart—until he turned right and onto a road that wound through Douglas firs and live oaks. Gage hung back as far as he could, keeping the Cougar's red taillights just within sight. They passed an assortment of older cottages and ramshackle manufactured homes tucked into the trees, a few dolled up with fresh paint and well-tended gardens but the majority hardly more presentable than the moss-ridden woodpiles that sat on most of the properties. They drove a good ten minutes, the houses getting more distant from one another, more recessed into the woods, until Troy turned left onto a gravel drive that was almost invisible from all the pine needles covering it.

  Taking it slow, giving Troy time to get away from the road, Gage passed the driveway and noted the address on the rusted green mailbox partially obscured by ferns. Then he drove another couple of minutes, farther than he'd wanted, until he found a good place to park the van—in a muddy turnout for a small power transfer station surrounded by a tall chain link fence topped with barbed wire. He checked his Beretta, then set out for Troy's house.

  He left his cane in the van. This was no time to be hindered by the damn thing. Still, after only a dozen wincing steps, he regretted the decision.

  The trees loomed tall and dark on either side, the sky a slender silver strip high above that mirrored the road. He was alone, no cars on either side. Wood smoke laced the cool, damp air. He doubted he was more than a mile from the ocean, but it could have been thousands. No hush of ocean waves. No cawing seagulls. He heard sporadic dripping on fallen leaves, and, receding behind him, the faint buzz of the electrical transformer.

  Before he reached Troy's driveway, he ducked into the trees. He tromped through the undergrowth until he spotted a silver trailer, then waited until a passing truck covered his sounds to cross the rest of the distance, taking refuge behind a metal shed blanketed in brown needles. He knelt on his good knee, taking stock of the situation.

  The Cougar was parked in front, the engine still ticking, a hazy wave of air rising from the hood. Blinds hid all the trailer's windows, a soft yellow light glowing around the edges. He heard faint music inside, rock and roll or at least something with a strong base. An old Chevy pick-up was parked off to the side, partially hidden behind a blue tarp. A large boat trailer sat next to it, and it had obviously been there a while, judging by the weeds growing around the wheels. The boat that went with it would have been nearly as big as the silver trailer where Troy lived. Gage wondered if he'd find that boat tied up down on at the docks.

  He got a whiff of gasoline coming from inside the shed, and the stench of wet, rotting wood from the nearby wood pile. A couple cars passed on the road, but nothing else happened. He wasn't sure what he hoped to see, but he figured it wouldn't hurt to just observe for a while.

  He hadn't been sitting there more than five minutes when he heard a crash from inside the trailer, like something heavy falling to the floor.

  Gage tensed, his hand instinctively going for his Beretta.

  He hovered his hand over the holster inside his jacket, but didn't take out the gun. There was nothing for a moment, then another crash, this one the sound of glass breaking, like a bowl or a vase. Unsure of what to do, Gage waited. Two more crashes followed, one that actually shook the trailer. Was Troy going nuts in there by himself, throwing some sort of angry fit? Or was he fighting someone? Gage didn't hear voices over the rock and roll music, and there were no other cars around.

  Before Gage committed to even taking a step, a shotgun rang out inside the trailer.

  He ducked on instinct, his heart pounding, the hairs on the back of his neck rising, but the shot obviously wasn't aimed at him. There was no mistaking the sound. He'd heard it enough times in his life to know exactly what it was, dating all the way back to his childhood in Montana when he'd gone on hunting trips with his father. He waited a few more beats, but there was nothing else, no other gunshots, no crashing noises, just the music in the background all but muffled except for the steady thump of the drum. It nearly matched the thump of Gage's heartbeat. Had he just heard a man commit suicide?

  Gage didn't like this. It was all wrong.

  But he couldn't just stand there if a man was bleeding to death inside that trailer.

  Still fearing it was some kind of trick, he brought out his Beretta, disengaged the safety, and crept to the trailer's biggest window. His right knee throbbed painfully, but he refused to allow it to hamper his movements. He leaned close to the glass, pressing his face against the cool metal siding, and tried to pe
er through the crack between the blinds and the window.

  No luck. He couldn't see anything at all.

  He tried the kitchen window, which was also blocked by blinds, and higher up, too, requiring him to stand painfully on his tiptoes. But the gap was bigger, allowing him a glimpse over a sink filled with dishes into a living room area. He saw a mermaid lamp on the floor, shattered. A leather recliner.

  A man was in the recliner, slumped awkwardly to the side, hand draped to the threadbare carpet. A shotgun lay on the carpet, just inches from his open hand.

  Gage circled to the front door, where a pair of oars leaned against the crooked wooden steps. He knocked hard, waited a few seconds, then tried the handle.

  Unlocked. He stepped to the side, keeping the Beretta high and aimed within, and swung open the door. Garth Brooks was belting something about lonely women and lonely nights. Gage waited a few more seconds, knowing a man's life was at stake but still not trusting the circumstances. He could clearly see Troy, from behind but also the side, a good enough view to see that it was clearly him. He could have been sleeping, or he could have been dead.

  There was no blood, though, at least not that Gage could see—not on Troy, the ceiling, the couch.

  "Troy?" he said.

  No reply. Gage edged into the trailer, stepping over a curling yellow vinyl floor. The place stank of sweat and beer and a faint under layer of something rotten, milk or eggs. There was something else, too, a scent that would have been undetectable if it hadn't been so sharp. A jar of recently opened pickles was the first thing that came to mind, but that wasn't quite it.

  He hadn't gone far from the door when someone jabbed something narrow and hard into the small of his back.

  "That's far enough," a man said.

  His voice had the rough, husky quality of someone who'd probably been smoking since the day he emerged from the womb.

  "I'm just here to see Troy," Gage said.

  "Uh huh. Give me the piece. Nice and easy now, just hold it by the handle with two fingers in front of you."

  "And if I say no?"

  "I'll brain you on the head with my Magnum. Or maybe I'll just say to hell with the whole thing and put a couple slugs in your back."

  "For some reason," Gage said, "I'm getting the impression you will do that anyway. Especially if you already killed Troy."

  "Don't make no assumptions," the man said, coughing a little, definitely a smoker's cough. Gage smelled it on the man's breath. "Troy ain't dead. Now, I'm going to count to three … "

  "All right," Gage said

  He didn't have a plan to get out of this yet, didn't even have the glimmerings of one, but he didn't see how getting shot in the back would help. When you didn't have a plan, it was better to stay awake and alive until one came to you. That may not have been in Private Investigation for Dummies as rule number one, but it certainly should have been.

  "If I hold it in front of me," Gage said, "how are you going to retrieve it?"

  "Shut up and do it."

  Gage did it. His question was answered when the music stopped and a second man appeared from the bedroom. He wore a black leather jacket over a black t-shirt and black designer jeans. His hair, just as black, was flat and slicked straight back, as if someone had drawn it on with a marker pen. All that black made what might have been somewhat pale white skin seem alabaster white. He lumbered like a tall man, though he wasn't all that tall, just lean and long-limbed. He pointed his own Magnum .357 at Gage, lumbering over and plucking the Beretta out of the air. When he spoke, his voice was high and nasally.

  "You should'na come down here, Gage," he said. "This whole thing is none a your business. You shoulda stayed home."

  "Shut up," the man behind him said. "You don't need to tell him nothin'."

  "Why?" the man in front of Gage said. "It's not like it's gonna matter."

  "Shut up!"

  "Fine, fine."

  "Took you long enough to do what I says anyways," the man behind Gage said. "What were you doing in here, jerkin' off or something? It took you like forever."

  "I was waiting to see if he'd come in on his own, Jake. That's all."

  "Don't use my name!"

  "Why? In a couple minutes, it's not like—"

  "Shut up!"

  During this intelligent back and forth, Gage's mind raced as he tried to figure out what this all meant. They knew who he was, which meant they'd expected him. Or, more likely, they'd followed him. All the way from Barnacle Bluffs? It seemed unlikely he wouldn't have noticed a tail, but if they had a rough idea of where he was going anyway, they wouldn't have needed to keep him in sight. In fact, they could have beaten him to Crescent City. But why? Who were they, and why did they care about Troy?

  "Hey," Gage said, "I think you guys have the wrong idea. If there's some angle with this amnesia woman, I want in on it. I can be of use to you. There's no need—"

  The man behind Gage—who apparently was named Jake—clocked him on the head with the butt of his gun. It wasn't hard enough to knock him out, but it still stung like hell.

  "Hey!" Gage cried.

  "Keep your mouth shut!" Jake said. "Get over there on that couch. Yeah, the one next to Troy. Come on now! Move!"

  "All right, all right," Gage said.

  He took the steps slowly, massaging his skull, trying to figure out an angle out of this. Two guys were pointing guns at him, one in front and one behind, and he was unarmed. To listen to them, they might have been idiots, but they weren't amateurs and they likely wouldn't hesitate to shoot him.

  There would be an opening. There was always an opening, if he was patient enough.

  The problem was, he didn't know how much time he had for patience.

  The couch, a hulking battleship-sized thing covered by a big gray blanket with the words Big Bear Casino running along the top, was perpendicular to the chair where Troy sat slumped. As Gage neared, he saw the bullet holes in the blanket, white stuffing showing through in a couple of places. So that explained the gunshot. Definitely all a setup to lure Gage inside.

  He took his place on the couch, sinking all the way to the springs, an empty beer can sinking into the divot with him. He saw right away that Troy wasn't shot at all, just unconscious, a line of drool hanging from the corner of his mouth. He also finally realized what that strange smell was.

  Chlorophyll. Or at least something very much like it.

  It explained why Troy was so dead to the world, and why he showed no signs of any struggle. They'd obviously surprised him. As Jake, moving along with Gage to the couch, positioned himself behind Gage and out of his line of sight, what these two goons were planning on doing became obvious—and just in time. He had just a few seconds for a couple shallow breaths, trying to take in as much oxygen as possible, before a chlorophyll-soaked rag clamped over his nose and mouth.

  This was the opening Gage had been waiting for, and he had just enough advance warning to quell his panic and hold his breath. Jake clamped his other arm across Gage's chest and arms, trying to pin him down, and Gage put on a good show of fighting back. Jerking his legs. Flailing his arms. He bucked his whole body for as long as he could before making himself go suddenly slack, pretending that the chlorophyll had finally kicked in and knocked him out cold.

  The real trick, and the hardest part of it all, was to go on holding his breath even when Jake still didn't take the rag away. The seconds ticked by, his lungs buckling under the strain, and it took all of Gage's willpower to remain absolutely motionless. With his eyes closed, the world was a dark coffin shrinking all around him.

  Another second.

  Just one more second.

  Even when the rag thankfully was removed, it took even more willpower to breathe short and shallow through his nose. Easy. Showing even a hint that he was still awake would be the end of him. He didn't dare open his eyes, not even a crack, and the long moment of silence that followed the removal of the rag was one of the longest of his life. What were they doing? Were
they watching him, fully aware that he was still conscious? Was one of them pointing a gun at Gage's head?

  "He out?" the other guy asked, the one in black. He sounded as if he'd moved in front of Gage.

  "Yeah," Jake said, still behind him.

  "How you want to do this? Which one shoots first?"

  There was a pause. Gage, still concentrating enormous amounts of willpower on keeping his breathing shallow and easy, waited. There was a shotgun on the floor, not far away, but there was still a gun behind him and a gun in front of him. Even if neither of them had their weapons pointed at Gage, the odds were still not good. Better than before—he had the element of surprise now, but still not good. He waited and prayed they chose the better option, and the one that made the most sense.

  "Well," Jake said, "we already made it seem like Troy fired first with the shotgun. I guess the private dick should shoot next. A gut shot. Then Troy can get a shot off, maybe get this guy in the face, killing him. Then Troy will bleed out and die. That's the way it will seem, anyway."

  "You really going to put the gun in his hand?"

  "That's the best way to put his fingerprints on it."

  "Okay."

  Gage heard rustling behind him, then the metallic click of his Beretta's magazine. Jake murmured something about the gun being loaded and ready to go. It was hard for Gage to believe the world could actually produce two criminals so idiotic they could convince themselves that this harebrained scheme of theirs could actually work, especially in a world where forensic science had advanced so much. Hadn't either of them ever watched CSI? Still, their dearth of intelligence was providing him with his best shot of getting out of this mess.

  The seconds ticked by. He heard Jake, behind him, breathing heavily through his nose. A faucet dripped somewhere in the house. Outside, a car with a loud muffler roared by on the road. What were they waiting for? Were they changing their minds? Were they exchanging looks, having figured out that Gage was still awake? Perhaps the whole thing was an elaborate ruse on their part. Was his own Beretta pointed to the back of Gage's head right now? A bead of sweat rolled down the small of his back like a cold marble. He fought the urge to open his eyes.