by Dave Balcom
“Got it.”
He called the turns and got us out on the highway. Fifteen minutes later we turned into the parking lot at the state police station.
“You sit tight, Ryder. I’ll get you some help.”
The night watch sergeant looked me over carefully as I walked up to his counter. “Help you, sir?”
I tried to smile, but my adrenaline was still pulsing. “I hope so. I’m Jim Stanton of Pendleton, Oregon. I just escaped from a kidnapper out at the park. A pilot by the name of Steve Ryder flew me in from British Columbia, thinking I was unconscious. A guy named...” I looked at the dead helper’s wallet. “...Skinner, Dennis Skinner, was there to meet us. As they were taking me off the plane, I got the jump on them. Ryder is hurt out in the car Skinner drove to the meeting. Skinner is dead up on the beach where Ryder’s plane is parked.”
I looked around for something to sit on. The desk sergeant stood there with his mouth open in disbelief.
“Can you help me, Sergeant?”
He immediately came to. “Yessir.” He picked up a microphone from the counter where he normally sat and called two patrol cars to report to the station.
“What’s ten-twenty-one?”
He ignored the question as he walked around the counter dragging a chair with him. “Sit down here. You look like you’re ready to fall down.”
“It’s the adrenaline. When the action is over, I always get tired and hungry.”
“Me, too. I hate it. I’ll try to find something to chew on.”
“I’d prefer water if you have it.”
He turned away into another room and returned with a cold bottle of water.
“Thanks.”
“How did you say Skinner died?”
“I kicked him in the face as he was trying to help get me out of the plane.”
“Kicked him?”
“I was pretty wired up.”
“What’s wrong with, er, the pilot?”
“Back trouble, he said.”
“How did that happen?”
“I flipped him out of the plane; he hit the something on his way.”
He was starting to say something else when two officers hit the door with their weapons drawn.
“Stand down, guys,” the sergeant said. “There’s a guy out there in the back of an SUV who may need medical attention. Place him under arrest on suspicion of kidnapping. If he’s really hurt, read him his rights and take him to the hospital; if not, read him his rights and take him to the county jail.”
“Sure, Sarge. What about this bird?” One of the officers asked waving his weapon in my direction.
“I’ve got him under control. He claims to be the victim of the kidnapping. He brought all this to us. I’ll get the Lieutenant out of bed, and we’ll see how he wants us to proceed.”
“The guy in the SUV; he armed, or anything?”
I spoke up, “Hands are tied behind his back with his belt. He’s in some pain.”
The officer smiled. “We’ll take care of him.”
The Sergeant turned to me, “What can I do to make you more comfortable?”
“I need a phone.”
20
It was just after 1 a.m. when I dialed Jan’s cell phone, and it rang and rang before it went to message. I was brief, “Honey, it’s Jim. I’m all right. But Betty’s going to need your strength...” I looked at the phone and then raised an eyebrow to the sergeant. He wrote the phone number on a piece of paper and walked it over to me. “... You can call me at this number. I love you.”
“Sarge, I need to talk to Capt. Rafferty of the RCMP in Prince Rupert. Can you get that number?”
“Probably, but I need to talk with our boss before we go off on a tangent.”
“This is no tangent, Sarge. You heard about the Whitman kidnapping?”
He nodded and looked closely at me.
“Well, Oregon State Police Lt. Stan Liske and I were slightly involved in the search for the Whitmans. By a fluke, we found the kidnappers on Wednesday night, but they were way too good for us. They killed Liske, blew up his twenty-seven-foot Orca, and then they killed a brave young Canadian Coast Guard sergeant after they got the payoff to leave the Whitmans alive.”
“Well, what about you?”
“Turns out they got a million dollar offer to deliver me to some unnamed woman who was willing to pay the price to do away with me in her own time and manner.”
“Jesus, who have you pissed off that much?”
I shrugged, “So anyway, I need to report in with Rafferty. Can you hook me up?”
The sergeant didn’t answer, but he did go into another office and I heard him on the phone. After about fifteen minutes, he came out and escorted me down a hallway to a room with a bunk and a shower. He had his arms full of State-issued coveralls and underwear and a big, fluffy towel.
“Get yourself cleaned up. Ryder is in the hospital, and he’ll live. My lieutenant will be here in about two hours as will the FBI special agents who have been working the Whitman case in Vancouver.
“You need to get some shuteye. We’ll hook you up with the RCMP when you wake up.”
“If Jan Coldwell, er, Stanton calls, you wake me, hear?”
The night sergeant chuckled. “I hear ya. If whatsername calls, I’ll roust you.”
“Thanks. It’s Stanton, but we’ve only been married about two weeks.”
“Really? On your honeymoon you get involved in this shit? Really?”
When I came out of the shower, he was nowhere in sight. The door wasn’t locked, but I remembered a lesson from my war days, “When you get a chance to sit, you sit; lie down, you lie down; sleep, you sleep.”
I was asleep before my head was on the pillow.
21
The sergeant handed me a cup of coffee while Jan cried into her telephone. I listened to her until she ran out of gas.
“Really, Jan, there was nothing I could do. The ruthlessness and efficiency of this crew was way beyond my expectations.”
We talked then about the mechanics of the next steps. She and Betty would want to find out from Rafferty and Magnusson what they would do to verify my version of the night Stan died.
“Once we get her grieving, that’ll set the pace of what happens next,” she said. “Is there any possibility that Stan survived the explosion?”
“None. There was a single execution-style shot some time before this guy tossed a grenade into the boat. I’m sure the shot was terminal.”
She changed course, “What’s going to happen with you?”
“I’m going to be interviewed repeatedly, get my story on tape, and then they’ll tell me where to get off.”
“Where will you be then? Will you come to Prince Rupert?
“Only if I’m required to by the Canadian officials or if I think I can be of some real use to the investigation there.”
“Then you’d go home?”
“I’m not sure right now what I’ll do. I know that there’s a character out there called Lindsay with more than five million in his pocket and a real desire to disappear. I’d like to think I could find him.”
“Won’t it be better if you just give the police all your information, and then you go back to our life?”
“Probably, but that’ll have to play out over time.”
“Jim, I love you, need you, and look miserable in black.”
“I will be as careful as I can.”
“Thanks for that. I’ll keep you informed from this end.”
I hung up, finished my coffee and looked up at the sergeant. “So?”
“If you’re ready, you’ve got people waitin’ to hear your story.”
We walked into a conference room in the rear of the station, and found five men in business suits waiting for us.
The first to speak was a portly gentleman with a receding hairline and wire-rimmed glasses. “Welcome, Mr. Stanton. My name is Warren Gettling. I’m the district attorney hereabouts, and I need to remind you that you do not have t
o speak with us. You have the right to an attorney, if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you at no cost. You have the right to remain silent and you must understand that anything you say may and will be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand these rights as I have explained them?”
I stood behind my chair and thought about it for a minute. “Am I being charged with a crime?”
“Do you understand the rights as I have explained them?”
“I do, but not as to how they apply to me.”
“Please sit down, and let me introduce you to these gentlemen.”
The dark-complexioned man sitting to the DA’s left was introduced as Leslie Veragas, an investigator with the Washington State Police. Next to him was a man as pale as Veragas was dark. “I’m Lieutenant Matt Stevens, officer in charge here.” The other two men were introduced as Mike something and Ray something of the FBI office in Seattle.
I nodded at each in turn.
“Am I being charged with a crime?”
“Not at this time,” Gettling said softly. “But so far we have only your version of the events that occurred at Cove State Park last night.”
“You haven’t interviewed Ryder?”
“Mr. Ryder has declined to discuss the events while he awaits his attorney from Seattle.”
“Did he deny that he flew me down here in that plane of his, thinking I was unconscious?”
“He declined to speak with us. He made one phone call, long distance to Seattle, and has remained mum since.”
“Let’s blue sky here for a minute,” I said conversationally. “Let’s just wonder what kind of charges I might face based on what I told the sergeant at the desk last night?”
The four of them looked at each other. Veragas offered, “There is a dead guy you claim was there to transport you and pay off Ryder.”
“Would that warrant a murder charge?”
“Probably not, if it went down as you described it, but we only have your version at this time, so the prosecutor here wants to keep his options open.”
I nodded, “Any other charges?”
Mike or Ray, I still didn’t have a handle on which was which, piped up, “Then there is a question about how involved you might have been in the kidnapping of Walt and Mary Lou Whitman...”
“Have you guys found them yet?”
“We have. They’re safe and sound. They should be back aboard their yacht by now.”
“What have they told you about their ordeal?”
“Nothing. They claim they never saw their captors, never heard them, can’t add anything that would help us track them down.”
“Did they talk to you about watching a young Canadian Coast Guard Sergeant skinned alive to make sure they understood the threat they faced if they talked with you or any other authority?”
“We know that a young Sergeant of the CCG went missing on the night of the ninth of August. What do you know about that?”
“Only what the leader of the kidnap team told me.”
“And that was?”
“That his men skinned Seth Richmond alive right in front of the Whitmans to be sure they understood what would happen to them and theirs if they gave the Feds any information that would help official pursuit after they were free.”
“Do you have any information about this man?”
“He was called Lindsay by one of his henchmen who was talking to Ryder when they both thought I was out cold.”
“I’m Ray, by the way,” the older of the two FBI agents said. “What can you tell us about this Lindsay character?”
“He’s five-eight, maybe hundred and sixty pounds; probably mid-thirties in age. Raven black hair, worn back, kind of slicked back, olive complexion, and black, black eyes. He needed a shave, but wasn’t sporting facial hair. No tats I could see. Right handed. Very agile, and one ruthless sonovabitch.
“He told me he and his four-man team were going to split the ransom five equal ways and disappear into the world never to sin again.”
Ray raised an eyebrow. “How ruthless?”
“After he had Seth and I bound in the salon of his cruiser, he shut down his boat about a mile north of Queen Charlotte harbor and waited for my friend, Oregon State Police Lt. Stan Liske who was driving the twenty-seven-foot Orca that he co-owns with Larry Ferguson of Prince Rupert.
“He told me that if the Orca had driven right on by, he’d have just proceeded to where the Whitmans were stashed, and dealt with Seth and me as he did. But Stan found him on radar and approached, so he had to take him out.
“He thought it had been too easy to get on board, so he covered Stan, a really big guy, and made him lay down in the cockpit of the Orca. Then he shot him once in the back of the head.”
Gettling winced at my matter-of-fact dissertation and started to interrupt.
“Excuse me, Mr. Gettling,” Ray persisted, looked at me, and said, “Go on. I believe you were going to explain why he calmly killed one man, brutally sacrificed another, and let you live.”
“He told me that he had found someone who promised to pay him a million bucks to deliver me into her custody so she could kill me in her own way and in her own sweet time.”
The other Fed spoke up then, “Who hates you that much?”
“I have no idea, Mike.”
Ray took up the reins again, “So what happened to the Orca?”
“Lindsay or one of his boys tossed a grenade into her and she went down in flames.”
Ray took a long time writing notes before looking at me again, “What’s the best you can tell us where the Orca may have gone down.”
“It was about a mile or maybe two north of the Queen Charlotte harbor. We didn’t run five minutes before he shut off the lights and slowed way down. Five minutes later or so he shut down everything on a dead drift. I could feel us drifting east on a rising tide.”
“And when would you say that was; what time?”
“Dark-thirty; maybe ten-thirty? It’s so overcast there, it’s hard to be sure, but it was full dark. I think sunset was nine-something.”
“Now why would you know that?”
“We were on a fishing trip. I checked sunrise, sunset and tide tables every day.”
He nodded and worked on his notes for a few minutes. The only sound was the scratching of his pen on the paper.
“I’m sorry for the loss of your friend,” he concluded and rose to leave. Mike bounced up beside him. “Lieutenant, Mr. Prosecutor,” Ray said. “I believe you folks should hang on to Mr. Stanton for the rest of today while I confer with my colleagues in Canada.”
Veragas rose. “I’d like to take Mr. Stanton to Cove Park and walk that part of the story so I can make a recommendation on this end.”
Stevens cleared his throat, “That’s a good idea. We’ll have to make some arrangements for Mr. Stanton tonight. I’m not sure at this point if a jail cell at county lockup is appropriate.”
I broke in, “Listen, I have a credit card. Let me stay at a hotel here ’bouts. I’m not a flight risk. I have a real interest in helping Mrs. Liske cope with her loss and in helping you boys get your hands on Lindsay. I’m not running away; in fact I’d like a seat at the table.”
Stevens looked at Veragas who nodded and shrugged at the same time. He smiled a bit and nodded his decision. Veragas started for the door, “Come on, tough guy. I’ll show you what Bellingham has to offer for accommodations on our way to the beach.”
As we walked to his car, I realized I didn’t have my wallet, watch or pocket knife. “I’ve got ’em here,” he said, shaking a brown manila envelope.
As we got into his state vehicle, a late-model Ford, I took the envelope from him. “Maybe we can stop at a Penney’s or Wal-Mart and let me buy some suitable clothes for the time being.”
“Sure. Your call.
I chose Wal-Mart for the jeans they carry, and bought a shirt, rain coat, shoes, socks and underwear too.
22
When we were through
walking the beach, I felt confident that Veragas saw the truth to my story. He seemed to relax a bit as we drove into town.
“So where you wanna stay?”
“Anywhere with a king-sized bed.”
“Money no issue?”
“It’s always an issue, but clean and quiet are bigger issues.”
“This place comes complete with restaurant and lounge and it’s not a hundy per night,” he said as he turned into the lot. “Will this do?”
“You want to eat with me?”
“State’s buyin’; let’s have you eat with me.”
I checked in, got my key and we headed for the restaurant. The young woman behind the desk was all smiles at me but had a special smile for Veragas. “Hola, Señor Leslie.”
“Como esta,” he replied. I thought I caught just a hint of blush in his cheeks.
“Pretty senorita,” I commented casually. “Amiga?”
“Habla espanol?”
“Just enough to be a smart ass.”
He chuckled. “She’s the daughter of a neighbor. She’s a flirt.”
After dinner, we parted. He said he’d pick me up in the morning, but he’d call first. I went straight to my room and called Jan’s cell phone.
We traded notes about our day. I gave her a rundown on mine, and she told me how Betty had handled the news of Stan’s death.
“She is so brave, Jim. She cried, sure, but as she told me, she’d been prepared for this day every time he’d gone to work for thirty-five years. She called her boys, and they spent a lot of time on the phone, calling back and forth. She said she was ready to head home, but I wanted to wait and see if you were coming up here before I decided...”
“She needs you more until she gets home with her kids. I’ll find out in the morning what they’re planning for me, and I’ll let you know as soon as I know, but I think you guys should head home.”
“Fergie wanted me to tell you that he needs some help with his insurance and wondered if you could give him a call?”
“If you see him, tell him I’ll call when I can. Right now I don’t have a cell phone so I’m not as easily talked to as I would be normally.”
