Killer Waves

by Brendan DuBois

  I joined Jack back behind the counter and he said, "My apologies."

  "None needed," I said.

  Jack took out a handkerchief the color of old snow and blew his nose and wiped at his eyes. "I wish you had known him when he was younger. He was smart and tough and quick on his feet. He entered the Marines right when he turned eighteen --- though I was sure I could have gotten him a job at the yard without any trouble --- because he said he wanted to prove himself."

  He carefully folded up the handkerchief and replaced it in his pocket. "The Marines seemed to suit him. Gave him discipline, gave him a purpose. When he was in high school, he could be a wild one when he wanted, and I was glad the Marines made something out of him. Then he entered aviation school, and actually became a pilot. My son, a pilot. Oh, how proud I was of him."

  I stepped closer to the counter so he wouldn’t have to raise his voice so much around the visitors crowded by the brochure stand. “What did he fly? Helicopters?”

  "Nope. Jets. F/A-18 Hornets. Flew them off the USS George Washington."

  "I'm impressed."

  A satisfied nod from Dad. "You should be. An aircraft carrier is a huge vessel, but when you're up in a jet, coming in for a landing, it looks like a postage stamp. And remember, too, that this postage stamp isn't stable. It's moving up and down, side to side, and crowded on that postage stamp are other aircraft, people and equipment. And you're coming in at hundreds of miles an hour... A controlled crash, Keith once told me it was like. A controlled crash. And then there's night landings..."

  Jack stopped for a moment, and then I quietly said, "Did something happen to him in the Marines?"

  Another nod, but this one wasn't as satisfied as the previous one. "Yep. Never got the whole story, but Keith told me some of it once, a couple of years back. He was coming in for a night landing in the Persian Gulf and there were problems with the electrical system on his Hornet. Batteries were supposed to supply emergency back-up power, but they were drained for some reason. He was practically flying deaf, dumb and blind when he put her down on the flight deck, inches away from rolling off and killing himself... It shook him, shook him so bad that he lost his confidence. He tried getting into the jet the next day and he got the shakes. And it got worse, much worse... "

  He stared at me. "It was like he was on a slippery slope he couldn't get off. He got transferred out of flying status, but even working at a desk made him get the shakes. Then he got discharged and came back home. I pulled a few strings and got him a job at the yard. Didn't even make it through a year before he was out of there. Now he's on some sort of disability pension, living in a crappy apartment, and begging for a few dollars off me every now and then. Not much of a life, is it?"

  I tried to think of what kind of answer to give him, and decided the truth would work all right. "You're right," I said. "Not much of a life."

  He rubbed at the hand that held his metal cane and said, "Tell me this, why don't you, speaking about lives. You're a magazine writer for Shoreline, am I right?"

  "Yes," I said, knowing where this was going.

  "Yep," he said. "Came in here with a business card and everything. I even went to the trouble of going over to the smokeshop, see what kind of magazine you were. You see, some scamsters out there, they like to think the older you get, the stupider you get. Every now and then some clown comes in trying to convince me to buy an ad in their magazine or brochure. And most times, these magazines and brochures don't even exist. But yours existed, that's for sure, and I even saw your name and photo on your column."

  "But you still have questions, am I right?"

  "Yep. Like what's a magazine writer doing sniffing around for some visitor I had a few days back? Okay, you said it was confidential, and I can go along with that. But here you come again, still looking for info, but this time you've got a photo of this guy. Dead in his car. Which means that it came from a cop or something. So, are you a cop, or are you working for the cops?"

  "I'm not a cop, and I'm not working for the cops."

  "Then who the hell are you?" There was no anger in his voice, just a strong sense of wanting to know up and down, right and wrong, black and white.

  "I'm a writer," I said. "Just like you saw in the magazine, just like you saw on my business card. But sometimes... sometimes I get involved in some things that are quite confidential. Sometimes it's best for a writer to ask questions, instead of an investigator or a detective. It's more casual that way, doesn't raise a lot of fuss. Which is why I'm working on this particular story, about this particular visitor."

  He picked up the photo, put it back in the envelope and handed it over to me. "This guy a friend of yours?"

  "No, not at all."

  "But it’s important, right?”

  “Yes, quite.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I really can’t help you, Lewis. And it pisses me off to say that, it really does, considering how you helped me earlier today and how you put up with my son." Jack stuck out his hand and I shook it. "Tell you the truth, I think of anything, I'll let you know. And remember this."

  "What's that, Jack?" I asked.

  He smiled. "You still get a free tour of the Albacore from the other day. You can take it now, if you'd like."

  I headed for the door as it was opening up and a group of kids came tumbling in. "Not today, but later. I look forward to it."

  He looked to say something in reply, but in a moment he was engulfed by the kids, all demanding admission, all demanding attention.

  Outside, the spring air was nice and clear, though it was lightly scented from the belching diesel engines of the tour buses. I looked across at the highway and over to the port of Porter. A lot of ports up and down the New England coast have been touristed and condoized and yuppied up, but not this one. Porter had its share of coffee houses but it also had its share of diners, and while there were a few high-priced condos overlooking the harbor, by God it was still a working harbor.

  And part of the working harbor was the mass of buildings and cranes, over at the other side of the harbor, marking the Porter Naval Shipyard.

  As I got to my Ford I checked the time, saw it was almost noon. If I raced south I might be able to meet up with Paula Quinn and buy her an expensive lunch and offer her an explanation for last night, when she had called and Laura Reeves had answered the phone. In spite of the little good-bye kiss, there was nothing there, not really ...

  Oh yeah? a little voice inside of me said. When I got to the Ford I decided to retrace my steps back to the museum and use the pay phone and officially set up a lunch date with Paula. I didn't want to leave this one to chance.

  And as I turned away from my Ford, there was a deep-sounding pong as a bullet whizzed past my ear and struck the driver’s door.

  Chapter Fourteen

  No time to think, no time to debate, no time to look about and say out loud, "What the hell was that?"

  I dropped to the asphalt on my belly and rolled underneath my Ford Explorer, and when I got to the other side I sat up against the front tire, where a whole lot of engine and steel and other heavy things were between me and my assailant. I scrambled underneath my coat and pulled out my Beretta, finding it extremely heavy. I laid it across my knees, tried to remember how to breathe. A bit of tradecraft from Felix popped into my head. "Sometimes you get into things, you don't have the luxury of figuring out what in hell is going on. So you default to your primary response. Which is saving your hide. A number of years ago I was at this party in West Roxbury and this lovely young lady was putting the moves on me. She really wanted me to stay, but I was rude and left her and the party. Couldn't explain it, couldn't put my finger on it, but something was making me uneasy. So I bailed out and I'm glad I did. Later I found out that there were a couple of guys in the basement with ropes and blowtorches who were waiting for this fine young lady to bring me down. So always go to the basic. Protect yourself. Even if you piss off some people and look foolish.

  Well, I
certainly might have looked foolish scrambling underneath my Ford, but at least I was breathing and my body was unpunctured. And as for pissing somebody off, I think I had done that a while earlier. Maybe Keith had come back, ready to come through on his promise.

  I sat there breathing hard, the tremblings beginning to ease some in my hands, when I heard the sounds of sirens. They seemed to be coming my way, which was surprising, unless some passing tourist had seen me with a pistol in my hand, which I didn't think had happened.

  There was also the chance that someone had heard the gunfire that caused me to perform my groundhog imitation, but I was thinking that was also unlikely, since I hadn't heard the shot either.

  Which meant somebody had been out there, gunning for me, with a silencer-equipped rifle.

  I took another deep breath and listened as the sirens got louder.

  A while later I was handcuffed and was sitting in the rear of a Porter police cruiser, which was the best thing that could happen to me after I was shot at. The cops had arrived in good form and I had initially ignored their commands to stand up and put my hands on my head. I compromised by kneeling and putting my hands on my head, because I didn't want to expose myself to the guy on the other end of the telescopic sight, wherever he might be. By then I had also kicked my Beretta underneath another car-presenting yourself as armed to a cop who has just raced in with lights and sirens on is a short recipe for a big disaster-and after I had been cuffed I was stuffed in the back of a Porter cruiser. Fair enough. By now there were enough cops and other people milling around that the chances were pretty good that the shooter had given up.

  For now, of course. But I wasn't being greedy.

  I looked around the parking lot as best I could. Jack was there, talking to one of the uniforms, and a bunch of senior citizens were trooping into their tour buses. A couple even stopped and took my photo, and I obliged them by not turning my head. The back of the cruiser smelled like old cleaner, and the upholstery was dark blue plastic. Nothing fancy back here, just something that could be easily cleaned of whatever bodily fluids might be left behind while transporting a prisoner.

  The rear door suddenly opened up and someone leaned in to look at me. It was Detective Joe Stevens, wearing a long rancher's coat and brand-new, pressed blue jeans. His detective shield was hanging from a chain around his neck. I decided this wasn't the correct time to ask him if he had come across any information on the mysterious Whizzer.

  "Lewis, how's it going?"

  "I can't complain," I said.

  He nodded, his face showing neither a smile nor a frown. Fairly neutral. He said, "If you get your legs out, I can get you standing up here and get those cuffs off."

  "You sure that's a good idea?" I asked, now hearing the chatter of police radios with the door open.

  "Why, you like being cuffed in the back of a cruiser? Is that a better idea?"

  "No, I don't like being in here. But I even like less the chance of that shooter out there going for another try."

  The detective shook his head. "Not to worry. From the trajectory and such, it looks like the shooter was over by one of the warehouses, down by the salt piles. We've got a crew searching it right now, and so far they haven't found anybody. But with all this activity around here, if I was a shooter, I'd be long gone. So. You want to spend the rest of the day in there?"

  I shifted my weight, put my legs outside. "Nope, not at all." Getting out was a chore, with my hands cuffed behind me and my body bent at an awkward angle. But Detective Stevens grabbed my shoulders and helped me up, and I turned around «lid heard the nice click-click sound of the handcuffs being undone. He took the handcuffs away and I rubbed at my wrists.

  Stevens said, “What did you see?”

  I leaned back against the rear fender of the cruiser, feeling tingly and alive and breathing, and feeling almost childishly safe with all the police officers around me. "Not very much. Came out from the museum to my car here, and then I decided to head back and make a phone call. That's when I heard the round snap by and hit the car."

  "What did you do next?"

  "Made like a high school kid from the fifties and ducked and covered. Ended up on the other side of the Explorer while your uniforms showed up. Tell me, how did your guys get here so quickly?"

  He eyed me. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that from the time of the shot until the first cruiser showed up here was only a minute or two."

  He opened up a tiny little black-covered notebook and said, "Dispatch got an anonymous call of gunfire at the submarine museum parking lot. That's what happened."

  I rubbed my wrists again and looked across the roadway, at the brick warehouses down by the harbor. "Odd... "

  "And what's so odd?"

  "Because I didn't hear the sound of a rifle, that's why. Just the bullet whizzing by and hitting my Ford."

  Now there was a frown on Stevens's face. "You sure? Maybe the sounds of the traffic drowned it out. A gunshot can sound like a car backfiring, or a piece of heavy equipment operating."

  "Maybe, but I'll bet you that when you do your canvass of the neighborhood, you won't find a witness who heard a gunshot."

  "Sorry," he said, returning to his notebook. "Since the Red Sox last year, I'm not a betting man. And I'm also not a man who likes the thought of a nut running around with a rifle that has a silencer on it. About the only good thing, besides the fact the shooter missed, is that the bullet went through the door and dropped on the upholstery. It's pretty dinged up, but ballistics should be able to do something with it once we get it to the state crime lab. Okay, anybody you know out there who’d feel like putting a bullet in your head?”

  "None that come right to mind."

  "How about Keith Emerson, the son of the museum director over there? You think you're on his enemy list?"

  "Well, I don't know if I'd go that far---"

  "Look, we've already talked to Jack Emerson and some of the visitors who saw something going on back in the museum lobby. The two of you got in a little scuffle and he threatened to kill you. Any reason why you're defending him?"

  "I'm not defending him, it just seems unlikely."

  Now his tone was getting sharp. "Unlikely? Why unlikely?"

  I rubbed at my wrists a third time. "All right, he made some threats. But I don't know how sober he was when he made them. He had a hard time standing up and walking around. And when he left and when I came out here, maybe just a few minutes had passed. It doesn't sound right that he'd be in a position to go over to the warehouses, pull out a rifle, and pop one in my direction."

  "Doesn't sound right, is that what you said?" he asked, the neutral tone now back in his voice.

  "Exactly," I said. "Guy like Keith, it seemed like he'd be the type to be in your face, with a fist or a knife. Not from a distance and with a high-powered rifle."

  "Okay, Lewis, what doesn't sound right is you coming in here and getting shot at. That doesn't sound right. And I don't care what you think about Keith Emerson, he made threats against you, and a bullet came your way just a few minutes later. So we're going to pick him up and bring him in for a little chat." He paused, and added with exaggerated politeness, "If that's all right with you, I mean."

  "I understand," I said.

  "Good. I need to ask you one more thing."

  "Go ahead."

  Stevens looked around at the cops working the scene, talking to witnesses. I saw Jack Emerson talking to another detective, leaning on his metal cane by his small pickup truck. The museum door was fastend and a CLOSED sign had been put up.

  “First time I met you, you asked me questions about the local drug trade and about a guy in particular, named Whizzer. You poking around the local drug managers, making them upset? Trying to put a little sting in their business?"

  "No, I'm not," I said. "But having said that, you find out anything about a guy named Whizzer?"

  He paused as a truck went by, heading out of the parking lot.

  Jack wa
s driving, staring ahead, not looking in our direction at all.

  "Not a word," Stevens said. "You think this Whizzer guy might be the one who tried to pop you?"

  "Could be," I said. "But so far, I haven't met anybody or anything with any kind of connection to anybody named Whizzer. Could be a ghost, for all I know."

  "Maybe," he said. "But there's another thing." He reached into one of the deep pockets of his rancher's jacket and pulled out my Beretta. Even holding the small notebook, he worked the pistol expertly, popping out the clip and then working the action, ensuring there wasn't a round in there. He passed both the full clip and the pistol over to me.

  "I take it you have a carry permit?"

  "In my wallet, if you'd care to look."

  "Nope. That's okay. Do me a favor and just put it away, and don't replace the clip until you're home, safe and sound. Second Amendment or not, having a citizen with a pistol in his possession at a crime scene tends to make us cops nervous."

  I put the Beretta back into my shoulder holster and stuffed the clip into a coat pocket. "Not a problem," I said. "Always glad to cooperate with the local police."

  "If that was a joke, it was a bad one," he said, his eyes narrowing down. "You get along now. Don't take this too personally, but if someone's gunning for you, I don't want it to take place in Porter. The paperwork would be a real pain. And with this little incident and my little search for Whizzer for you, my favor quotient with Diane Woods and you is used up. Understood?"

  "Loud and clear," I said.

  Then he shifted his feet and said quietly, “All right, enough barking on y part. Here’s my business card.” I took it from his outstretched hand and pocketed it next to the Beretta clip. “Anything else happen," the detective went on, "you let me know. Immediately, if not sooner. Like I said earlier, I don't like the thought of a sniper loose in my town."