Two Down

by Nero Blanc

  Colberg started to walk off, but Rosco stopped him. “What about communication gear? What kind of stuff did she have?”

  “Hey, Mrs. Pepper pays top dollar, she gets a top-dollar boat. The Orion was loaded. You name it, she had it. Radar, depth finder, weather fax, SSB, VHF, and shortwave.”

  “What about one of those emergency beacons?”

  “An EPRIB? Every boat in this yard has an EPRIB. Check ’em out if you want. But people have to activate them or they don’t do much good.”

  “Aren’t they activated as soon as they hit water?”

  “Yeah . . . But they gotta be turned on. There’s a switch.”

  “Would she have known to do that? Turn it on?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her? Hey, Polycrates, all EPRIBs are on when a boat leaves my marina. The question you gotta ask those babes is, why did they turn it off—not on.”

  Rosco could feel his jaw tighten. “What about the dinghy?” He corrected himself in an attempt to sound more professional: “The inflatable tender?”

  “Yep, that was insured, too . . . A 290 VS . . . nice little unit . . . eight-horsepower outboard, too . . . Damn! I don’t think I insured the motor separately.”

  Rosco found himself fighting a strong temptation to belt Colberg. The man seemed to have little regard for the fact that two women had been aboard the Orion—two women who were now missing. “All right,” Rosco said after taking a long breath, “what I want to know is, could the dingy have carried Mrs. Pepper and her friend to landfall?”

  “Where’s that concern A.M.I.? They doin’ life insurance now?”

  Rosco shook his head. “It doesn’t concern A.M.I. It’s my question. Call me softhearted. I just wondered if they might still be alive . . . If you think about it, a witness could make your claim go a lot quicker . . . On the other hand, a witness might also blow your claim right out of the water . . .”

  “Give it up, Polycrates,” Colberg snapped. “If they haven’t found those babes by now, they ain’t gonna . . . Sorry, but that’s the law of the sea . . . If it makes you feel any better, though, the inflatable’s motor was gassed up. I’d say they could have got two hours from it . . . It depends how far out they were . . . The clowns who towed in the Orion were so boozed when they hooked up the boat they didn’t take a bearing. That’s why the Coast Guard’s having such a tough time—”

  “Doesn’t procedure call for a rescue craft to remain with a wreck? Radio the Coast Guard, and wait for their arrival?”

  Colberg let out a short, mean laugh. “Go look at the Dixie-Jack, buddy. Then tell me what those three turkeys knew about ‘procedure.’ ”

  Rosco glanced across to the next dock and the fishing boat rocking in the waves. “You don’t mind if I inspect it, then?”

  “Suit yourself. I haven’t touched her. I got a gal who cleans these charters for me, but she didn’t come in yesterday. Her kid’s sick or something. Good thing it rained last night. Kept the fish blood from drying up on her.” Colberg pulled a cigarette from his breast pocket, struck a match, and lit it. His hands shook almost uncontrollably, and his eyes darted around the marina as if unwilling to rest on a single object. He tossed the match into the water, then turned and loped toward his office with his too-tall, bent-kneed, awkward gait.

  Rosco watched him leave, then walked to the Dixie-Jack.

  Ed Colberg had been correct. The aft deck was a disaster, awash in a dark pinkish liquid that sloshed back and forth with sickening speed. Fifteen or twenty empty Budweiser cans floated in the bloody muck, tapping against the bases of two aluminum sport-fishing chairs anchored to the deck. Scattered among the cans were empty potato-chip packages, plastic sandwich bags, cigarette wrappers, and stubbed-out butts. Four seagulls perched on the gunwales fighting over hotdog shards and unidentifiable tuna entrails. The smell of rotting fish was undeniable.

  Forward, the captain’s seat and helm were protected from the elements by a large overhanging blue canvas Bimini top. Although the decking there was also deep in garbage, the chair and nautical gauges had been shielded from the rain, and had remained dry.

  Not caring to ruin his shoes, Rosco stood on the gunwales, supporting himself by holding the Bimini top. He studied the array of gauges. The tachometer, fuel indicator, oil-pressure gauge, and throttle handle were caked with a brownish substance he identified as dried blood. Upon closer examination, he noticed there was a slight differentiation in the shades of brown. The dried blood on the gauges was a hint lighter than the blood on the throttle.

  He swung himself forward to sit in the captain’s chair, then removed two small Ziploc plastic bags from his coat, took samples of the blood types, marking one bag throttle and the other gauges. After that, he leaned down and attempted to open the Plexiglas hatch leading to the cabin. It had been locked. Rosco shielded the sun’s reflection with his hand and peered in.

  Although the interior of the boat was dry, it was also littered with the beer cans, food wrappers, and cigarettes. A dirty towel lay near the entrance to the head. It had clearly been used to clean blood. Rosco jumped off of the Dixie-Jack and headed toward Colberg’s office.

  “There’s an awful lot of blood on that boat,” he said as he entered.

  Colberg jerked his head up from his newspaper. He’d been working the Crier’s daily crossword puzzle, and he tossed his pencil onto the desk. “The guys were out for tuna . . . Don’t make it into a federal case . . . Happens all the time . . . Fishermen don’t want to bring back heads, bones, and guts, so they fillet their catch at sea . . . They only have room in their coolers for meat.”

  “What did these guys haul?”

  “A couple of two-hundred-and fifty-pounders . . . that’s what they said . . .”

  “Fogram and company . . . You remember those names yet, Ed?”

  Colberg only shrugged. The hand holding the newspaper shivered wildly.

  “Come on, Ed, you let someone take a hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of your property all the way to the trench, and you don’t get their names?”

  Ed sat stony-faced.

  “Okay,” Rosco continued, “it’s your insurance claim . . . not mine.” He turned to leave.

  “Hold on, Polycrates.” Colberg turned in his chair, removed two cards from a file drawer, and placed them on his desk. “Stingo and Quick . . . Home addresses are all I got.”

  “Thanks, buddy.” Rosco copied the information into his notepad. “Any idea where they work?”

  “Nah.”

  Rosco smiled thinly, but didn’t speak.

  “I’m dead serious . . . I’ve never seen these two guys before in my life. And I’ll be a happy man if I never see them again.”

  Before leaving the marina, Rosco made one last visit to the Orion. He stared at the burned-out hulk as if waiting for the silent shell to speak. Then his glance traveled to the Dixie-Jack and slowly returned to the Orion. He found himself wondering not only how a fire of that magnitude had started, but how it had been extinguished—and by whom.

  7

  Rosco glanced at his pad of paper, double-checking the address. Fifty-five Duxbury Court was the last in a straggling line of permanently affixed mobile homes in the seedy enclave of Warren, at Newcastle’s westernmost edge. He flipped the pad shut, looked at his watch, automatically noting that one in the afternoon was probably an optimal hour for exploring Duxbury Court. Later on, the weary residents would be coping with hungry kids and hard-worked tempers; earlier, those without steady employment would be staring blearily at another dismal day.

  He knocked on the trailer’s screen door. The latch had been broken, and the door rattled in its frame, making more noise than he’d anticipated. After a few seconds the main door was cautiously opened by a wiry woman in her forties with wheat-colored hair and deep-set eyes. Although her features seemed harsh initially, she was solid New England and not unattractive—the type of person given to few, but genuine smiles. Instinctively, she drew back into her home’s d
ark interior. She seemed uneasy at finding a stranger on her front steps.

  “Yes?” The accent was blue-collar Boston, the tone defensive and hostile.

  “Good afternoon, ma’am.” Rosco tried for a reassuring smile. “I’m looking for Moe Quick. Do I have the right address?”

  “Who wants him?”

  Rosco pulled his identification from his jacket as he spoke. “My name’s Rosco Polycrates, ma’am. I’m a private investigator looking into the fire on that sailboat Sunday night . . . the one with those women aboard . . . I just wanted to ask Mr. Quick a few questions. Apparently, he towed the boat in . . . Are you his wife?”

  “I don’t know anything about no women.”

  “Yes, ma’am . . . Are you his wife?”

  “I—I shouldn’t be answering questions like this.”

  “No, ma’am, you’re right. It’s good policy to be careful with strangers. If I could talk to Mr. Quick . . .”

  “He’s not here.”

  “I see. When do you expect him home?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “You are his wife? Am I correct?”

  “Yep.” The word came out like a short, barked Yip.

  “Well, Mrs. Quick—”

  “Doris. Call me Doris, I don’t like Missus. It makes me feel old.” She smiled suddenly, and the expression shed years from her face and stern demeanor. Rosco could almost see her as a twenty-year-old facing a hope-filled future.

  “All right, Doris. Maybe you could tell me where your husband’s place of work is—”

  “Can’t do that.”

  “Why is that, ma’am?” Rosco could feel his reasonable manner deserting him.

  “He works all over. That’s why I never know when he’ll be home. He doesn’t like to check in . . .” Something troublesome momentarily weighted the words, but Doris dispensed with the emotion with a determined shake of her head.

  Rosco’s voice turned gentler. “He works all over?”

  “Yep. [Yip.] Him and Bob . . . They’re truckers. Long distance.”

  “Bob? Would that be Bob Stingo? The man your husband went fishing with this past weekend?”

  “Yep. And Vic. Vic Fogram . . . Owns the Red Admiral down near the docks . . . He went, too . . . Got some nice tuna.”

  “I see. So, Mr. Stingo and your husband are off on a run, is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Yep. They’re partners in the rig. Left this morning. St. Pete.”

  “Florida? They’re on a run to St. Petersburg?”

  Doris took a small step backward. “Look, mister, I don’t think I should be talking anymore. I don’t know nothin’ about that boat business. Moe Quick’s who you want to talk to, not me. I don’t answer for him; he don’t answer for me. We’re one of them ‘modern couples’ you hear about.” She laughed briefly as if this term were a wry private joke, then started to close the door.

  Rosco stopped her. “Fine . . . that’s fine, Doris, but how can I contact your husband?”

  “You can’t.” Again, the door edged shut.

  Rosco gritted his teeth and tried again. “When do you expect him . . . Doris?”

  “No telling . . . four, five days . . . ‘I expect him when I see him’—that’s what they say.” Doris smiled at this second witticism, and again, her stony image was transformed. The metamorphosis was so rapid and so eerie that Rosco found himself wondering if there were more to this woman than the underprivileged, undereducated person she presented.

  He retrieved a business card from his wallet. “See that your husband gets this, Mrs. Quick.”

  “When I see him . . . And if I remember,” she announced regally. “And the name is Doris . . . as in Doris Day.” Then she slammed the door without another word.

  Arriving at his office, Rosco called the Coast Guard. Their full search-and-rescue operation had resumed, but, as yet, they could supply no updated report on the missing women. Lieutenant Evans, the “on-scene commander” in charge of the operation, was as abrupt with Rosco as his CPO had been with Tom Pepper; clearly, his level of frustration was also rising. “We’ll contact Pepper the moment we spot anything,” he said, and Rosco got the message. Don’t call us; we’ll call you.

  He hung up with a polite, “Thank you, sir,” then checked his contact at the phone company, who informed him that Genie’s cell phone had not been activated since the day of the dinner dance. Finally, Rosco punched in Tom Pepper’s number, and brought him up to speed, summing up his report with an earnest:

  “I know it’s not much, Mr. Pepper, but until they locate that dinghy, you can’t give up hope. Survivors have lasted weeks in open boats . . . As far as instigating a lawsuit against Mystic Isle Yachts, there may be possibilities of negligence, but it’s too early to tell . . . We’ll have to wait for forensics to issue a report on the cause of the fire . . .”

  The monologue was received in total silence. At its conclusion, Rosco wondered if the line had gone dead, and said so. A strangled “I’m still here,” was Pepper’s pained reply, after which Rosco heard a heavy breath that meant the man was finally marshaling his forces. It was the sound of a person accustomed to fighting numerous battles.

  Pepper began asking pointed, intelligent questions, and repeating the responses as if writing rapid notes on a legal pad. He requested the name and manufacturer of the inflatable tender, the type of outboard motor with which it was equipped, the fire-extinguishing system aboard the Orion, and the maker of the vessel’s propane stove. Some of these facts Rosco supplied; others he promised to deliver.

  Pepper ended the conversation with a falsely robust: “Keep up the good work, Rosco . . . Oh, and by the way, you were right about the press. It looks like World War Three is being assembled in my drive . . . steadi-cams, satellite trucks, the works; they sure do love a disaster . . . There are a lot of sick people out there in TV land.”

  “Let me know if you need additional help,” Rosco said as the line went dead. Then he sat pondering the situation for several moody minutes. The deeper he delved into the case, the more complex it seemed to become. He couldn’t help feeling as if he’d been handed a bucketful of eels. Stingo, he doodled on a pad, Quick, Fogram, Colberg, Dixie-Jack, blood . . . St. Pete.

  Then he grabbed the phone again, called star-1, and gave Belle an abbreviated version of the day’s events. His recitation was finally broken by a gentle:

  “You’re doing everything you can, Rosco . . . If Genie and Jamaica are still alive, the Coast Guard will find them . . . We have to believe that . . .” Then she assumed a brighter mood. “What are you doing now?”

  Rosco recognized the question as an invitation to come to her home. It was one of the many things he liked about her: the ability to say one thing and mean something else.

  “I can’t, Belle, I’ve still got work to do.”

  “Can’t what?”

  “Come over.”

  “Who asked you to?”

  He smiled into the phone. “Never mind.”

  “Besides, why can’t you come over? We could have an early dinner.”

  “I have to check out the Red Admiral, and this Vic Fogram character.”

  “I could meet you there—”

  “I don’t think so, Belle. The place doesn’t really cater to women.”

  “It’s a gay bar?”

  Rosco laughed. “No . . . It’s on Water Street, across from the fishing docks . . . Obviously, women do patronize it . . . just not your type of female, that’s all.”

  Rosco heard a sigh; it meant Belle’s brain was racing to come up with a retort.

  “Look . . . it’s a tough, shot-and-a-beer-chaser fisherman’s bar . . . a place for regulars . . . Women don’t go there unless they can beat guys at arm wrestling and harpoon slinging.”

  Again, Belle sighed. “Take care of yourself,” she finally said.

  The closet in Rosco’s office contained a smattering of disguises: a navy-blue suit (poorly fitting enough to resemble an unsuccessful accountant
or an undertaker’s assistant), a green windbreaker that looked vaguely DEA, torn jeans, scuffed work boots, a hooded black sweatshirt faded to a mottled gray, and a variety of baseball caps. For the Red Admiral, Rosco opted for a “commercial-fisherman look”: jeans, sweatshirt, boots; the hat he chose was orange and black, and sported the Baltimore Orioles logo. It made him look like a definite out-of-towner. Dressed in this outfit, he studied himself in the mirror. He hadn’t shaved all day, and an appropriate amount of stubble appeared on his chin. He passed his left hand across his face, nodded approval, then checked the time.

  “Four-thirty . . . Must be nearing happy hour down at the docks.”

  On the way to the Red Admiral, he made one detour to drop off the blood samples for analysis at TX Bio-Lab. “Thursday’s the best we can do,” he was told. “Wednesday night, maybe, but I wouldn’t count on it.”

  Although Rosco had never entered the Red Admiral, he’d driven past it, and had had the opportunity to observe the arrivals and exits of its clientele. Almost all appeared to be commercial fishermen: men accustomed to spending a month chasing cod on the outer banks, running through their earnings in a weekend, and then shipping back out, broke and hungover. Their brief hours on land were dedicated to consuming the tavern’s inventory of alcohol. Lacking any permanent home, some men even used the Admiral as a mailing address; for them, it was all they knew of stability. There were, of course, fishermen in Newcastle with families, houses with mortgages, kids in school, and wives holding regular jobs. However, these men did not frequent the bars on Water Street.

  From the sidewalk, it was impossible to see into the Admiral. The door was solid if battered; the two small, grimy windows bracketing it were curtained with dense beige cloth. Displayed in the left window was a neon Miller Lite sign; the right held a blinking Budweiser sign. When Rosco stepped through the door, all conversation ceased; the eight customers—all of whom were men—swiveled their eyes, although not their heads and bar stools, in his direction.