The Innocents Club

by Taylor Smith

  Klassen and Eckert joined him. “So he says,” Eckert said.

  “Looks like she took a bullet in the shoulder,” Scheiber said. “Doesn’t seem like a killer shot, unless somebody got lucky and hit an artery. Obviously not a suicide bid, either.”

  “No kidding. Did you notice her foot?” Klassen asked. “Don’t think that’s the way I’d choose to do it.”

  “Her foot?” Scheiber’s gaze moved down the naked torso to the legs. The right one was stretched out, nothing unusual about the foot. The left was bent at the knee. He crouched to get a closer look at the foot, which seemed, in the harsh shadows cast by the floodlights, to be half-buried in the sand. Then he recoiled as he realized it wasn’t buried at all. “Jesus! The toes are gone!”

  “Shark,” a sonorous voice pronounced over his head. “You mark my words, that’s what it was.” Scheiber looked up to see Buddy Higman shaking his shaggy head. “Met a great white myself once. Took a piece-a my surfboard and a half-a my thigh.” He rubbed his leg absently as one of the patrol cops, catching Scheiber’s grimace, led the man back up the beach a little ways, away from the body—taking care, Scheiber noted, to stay upwind of the limping drunk.

  “Out of the mouths of babes and old sots,” Klassen said. “I think ol’ Buddy could be right.”

  “Welcome to Amityville,” Eckert said, grimacing.

  “Probably just a small thresher or a mako,” Klassen said matter-of-factly, “drawn by the blood from the shoulder wound. Losing her toes like that would probably have been enough to bleed her out, though. Enough for her to lose consciousness, anyway.”

  “Yeah, but what was she doing naked in the water in the first place?” Scheiber pondered. “And wearing all her jewelry?”

  “Now there,” Eckert said, “is your puzzle for the day.”

  The answer came faster than Scheiber could have hoped, and from an unexpected source. Although, given Tucker’s talent for being in all the wrong places, he shouldn’t have been surprised when his cell phone rang while he waited for Klassen to do a more thorough exam of the body. Tucker asked him—no, told him—to meet him over at the dead woman’s house in Corona del Mar.

  “Where’ve you been all night?” Scheiber asked him.

  “Where do you think?” Tucker said. “Searching for Mariah and her daughter. Where the hell did you get to?” Tucker had shown up at the Korman house around dinnertime the night before, not at all happy to find that the mother, as well as the daughter, was now AWOL. Scheiber had searched till sunset, then slipped away to meet his family. Still, they’d found no trace of Mariah Bolt, her daughter or her rented red Mustang.

  “I caught another case,” Scheiber said, feeling evasive and guiltier than he should. There’d been a lookout notice for the girl and the woman issued to every cop on the beat that night—and the department had been out in force, given the usual holiday burst of beach activity and incident reports. He had no cause to beat himself up for getting a couple of hours’ sleep, did he? “What are you doing at the Hunter Carr place?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “I got a phone tip,” Tucker said mysteriously.

  Scheiber was tired of playing Twenty Questions with the guy. Hell, he was tired, period. But he needed to interview Nolan Carr, anyway, to find out what he knew about his mother’s activities last night. Might as well catch him early, before he left for wherever it was that millionaires went in the morning. “Okay, I’ll meet you outside the house in ten, fifteen minutes,” Scheiber told Tucker, waving Eckert over to the car.

  “I’m not outside the house,” Tucker said. “I’m inside.”

  “With the woman’s son?”

  “No, he’s not here. Nobody’s here. The house is empty.”

  Scheiber scowled. “Then what the hell are you doing inside, Tucker? That’s private property. Unless you’ve got permission to be in there—and what makes me think you don’t?—you got no business—”

  “Don’t you guys have some kind of principle of hot pursuit in your line of work? Something that lets you enter private property if you think there’s a crime going on inside?”

  “Yeah, but you don’t,” Scheiber pointed out.

  “Well, then, say thank you, Detective, because I just gave you cause to enter this place without a warrant. Don’t dawdle,” Tucker added just before he hung up.

  Scheiber felt his teeth grinding. “I think I hate that guy,” he told Eckert.

  Tucker paced the terrazzo entry hall like a caged bear, waiting for the Newport detective to show up. He’d closed the front gates so as not to draw the attention of the private security forces patrolling the neighborhood, but he’d already located the inside terminal of the gate security system. As soon as he saw Scheiber’s car pull up on the closed-circuit TV, Tucker buzzed him through, then opened the front door and waited for the detective and his partner. The sun was just up.

  “Tucker, goddammit,” Scheiber said, coming toward him, “give me one good reason I shouldn’t arrest you right here and now. Because this time, this is my jurisdiction.”

  “This is where Mariah disappeared from. I found her rental car in the garage, hidden under a tarp,” Tucker added, nodding at the six-bay unit at the end of the drive.

  Eckert loped over and stretched himself up to look through the window. “It’s there all right,” he told Scheiber.

  “They were probably planning to have it disassembled and dumped just as soon as they got back,” Tucker said.

  “They? Who ‘they’?” Scheiber demanded impatiently.

  “Nolan Carr, Douglas Porter. Maybe a couple of other associates on the Russian casinos project. I’m not sure how many are involved, but I know Carr’s front and center.”

  “Mariah told me she thought Korman’s and Urquhart’s murders had something to do with the Russian foreign minister,” Scheiber said. “Something about covering up some information that might keep him from being elected president.”

  “It’s more than that. Zakharov has associates in this country—Carr and Porter chief among them—working on a scheme to build a massive gambling resort in the Crimea to launder money for the Russian mob and anyone else with a need to recycle cash. Zakharov’s supposed to be a statesman now, so he keeps his hands clean and lets other people handle his dirty work. In the case of Korman’s and Urquhart’s murders, it was Nolan Carr. And Porter, Korman’s neighbor, who also kidnapped Mariah’s daughter.”

  “And Mariah?” Scheiber asked.

  “I think she came last night to warn Nolan’s mother that the jig was up and try to bargain for Lindsay’s release. Only they took her, too. I think I know where.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Scheiber said dryly.

  “There’s a Russian ship, the Aleksandr Pushkin, that moved from Los Angeles into the Port of Long Beach last,” Tucker said. “Zakharov’s left but the ship is housing what’s left of the Russian delegation for a conference that’s getting under way there this morning. I think Carr and Porter took Mariah and her daughter up there last night under cover of darkness and handed them over to the Pushkin’s crew. They’ll be held there until the conference ends. Then, once the Pushkin is on the high seas, they’ll be dumped overboard like yesterday’s garbage. Unless we get them off first.”

  He watched the color drain from Scheiber’s face as the detective and Eckert exchanged worried looks. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” Scheiber said. “We may be too late.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Renata Carr’s body washed up on the beach last night. If she was taken with Mariah—”

  Tucker felt his world beginning to implode, but he shook his head angrily. “No. She and Lindsay are still alive. I’m going after them. I want you to call the Coast Guard. Have them search both the Pushkin and Porter’s boat. It’s a sixty-foot cruiser, apparently, called—”

  “Wright Think’r,” Eckert said. “He showed us a picture of it.”

  “How are you planning to go after them?” Scheiber asked.
>
  “Follow me,” Tucker said. Scheiber and Eckert followed as he led them into a library off the center hall, a large, circular room overlooking Newport Harbor. Its walls were fully lined with dark wooden bookcases filled with tomes and bric-a-brac from around the world. Deep leather chairs sat in front of a massive stone fireplace paneled on either side with highly polished mahogany. In the center of the room, a table inlaid with intricate marquetry held a large Russian silver samovar.

  Tucker walked around the table and stood by one of the shelves on the room’s inner wall, near the fireplace. “Read any good books lately?” he asked. “War and Peace, for example?” Running a finger along the leather-bound spines, he located the title and pulled the top of the book toward him. It resisted for a moment, and then they heard the soft snap of a catch releasing, and the wooden panel on one side of the fireplace popped open. Scheiber walked over next to him, opened the hidden door wide and peered in. As his head passed through the opening, a light switched on, activated by a motion sensor. The smell of the sea wafted in through the open passageway.

  He pulled his head back and turned to Tucker, one eyebrow cocked. “Very slick,” he said. “How’d you know about that?”

  “Old Arlen Hunter lore. He was pretty notorious in his day. Care to go down and take a look?” Tucker said. “You’ll need this for your blotter report. I presume they make you do that kind of paperwork on these hot-pursuit cases?”

  “Gee, thanks for thinking of that,” Scheiber said. He followed Tucker through the narrow doorway, and they started down a circular wrought-iron staircase, Eckert close behind. The smell of the ocean was strong now, and Tucker felt a distinct movement of air. At the bottom, an open door led out onto a wooden dock inside a cave that had been carved out of the solid granite cliff on which the house stood.

  “A hidden boathouse?” Eckert exclaimed. “I had no idea this was here.”

  The cave was low-ceilinged, barely high enough for a tall man like Tucker to stand upright. Maybe forty feet long, he estimated, and half as wide. The wooden dock ran down one side, capable of tethering a couple of speedboats, although a black Zodiac inflatable was the only tenant at the moment, lashed to a stanchion on the dock, bobbing gently on lapping waves. A sixteen-footer, the rig had a couple of forty horsepower motors clamped to the stern of its fiberglass hull.

  “Arlen Hunter had this boathouse built even before the house was constructed,” Tucker said. “He used it to move certain kinds of cargo, like smuggled Russian icons and assorted other contraband that he regularly slipped past U.S. Customs. With the house set the way it is, the opening is hidden from prying public eyes. It wasn’t a complete secret, mind you, but Hunter had people convinced he just used the boathouse to store his yacht tender so he could get to and from the local yacht club without having to drive.”

  The rocks outside would have to be maneuvered around, Tucker calculated, studying the opening now that the light was better. He’d been down once already, loading what he needed into the Zodiac while he waited for Scheiber to arrive, but it had still been dark outside then. Getting beyond the rocks would be a tricky operation for any but the most agile of small craft. He had been no fool, this Arlen Hunter. No weekend sailor would risk approaching the bluff and being smashed on the rocks.

  Tucker walked down to the end of the dock. Beyond it stood a set of stone gray steel double doors, opened inward. They operated, he’d already determined, on electronic hinges activated by remote control, like a garage door. He glanced back into the Zodiac. He’d found one control there, stowed in a forward storage locker. There was another one inside a storage cabinet bracketed to the wall of the cave.

  “Scuff marks,” Eckert called. Tucker and Scheiber turned back. The investigator was in the passageway leading from the stairs once more, peering at the walls. Scheiber walked over to him. “Here,” Eckert said, pointing to a dusty imprint about three feet up the passageway wall, just the other side of the door. “It looked as if someone carrying heavy lead might have braced a leg against the wall, propping whatever he was carrying on his knee to free up a hand to open the door.”

  Eckert pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and passed it along both sides of the passageway. At the door, he paused at the middle hinge, halfway up the frame. “There’s hair caught here. Looks blond,” he added, pulling out a pair of tweezers and an evidence bag and dropping it in.

  “Renata Hunter Carr was a blonde,” Scheiber said.

  “So’s Mariah,” Tucker said grimly, standing next to the wall closet. He opened it. Oil, gas cans, oars, life vests and various other bits of boating paraphernalia hung inside. On a hook was a set of keys. While Scheiber and Eckert were still examining the blond hair sample, Tucker palmed the keys. Then, moving back down the dock, he stepped into the stern of the inflatable.

  “Okay, I’m sold,” Scheiber said. “We’ll contact the Coast Guard, but—” He frowned as he turned and spotted Tucker. “Get out of there.”

  “I’m just looking,” Tucker said, his hand idly priming the gas line as he glanced at the console. A zodiac this size held about a thirty-gallon fuel tank, suitable for long excursions. The gauge on the console read full.

  “You shouldn’t be leaving your footprints,” Scheiber said. “Dave here’s going to want to go over it.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry,” Tucker said, moving toward the port gunwale.

  “I think there might be a couple of drops of blood here,” Eckert said, crouched on the floor of the passageway.

  “Blood? Where?” Scheiber asked, turning back.

  Tucker released the line at the stern of the boat.

  “Here on the frame,” Eckert said. “It’s—”

  They both jumped as the powerful outboards roared to life. Tucker had the bow line off the stanchion and the boat moving in reverse, away from the dock, before they could reach him.

  “What are you doing?” Scheiber yelled.

  “Call the Coast Guard!” Tucker ordered. “I’ll meet you out there. Remember, the Russian ship’s the Aleksandr Pushkin.”

  “Fine! But we’ll go together!” Scheiber called, racing down the dock alongside him. “Don’t be a damn cowboy, Tucker!”

  “Just meet me out there!” he bellowed over the roar of the outboards. He turned the wheel hard to port, and the Zodiac reversed direction. As he slammed her into forward, he heard Scheiber holler for Eckert to find a way to close the outer door. But he had the throttle all the way forward, and the speedy little craft was out of the cave and planing neatly around the rocks at the entrance long before Scheiber and Eckert could find the controls.

  The sun was rising over the eastern foothills as he sped up the coast toward where he estimated the Pushkin and Porter’s boat would rendezvous. Somewhere off Long Beach, about midway between Newport and the Port of Los Angeles was his guess. There was enough maritime traffic there that a couple more craft in the water would attract little attention, even in broad daylight. The Zodiac was fast, light and stable. Lightly loaded as she was, her twin out-boards barely strained to keep her skimming over the waves.

  But as he approached the Port of Long Beach, he slowed, knowing the waters off the port would be crawling with Coast Guard, Secret Service, FBI and L.A. County Sheriff’s patrols, standing guard over the twenty-odd foreign ministers gathered for the meeting of Pacific Rim States being held at the Long Beach Convention Center. The great cruise ship Queen Mary, now a permanently berthed tourist attraction in the port, had been the site of last night’s opening reception. Over at the convention center, he spotted dark-suited officials milling around on outdoor terraces, smoking their last cigarettes before the first meeting of the international conference got under way.

  Good. With the rump Russian delegation at the convention center, most of the stripped-down security contingent left after Zakharov had departed would be with them. If he was going to board the Pushkin, Tucker realized, it was now or never. All he had to do was locate the Russian ship among all the others
berthed in the port, and not draw attention to himself in the process.

  It should have been an easy enough task, especially in daylight. He knew the Pushkin well. The vessel had been in service for nearly a quarter of a century, involved in both legitimate oceanographic research and dozens of covert Pacific spying operations from Vladivostok in the north to Tierra del Fuego in the south, and all points between. U.S. Navy and Coast Guard officers were taught to recognize it by sight. Tucker kept his speed down as he moved along the quays, alternately scanning the profiles of ships and keeping an eye out for patrol boats.

  After forty fruitless minutes, he was about to risk moving in closer when it dawned on him. Paranoid as he was, Zakharov never allowed the Pushkin to be berthed, much to the chagrin of the Russian crew, no doubt, who would have been counting on some shore leave. In Los Angeles, Zakharov had ordered the ship to drop anchor offshore for the duration of his stay aboard. There was no reason to believe he wouldn’t have left similar orders for Long Beach. Sure enough, when Tucker moved farther away from the quays, he soon spotted the outline of the vessel about a half mile offshore.

  He idled his engines while he searched the onboard tools and lockers, preparing a boarding kit for himself—a wrench, some wire cutters, a length of chain and some duct tape, wrapping all of it in one of the heavy-gauge plastic zipper bags someone had sensibly stored there. A zippered nylon pouch containing the Zodiac’s foot pump provided a handy carrying case. After loading everything inside the pouch, Tucker unfastened his belt, threaded it through the bag’s nylon handle loop, then rebuckled.

  Then, he brought the Zodiac around in a wide arc, approaching the Pushkin from the seaward side, reasoning that whatever the official security protocol, the natural human inclination was to look for danger from the shore. He could make out the heads of a couple of crewmen relaxing on deck, enjoying the urban view.