Misery Bay

by Chris Angus

  “Like you said. He has the whole world to hide in. My bet is he’ll lie low for a long time. I don’t think you have to worry about him, and I seriously doubt he’s in Canada. Still, it can’t hurt to be cautious. He can hire people to do his dirty work for him.”

  Garrett looked about Kitty’s office. It was small but fashionable, done in muted pastels. He suspected it would be highly effective in impressing important guests. “Have the authorities given you any trouble about those men you killed?”

  “I’ve been questioned several times about it. So far, they haven’t found any bodies, which makes any sort of prosecution a moot point. But I’ve been totally up front about what I did and why. With the publicity and the shows I’ve been doing, I don’t think anyone questions my motives.”

  He nodded. It was what he would have expected. She had a right to defend herself in such a situation.

  “All right.” He stood up. “I’m going home. Little dinner party tomorrow night with the ladies and Roland. I’ve been invited as security, I think.” He smiled ruefully. “They wanted Lonnie too, which may be a sign of the possible level of need.”

  Kitty bounced out of her chair and put her arm through Garrett’s. “I can do this now, Garrett,” she said with a big smile. “We’re going to be relatives.”

  “Fine by me,” he said. “You’re one gutsy reporter, Kitty. I’ve revised my earlier assessment, and I’m happy as a clam to have you in the family.”

  “Funny,” she said, walking him to the door. “I was a pushy bitch. Felt like I had to be to get noticed for anything other than my looks. I just don’t feel that need anymore. Maybe what I went through helped put things in perspective. Maybe it’s having Lonnie in my life. Probably both.”

  She looked away from him, her face suddenly showing real pain. “I … I want to apologize for that crack I made a while back about your handicap. It was awful and I feel absolutely humiliated every time I think about it. You know, it’s the strangest thing …”

  “What?”

  “People don’t believe it, but I’ve always felt like my looks are my own handicap. They put me at a disadvantage with everyone I meet because they instantly classify me as a certain type. Over time, I just decided if that’s how people were going to see me, then I might as well take advantage of it. Use what God gave me, if you will. Anyway, the need is gone, and I’m sorry.”

  Garrett unhooked her arm and held her by both shoulders. Then he leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Welcome to the family,” he said with a smile.

  61

  LONNIE STOOD OUTSIDE THE LAW offices of Wanbolt, Hartless, and Noseworthy, the firm that did much of Global Resources’ legal work. He’d begun checking his sources and had found one interesting bit of information already. People were reluctant to talk about Anthony DeMaio.

  This was unusual, since the average source he consulted would generally throw over his firstborn in exchange for a bottle or maybe even just to get Lonnie to go away. It suggested that DeMaio might still be around and close enough to make people nervous.

  Why would he still be in Canada? It would be a huge risk. Was it some sort of hubris? The man had been invested with such immense power for so long, perhaps he felt invincible. Or perhaps he intended to get even. With Kitty? She’d said DeMaio was vindictive and maybe borderline psychotic as well.

  The thought made him more than a little uneasy. It was a new feeling for him to be in love with someone. The possibility of harm coming to Kitty simply seized his emotions to such an extent that he had to fight being paralyzed by it. He’d never experienced anything like it before. Even the fear he’d felt for Garrett’s life in Afghanistan couldn’t compare.

  A foppish-looking fellow exited the law firm and began walking toward him. Lou Liotino. The solicitor Lonnie and Garrett had confronted about Global’s unusual Club Med facilities at Lighthouse Point. Lonnie had felt at the time that Garrett hadn’t gotten everything out of the man that he could have. And he’d immediately recognized Liotino’s fear of him. It was visceral, something he’d seen often enough in his line of work. Liotino would tell Lonnie anything he wanted to know. The man was a complete coward.

  As Liotino crossed the street, Lonnie moved in beside him, matching him step for step. The man did a classic double-take and his eyes went wide as recognition suddenly came.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I want us to keep walking into that park over there,” said Lonnie. “Sit on a bench and feed the ducks.” He put one immense hand on the solicitor’s arm and directed him. He could feel the man wilt and begin to perspire right through his thousand-dollar suit.

  “Hey, what is this?” Liotino said, but his voice betrayed more fear than outrage. Lonnie plunked him down on a bench and sat next to him.

  “Damn,” he said. “Forgot to bring corn for the birds.” He considered the man cowering next to him as though he were some sort of rare bug. Of course, there was nothing at all rare about solicitors in a city the size of Halifax. As far as Lonnie was concerned, bugs were considerably higher on the evolutionary scale.

  “Where’s Anthony DeMaio?” he asked.

  Liotino shook his head. “I have no idea. I’m not a full partner. I don’t know everything that goes on inside the firm.”

  Lonnie nodded slowly. “That’s going to be a real problem for you. Because you see, I don’t believe you.” He raised one ham-sized hand to forestall the man before he could offer another denial. “Interesting thing. Last man who refused to tell me what I wanted to know also happened to be a solicitor. Same sort of scumbag you are. It took me all of three days to uncover a list of the scams he was involved in and hand the information over to a special prosecutor. He’s doing eight to twelve in Halifax Central Correctional Facility. Well, actually, he only did six months, because solicitors are not the most highly regarded people on the inside. He was so badly abused sexually that he died.”

  The color drained from Liotino’s face. His eyes darted back and forth, looking for escape or rescue, anything to save him from this frightening giant sitting next to him.

  Lonnie continued conversationally. “What I’m asking is really quite simple. I want to know where DeMaio is. I don’t believe he disappeared without anyone in the firm being able to contact him. Frankly, I think he might still be in Canada. I’m not going to ask you again. Where is he?”

  “They’ll kill me if I tell you,” he said.

  “I’ll do worse if you don’t. And don’t even think about lying to me.”

  Liotino was sweating profusely. “All right, all right. Just please don’t ever tell anyone where you got this from, okay?”

  “No problem. We’ll call it attorney/client privilege, so long as the information is accurate.”

  “Well, I don’t know exactly where he is …” He raised a shaky hand at Lonnie’s look. “But he’s in Canada, I’m certain of it. I know he’s communicating with the board. They’re scared of him and have been trying to distance themselves from him publicly, but DeMaio’s still calling the shots within the company.”

  Lonnie stared at him. “That’s too incredible to believe. Are they nuts? The man is probably one of the most wanted men in the world. How could they possibly allow him to continue to control the company?”

  “He’s got something on every board member. It’s how he operates. And they all know that if they go off the reservation, he can get them arrested for any number of illegal acts and maybe even have them killed. So while they denounce him publicly, something they have undoubtedly cleared with DeMaio, they continue to supply him with money. It’s all a mess. I don’t think the company can survive if this comes out. I’m one of three members of my firm who deal directly with the board, and we’ve all started looking for other positions, because if this thing falls apart, it’ll bring down not only Global but my own firm as well.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know … not fo
r sure. But I have an idea. DeMaio is very close to the Chairman of the Board. A man named Wade Preston. If I had to guess, I’d bet Preston is hiding him.”

  “Where?”

  “I was invited once to a private meeting with Preston. It was a sensitive personnel issue at the time. I was the only one dealing with it. He sent a helicopter to pick me up at the corporate headquarters and flew me to his private island, about an hour from Halifax by chopper. Very luxurious—huge compound, numerous outbuildings, a dock big enough for an ocean-going yacht and heliport. If my life depended on it, I’d bet that’s where DeMaio is staying.”

  Lonnie stood up. “Your life does depend on it,” he said. Liotino looked ill. “All right, let’s go.”

  “Go where?”

  “To the train station. You’re taking a trip to Ottawa for a few days.”

  “What? I can’t do that. I have a job.”

  “Not for long, if my guess is right. Besides, from what you’ve told me, you don’t want to be around when the shit hits the fan. I’m doing you a favor. I want you out of town, just so you don’t accidentally run into Preston or DeMaio. You got your phone on you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call your office. Tell them a family emergency has come up and you have to go out of town at once. Don’t say where. I’m not going to stay around to make sure you do this right, because believe me, if something goes wrong, I’ll know it was because of you and I’ll find you.” He stared at Liotino. His big hand gripped the smaller man’s shoulder like a vise. “Do you believe me?”

  The look on Liotino’s face said it all. This time tomorrow morning, he’d be taking in the nation’s parliament buildings and wandering through the ByWard Market. No question about it.

  62

  GARRETT STROLLED AROUND THE COVE, picked Sarah up at her house, and they arrived at Roland’s neighbors’ house a little after six. Leo greeted them at the door with a nervous look on his face.

  “I don’t know how this is going to go,” he said. “Especially with Ingrid. She’s having a lot of trouble with the new order.”

  He led them into the living room where they could see Ingrid, Grace, and Keith sitting outside on the deck. There was no sign of Roland.

  Garrett said, “Something I want to ask you before we go outside. Did you and Ingrid know what Grace was up to? About working undercover, I mean.”

  Leo shook his head. “Not a clue. Grace said she wasn’t assigned to the job until after we moved here, and then she was ordered not to tell anyone. We always thought there was something a little odd about her schedule. She’d take off at strange times without explanation. We wondered if she had a lover she didn’t want us to know about.”

  “And you had no idea she was a federal agent?” Garrett asked incredulously.

  “None. We both knew her in Halifax and assumed she came from a well-to-do family. She always had money, which made her a welcome addition when we decided to invest in this place.”

  They went out onto the deck and greeted the others. Keith was undoubtedly present for moral support, of a kind, for Roland. As another longtime resident of Misery Bay, he’d always gotten along with Roland as well as anyone. Garrett and Sarah offered congratulations to Grace again for her narrow escape.

  “Nothing narrow about it,” she said. “I was as good as dead until Roland came along. I’ve been trying to get Ingrid to understand how I feel. I owe my very existence to Roland.”

  Ingrid gave out an extended and, Garrett thought, theatrical sigh. “I still don’t see why it means we have to invite the whale to be our best buddy,” she said.

  Grace shot her a piercing look. “I told you not to call him that anymore. He’s got enough baggage to deal with.”

  Garrett accepted a Manhattan from Leo and sat down.

  “What do you make of all of this?” he asked Keith. Garrett had never known anyone more at peace in his own skin than his neighbor. Keith’s family was close-knit, and while he didn’t make a lot of money working as a postal clerk, he was so completely fascinated by genealogy that he was always in an upbeat mood. Nova Scotia was a crucible of history, after all, a result of being at the center of the world’s maritime stage for over four hundred years. Keith was like a kid in a candy store, surrounding himself with books, maps, diaries, weather analyses, tide charts, and mariners’ logs. It was all he needed to amuse himself for a lifetime. Garrett had often wished he might feel as passionate about something.

  Keith gave his usual infectious smile. “The winds of change are blowing in Misery Bay. You seen Roland yet?”

  Garrett shook his head. “I’ve been trying to lie low till the press furor dies down.”

  “Well, prepare yourself for a shock, that’s all I can say.”

  Before Garrett could quiz him further, the doorbell rang and Grace went to answer it. A moment later, Roland appeared on the deck.

  Garrett and Sarah stared at him in disbelief. It was the first time they’d ever seen Roland looking clean and dressed in anything other than a stained T-shirt and sweatpants. His hair was a tousled mat of ringlets, obviously professionally coiffed. He looked like some sort of gaunt version of Paul Newman playing a Roman centurion. When he walked over to them, the limp was noticeably diminished.

  He had on a pale gray shirt under a leather vest and matching, pressed slacks. His rough fisherman’s hands were scrubbed clean and he had clearly used some sort of hand lotion to make them look smoother. There was even a hint of cologne. When he took in Garrett and Sarah’s open mouths, he looked sheepish.

  Sarah was the first to recover. She stood up and gave him a little hug. “You look terrific, Roland.”

  “Feel a little silly,” he said. “But Grace says she knows what she’s doin’. And I gotta admit to ya, people look at me differently. Even … girls.”

  “Women,” Grace corrected him.

  “Sorry,” said Roland. “I forget sometimes. Women.”

  They settled back into their chairs. Garrett thought even Roland’s posture had improved and wondered if he was wearing some sort of girdle or body cast. The thought was almost too much to absorb.

  Periodically, Roland sneaked a peek at Ingrid. Obviously, he had taken to Grace’s remake program, but Ingrid was the unknown factor in all of this. She’d been the one who despised him the most.

  Garrett said to Grace, “I talked to your boss the other day. He confirmed to me that you’d been doing a good job and were extremely brave to be out there all alone.”

  She smiled. “We’d been building up a case against some of these drug traffickers and then I began to see that at least some of them were also involved in moving young girls for the escort agencies. It’s the most despicable thing, Garrett. Some of the girls are just babies, eight, nine years old. They find it easier to train them when they’re very young.” She shook her head. “It just breaks your heart.”

  “Did you ever come across anything about DeMaio?”

  “No. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t into the drug trade, though. At least as a dealer. He could have been a buyer, I suppose, for personal use or to control his own women. But he probably considered the drug business beneath him. I gather money wasn’t his issue. He had plenty of that.”

  It was more or less what Garrett had come to believe. DeMaio was a businessman. He sold multi-billion-dollar oil rigs and provided sexual favors to his customers. It was all about influence and power.

  “So how did they get on to you?” Garrett asked.

  She frowned. “I haven’t really worked it out. I don’t think I slipped up. Nothing I can put my finger on anyway. When I went for my last buy, they just grabbed me, held me down, and one of them said, ‘this is what happens to people who double-cross us.’ I didn’t know what he meant, but then they pumped me full of drugs and set me loose in my kayak in the middle of the storm.”

  “Were you conscious?” Sarah asked, leaning forward.

  “Semi. I could barely move and drifted in and out. I remember being cold and wet and m
anaging to turn on my emergency beacon somehow, but most of it’s still a blur. I do have a foggy memory of Roland picking me up, though, and putting me into a warm place.” She smiled at her rescuer.

  Garrett looked at Roland, who watched Grace with an expression on his face Garrett had never seen before. It wasn’t desire, not even infatuation exactly. It was more a sort of puzzlement, as though he were trying to absorb a feeling he’d never experienced before. How an attractive woman might consider him a friend.

  Ingrid stood up abruptly and stalked off the deck, leaving an awkward silence. Grace put one hand on Roland’s knee. “Give her a while,” she said. “She’ll come around.”

  Roland said, “Can’t blame her, ya know. I was pretty mean ta ya all. I want ta say somethin’.”

  Everyone looked at him.

  “I … I never really had any friends. Not one my whole life. It’s goin’ ta take me some time ta get used ta this, same as Ingrid. But I will. With Ma gone, I thought I was goin’ ta be alone for the rest of my life. I never thought somethin’ like this would be possible. And I’m goin’ ta make it work. Grace has done somethin’ no one ’cept Ma ever did. She cared about me.”

  Grace leaned over and gave him a hug.

  Tears welled up in Roland’s eyes. There was no question that what he was feeling was real and transforming. After a moment he appeared to get control of himself.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I din’t mean ta embarrass ya.”

  “One other thing I wanted to ask Grace about,” said Garrett, trying to move the conversation away from the awkward moment. “Did you ever come across anyone dressed in a Mountie uniform, maybe working with the drug runners?”

  She nodded. “There was someone I saw a couple of times. I was never introduced to him, but I gathered he had inside connections.” She shrugged. “It was hard to know his role, exactly. He came and went. I never saw him in full uniform, but he carried a Glock and always wore at least the hat. It was kind of strange.” She got up, poured herself another Manhattan, and clinked glasses with Roland.