Hard Aground

by Brendan DuBois

  Felix didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. I knew what was going on in that mind of his. He was thinking through past information, scenarios, probabilities, possibilities, and courses of action.

  “Your Rudy said he was there when he saw the car with Massachusetts license plates roar out of the house, nearly get into an accident because they were moving too fast. Maybe he recognized someone in the car. Maybe he thinks they just did a job at Maggie’s, maybe she’s in there, already bound up and helpless, maybe he could go in and get some leftovers.”

  Felix slowly nodded. “But Maggie’s dead.”

  “You know Maggie. She certainly had a mouth on her, wasn’t one to take crap from anybody. Rudy comes in right after Pepe and his crew depart, she screams at him to get the hell out, but he’s committed. He’s already been seen. And he has a chance to make a score … and doesn’t let that chance slip away again.”

  The sky was really graying. The Isles of Shoals were gone, and I thought of people on those scraggly islands looking my way, thinking, Boy, the mainland is gone.

  All a matter of perspective.

  Felix looked at me. “You think like that when you were back at the Pentagon?”

  “Tried to. Sometimes the higher-ups thought better, or ignored what I said, or pretended my section and I didn’t exist.”

  “Too bad,” he said. “Bet if they had listened to you, the Cold War would have been over sooner.”

  “But to what end? To have it start up again sooner, too?”

  He grinned, got up, and checked his watch. “And that’s you. Always looking at the dark side of things, instead of just accepting little victories where you can.”

  “And what are you looking for, then?”

  “Who else? My junior partner in crime, Rudy Gennaro. I want to talk him, face-to-face, see what he might know.”

  “Will my name be brought up?”

  “Why, do you want it to?”

  “No, it’s just that I’ve got enough people rattling around my house. I don’t need anybody else angry at me.”

  Felix reached over, gently touched my chin, rotated it back and forth. “How does it feel?”

  “Like a very big and mean man punched me.”

  “Well, I don’t feel anything clicking around in there. Just bruises coming your way.”

  “Lucky me.”

  He made a sighing motion, like he had a big day ahead of him. “Lucky me, too. Besides looking for my silver, I’m going to be looking for your book as well.”

  “I didn’t ask you to do that.”

  He gave me a gentle slap on the shoulder.

  “You didn’t have to.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The rest of the day just dribbled on in a gray and stormy kind of way, matching my mood. The phone rang once and it turned out to be my new best friend from Albany, Dave Hudson, trying to talk to me about how little time it would take for him to come into my house and measure things and take photos. I just hung up on him. When the phone rang again I ignored it.

  After a nap, I tried once again to find out the status of my tumor samples, to see if they had been discovered in their westward trek, and if so, had they been checked out. I went round and round on the phone with my doctor’s office, and had three attempts with my insurance carrier. I managed to navigate the prompt system and actually end up with a human being, which seemed promising, but the human being didn’t seem to have a basic grasp of the English language, and the phone connection between here and Wherever was full of static and cut in and out. The next time I called, the prompts took me somewhere else, and then there was a silence. No music. Not even static. Then a recorded voice came on: “This session has expired,” and the call was disconnected. Sure.

  The last call was more successful, but not by very much. After some more prompts and voice commands that didn’t work, I ended up talking to a woman named Mindy with a Midwestern accent that at least I could understand, and after some give and take, she said, “I’m afraid our records here don’t indicate that your tissue sample has arrived in San Diego.”

  “Look further,” I said. “The sample was supposed to go to Boston. Not San Diego.”

  Tap-tap of computer keys. “Oh … I see. Yes. Well, it seems that your physician is the one who—”

  “No,” I said. “My doctor’s office says that it was sent under some sort of program conducted by you, to supposedly save money. They insist that any answer has to come from your company.”

  Tap-tap-tap.

  “Oh, here we go,” she said cheerfully, and I felt a bare flicker of optimism.

  “Yes, what do you have?”

  “A tracer has been put on the package with your tissue sample. We should hear back within three to five business days.”

  Boy, what a fight to keep my voice level. “It’s been more than a week.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, “but you have to take into account the weekend, the past holiday, and—”

  “I have taken that all into account,” I said. “Perhaps you should take this into account. Where are you located?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Where are you physically located? Not Manila, I’m sure, or Mumbai. You sound too American for that.”

  “Topeka.”

  “Topeka!” I said. “Well, that’s just great. I’m here in the seacoast of New Hampshire, my tissue sample has been sent to San Diego when it should have gone to Boston, and I’ve got someone from Topeka allegedly trying to help me. We’ve got a real Continental Congress here, trying to find my sample.”

  “Mr. Cole, if I can explain—”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not sure if any explanation out there is going to make a difference. Let’s look at the facts. I still don’t know whether or not my two tumors are benign or malignant. The samples that will answer this question should have gone to a testing lab in Boston. They did not. They were mistakenly sent to San Diego. But they haven’t arrived there either. So I’m in limbo, waiting day after day, because your company can’t do its job right.”

  “Mr. Cole—”

  I was really on a tear now. “How does it feel, sitting in your comfortable cubicle, answering phones from across the country, knowing that the only thing you have to fear is tripping on a comfortable rug on the way to a coffee break, knowing you and your company are hurting people, every second, minute, and hour of the day?”

  I took a breath and she dove right in. “Excuse me, Mr. Cole, excuse me,” she said. “I’ll tell you how it feels, sitting in this cubicle, day after day. It sucks. It really, really sucks. I shouldn’t be here. I have a master’s degree in education and I should be teaching, but our school district’s budget got cut and I got fired. I should be working with my husband on our wheat farm, but that’s about to go under for a variety of reasons you Easterners wouldn’t even know or care about, so our family needs a steady paycheck and health insurance. You all think your food pops up magically in supermarkets, and you don’t realize the hard work and sacrifice from a farmer class that doesn’t—”

  By now she was sobbing, and I whispered, “Sorry,” and hung up the phone.

  The rest of the day didn’t improve much after that. I had a lunch of Campbell’s finest and a defrosted frozen roll I had to drench with butter to make edible. The rain came in, a steady downpour that matched my mood, and I watched the water pelt my outside deck until I felt dopey and dozy and fell asleep on the couch.

  My dinner date was Diane Woods, who brought over a meal she cooked at home, some sort of haddock dish baked over rice with a side of salad. She was very proud of it as she served it up. I took one bite and nearly choked, for it was as dry as dust, and tasted like lemon gone bad.

  Her face was eager. “What do you think? C’mon, you can tell me.”

  “I can’t believe you went to the trouble of making me dinner. That’s very thoughtful of you.”

  She dug in and ate across from me at the kitchen counter. “Maybe it’s the maternal side o
f me coming out.”

  “Really?”

  Diane made a face. “Just because I don’t want to play with what you boys have to offer doesn’t mean I can’t be maternal.”

  “Point noted,” I said. “And I thank you for it.”

  She ate while I struggled for a few minutes. “I guess that’s why I’m applying for the deputy chief’s job,” she said.

  “Your maternal side?”

  “Yep.”

  I chewed and chewed, hoping enough saliva would kick in so I could swallow. “Begging your forgiveness, mom, but I’m not seeing the correlation.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t,” she said, but her voice was light. “What happens in two months?”

  Now I had an idea. “Kara Miles makes an honest woman of you.”

  “Attempts to make an honest woman,” she said. “But when we’re married I’m going to take it very seriously, including being her partner. For example, putting her under my health insurance.”

  “Considering what I’ve been going through,” I said, “I hope the two of you have a better experience than I do. All right, Kara is under your insurance. And … hold on. You two are going to need extra income, right?”

  She nodded. “Yep again. For a long time Kara held her own with her little software and web-development business. Hell, in one year, she actually took home more than I did. But, my friend, those days are gone.”

  “Hard to compete against free website designs and cheap software engineers on the other side of the globe.”

  She energetically took another bite and I wondered if her taste buds had gone dull. “That’s right. And I intend to support her, and if that means becoming deputy chief, well, that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “How about Captain Nickerson? Isn’t she next in line for the deputy job?”

  “She is, but I have a touch more experience and background. Not much, but maybe enough to tilt the scales in my favor.”

  I tried another bite, and chewed and chewed again. “The other day you told me that the deputy’s job is to be the chief’s bitch. You sure didn’t pump it up when we last talked. In fact, if anything, you said you might apply just because you didn’t want to be seen as weak.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But now your maternal side is pushing you to go for the job, so you can take care of Kara.”

  “Right again.”

  “And if you get the job?”

  She shrugged. “I’ll make it work. What else can I do? At least our chief here in Tyler is secure, and I get along with him. Plus, for the most part, it’s a Monday–Friday, eight A.M. to five P.M. kind of job. That sounds appealing. At least I’m not up in Porter. There’s a deranged mob after their chief, and it ain’t a pretty sight.”

  “What does Kara think?”

  “Not good. She feels, well, put upon and guilty. Like she’s failing me, failing the relationship. I told her that things could have easily been the reverse. Like when I got tuned up at the nuclear power plant demonstration last fall, I could have been permanently disabled. Then she’d have to take care of me. Fair is fair.”

  I struggled with another piece of the dry fish. When I thought Diane wasn’t looking, I placed a paper napkin up to my mouth, slipped it out, and clenched the napkin in my fist, then lowered it and dropped it to the floor.

  It didn’t look like she noticed.

  “What’s going on with Maggie’s homicide?”

  “Well, she’s still dead, so I guess that still might be news.” She took another bite. “All right, that was snarky, sorry. The state police and Assistant Attorney General Martin are still running the case, keeping us poor locals out of it. But from what I hear, they’ve got nothing. They had evidence that a gang connected with drugs had been in her place of business at about the same time she got shot, but the opioid task force can’t find the guys. They’ve scattered, gone underground.”

  “Like they know the police are after them?”

  “Nope, like something even more terrible is after them, something scary and deadly.”

  Knowing the scary and deadly thing going after them, I tried to keep a bland expression on my face, which was difficult considering the circumstances and what I was attempting to eat.

  “I see.”

  “And what’s up with you, my friend?” She motioned to my living room and said, “Love the fact you’ve gotten your books put away, but there’s something odd about it.”

  I glanced back and knew what she meant, with the covers all being color-coded and lumped together. But if I told her how that had happened, I’d have to mention the Greek brothers who came here and did the work, and explain how the Greek brothers came to arrive at my doorstep, and that would lead to Felix Tinios, and I didn’t want to bring up his name.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “But I just can’t put my finger on it.”

  “Uh-huh. Okay, besides your impressive book collection, how’s your health?”

  “If Maggie’s still dead, I’m still alive.”

  “Just because I was a snarky bitch doesn’t mean you have to follow my lead.”

  “Apologies.” I went into a detailed description of how I had been going around in circles, squares, and parallelograms, trying to get the location of my tumor samples and test results. I ended with my last call to Topeka, and how I felt guilty about it.

  Diane’s chin scar was practically glowing white, meaning she was seriously upset at something, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t me.

  “Why should you feel guilty about anything?”

  “Because the woman from Topeka was having a rough time of it,” I said. “And I think I made her cry.”

  “Screw Topeka and the woman sitting there,” Diane snapped. “She’s not sitting there in her smelly pajamas, drains coming out of her, waiting to hear whether she has the Big C or not. This world of ours would get along much better if everybody just did their goddamn jobs.”

  She stared at me like she was daring me to contradict her. I managed to swallow another dry piece of fish and asked, “You think my pajamas are smelly?”

  Diane laughed so hard I thought wine was going to come out of her nose. “All right,” I said. “Next time we eat here, I’ll open the slider and get a bit of a cross-breeze. I’ll even let you sit upwind because you’re such a special gal.”

  Diane laughed again and said, “Hey, have things been quiet around here?”

  With the visit of Pepe and Ramon, plus Felix, I don’t think quiet was the best word to use, but I said, “Relatively so, I guess.”

  “No more sneaky visitors?”

  Now I knew where she was going. “No, not for a few days. It’s been quiet. No late-night visitors.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Diane, some guy was coming into my house at night. I’m sure of it.”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  “And I’m not some ditsy uncle that you say sympathizing words to when he claims the Nazis built a secret underground UFO base in Antarctica.”

  Her eyes got wide. “You mean there is?”

  At the meal’s conclusion, Diane had cleared off her plate and so had I, although I had a pile of crumpled-up napkins on the floor near me. She did the dishes and apologized for not bringing dessert—which I said wasn’t a problem, especially considering what she had given me earlier (though I didn’t say that part aloud). “How’s Paula?” she asked, as she sat down next to me.

  “Paula’s at a journalism conference in Boston, trying to see if the Fourth Estate is dead, or really, really dead.”

  “I’ll deny ever saying this, but I miss the time when we had a bunch of newspapers, all competing with each other. That meant nobody set the narrative, and if one newspaper got lazy or cocky, another paper could whack them upside the head, keep them on the straight and narrow.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  “Besides the journalist Paula, how’s the girlfriend Paula?”

  “She’s … she’s pretty special.”

&nb
sp; “Good. Years ago, you had a chance with her, and you blew it, didn’t you.”

  “Why are you blaming me?”

  “What, you think I’m going to blame the woman in any relationship?”

  “All right,” I said. “It was my fault. I’m making amends. And what about you? How goes the wedding planning?”

  That got me a big smile. “Going well, which is a nice break from things. Not sure of the location but I don’t care, and Kara has some distant uncle who’s a Unitarian minister who’ll gladly marry us.”

  “You going to be wearing your cop uniform when you walk down the aisle?”

  “Are you out of your bloody mind? I will not. No, the both of us are going to go girly-frilly and wear nice gowns—gowns we can reuse down the road. No use in dropping big bucks on a gown that you wear once and looks like it was designed by a deranged Paris designer drunk on absinthe. And you?”

  “What about me?”

  “You have a tuxedo?”

  “I’ll have one in plenty of time. I’m thinking a retro-1970s look, you know, powder blue for the pants and jacket, big ruffled shirt, bowtie the size of a drone’s propeller.”

  Without a smile or a trace of laughter, Diane said, “You show up like that, and there’ll be an accidental shooting in the parking lot, guaranteed.”

  “Okay, I get the message.”

  “You better.”

  Before she left, Diane made one more sweep of the kitchen, and I flushed with embarrassment when she picked up my three crumpled paper napkins with fish in them.

  Diane tossed them into the air, caught them. “Lewis, if you don’t like fish, tell me.”

  I stood still. “How did you know?”

  “I’m a detective,” she said. “It’s my job to know.”

  Then she gave me a kiss on the cheek and asked, “Time to empty your drains?”

  “I can do it myself.”

  “Not tonight, you can’t.”

  Twenty minutes later, we were through and she eyed the notes. “Your output hasn’t changed much.”

  “I know.”

  “But that’s not good news, is it.”