Deadly Waters (A Sean McGhee Mystery Book 1)

by T. Alan Codder

  “Thanks for letting me know,” Rudy said, but Sean could hear the confusion in his voice. “Just don’t bankrupt the city.”

  “This is important, mayor, but I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.”

  He hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smile. He’d put the wheels in motion. Now he just had to let them turn.

  He couldn’t remember if he’d mentioned to Steve that he was testing the river. If he hadn’t, he was certain the news would get back to Locoste now, and if he had, it would keep the pressure on. If Steve was dumping, that should be enough to keep him from going back to his old routine. He needed to keep Steve honest, for a little while longer, while he was digging.

  Twenty-Three

  “Sean,” he said, absently bringing the phone to his ear.

  He was filling out Claire’s review. He hadn’t been on the job long enough to give anyone on his staff a proper review, but Claire’s was due and he would use the opportunity to give her feedback on her performance.

  “Chief McGhee? This is Randy Lowell. I heard you’re looking for someone to show you around on the Siouan?” The voice sounded young and had a slight tremor in it, as if the speaker was nervous.

  “That’s right. Did Maggie put you in contact with me?”

  “Kinda. Tim Johnson is my uncle and he works for Ms. Neese.”

  “How old are you Randy?”

  “Thirteen.”

  Sean smiled. “Does your mom or dad know you’re talking to me?”

  “My mom is standing right here, listening.”

  His smile widened. “How are you Ms. Lowell?”

  “I’m fine, chief. Tim said you were looking for someone to show you all the places you can get a car to the river?”

  “That’s right. I’m looking for someone who knows the area to show me around.”

  “Randy probably knows more about this part of the river than just about anyone. He and his dad fish all along the river here, and have for years.”

  “Where’s your husband, Ms. Lowell?”

  “He’s a long-haul trucker. He’s out of town for another couple of weeks.”

  “In that case, would you mind if I borrowed your son for a few hours?”

  “So long as it doesn’t affect his school work, that’ll be fine. It’s not dangerous, is it?”

  “No ma’am. I just want him to show me all the unofficial places where people can drive to the river. How does day after tomorrow sound?” Sean asked, picking the nearest Saturday. “If he takes me around, I’ll treat him to lunch.”

  There was a pause, and he could imagine Randy and his mother having a quick discussion.

  “That’ll be fine, chief. Would you mind signing off on some paperwork? This will apply toward a merit badge Randy is working on.”

  “Not at all. I can show him anything else he needs while we’re at it. If you’ll give me an address, I’ll pick him up and drop him off.”

  Ms. Lowell rattled off their address and Sean jotted it down.

  “How long do you think this will take, Randy?”

  “Not long. A few hours maybe.”

  “Pick you up about nine, Saturday morning?”

  “In a cop car?”

  Sean could hear the excitement in Randy’s voice.

  “In the chief’s car,” he replied, pitching his voice to make it sound like something special.

  “Awesome!”

  “I’ll see you then… and Randy… thanks. This’ll be a big help. Thank you too, Ms. Lowell.”

  Sean hung up the phone and grinned a moment before returning to his task.

  -oOo-

  Saturday morning, Sean pulled into the driveway of the Lowell home. It was a modest red brick house with faded white trim and a slightly overgrown yard. There was a ten-year-old slate blue Honda Pilot sitting in the carport with a peeling and dusty, brown over white, eighties model, Chevy pickup sitting in the yard to the side. Behind the truck, the tongue of its trailer supported by a section of a felled tree, was a drab green jon boat with an ancient 9.9 horsepower Evinrude outboard attached.

  He walked to the front door and pressed the doorbell. He heard the chime inside, followed almost immediately by the yapping of a small dog. After a moment, the door opened.

  “Ms. Lowell? Sean McGhee, Brunswick Police Department. Nice to meet you.”

  The overweight woman smiled and stepped back. “Won’t you come in? Trixie, get away,” she fussed, pushing at the dust mop of a dog with her foot. “Randy! Chief McGhee is here!”

  “Putting on my shoes!” a voice called from the back of the house.

  “Randy is so excited to get to do this. It’s all he’s been talking about.”

  “I’m glad to have his help, Ms. Lowell.”

  “Call me Martha.”

  “I’m glad to have his help, Martha,” he repeated.

  “Ready!” Randy said as he stepped around the corner and into the cluttered living room, a huge smile on his face.

  Randy was average in height for his age, about five feet, but was carrying some extra pounds.

  “Here you go,” Sean said, handing Randy a Brunswick PD ball cap.

  “Thanks!” he replied, taking the cap.

  Randy removed his well-worn camouflaged cap with an embroidered fish on the front, tossed it into a chair whose cushion was protected by a towel covered in dog hair, and replaced it with the cap Sean gave him.

  “What do you think?” Randy asked, looking to Martha.

  “I think I like it better than that ratty thing you normally wear.”

  “You ready to go?” Sean asked, and then looked at Martha. “I’ll have him back as soon as I can, safe and sound.”

  “Give your mom a kiss,” Martha said, presenting her cheek.

  “Mom!” Randy groaned, but gave her a kiss on the cheek before opening the door and bounding out.

  “Go ahead and get in,” Sean suggested as he approached.

  “Can we turn on the siren before we’re done?” Randy asked as Sean settled into the car.

  “I’m the chief of police. I can do anything,” Sean replied with a grin.

  It was refreshing to find a kid who actually thought the police were cool.

  “Which way?” Sean asked as he began backing down the driveway.

  “Right.”

  Randy’s family lived a bit outside of Brunswick on one of the county roads. After backing into the road, Sean hit the strobes and siren and then floored the car to roar away from Randy’s house. When they reached about eighty, he lifted off the throttle, allowed the cruiser to gradually slow, and then switched off the lights and siren as he glanced at Randy.

  “Okay, that was slightly cool,” Randy said, grinning ear to ear.

  -oOo-

  “Turn down this road,” Randy said as he pointed out of his window.

  Sean had taken Randy to the location Maggie said they sampled and explained how he wanted to stay upriver from there.

  The first two places Randy had taken Sean weren’t what he was looking for. The first was the public launch ramp where the county sheriff had found Boyd’s truck, the second a park. Sean explained how he was looking for something a little less public, and as his car jittered down a gravel road, this looked more promising.

  “Slow down,” Randy said. “Turn here.”

  “There’s a gate,” Sean pointed out as he made the turn and then rolled to a stop.

  “Hang on,” Randy replied, stepping out of the car.

  He opened the gate, and after Sean drove through, closed it behind them.

  “It’s never locked,” Randy said as he flopped back into the car.

  “You come down here often?” Sean asked as Randy buckled up again.

  Randy shrugged. “Straight ahead. No, not really. Dad and I sometimes do, but we never catch much. Not sure why ‘cause it looks like a good place to catch crappie.”

  They eased along the track until Randy indicated out his window again, pointing at two narrow rut
s.

  “See that trail? It leads to the river.”

  “Can I get down there in the car?”

  “Should be able to.”

  Sean turned and followed the path, the tall grass between the tracks hissing as the car pushed through it. After about a mile or so, the river came into view.

  “This is more like what I’m looking for,” Sean said as he eased to a stop. “Let’s get out and take a look.”

  They stepped out of the car and approached the river bank on foot. They were standing in a bend of the river, with a steep bank down to the water’s edge. Sean looked around. It was certainly isolated enough, but the distance from the bank to the water was a problem. If Steve was dumping here he would need a lot of hose to reach the water from his truck.

  “You and your dad come here to fish?”

  “Sometimes. We sit on those logs down there. Like I said, it looks like a good place for crappie but we never catch much here.”

  Sean grinned. “You like to fish?” he asked, his tone making it a statement.

  “Love it! Catch a stringer of fish and take them home. Dad and I clean them and then Mom fries them up.”

  “You fish much by yourself?”

  “When I can. We’re only about five miles from the river at home. I have a spot I can ride my bike to.”

  “Can a car get in there?”

  “A car? No. Maybe a four by four could, but you’d still have to walk a ways because of all the trees. I’ve been going there so long I’ve got a path worn that I can ride all the way to the river.”

  “Ever catch anything?” Sean asked as he turned back toward the car.

  “Usually.”

  “How do you get them home?”

  “Dad built me this rig on the back of my bike. It will hold my pole, tackle box, and a half dozen or so fish.”

  “Clever.”

  “Yeah. Heavy though. Makes the bike hard to ride. I’ll be glad when I get my driver’s license so I can start driving.”

  “Know any more places kind of like this one?”

  “Two more.”

  “Perfect, and then we’ll stop for lunch.”

  Sean started the car and after turning around, they bumped and jiggled back to the main road.

  “Now which way?”

  “Right again.”

  They rode along, talking about fishing. Sean had never been particularly interested in hunting or fishing, but Randy’s enthusiasm for it was infectious.

  “See the tree line up yonder? Slow down when we get there.”

  A moment later, Sean was slowing.

  “Turn there, into that gap in the trees,” Randy said, pointing up ahead as they passed by the edge of the stand of trees.

  “I’m not sure I can cross the ditch.”

  “It’s not that deep. I think you can make it.”

  Sean shrugged. The worst that could happen is he’d get stuck and have to call for a tow. He eased the car off the road and down into the ditch. The car scraped, and he had to back up and get a bit of a run to make it over a hump, but he made it without too much drama.

  “Stay on this,” Randy said as the car banged and knocked along the rough track leading deeper into the trees. After a few hundred yards, the path hooked sharply left, and then opened into a small clearing in the trees with the river just beyond.

  “How in the world did you ever find this place?” Sean asked.

  Randy shrugged. “Dad grew up around here. He knows every fishing hole in the whole county.”

  Sean turned the car around and parked. They stepped out and he looked around. This was a perfect location for illegal dumping. The water was right there, and with the trees all around, it was impossible to be seen until you were almost on top of the clearing. If he were dumping into the river, this would be the spot he’d pick.

  “What are you looking for?” Randy asked.

  “Just looking at the tracks,” Sean said. It was clear a number of vehicles have come and gone in this area, but he couldn’t tell if any of them was a large truck. The ground felt pretty soft to him, and while he was no expert, he expected a thirty-five-thousand-pound truck would leave deeper ruts than he was seeing.

  “This is exactly the kind of spot I’m looking for. Is the other one like this?”

  “Yeah, but not as many trees around,” Randy replied.

  “Okay. Is that the last one?”

  “It is unless you want to go below where we started.”

  “No. I need to be upstream of there.”

  “It’s the last one I know about, then.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  It took three tries, and a lot of wheel spin, before Sean was able to batter his cruiser up onto the road. Monday he’d have to take the car to the city garage and have them check it underneath for damage. At the very least, it was going to need an alignment.

  “I don’t think I’ll do that again,” Sean grinned as the car finally struggled out onto the road.

  “Yeah. Dad and I go in and out of there in his truck with no problems. I didn’t realize how low your car was.”

  It took twenty minutes of back tracking before Randy pointed him down a rutted path along the edge of a field.

  “What do they grow here?” Sean asked as the car bounced and banged along.

  “Tobacco. That’s the stalks you see sticking up. Turn here.”

  Sean turned and bumped along an even less traveled track, looping around an outcropping of trees, before stopping in a grassy field tucked between a finger of trees and the river.

  Again they stepped out of the car. Like the previous location, the water was easily accessible, but it wasn’t as well hidden. He looked around. Not as well hidden, but hidden enough. You could be seen from the dirt track leading from the paved road, but not the main road itself. This was another good possibility. The ground was much harder packed here and there were no obvious tracks.

  “How often do you come out here?”

  Randy made a face and shrugged. “When Dad’s home and feels like it. I can’t say. Normally we take the boat fishing.”

  “You ever see anyone here?”

  “Nah. We hardly ever see anyone fishing.”

  “Anywhere else?”

  “None that are out in the boonies like this. Lots of places where you can stop on the side of the road and see the river. I hope you don’t want to see all those.”

  Sean chuckled. “No, that’s okay. But no more like these, kind of tucked away places nobody knows about?”

  “None that I know of. I can ask Dad if he knows of any more places.”

  Sean pulled a business card out of his wallet. “Would you mind doing that for me? You can call me if he knows of anymore.”

  “Sure, I can do that. He normally calls on Sunday nights. I’ll ask him then.”

  “Thank you, Randy. You’ve been a big help. Where do you want to go for lunch?”

  “Uh… Chik-fil-A?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Randy grinned. “Great! I’m starving!”

  Twenty-Four

  Sean was ready to chew nails. It had been raining, off and on, for almost two weeks. Just when it would start to dry out enough for him to consider driving out to the three locations Randy had shown him, it would rain again.

  It wasn’t the getting wet, it was the getting his car to the locations. Especially the second one, the one he wanted to investigate first. As hard as it was to get in and out of there when the ground was dry, he knew he’d never make it with the ground soft and muddy.

  He considered going to Maggie, or the city garage, and seeing if he could borrow a four by four pickup, but decided against it. The locations were outside his jurisdiction and he didn’t want to make the search official police business until he had something other than a hunch. As long as it had been since Thacker’s death, if there was anything to find, it would still be there when it stopped raining.

  His phone began to ring and he picked it up. “Sean.”
/>   “Chief, there’s a Linda Jellico asking to see you.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “Something to do with Thacker’s death.”

  He tightened his lips. Maybe she had another piece to the puzzle.

  “Tell her I’ll be right there.”

  When he stepped into the lobby, he recognized the woman but couldn’t remember where he’d seen her.

  “Ms. Jellico? I’m Sean McGhee. You asked to see me?”

  “Yes. I spoke with you before about Boyd’s death, and you promised me he wouldn’t be forgotten. It’s been almost two months since his body was found and I wanted to know if you’ve found out who did it. Boyd was a good friend of mine, and I don’t want his killer to get away with it.”

  “We’ve met before, but I can’t recall where.”

  “I spoke to you outside the wastewater plant.”

  Linda still had the red streaks in her hair, but she had toned down her makeup considerably, and her clothes no longer looked like she’d been a fight with a wildcat. He snapped his fingers and then pointed at her as he gave her a quick smile.

  “I remember. I can’t give you any details, but the case is still active.”

  “So, you haven’t caught the guy?”

  “No, but we’re still working on it.”

  She looked at him, and he could tell she was trying to decide if he was telling the truth or not.

  “I assure you, Ms. Jellico, we are doing everything we can to bring Boyd Thacker’s killer to justice,” he tried again.

  “I called up here last week and asked about the investigation. You know what they told me? ‘We have no information regarding the case.’ I asked to speak to you and they said you were out. I think this is nothing but another cover up by the city, just like the spill.”

  Sean sighed to himself. “Ms. Jellico, I assure you there is no cover up. I’m working this investigation personally. The reason they didn’t tell you anything about the case is because we don’t comment on active cases.”

  “You’re working the case? The chief of police? Right,” she sneered. “That’s so you can bury this and nobody’s the wiser! I’m not going to let this die! I’m going to the news and tell them what you’re doing!”