Kill Tide

by Timothy Fagan

  They parked behind it and got out to look.

  Angel had brought two cheap flashlights which gave off thin light. White cardboard covered the van’s small back windows. Not unusual for tradesmen who might have expensive tools. There was a crack up one edge which let Pepper and Angel see inside.

  They shined their flashlights through the crack and saw nothing except tools. So, probably not the kidnapper’s van?

  Brad St. John’s van pulled up behind El Diablo and parked. Delaney Lynn slipped out of the passenger side door with a tight smile. She looked happy to see Pepper, but also a bit tense. Probably because of why they were there. She was wearing short black boots, black jeans and a snug White Stripes T-shirt.

  “Cute uniform, officer,” she said to Pepper with a little laugh.

  His uniform shirt was itchy and was a size too small for Pepper’s athletic shoulders and arms. It made him feel constricted. But he just laughed as he put on a Red Sox baseball cap he’d lifted from Angel’s back seat. “I like yours better!”

  Brad St. John climbed down from his van, stumbled and almost fell. He was wearing white sunglasses, a Led Zeppelin T-shirt, cut-off black jeans and flip-flops. It had surprised Pepper how quickly Brad agreed to help when he called. Had he judged him wrong?

  Pepper explained the plan. First, they’d check the three unfinished houses, since they were a perfect place to hide the kidnapped girl. If nothing came of that, they’d canvas the area behind the houses—a grassy area which turned into marshes, then into thin woods and brush.

  The group started at the unfinished house to the right. It had doors and windows (mostly covered in paper), but looked half complete. They spread out and circled the house, peering in windows where they could. Looking for anything suspicious.

  Brad yelled for them to come to his window. “A damn body! In the kitchen!”

  They rushed over to where he stood.

  Pepper looked in. It was much darker inside, all shadows due to the papered windows and no lights on inside. He saw a shape on the floor, a twisted tangle.

  But not a body.

  “It’s just painter’s sheets,” said Pepper.

  They were twisted together in a long S-shape, probably wound up and left there by the painting crew.

  “Oh man,” said Brad. “I thought it was the girl! I think I had a little heart attack…”

  False alarm on both counts.

  They kept looking, but all three houses appeared to be empty, as best they could see from the outside. There was nothing out of the ordinary at all. Lots of footprints in the dirt around the houses, made when the ground was mud during a past rain, probably. But nothing suspicious.

  So, strike one.

  They moved on to search the undeveloped land behind the subdivision. Pepper thought it made sense that the kidnapper might bring the girl to this area, which was mostly undeveloped except for some old collapsing sheds and a few half-assed tree forts which kids had built over the years.

  Pepper told the others to walk side by side twenty feet apart, nice and slow, staying in sight of each other. A methodical combing. Anyone who saw anything unusual, like a piece of clothing, should yell to the others so they could all check it out. They could cover a sixty-foot strip of land pretty thoroughly.

  “But if we find the girl, we split it four ways?” asked Brad.

  “Split what?” asked Pepper.

  “The reward. They had it all over the radio. The girl’s family ponied up twenty-five grand! That’s why we’re here, right?”

  Pepper hadn’t known about a reward and didn’t care about the money. But it wouldn’t hurt to keep Brad and the others focused. “Absolutely. Equal split.”

  They marched through the tall grass and reached a scrubby area of marsh and woods, where they spread out in a line and began a slow search.

  “Keep an eye on me,” Delaney said to Pepper, her southern accent popping up with the word “eye.” She smiled nervously at him.

  Pepper’s phone buzzed. He saw it was the police station’s main number, so he didn’t answer. He stepped gingerly around a log which was half-covered and half-rotted and that for a second looked like a body. Damn. He was jumpy. He could picture how Emma Bailey’s body would look if they found her there. Pepper felt a chill up his spine. Hopefully she wasn’t here, because it would mean she was dead.

  Brad yelled over, “Hey! What’s this big blue box? It’s humming!” He was from New Jersey and had been on the Cape for less than a year.

  “It’s a greenhead fly trap,” Pepper said.

  Angel explained about greenheads to Brad as they walked, obviously trying to freak him out. “This is prime season for those nasty buggers,” he said. “They’ve got teeth like Edward Scissorhands and they drink blood.”

  “Yep,” agreed Pepper. “Stay out of salt marshes this time of year.” The greenheads had been extra thick this summer because May and June were hot and dry.

  Then on cue, Brad yelped. Possibly a greenhead bit him or he thought one had? Brad skipped away, swatting his arms.

  Pepper saw nothing. It’d probably been a mosquito.

  “You better get a shot ASAP for Lyme disease,” advised Angel. “Big needle to the stomach, like for rabies.”

  Brad moaned. Delaney chuckled.

  “I’m surprised he got bit,” said Angel. “Only the female greenheads bite…and I’ve never seen a female get so close to Brad.”

  “Hey guys, slow down!” yelled Pepper. Brad had thrashed ahead into the thin woods and was almost out of view. Pepper had never done a field search like this before, but he figured they should avoid gaps. They passed through a little clearing where teens sometimes built sneaky bonfires. They were getting into an area of low brush and spindly pine trees.

  “Hey!” Delaney called over to Pepper. “I couldn’t get your ‘Try Me’ song out of my head last night. It’s special. If we had a real band, no covers, we could totally go for it. All original songs with heart and guts, like yours. Hit the road, get our act straight in the little places, then try the festivals…”

  Off to Pepper’s left, Brad let out a strangled and terrified, “Gaaaa!” He windmilled his arms and fell over backward. One flip-flop kicked up high in an arc over his head and disappeared into the brush.

  Angel belly-laughed as they waded through the grasses and trees to Brad’s side.

  “I think I’m gonna puke,” he coughed, lying on his back.

  It turned out Brad had stumbled upon the decomposing body of a baby deer, then stepped back in horror and tripped on a branch.

  “It’s fucking hideous,” whispered Brad, his face now gray. He was holding his ankle and rubbing it vigorously.

  Raindrops began hitting the trees overhead.

  Strike two.

  The rain broke through as Pepper got Brad back on his feet. Angel dug around in the brush for Brad’s flip-flop but didn’t find it.

  “Let’s go to the van and wait out the rain,” Pepper suggested. He wanted to finish searching the area—they couldn’t give up so quickly.

  They headed back to the vehicles. Brad leaned on Pepper’s shoulder and hopped along, since the ground was full of sharp branches and rocks. Every time his bare right foot touched anything, he groaned loudly.

  “Aw, man! I think I broke my ankle!” Brad whined.

  They were all soaked by now.

  “Hold onto that tree,” Pepper said to Brad. Then he tucked his shoulder under Brad’s midsection and lifted him into a fireman’s carry. Brad was a string bean, but he was heavier than Pepper expected. Must be all the alcohol…

  Angel led the way through the heavy rain with the two weak flashlights shining a little light on their path. Then came Pepper, staggering under Brad’s shifting, complaining weight. Delaney brought up the rear. Pepper could hear her singing, high and sweet. He turned his head, and she waved Brad’s only remaining flip-flop.

  “You look good wet,” Pepper said to her. Weak line, but man, it was the truth. She looked gorgeous
, despite her wet clothes and hair. Pepper stumbled on a fallen branch, and he and Brad almost hit the ground. Pepper caught his balance at the last second.

  He kept his eyes forward after that.

  They cleared the edge of the marshy woods and were slogging through muddy ground to the vehicles when a police car came racing down the cul-de-sac with its red and blue lights flashing wildly and its siren screaming.

  Strike three.

  Pepper and his bandmates stood in the mud (other than Brad, who was still slung over his shoulder) as the officer jumped out of the police cruiser and drew his weapon, pointing it at them through the rain. “Put down the body and put your hands up!” hollered the officer. Pepper heaved Brad off his shoulder to splat in the mud.

  “Hey, Randy!” Pepper yelled, recognizing the police officer. He pulled his baseball cap up to show his face. It was his kinda buddy, Randy Larch. Pepper waved his hand a little, friendly but cautious.

  Officer Larch peered through the rain. “Pepper? What the hell are you doing with a dead body?”

  “I’m still alive,” protested Brad. “I just need a doctor…”

  “Well, this is ridiculous,” commented Delaney. Then she laughed—a high, clear laugh which cut right through Pepper, to his spinal cord.

  He burned with embarrassment because she was right. She must think he was a dumb kid, playing cop.

  Larch explained to them that multiple residents of the Crofts subdivision had called in tips about the white van parked at the end of the cul-de-sac. They also reported an unidentified group of people trespassing in the construction sites and entering the woods. The desk sergeant decided the tip was hot enough to warrant a drive-by and Larch got the call.

  “You know Sergeant Weisner’s been trying to find out where you went?” Larch asked. “I haven’t seen her this pissed off since…hey, you know what? Maybe never.”

  Shit.

  Larch gave Pepper a wave. “You’d better ride back to the station with me,” he said. “Seriously, kid, what the heck were you thinking?”

  Pepper felt deflated. Delaney was laughing as he climbed into Larch’s cruiser. She was angling her phone toward him. To take a picture which captured his humiliation?

  Perfect!

  Chapter Six

  Pepper was soon in his little office, which was even more unpleasant than usual at the moment, because his dad and Sergeant Weisner were there too. And they were both pissed at him.

  Sergeant Weisner had laid into Pepper about abandoning his database work, but then she noticed the cheap plastic To Do tray, which was empty, and the Done tray, which was full. “You finished all fifty files?”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted?” he asked, trying to sound innocent. God bless Zula!

  Pepper’s dad looked exhausted, like he hadn’t slept a minute since the Bailey kidnapping. “I don’t have time for any shit right now, son. If you can’t follow orders, you’re hurting more than you’re helping.”

  Pepper’s cheeks turned red, but he didn’t reply.

  Barbara Buckley from Dispatch appeared at the office door, looking excited.

  “Eastham’s got a POI!” she said, sounding out of breath. “A level three who lives in New Albion. Detective Ingram’s holding on line two.” Pepper knew a level-three sex offender was the worst of the bunch, with a high risk to re-offend. A serious danger to the public.

  His dad jogged to his own office, with Weisner in his wake. Pepper followed. His dad logged into his computer and pulled up the Sex Offender Registry Board website and searched for New Albion. Keeping the results on his screen, his dad made a shushing gesture to them (mostly to Pepper) and took the phone call, putting it on speakerphone.

  Pepper’s dad knew Detective Ingram. After quick hellos, his dad told the detective he was on speakerphone with others listening. Then Ingram explained his call was about a New Albion resident named Casper Yelle.

  His dad clicked on the man’s name on the SORB search result and full info popped up. White male, age thirty-nine. It showed Yelle was convicted of rape and abuse of a child, and indecent assault and battery on a child under fourteen years of age.

  Yelle had registered in New Albion four months earlier. His address was in the Langham Arms, a worn-out complex of the least expensive rental apartments in New Albion. The same place where Pepper’s crush Delaney Lynn lived… It was a large complex built in the 1960s—three apartment buildings, maybe twenty units in each, but still! A scary coincidence.

  Detective Ingram explained that Yelle had been rubbernecking at the Bailey home about an hour ago in a tan Jeep Wrangler when a uniformed officer approached him. The officer waved him on, but the man asked whether they’d had found the girl yet. He’d acted strangely about it, like it was something funny.

  The officer asked Yelle why he was on that street, and he’d said it was a free country, that kind of crap. Smirking the whole time.

  So the officer pulled Yelle over and ran his ID and license plate. The search showed he was a registered sex offender.

  “So we figured, he might be a sicko who gets a kick out of seeing the scene of a crime,” said Ingram. “Or maybe he’s our kidnapper.”

  “Or both,” muttered Pepper.

  Ingram explained that the officer didn’t believe he had cause to detain the man and so had let him go.

  “Since Casper Yelle’s a level three and on parole, I was hoping you guys could get to his place, ASAP?” asked Ingram. “Hold him while you search his apartment and his Jeep?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Pepper’s dad.

  Pepper could feel his pulse quickening.

  Showing more patience than usual, Pepper’s dad let him stay and even explained the situation.

  The good news was, since Casper Yelle was on parole, his parole officer owned his ass and could search his apartment without a warrant. The P.O. only needed reasonable suspicion, which basically meant anytime.

  Sergeant Weisner disappeared, then came back in two minutes. She told them Yelle’s parole officer was a guy named Charlie Brown.

  “Seriously?” asked Pepper.

  “Sweeney’s hunting him down…he didn’t answer his phone,” she said.

  His dad and Sergeant Weisner strategized about what to do in the meantime. Did they have probable cause to enter and search Yelle’s apartment without the P.O.?

  “We’ve got to go in,” said Pepper. “How can you wait? Yelle might have hurt the girl. He might be hiding in there. He could—”

  His dad interrupted. “We know that.”

  His dad asked Dispatch to patch him through to Randy Larch and another officer, a rookie named Klein, who were out together on patrol. He explained the situation and told them to do a door knock of Yelle’s apartment at the Langham Arms.

  Then the three of them waited, not talking. Just picturing what might play out across town. Everything that could go wrong, or maybe right.

  Larch called Pepper’s dad’s cell phone, reporting that no one answered at Yelle’s door. They’d seen a Jeep with Yelle’s registration in the parking lot.

  “What do you want us to do now, Chief?”

  “They’ve got to kick it in,” said Pepper in a low voice.

  His dad gave him a look. “Stand by in the lot for Casper Yelle to get home or for his P.O. to arrive, whichever happens first. Then let Sweeney know.”

  Two minutes later, Detective Kevin Sweeney stuck his head in the door and gave a quick update. He was still trying to reach Charlie Brown to facilitate the search and to locate the man. As a level-three sex offender, Yelle had to wear an ankle bracelet and his parole officer could track him down with GPS coordinates.

  “And another interesting fact,” said Sweeney with a little smile. “Yelle has a second registered vehicle—a white Dodge cargo van.”

  Sweeney added that he had called Detective Ingram in Eastham and asked him to have someone show Emma Bailey’s younger brother a photo array which included Casper Yelle’s picture, hoping for a positive ID
. Ingram would give the county sheriff and the D.A.’s office the heads-up about the move.

  “Now it’s a waiting game,” said his dad. “Son, why don’t you get back to your work?”

  Pepper left them with a shake of his head. How could he do data entry while time was running out for Emma Bailey?

  Half an hour later, Pepper returned to his dad’s office, bringing him a steaming cup of coffee as an excuse to learn the latest developments.

  His dad looked up from his computer.

  “Thanks, son,” he said, taking it.

  His dad’s cell phone rang. It was Randy Larch.

  Pepper lingered in the doorway. His dad took pity on him and put Larch on speakerphone, telling Larch that Pepper was listening.

  “Chief, you ain’t gonna believe this,” said Larch.

  He and the rookie Klein had parked at the far end of the lot, waiting for Yelle to appear or for his P.O. to join them and do a warrantless entry and search under Yelle’s conditions of parole.

  “So we’re waiting,” Larch said. “A brown Lexus comes into the lot. Three white males get out and go up the stairway to Yelle’s corridor. It’s wide open, so we had a visual the whole time. They stopped outside Yelle’s door and then I heard a bang. They were busting out the doorknob with a sledgehammer. Popped the door in two hits.

  “Me and the rook hurried up the stairs and got the three guys in cuffs. Here’s the weird part: it’s Emma Bailey’s uncle with two of his sons. They busted in to search Casper Yelle’s place for Emma.”

  “Ah, shit,” said his dad. “How the hell’d they get his name?”

  “A great question, which I didn’t ask them at the moment. Because of the, ah, legal sensitivities and whatnot.”

  In other words, Larch feared that a police officer, maybe even one from New Albion, had spilled the beans to the Bailey family. What a mess…

  Larch continued. “So, ah, I decided to call in for instructions.”

  Pepper knew what he would instruct if he was in charge. Emma Bailey might be tied up somewhere in Yelle’s apartment. She might be in terrible shape.