Wreckers' Key

by Christine Kling

  “I heard your screaming. Took me a bit to find you after you quit. I didn’t see no one else. I figured you’d tried to climb up that sheet metal and took a bad fall. Sometimes the shadows play tricks on ya in this yard.”

  “He was real. No doubt about it. You must have scared him off when you showed up. I guess there’s no point in calling 911 if you don’t even believe me, though.”

  “What would some fella be doing in here?”

  “Maybe he followed me in off the street. I was out there ringing that bell and announcing to half the neighborhood I was here. And your neighbors aren’t exactly winning property beautification awards.”

  When the old man smiled I could see the yellow of his tooth enamel; deep in the crevices, his teeth were dark brown. I wondered if it was just stain from years of smoking or if they were rotted.

  “Sometimes women git scared. Think they see things in the shadows. I think you fell and hit yer head.”

  “Shadows, hell. I know what I saw whether you believe it or not.”

  “I can see why young Ben’s always been so taken with you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve got spunk. Baker men have always admired women with spunk.”

  “Ben and I were friends as kids. Nothing more.”

  “You know better than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My grandson followed you around like a puppy. I wasn’t around much, but I was out there often enough to see that. And there ain’t no human alive who deserves the kind of love a dog gives. That day you gave him that nickname? That day he just about wanted to die. He hitchhiked out here to stay with me. Told me he was running away from home. Wouldn’t tell me what happened, but from that day his own daddy called him Glub and the boy was never quite the same.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be mean,” I said, knowing that I wasn’t being entirely truthful.

  “And one more time I’ll tell you—you know better than that. The boy never would tell me the whole story. He was in some kind of raft race or something? Why was it so goddamn important?”

  I didn’t know the answer to that. But he was right—I had known better.

  “We were just kids,” I said, starting to try to make an excuse. But really, there was no excuse. And the worst of it was that I hadn’t really felt bad at the time. It was only later that night at his house—and now, now that he was a handsome, successful man—that I felt really bad for the way we’d all teased him. Now that I wanted him to like me. “Ben got teased a lot when he was a kid.”

  “You were supposed to be his friend.”

  “I know. Now, I do. I can tell you the story behind the name. They used to hold this race every winter. It was called the New River Raft Race. Clubs or businesses or individuals could build their own rafts and we’d race down the river. The people on the banks of the river would cheer and throw water balloons at the racers. The folks on the rafts would splash each other. It was lots of fun, goofy fun. One year when we were in ninth grade, all the kids in our neighborhood decided to build our own rafts to compete in the race. My friend Molly and I built one together. My two brothers built one. And Ben built one all by himself.”

  Old Ben snorted. “That was Benny. The other kids never cut him a break.”

  “Because it’s a lot easier to do certain stuff if you’ve got two people, our rafts were built better. Ben’s raft sank. But not before we splashed him, threw water balloons at him, and someone on shore nailed him with a fire hose.”

  “Nice bunch.”

  “It was all supposed to be in good fun. We were all splashed and hit by water balloons. But we all didn’t have our rafts sink under us. We all laughed when he sank. We thought he’d be laughing, too. I was the one who called out ‘Glub, glub, glub.’ ”

  “That boy never could take folks laughing at him. It happened too often.”

  “Well, Ben swam to shore and I guess he walked home. There was a cookout and party afterward, but he didn’t show. I asked somebody, I don’t even remember who, if they had seen ‘Glub, glub, glub’ around. It got a good laugh and the name kinda stuck. I didn’t see him until the next Monday at school and everybody had started calling him Glub. It was just a stupid kid thing. I can’t believe he even still remembers it.”

  “Why not? Folks like you keep reminding him of it every time you call him that name. He’s a man now but that kid, the social outcast, is still in there.”

  “All kinds of kids have nicknames in high school.”

  “But they’re not all connected to something the kid sees as a humiliation.”

  “I didn’t realize he felt that way about it. That makes it an even bigger deal, I guess, that he was able to rise above all that childhood teasing and make his life into the success it has become.”

  “I never seen anybody work as hard as that boy.”

  “It shows. It really does. And the amazing thing is the way he makes it look effortless. He looks like this relaxed boat bum, but when you see his boat, the work shows. Now that he’s put all that kid stuff behind him, he should feel very proud of himself.”

  “Ben? Nah. It does something to a kid to grow up with parents like that. He’s been told he’s a piece of shit so many times, it don’t matter what he looks like. Best thing his momma ever did was to die and leave him money to buy that boat.”

  “The Hawkeye's a beauty, that’s for sure. I know he’s proud of her.”

  The old man shook his head. “You are something else.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He didn’t say anything for a while as he lit another of his unfiltered cigarettes and dragged the smoke deep into his lungs, his head turned away from me. “So why was it Ben told you to come out here?”

  I’d almost forgotten the reason I was there. “My Jeep. It’s parked out front. It’s been stalling, not wanting to start. It’s a 1972, and Ben said you were great with the older engines that don’t have all the computerized stuff in them.”

  “I’d be happy to take a look. Is your head okay? Can you drive?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, knowing that I was making a habit of telling half-truths to this man.

  He told me how to find my way to an alley that ran behind the lot. He said he would open the gate to a concrete pad where he had a garage with his tools and lights and everything he would need. Half an hour later, Old Ben straightened up from where he’d been leaning under Lightnin’s hood and wiped his hands on a red cloth rag.

  “Somehow, you got a shop rag or some kinda cloth stuck in your intake manifold. The valves been chewing and burning it up, but it been causing your loss of compression and the black smoke you been seeing. You had any work done on this machine lately?”

  “No, not for several months.”

  “Hmm. That is odd. It ain’t like you could pick this up driving on the street.”

  I thought about my Jeep parked for over an hour in the dark parking lot behind the Downtowner. “Are you saying someone tampered with it?”

  “Sure looks that way to me.”

  XXVII

  The sight of B.J.’s El Camino in front of the Larsens’ place was a pleasant surprise when I parked my Jeep in the driveway just after eleven. My head hurt and I was tired, but not too tired for a little naked wrestling with my Samoan friend. Mr. Magic Fingers had a way of making all my hurts go away.

  I made enough noise closing the gate that I expected my dog to come running, but there was no sign of her. I imagined she was taking advantage of those magic fingers at this very minute. When I got to the end of the walkway alongside the big house and stepped out into the open yard, I could see two people sitting on the bench in front of my cottage. The smaller of the two got up as soon as I started across the lawn and ran toward me, my dog at her heels.

  “Seychelle,” Molly said, the alarm apparent in the way she said my name. “Thank God you’re home.” She linked her arm in mine and pressed her head against my shoulder as we walked over to where B.J. sat. �
��We’ve been sitting here for hours, worried sick that maybe something had happened to you, too.” She hugged me as though I had been gone for weeks.

  She was talking so fast, I was having difficulty keeping up with her.

  When Molly took a breath, B.J. said, “I really wish you would get a cell phone. At times like this, it’s hard not knowing if you’re okay.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? What’s going on?”

  B.J. stood. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “We’ll talk in there.”

  I unlocked my front door and led the way inside. When we were all settled in the living room, B.J. explained that he had been over at Molly’s earlier that evening when they had decided to turn on the TV and watch the evening news. They had seen the report on Quentin’s death, and B.J. recognized the name. Although he wasn’t sure it was anything other than the drug-related killing that had been reported, the news of it made him uneasy.

  Then he turned to Molly and said, “Now tell her exactly what you saw.”

  “It was a little after eight. B.J. had just left. We’d been studying for almost four hours, and I just wanted to climb into bed, read a novel, and relax. I was in my nightgown when I remembered that I hadn’t checked the mail. I stepped out onto the porch and I heard what sounded like a cry down the street. When I looked toward the Sparkses’ house, I saw Arlen leading Catalina by the elbow out to his car. She was struggling, trying to get away from him. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but it was obvious she was arguing with him. He opened the back door and practically shoved her in. He was being so rough! In her condition!”

  “Did they leave? What about his wife?”

  “Well, that’s just it. I started running over there when I saw what was happening, but he jumped into the front seat, backed out of the driveway burning rubber, and took off down the street. I could see Mrs. Sparks sitting slumped in the corner of the front seat.”

  “He shouldn’t be moving her.”

  “I know! That’s just it. I ran down the street after them, but I was barefoot and in my nightie. I couldn’t catch them. I saw Catalina’s face looking at me through the back window when they drove under the streetlight, though. She looked terrified. He’s gone completely off the deep end.”

  I stood up and began pacing the room. “Shit, I should have done something. I probably could have stopped this. At least, I should have warned her.”

  B.J. said, “What are you talking about?”

  I told them about my tow up to River Bend and the conversation I’d had with Charlie, the yard foreman. “I think Arlen must have been at the center of the R and D that Motowave was doing with GPS.”

  “From what I read on the Internet,” B.J. said, “they’ve developed systems that will spoof or send simulated GPS signals in addition to jamming. When the GPS receiver is working, it locks on to four or five satellites at a time. These spoofers fool the receiver into locking on to them instead of one of the satellites, and they’ve developed the tables to determine how far off and in what direction the GPS unit will deliver an inaccurate fix.”

  “Geez, B.J., what’s all that in English?”

  “It means the boat’s GPS receiver will look like it’s working properly, but it’s producing a false or intentionally manipulated fix. While Motowave has been at the forefront of this research, I did find one website where an anonymous author had posted directions on how to build a homemade jammer.”

  “I don’t believe that Pinder is smart enough to figure out how to do this on his own even if there are instructions on the Internet.”

  “It is pretty complex,” B.J. said. “And there are two different types of receivers, one for the military and one for civilians. Just building the thing wouldn’t be enough.

  To carefully set these boats on a wrong course, somebody would have to know a lot about the locations, orbits, and frequencies of the satellites. That was what the engineers at Motowave were working on recently. Their anti-jamming work was aimed mainly at preventing terrorists from using this on a commercial airliner or a huge oil tanker. It’s scary stuff.”

  “And Arlen Sparks was one of those engineers. But for some reason, they laid him off shortly before he got his full pension.”

  “I didn’t do all the research on who owns Motowave, but lots of these companies, these defense contractors, are owned by a few major corporations. They’re into squeezing maximum corporate profit out of the American military infrastructure. Paying out lots of money in pensions won’t result in maximum profits.”

  “So there’s Arlen,” I said. “Left dependent on Medicare—no supplemental insurance—when his wife’s cancer returns. He’s desperate to get the money to fund this new treatment the doctors are dangling in front of him. And somehow, he teams up with Pinder and they come up with this scheme to cause a few convenient wrecks.”

  “But if he’d sold the idea outright, he would have had his wife in treatment by now,” B.J. said. “We went over to visit Cat this morning when I first got to Molly’s. We saw Mrs. Sparks, and she looked very ill. What’s he been doing with the money?”

  “He probably hasn’t seen any of it yet,” I said. “Pinder wouldn’t be able to pay him up front. It doesn’t work that fast. Lots of these salvage cases go to arbitration or wind up in court one way or another. It would be months before they get paid. And then you’d have to assume that Pinder will pay out. I wouldn’t trust that man—”

  “So you think Nestor and Quentin were both killed over this?” Molly asked.

  “This scheme could be worth millions. That’s a lot of motive. I can’t see Arlen doing the killing, though.”

  “Do you have any idea where he might be headed?” B.J. asked.

  “Arlen? My best guess would be Key West. He’s got Sarah with him. He needs to get her settled somewhere. And Key West is where Pinder is. When I was there last week, I saw Arlen go into Pinder’s office. I didn’t put it together at the time. I figured he was just a customer since he’s got a waterfront house down there. But why would he leave Lauderdale in the first place? I can’t see him being a part of anything that would hurt Catalina.”

  “All I know is that Catalina could go into labor at any time,” B.J. said. “I don’t like this at all. I’m her labor coach and I promised her I would be there when she delivered.” He glanced at his watch. “What is it, a three, four-hour drive?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I want to go down there. Now.”

  “Tonight? That’s a long dark road for one thing, and these people have killed twice already. I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “Whatever it is that has made Arlen panic, I’m not connected to it. They wouldn’t see me as a threat to anyone there. I just want to stand by for Catalina in case all this excitement pushes her into labor.”

  “I’d go,” Molly said, “but Zale’s got school.”

  “And I’ve got that stupid court date tomorrow. I’d give anything to miss it, but Jeannie would kill me.”

  “Then it’s set, I’ll leave now.”

  “I’m worried about you driving all night,” I said. I contemplated telling him about what had happened to me out at Hubcap Heaven, to warn him, but I decided against it. B.J. was always on guard, and I didn’t want him distracted and worried about me.

  “What are you going to do once you get there? Just drop by for a visit? And how are you going to find the Sparkses’ house?”

  He put his hands on my shoulders. “Hey, when you go running off to save the world, I have to trust that you know what you’re doing. I don’t try to stop you or tell you what to do, do I?”

  I had to admit he had me there. He never played the macho male. He never tried to save me from myself. “You’re right. Sorry. Call me as soon as you get there, okay? I don’t care what time.”

  “I will. Listen, I don’t intend to contact them at all. I’ll watch from the street, and unless it looks like she needs me, I won’t step in. I’ve got my MacBook out in the truck, and there
will be places with free wireless in Key West. Everything I need is on the Internet. I’ll find the address, don’t worry.”

  I had no doubt he would.

  XXVIII

  Abaco’s whiskery muzzle rubbed against my hand. In my half-awake dream state, I was rubbing the day’s growth of beard on Ben Baker’s face. The dog started whining and even though I knew it was just a dream, I lay there for several seconds trying to bring it back, to see where we were and what we were doing. I had the strange feeling that I had been dreaming of making love to Ben, and some perverse sense of curiosity prodded me to try to bring back those images.

  The second time the dog whined, I sat bolt upright in bed. I looked at the clock on the nightstand and saw that it was after seven.

  He hadn’t called. I was supposed to meet Jeannie for breakfast at eight o’clock at Lester’s Diner, and I hadn’t set an alarm because I was certain B.J. would call me between four and six in the morning.

  I leaped out of bed and searched my living room for the cordless phone. I dialed his cell, but the damn thing went straight to voice mail.

  “B.J., where are you?” I said after the beep. “You promised me you’d call. As soon as you get this message, call me.”

  Jeannie was already seated at a table sipping coffee when I hurried into the diner. “What happened to you? You don’t look too hot.”

  I slung my bag on the back of the chair and slumped into the seat. When I’d gone into the bathroom to shower earlier, I’d found dark circles under my eyes— probably a result of the blow to the head the night before. I had a small goose egg under my hair, but I’d blow-dried some volume into it to try to cover the bump.

  “Mostly, I’m worried about B.J.” I told her the whole story about Arlen having worked with GPS while he was at Motowave, and how he must have partnered with Pinder. “Last night when I got back home around eleven, B.J. and Molly were at my house. Molly saw Arlen Sparks drag Catalina into his car and take off. His wife, who is in so much pain she’s on a morphine drip, was in the front seat. We figure Arlen must have gone to his Key West house. B.J.’s supposed to be her birth coach and he doesn’t want Cat down there with no one to turn to.” The waitress brought me a big white ceramic mug and poured me a cup of black coffee. She asked if we were ready to order, and I shook my head. I couldn’t stand the thought of food at the moment.