The Whale's Footprints - Rick Boyer

by Rick Boyer

  "You're not kidding," I said. "Or Art Hagstrom, or any of the other people at Woods Hole. So . . . what do we do now?"

  "What we do," said Joe, "is make a plan to get these guys in the net, and at the same time charge them with first degree murder. I think the link is going to be Alice Henderson, or maybe her brother. Either one of them, or perhaps both, are the link between Andy Cunningham and OEI. As for the oil venture, we're going to need some evidence. And for that, I'm going to call the Coast Guard."

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWO DAYS ELAPSED before Joe showed up in Concord for supper and flipped an envelope marked PHOTOS—DO NOT BEND! onto the kitchen table.

  "You wouldn't believe the rigmarole bullshit we had to go through to get those," he said wearily, shuffling over to the sideboard. He uncorked the square bottle of Bombay gin and held it, gurgling, over a huge art-deco-style martini glass. The bottle gurgled long and hard, reminding me of the travelogue film I'd seen of Murchison Falls. He threw in an ice cube and, almost as an afterthought, a twist of lemon peel.

  "Let's not forget the vitamin C, eh Doc?"

  I opened the manila envelope and withdrew the photos. There were six of them, ten-by-fourteen full-color glossies of aerial views of Tuckernuck Island and watery environs. Excellent resolution; you could see footprints on the beaches.

  "So what took so long? People didn't buy our hunch?"

  "Partly that. But we had to go through the attorney general's office to get to the Coast Guard. Then we had to get special clearance. They had to wait till a plane was free and they could get a staff photographer. And so on. Hell, next time we need something fast, let's just go do it on our own. Whadduyuh say?"

  "I agree. When the chips are down, circumvent the bureaucracy. That's what Roantis says. Now I assume this bit of shoreline off to the right here is Nantucket?"

  "Yep," he said, leaning over me, "that's Nantucket's western shoreline, right around Eel Point. That's what they told me, anyway. Take a look at the next one."

  I was looking at a direct view of Tuckernuck Island, taken overhead from the south, showing North and East ponds on the top. The shot was exactly the way the island appeared on the nautical charts. Joe rapped his finger on a clump of trees between the ponds, near the northern shore.

  "There's where Whitesides's house is. See the little brown speck? That's his house, stuck away all by itself, maybe a quarter mile from the nearest neighbor. See the road?"

  "Barely. It's hard to see anything with all those trees. And I sure don't see any preparations for sinking an oil well."

  "Right. So the pilot was smart enough to do a low-level flyby so he could get his lens under the trees. Look at the next two."

  These were oblique shots made with a very long lens. In these pictures, Hunter Whitesides's rambling frame house was clearly visible in the left side of the frame, with tall pine trees looming over it. On the far right side was a lattice steel tower. On the tower's tip was a large three-bladed propeller.

  "Wind machine for a generator. Whitesides has installed a windmill."

  "Look again. A windmill, or a drilling derrick?"

  I studied the photo closely. But the more I looked at it, the more the tower resembled a windmill. I know windmills; I grew up with them in the Midwest in the 1940s, before they were replaced with electric pumps.

  "Yeah, it could be a drilling rig, but is it?" I said, squinting at the photo.

  "Frank1y, there's no way to tell from a distance. Take a look at this last shot. It was snapped from low level off the north side of the island."

  This shot, from the opposite side of the island, showed the rear of the Whitesides mansion. It was impressive any way you looked at it. The steel structure was partially hidden by scrub oak and pine trees. But what was interesting was the low, tarpaulin-covered bundle that sat behind the house. It looked, judging from the scale of the rest of the things in the pix, about thirty or forty feet long. It made me think of similar bundles I'd seen in the yard at OEI, and I told Joe so.

  He went back to the first high-altitude shot of Tuckernuck and pointed at the ocean north of the island. The water was gray-brown, fading to light tan.

  "Shallow. Very shallow, Joe."

  "That's what the C.G. says, too. And your charts, they'd say the same thing. This is called Tuckernuck Bank, and it's shallow as all hell. Sometimes just a couple of feet deep. Shit, you could wade it. And we now think this is why OEI needs financial help from an oil company before they can realize any gain."

  "You mean to dredge some kind of channel into the shore?"

  "Either that, or construct a retractable floating boom to pump the oil out to ships. Look here, see that darker area? That's been dredged already, probably so the Oceanic could get in there and unload the pipe."

  "Oceanic is the name of that work boat I saw in New Bedford?"

  "The very same. So you called this one right on the money, Doc. How would you write the script, judging from what we've got in hand at this point?"

  "The script? Well, as I was saying the other night, it starts maybe a couple months ago. The guys at OEI, realizing their firm is going down the tubes, recollect the well they dug earlier on Nantucket, and the rich cores it yielded. They figure the crude can be exploited without an ocean drilling platform by simply setting up a small operation on their partner's property. But wouldn't it be great to get the core samples and those seismic reflection profiles as hard evidence so they can rope in a wildcatter for money and equipment?"

  "And Bill Henderson, skipper of the Highlander, with connections at Woods Hole through his kids, volunteers to sneak the evidence out of the warehouse, using his daughter's boyfriend, Andy Cunningham, as the conduit."

  "Bingo. And Andy was to get a small cut for taking the risk. But once he's got the cores and realizes what he's sitting on, Andy gets greedy and tries to hold out for more money. Maybe a lot more money, to pay off Slinky, among others," I said.

  "Uh-huh. But the three partners refuse, and when the kids are gone for the weekend, they break into their house in a frantic effort to recover the stuff. They come up empty-handed, and figure he's taken the core samples up to the cottage with Jack."

  "Right," I continued. "But even before this happens, they have realized that Andy Cunningham is a thorn in their side and has to be dealt out. Earlier in the week, they doctor Andy's meds with the knowledge that he'll die over the weekend away from Woods Hole, leaving them free of suspicion, and free to keep searching for the cores. Which they don't find in the cottage because Andy hid them so cleverly."

  "That's good, Doc. That's real good. You oughta be a cop."

  "I am, remember?" I said, going to the refrigerator and returning with a bottle of Bud and a bottle of Guinness Stout. I mixed these together in a big English dimpled glass tankard, in approximation of a pint of "bitter," and sipped. Finally, I shook my head. I

  "Whatzamatter?"

  "It doesn't seem quite right, Joe. I just keep thinking that what Andy did wasn't bad enough to get him murdered."

  "Not bad enough? Listen: extortion and blackmail tend to piss people off. Especially people as tough as Bill Henderson, who could be facing bankruptcy and a jail term because of this greedy kid. I just got the feeling, Doc, watching him stomp around his trawler, that he doesn't put up with any shit. Know whudda mean? And it just so happens, to support my point, that we just uncovered a prior on Henderson: aggravated assault. It happened in a bar in Fall River a few years ago. Henderson got off on a plea of self-defense. But it wasn't pretty; the other guy was hospitalized for ten days."

  "Well then, cleared or not, he's certainly capable of violence. I keep thinking about Andy's phone call to that isolated booth on Sippiwissett Road, just before he took his strange walk outside in the storm. If it was to meet somebody, then who was it?"

  More than a minute went by in silence while we sipped.

  "Hunter Whitesides," said Joe finally. "And I'll tell you why. After Andy realizes he's being chased, that Henderson and
company won't go along with his raised ante, he makes a last-ditch effort to cut a deal directly with Whitesides, leaving out the other two partners. Get it?"

  "Because Whitesides owns the land—

  "Sure! The mineral rights go with the land. So if any money is to be made, it's Whitesides's, by law. The derrick's in place, ready to go. Who needs the other guys? It would mean more money for both of them. So Andy calls Whitesides, who's staying somewhere on the Cape, and arranges to meet him on your beach. Maybe Whitesides promises to come, but he doesn't keep the promise because he knows Andy will be dead in a matter of hours. So Andy spends two hours waiting in vain to make his secret deal. Disappointed and angry, he returns to the Breakers, takes the fatal dose, dies in his sleep. Finito."

  "It's fitting together, Joe. just like a Swiss watch. So what happens now?"

  "What happens now is, we get all the evidence in hand. We get all our witnesses lined up, which includes the two of us, Mary, Jack, and Paul Keegan. And there'll be others, too, like the Isaacsons, and that Henshaw kid who works in the warehouse. We get all our paperwork done beforehand so everything will go without a hitch. Then we collar everybody at once: Henderson and his kids, Whitesides, and this guy Chisholm. We get them all in the net and tell them they're looking good for murder one."

  He dabbed his mouth lightly with a napkin, a hint of a grin forming on his lips.

  "Then, you watch. The shit's gonna fly, with everyone scared, and trying to clear himself by blaming the others. We'll interview them separately, so they won't have time to make up a story, and see how each person's version fits with the others. I promise you, Doc, when we get finished, at least a couple of them are going down. Count on it. And Keegan and I are gonna owe you. Because we're gonna be heroes, nailing Slinky and the OEI outfit both at the same time."

  "Sounds great. But there's just one thing still unresolved," I said, tapping the photograph on the table with my finger. Joe's face clouded over.

  "Yeah . . . ," he said wearily, "I know: the damn tower. Is it a drilling rig, or a windmill? We just don't know."

  "And if you get your master plan in motion, Joe, with you and Paul nabbing all these suspects, and it turns out to be just a windmill . . ."

  "Yeah, right. We're gonna look dumb. And Paul's already in trouble with the brass for his 'premature' arrest and detention of Hartzell."

  "But we need to know, Joe, and soon. Jack's officially out on bail for murder one. Know how that feels? To have your son out on bail on a murder charge, for Chrissakes?"

  "I guess I'll work on getting a warrant. But Christ, it'll take days to actually—"

  "I know a short cut," I said softly, moving toward the phone.

  "It's got to be legal. If it's not strictly in accordance with—"

  "Cover your ears, pal," I instructed, punching in the number to the Boston Young Men's Christian Union. The phone rang twice before a male voice answered.

  "I want to speak to Laitis Roantis," I said. "It's urgent."

  "Roantis!" said Joe, jumping up from the table. "Look, I said legal, Doc, and that lunatic—

  "You're not covering your ears, Dumbo. Naughty, naughty."

  TWENTY-SIX

  "LAITIS IS BUSY NOW," said the voice. "He's giving a demonstration in kick-fighting."

  I heard a man scream in the background. Some unlucky sparring partner was getting a dose of Roantis's uncanny skill at the lethal arts. The scream was followed by wailing and moaning. Whoever it was, it wasn't Laitis Roantis. You could bet your virginity on that.

  "I assume he'll be finished sometime tonight. Please tell him Doc Adams wants to talk to him."

  "What's it about? Can I tell him?"

  "Uh . . .just tell him Doc says the Daisy Ducks are taking wing. He'll know."

  "Daisy Ducks? Are you one of the Daisy Ducks?"

  "Right, and it's important he return my call, okay?"

  There was silence. Maybe three or four heartbeats worth, and then the voice came back.

  "Uh . . . I'll get Mr. Roantis right away for you, sir. Sorry you had to wait."

  I was impressed with the rep the Daisy Ducks enjoyed at the BYMCU. Of course, I'd failed to mention that I was only an honorary Daisy Duck. I wasn't one of the original eight—the guys who fought deep behind enemy lines in Southeast Asia. Who dove out of planes in the dead of night and strangled armies with piano wire in swamps. But I was with the Ducks in North Carolina. Oh yeah . . .

  The moaning offstage diminished. Were they toting the guy away to the dying room, or what?

  "Yeah."

  "Laitis, it's Doc."

  "Hey, Doc boy. How is everyt'ing with you?"

  "Everything is iffy right now. I need help on a little midnight prowl. Amphibious. Can you come along?"

  "You want killing, Doc? That's not like you."

  "No killing, just some nighttime recon and photos."

  "You said ambiguous. That usually means—"

  "No. I said am-FIB-ious." Laitis's English still isn't so hot.

  "Tell me about it."

  * * *

  "That's not an old beat-up Dodge, Doc; that's a goddamn van," said Jim DeGroot, peering at the parking lot through his marine glasses.

  It was dark aboard Whimsea; we wanted to remain as low key as possible. We were sitting up in the flying bridge, out under the stars in the dark. There were some low, puffy clouds playing tag with a half-moon up there. Enough light for ultra-speed film and no flash? Or would we have to go with the infrared? Maybe just use the thousand-speed film and push the hell out of it in the tank, I thought. My mind was racing. I looked at the big white van in the marina parking lot again.

  "Wonder where he got that?" I whispered. "Probably stole it. Hey, there's somebody with him. Good Christ, is he big."

  The two silhouetted figures walked across the lot, approaching the dock where Whimsea was tied up with a lot of other cruisers. We could only see their outlines, but the stranger looked two heads taller than Roantis, which put him over six six, with shoulders that weren't quite as wide as a flight deck.

  "Pssssst! Doc!"

  "Over here," I said, in a voice just loud enough so he could locate us. He spotted the Whimsea, then saw us up on the bridge. He walked up the dock opposite our boat and looked up.

  "Help us with the Zode," he said.

  "What?"

  "We need help carrying the Zode. C'mon, both of you."

  As we walked across the deserted parking lot in the dark, Roantis introduced the man with him as John Smith. We shook hands, and a horny sheath of muscle and bone engulfed my hand. John Smith nodded to us, but didn't say boo. He had blue eyes, a deep tan, and white-blond hair. I noticed the eyes. They had that same flat look as Laitis's eyes. The low-affect look. The pit bulldog stare. John Smith my ass.

  It was a little after one in the morning. We were at a marina in Lewis Bay, which is right next to Hyannis, on the Cape's southern shore. Our destination, Tuckernuck Island, was about twenty-five miles due south, right across Nantucket Sound. A two-hour run at moderate speed. I had Jim bring Whimsea down here on short notice, but I convinced him it was important. Even so, he wasn't overly eager.

  "I feel uneasy around this Roantis guy," he whispered to me as we followed the two men to the van. I told him that was understandable.

  "Is it really true he once ate a chunk of two-by-four to win a bar bet?"

  "Oh yeah. He did that. But he cheated."

  "Cheated?"

  "Uh-huh; he covered it with whipped cream first."

  "Look, I don't have to do this you know—"

  "Come on, we've got to unload this Zode, whatever the hell it is.”

  We heard the back doors of the van open softly as we approached it. Then Roantis and Mr. John Smith hopped inside and heaved a large, very heavy bundle halfway out the bed of the truck. The four of us hauled it over to Whimsea's foredeck quick and quiet. Roantis instructed us to lash the bundle down, which Jim and I did while they returned to the van for two duffel bags and a
large outboard motor, which Mr. Smith carried back to the boat under one arm, as if it were a camera bag.

  We started the engines and cast off, purring out of the marina and into Lewis Bay. In short order, we were clear of land and heading out over Nantucket Sound, with only the running lights on. I doubt anyone saw us, which was just fine. The water was calm and inky black, with big soft swells. We would get to Tuckernuck about three A.M. Perfect.

  Below us, in the forward stateroom, the light flicked on. Roantis and John Smith were talking. The language was one I'd never heard before. It wasn't Lithuanian, which was Roantis's native tongue. This speech sounded like a cross between Swedish and Japanese. Or maybe Apache.

  "Pssst! Hey Doc," whispered Jim, his eyes on the console. "You think that guy's name is really John Smith? I say, if he's John Smith, I'm Pochahontas."

  "Could be. There's a remote chance—"

  "And I say he's a foreigner, too."

  "Good going, Jim. You could be a candidate for Mensa."

  He told me to go fuck myself, put his big hands on the twin throttle knobs, and shoved them forward. The engines revved, and I felt Whimsea's hull rise up and plane. We were clipping along, the silver gray wake spreading out behind us, faint in the moon glow. There was the cozy hum of the engines, and the slight pitching of the deep V hull, cutting through the black water of the Atlantic.

  I heard the clank of metal, and knew that the guys below were unpacking their toys. Then Roantis would slip into his jetblack neophrene wet suit. The one with faint purple and gray swirls on it. His "Black Widow" outfit. Mr. Smith was probably donning his mask and cape . . .

  "God, I'm nervous," Jim said, wiping his palms of his pants and peering ahead into the darkness. "Cross Rip Shoals dead ahead. Graveyard of the Atlantic. Then we've got to sneak up there . . .

  What if we're seen? What if they've got—

  "Hey," I said, shrugging my shoulders and lighting a small Brazilian cigar. "Don't think about it till it happens."

  "Well I hate this, Doc. I don't mind telling you, I fucking hate it."