Bitter Tide

by Jack Hardin

  Ellie looked across the kitchen. “Where’s Jean?”

  “Out on the back deck. I’ve got a deputy out there with her trying to keep her calm. She have any medication addictions that you know of?”

  “I have no idea. Why?”

  “If she has any painkillers left from her foot surgery, now might be a good time for her to take one. Don’t tell anyone I said that, but hot fried bacon, Ellie, she’s a mess. Has every right to be too, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Ellie opened the back door and stepped out on the deck. Jean was sitting in an Adirondack chair looking out over the water. Billy Under, a young deputy, was standing beside her. When he noticed Ellie coming over, he nodded a greeting at her and went back inside. Ellie stepped in front of her friend and got down on a knee. Jean’s bright red eyeshadow had been smeared across her eyelids and left tracks down her face where the tears had dried.

  “Hey, Jean.”

  Jean didn’t move, just kept her stunned eyes on the water below. When she finally spoke it was in a soft, dazed tone. “My God, Ellie. Who would do something like that? Is it those people you thought might be looking for Ronnie?”

  “I don’t know, Jean. But you know we’ll find whoever did this. Don is bringing in Crime Scene. They’ll get the box to the lab. Did you see anyone when it was dropped off?”

  “No. I was telling Don that. I opened the door, and no was around. I didn’t even see the present until I was coming back in.” Her voice started quivering. “It’s so awful, Ellie.” She threw her head into a hand and started crying again.

  Ellie put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Hey, it’s all right. Ronnie’s okay and we’re going to find whoever did this and why. I’m so sorry.”

  Ellie had seen a lot in her days, but this? This was a first. And it hadn’t happened to a detainee at Guantanamo, or to a prisoner in some darkened CIA safe house halfway around the world. No, it had occurred in her backyard, to a man whose choices could never have justified such treatment. It didn’t matter who you were. This was unacceptable. Ellie had never met Dawson Montgomery, but she knew one thing, no one should be ever be treated in such a way. She feel a bitter outrage begin to rise up within her, a fiery angst to find Dawson and bring him to safety, assuming he was even still alive.

  It took a couple minutes for Jean to gather herself. She wiped at her eyes, smearing the red even more. She looked down on her red fingertips but didn’t seem to care. “Thank you for coming so quickly. Ruth is out of town, and I couldn’t get a hold of Linda.”

  “Of course.” Ellie pulled a deck chair close to Jean’s and sat down, held Jean’s hand. “I’ll wait here with you until they’re done inside.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ellie parked in Major’s driveway and walked in through the side door that led into the kitchen. She locked it behind her and called out as she came in.

  “Ronnie! It’s Ellie.”

  His head swiveled from the other side of the couch. “Hey, Ellie. What’s the word?” He was watching a rerun of M*A*S*H. Hawkeye Pierce was speaking to Major Burns from behind a surgical mask while they worked on a patient. A half-empty bottle of vodka sat between Ronnie’s legs. Ellie took a seat on the couch next to him. She picked up the remote and turned off the television. She plucked up the bottle and placed it on the coffee table.

  “Hey! What’s that about?” His eyes moved slowly, the liquor showing its effects, his words slow but not yet slurred.

  “Ronnie, we need to talk.” Her tone was firm, and in spite of being in a state of mild inebriation Ronnie sat up and gave her his attention.

  “Somethin’ wrong?”

  “You could say that. Someone paid your mother a visit a little while ago and left her a little present.”

  He nodded, like that was a good thing. “What kind of present?”

  “Two fingers and two toes.”

  “What?”

  “Two fingers and two toes,” she repeated. “In a little wrapped box.”

  “Real ones?”

  “I don’t think they got them at Sears.”

  Ronnie’s face darkened. “Oh my God...oh my God. You’re joking, right?”

  “I am not.”

  “Oh my God.” He stood up and then, not knowing what else to do, sat back down. “Is Mama okay?”

  “She’s shaken up pretty bad. And worried about you. Are you and I on the same page here as to who might be missing a couple thumbprints?”

  “Oh man. Well, Dawson, of course. It’s gotta be Dawson. But why would they have sent them to my mother? They’re trying to scare me,” he said, answering his own question.

  “You think Oswald is the kind of person that would do this kind of thing?”

  “Oh, sure,” he said quickly. “Maybe it’s like a calling card of his. I guess that’s what you might call it. But he’s only talked about it before. He’s never actually done it, not that I know of anyway. I heard him talk about this place in some old book, the Bible maybe, that talks about someone gettin’ his thumbs and toes cut off. Oswald sometimes talked about how brilliant that was because the prisoner couldn’t run away out of the camp or town without his big toes. If he did he wouldn’t move very fast. And his thumbs, well, he couldn't weld a sword with no thumbs.”

  Ellie was fairly certain Ronnie mean to say wield, but she let it pass.

  Ronnie started nervously rubbing the tops of his thighs. “You sure they were real?” he asked again.

  “They’re real, Ronnie. I won’t hear back from the Sheriff's Office until later today or tomorrow as to who they belong to, if they even have the prints in the system. In the meantime, let’s assume it is Dawson and they did this to send you a message. Do you think he’s still alive or would they have killed him?”

  “Man, I don’t know. I don’t know what Oswald's capable of anymore. I never would have thought he would have actually done this.”

  “You’re still fine here for now. Only your mother, Major, myself, and the Sheriff know you’re here. The Sheriff will probably be stopping by, if not asking you to go in to the station for some questions. Make sure it’s really him before you open the door. Also, this is going to bring in the FBI. They’ll have questions of their own.”

  “Okay.”

  “Right now, we have no leads on where any of your old buddies are, but we’re still digging and have issued a BOLO for Curtis’s Mustang. We’ll find Dawson. I promise.” Ellie noticed two hardbound books sitting in the middle of the coffee table. She leaned over and picked them up, set them on her lap.

  “Major put these here for you to read?” she grinned, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Yeah, but I’m just not a real big reader, you know. Other than Harlan’s book, of course.”

  Ellie picked up the first one, flipped through it. All of Major’s books were scarred with pen where he had underlined sentences, circled phrases, and scribbled tiny notes in the margins. This one, a biography on Maximilien Robespierre, written by J. M. Thompson, was no exception. Ellie could remember reading her own copy of this very book during her early training with TEAM 99, training that included hundreds of hours of classroom time, one class which was designated “Power and the Politik” and brought her face to face with ruthless political leaders such as Robespierre, Queen Mary I, Mao Zedong, and Slobodan Milosevic. They had studied corruption in the business world including numerous Russian oligarchs, the pervasive political fraud in Nigeria, and rampant corruption that had begun to stunt India's development efforts. The class had been architected to give each person on the team an education on power: its influence and effects, and both good and bad exercises of it. Ellie had come away with a reformed view of power. Yes, absolute power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, but what they quickly learned was that the powerful generally swam well below the surface, out of sight, exercising influence in subtle and unseen ways. And some of them posed a threat to the United States and needed to be taken out.

  Virgil’s haunting words echoe
d: I think I’m being framed for something. I think...well, I think we all are. She was going to have to face what that might mean, was going to have to peel back the layers of the last decade, the very thought of which forced her to fight back a settling nausea just thinking about it.

  “Ellie?”

  She shook out of it and glanced at the other title on her lap—a lighter, albeit no less intriguing read—The Letters of Hemingway. She returned the books to the table.

  “Just didn’t really seem like my types of books...so, you know,” Ronnie said.

  “I think M*A*S*H is just fine. So Ronnie, after the Sheriff's Office talks with you, dollars to doughnuts, the FBI will be right behind them.”

  “Sure. I understand. I just hope they can find Dawson. Hope it’s not too late.”

  “Me too. Listen, you cannot leave this place. Okay? Stay away from the windows and keep the doors locked. You'll be safe here, so don’t go do anything stupid like going on a walk or getting a ride to go see your mother. Are we on the same page there?”

  “Yeah. Same page.”

  “Listen, I would stay and wait with you, but I have to head to the airport. Call your mother and do what you can to ease her mind. That delivery really messed her up.”

  “Okay. I will.”

  When she left through the side door, Hawkeye was commenting to Radar about a visiting doctor’s bosom.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The Fort Myers airport, Southwest Florida International, came in just behind the San Diego International Airport as the busiest single-runway airport in the country. Its service area reached as far north as Bonita Springs and south all the way to Naples and the Glades. In an average year, nearly nine million passengers passed through its three terminals.

  Today though, for Ellie, there were just two.

  Four years had passed since she had seen her sister and her niece, since she had come home in-between assignments on an eight week furlough. Chloe had been only two years old at the time. Now she was heading toward her sixth birthday.

  Ellie stood at the baggage claim, waiting for them to appear. Katie had texted five minutes ago to say that their Delta flight had landed and was making its way toward the gate. Ellie thought of the years missed, how life rarely conformed to the dreams you had when you were young. But today, the bitter years that had taken so much were starting to give back. The dry branches of a withered tree were beginning to bear sweet fruit.

  Ellie watched as an older man stepped up to the baggage carousel and waited for it to turn on. He was tall enough, a couple inches off six feet, his slender build much like her father’s. He wore a gray herringbone fedora and had a windbreaker draped over an arm. Now, Frank O’Conner was the only missing piece.

  A crowd of people emerged from around the concourse wall that blocked off the baggage claim from the terminal access. A few dozen people spilled into the baggage claim and gathered at various points around the carousel, waiting for it to jump to life so they could grab their luggage and be off. Ellie searched the crowd for a familiar face.

  She saw it. Her sister's brown hair bobbing amongst the thinning crowd. Their eyes met, and they smiled at the same time. Katie looked down, and Ellie followed her gaze to a young girl, brown curls encircling her neck, a small backpack behind her. When they approached, the little girl looked up at Ellie with the widest hazel eyes Ellie had ever seen. Ellie squatted down and placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Hey, Boo. How was your flight, sweetie?”

  She laughed and threw herself into Ellie’s arms. “It was good, Aunt Ellie!”

  Ellie wrapped her arms around her niece and grit her teeth to keep from losing it in the baggage claim. Tears pooled and she blinked them away. Ellie pulled back and took another look at the young girl. “Chloe! You’re so big now. Look at you!” Chloe beamed under the compliment. Ellie put a knee on the floor and brought something out of her pocket. “I got this just for you.” She handed it to Chloe.

  “It’s mine?”

  “Yep. All yours.”

  Chloe giggled as she surveyed the pelican shaped lollipop.

  Ellie stood. “Welcome home, Sister.” She stepped in and gave Katie a hug that was years overdue. Katie held her tightly and started to cry. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Stop it,” Ellie whispered. “You’re here now. That’s what matters. We’re together.” Katie nodded into her shoulder.

  “Mommy, that’s my bag,” Chloe yelled, and pointed to a small pink suitcase moving behind them. Ellie leaned down and picked Chloe up. She kissed her on the cheek. “Come on, let’s go get it.”

  The drive back to Saint James City would take nearly an hour. Katie ran her hand across the El Camino’s dash. “I’m glad you took this,” she said. “You always liked it more than I did.”

  “What’s there not to like? A car and a truck in one. It’s the perfect vehicular marriage.”

  “How is Major these days? I’ve talked with him a couple times these last few months, but he’s not real good at talking on the phone. I think he tries, it’s just not his thing.”

  “He’s good. He still alternates his time between here and his other marina, but when he’s up here we go fishing or grill out at least once a week.”

  “How’s he doing with Dad being gone? They were like brothers.”

  Ellie pushed back the image of her father huddled in a subway. She hadn’t told her sister yet. The truth was, she didn’t know what to say. I think Dad faked his own death. He’s somewhere where it’s cold, and I have no clue what he’s doing. And, oh, my old boss who let me in on that has been murdered. No, she would say nothing until she had answers, until the truth ascended and shed light on what was currently full of shadow.

  She shrugged as she exited Interstate 75 and turned west onto State Road 884. “That’s the one thing he never talks about. He’s a closed lid when it comes to Dad. If I had my guess it still hurts too much for him to talk about. Dad was the only friend he had left from the old days.” Ellie turned the A/C up and switched lanes. She glanced in the rearview and saw Chloe leaning against the door, her hands tucked beneath her cheek, her eyes closed. “How was Seattle?”

  “Exciting at first, but, Ellie, it’s like rainy and cloudy almost every day. I couldn’t have gotten wetter had I just jumped in the ocean. But I needed that time away. I needed to get out of here and figure out how to grieve Dad. I couldn’t do it wrapped in a blanket of memories. I met some good people out there, and Chloe had a couple friends from daycare. But the weather…” They laughed together, and Ellie glanced at her sister. Katie took after their father when she smiled. The corners of her eyes squinted, and her chin rose. Of the two of them, Katie resembled him the most. The higher forehead, the green eyes, and that laugh.

  “Do you have a job lined up yet?” Ellie asked.

  “I’m going to freelance. I made a few connections with some startups while I was up there, and they want me to do some software design work for them. How about you? You still grabbing up bad guys?”

  “Trying to. It’s been a change of pace, that’s for sure.”

  “We’re still on for Major’s birthday party, right?”

  “Yep. The night after next. It will be nice, just the four of us. I’ve got a painting from Jean Oglesby for him. It can be from both of us.”

  “Oh, I love her. Are you sure about the painting?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thanks. Have you been by the house yet?”

  “I swung by yesterday. It’s all ready for you. The cleaning crew did a good job cleaning up after the tenant.” Ellie pulled off the road and under the canopy of a gas station. “One minute,” she said, “I need to fill up.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The heavy spiked gate slid slowly to the left, and once it was mostly open he drove his Camry into the compound. There was no driveway to speak of, so he parked in the hard-packed dirt next to a white panel van. As he got out, the front door opened, and a man walked out to greet him.
<
br />   “Aldrich, my man, my man. How are you?”

  “Fine, Eli.” He walked over to the trunk, opened it with the key fob, and reached inside. He withdrew a brown canvas bag and shut the lid again.

  “Come on in,” Oswald said.

  They entered the dark, narrow hallway and took a step down into the carpeted living room where a couple men in cutoff t-shirts were sitting on the floor cleaning a couple rifles. Oswald extended a genial hand. “Have a sit, Jimmy Jangle. You want a beer, a whiskey?”

  “I’m fine.” They sat and Aldrich, looking down at the bag, said, “Thank you for keeping this for me.”

  “Sure, man. It’s no problem. No problem at all. When will you be back to get it?”

  “My buyer will be in town next week. No later than six or seven days. Where will you keep it?”

  Oswald shrugged, like he hadn’t considered. “Don’t know. Does it matter?”

  Aldrich glanced at the other men sitting on the floor. He looked back at Oswald. Oswald flapped a hand, and the men slowly stood up and left the room. When they were gone Aldrich said, “It’s very important. I know you trust your men, but I need to know that you’ll be able to keep this in a place they don’t know of. I would prefer no one else knows at all. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “Oh, no. No problem at all, Jimmy Jangle.” Oswald stood up and walked over to the bag. He squatted down, unzipped it, and whistled. He zipped it back and returned to his chair. “Ringo know about what’s in there? I thought he wasn’t keen on stuff like that? Wouldn't that fall into the weapons category?”

  “Let’s just say that Ringo doesn't know about this,” he lied.

  Oswald chuckled. “I’m telling you, my brotha, Ringo’s all messed up in the head. He doesn’t see the value of diversification.”

  “What of Dawson?” Aldrich asked. “Is he here?”

  “No, man. He ain’t here. No sir, no way. What’s it to you?”

  “Let’s say that people are looking for him. If they trace him back to you, then our relationship with you could be exposed. And Oswald, it’s very important to me and Ringo that our relationship with you is not compromised.”