Dark Waters (14 page)

The four hopped up and headed to the pavilion at the end of the large food court area.

They signed themselves in and checked the place out. There were a few kids there, little ones, like five or something. They were definitely the oldest in attendance. Checking out the shelves of toys, Johnny Mac and Early found a box of Lego and a bag of toy soldiers. The girls discovered a Barbie Dream House and a whole bag of Barbies and her clothes. And all four got very busy.

Far away, in the middle of the ship, a man named Clifford Dunne was winning big time at the blackjack table. He often noticed that he played better the drunker he got. Nancy, his wife, said he disgusted her and had stormed off to their cabin over an hour ago. Clifford thought, ‘This'll teach her!' as he pulled in yet another win, bringing his total for the night up to $4,940. He was on a roll. Definitely on a roll. Unfortunately the roll was off his stool and onto the floor. Clifford began to laugh.

The dealer helped him up and then there was someone else there putting his winnings in his pocket and leading him toward the promenade. ‘Sir, this is it for tonight,' the man said with a smile. ‘Why don't you go back to your cabin and apologize to your wife?'

Clifford stumbled out, on his own now. The promenade was crowded, people pushing and shoving him. He told a few of them to ‘fuck off,' and another few he said a gracious ‘excuse me' to. Finally he found the door that led to the elevators and stairs. There were too many people waiting for the elevator, so Clifford headed for the stairs.

I didn't win the three-hour spa package, but I did win a smart phone. Jean and I both already had iPhones, so this wasn't that big a deal. Maybe I could sell it to someone, I thought.

When my phone rang, I saw it was of course Jean's number calling, so I picked it up and said, ‘Hey, buddy, having a good time?'

I was answered by a voice much deeper than my ten-year-old son's. ‘Mr Kovak?'

‘Who's this? Where's my son?'

Jean was by my side in a microsecond. ‘He's OK, Mr Kovak. But we have him and some of his friends in custody. If you could come to A level, room 403, please.'

And the bastard hung up. We grabbed Jean's scooter and headed for A level.

The sign on the door of room 403 said security. I rapped with my knuckles and opened the door at the same time. Inside, I saw my son and Early, plus the two girls, Janna and Lyssa. Also present were Mike and Lucy and Lyssa's mom, Esther.

‘What's going on?' I demanded.

‘Milt! You gotta do something!' Mike all but shouted. To the small man standing by the desk in a semi-naval-looking uniform, he said, ‘This is Milt Kovak! He's the sheriff of . . . of some place! Milt?'

‘Prophesy County, Oklahoma,' I said, extending my hand to a guy who looked way too much like Barney Fife – if Barney had had a blond crew cut and a square jaw. ‘Could you tell me what's going on, please?'

‘Your children . . . I believe the expression is “rolled” a drunk,' he said, arms crossed over his chest, staring daggers at the terrified children.

‘No, we didn't!' my son said, standing up.

‘Sit down, John,' I said. He sat. He rarely hears me call him John. When I do, he knows I mean business.

To Barney Fife, I said, ‘That doesn't seem plausible, Mr?'

‘Gunther Heinrich,' he said, and I noticed a slight accent. ‘Chief Heinrich. And it is more than plausible, Mr Kovak. The drunk in question is the one who captured them.'

There was a plate-glass window looking into another room, wherein sat a man in bedraggled clothes and messed-up hair, holding his head in his hands. ‘That him?' I asked.

Heinrich nodded once.

‘Mind if I talk to him?' I asked.

‘Yes,' Heinrich said. ‘I do mind. This is not your jurisdiction,
Mr
Kovak,' he said, stressing the ‘Mr' so as to let me know I wasn't sheriff of his bailiwick.

‘My son, and these other children, have the right to face their accuser,' I said.

‘In a court of law,' Heinrich said.

‘Court?' Esther said. ‘Oh, God, no! I can't afford that! I used up our savings to go on this damned cruise!' She glared at Lyssa, who hung her head.

I turned to my son. ‘Tell me what happened.'

‘We left the children's pavilion and we were going to go to Janna's cabin and we took the stairs because there were too many people on the elevator and we saw that guy on the landing on his back and his mouth was bleeding and he was making weird noises and we tried to help him but he grabbed us and started calling us names and said we stole from him but we didn't!'

When he stopped to take a breath, the other three, who had been holding theirs, breathed with him.

‘That's what happened, Sheriff Kovak,' Janna said. ‘God's honest truth!'

‘You were supposed to stay at the children's pavilion!' Lucy said.

‘Not now, Luce,' Mike said. ‘I'm with Milt. I want to hear what this guy has to say. How do we know he's not some pervert trying to manhandle these kids? We don't know that, do we?'

Barney, I mean Heinrich, turned abruptly and went to a door that led into the room where the accuser sat. He spoke to the man and the man stood up and followed him out the door.

‘Yeah,' he said, pointing at the kids, ‘those are the punks who ripped me off!' Looming over
my
son, he said, ‘Where's my money?'

I quickly got between the drunk and Johnny Mac. ‘Back off!' I said.

‘Please, Mr Dunne,' Heinrich said. ‘Have a seat over here.' He pointed to a chair clear across the room from the children. It was a small room, but it was still as far away from the kids as Heinrich could put him. Dunne turned and did as he was told. ‘Now, Mr Dunne,' Heinrich continued, ‘could you tell me what happened?'

‘Yeah. I won nearly $5,000 at blackjack, and was headed up the stairs to my room, when these four came up behind me and knocked me down and one of them kicked me in the back of my head! Then all I could feel were these little hands all over me, digging in my pockets!' He stopped for a minute and said, ‘I think the kick in the back of the head made me woozy, but when I came to, they were still picking at me, so I grabbed the little shits!'

‘I'm willing to search my two boys for the money. Lucy? Esther?' I asked.

They both nodded. Looking at Heinrich, he nodded his consent. I went to my son first and patted him down. In his pockets I found a dirty tissue, seventy-five cents in assorted coins, his lucky shark's tooth he'd bought in Galveston and my wife's phone. Early was carrying yellow and blue crayons, two dollar bills and a toy soldier.

Early turned all shades of red. ‘Oh, God! Oh, shit!'

‘Early!' Jean said.

Early began to cry. ‘I didn't steal it, really! I'm not sure how it got in my pocket!'

All the adults looked at each other, confused. ‘What are you talking about?' I asked.

‘That!' he said, pointing at the toy soldier. ‘It belongs at the children's pavilion. But I swear I didn't steal it! It was an accident!'

I took the toy soldier and handed it to Heinrich. ‘I hope you don't throw the book at him. Do you have dungeons on this ship?'

Well, that made Early cry in earnest, and my wife ended up going to him and sitting down with him by her side, and cooing to him. Johnny Mac looked at me with such fear in his eyes it made me want to vomit.

‘It's OK, boys. Nothing's going to happen to you,' I said.

‘The hell it isn't!' Dunne said, standing up. ‘I want these little shits arrested!'

And then Jean McDonnell, doctor of psychiatry, wife of Milt Kovak, mother of John McDonnell Kovak, stood up. ‘You call my son and this boy' – she was still holding on to Early – ‘little shits one more time, and I'm afraid I might have to take one of my crutches to your skull.'

‘OK, now,' Heinrich said. ‘Mr Dunne, sit down. Ladies,' he said, addressing Lucy and Esther, ‘how goes the search?'

Lucy held out her hand, which contained two hair clips and one of those fancy hair rubber bands, and Esther produced what my wife called a scrunchy, and that was it. Girls don't use their pockets like boys do. That's why God invented purses, I guess.

Dunne jumped up again. ‘They hid it someplace!' He moved toward the children and I had to physically restrain my wife by getting in between them.

‘Sit down, Mr Dunne!' Heinrich said. ‘I will not tell you again!'

‘He admits he blacked out,' I said. ‘If I'm to believe my son – which I do – I think Mr Dunne here got mugged by somebody, passed out, then woke up when these children tried to help him.'

‘That's certainly conceivable,' Heinrich said. ‘Please, ladies and gentlemen, take your children back to your cabins while I deal with Mr Dunne.'

Jumping up yet again, Dunne demanded, ‘You're not going to just let them go?'

‘This is a ship, Mr Dunne. We know where to find them. They're not getting off anytime soon.'

I nodded at Heinrich and opened the door to let everyone out.

Emmett's next interview was with Grady McDaniel, Dave's ‘pinko, liberal' son. He wasn't at his home, but Emmett got his work address from Dave and headed there. Grady McDaniel had a storefront office not far from the courthouse. His name was stenciled on the frosted-glass front door, with the letters MSW behind it, which Emmett discovered later stood for ‘Master of Social Work.' Beneath the name it read: Marriage Counseling, Children's Advocacy, Mediations, Notary Public. Emmett figured he might walk dogs, too, but there wasn't enough room on the door to mention it.

Emmett opened the door and walked in. There was a small front office without a receptionist, just a desk with a sign that said, ‘Please sign in and ring bell.' So he did and took a seat in one of four chairs against the wall.

By Emmett's watch it was almost five minutes before the door behind and to the right of the reception desk opened and two people came out. One was an older woman with tissue in hand and red eyes. Emmett figured she was there for therapy of some sort. The other, he assumed, was Grady McDaniel. He was about Emmett's height – five-eleven, maybe six feet – with a slender body, curly brown hair, a seventies-style mustache, his mother's turquoise eyes, and was wearing blue jeans and a western-style pearl button shirt and motorcycle boots.

After seeing the woman to the door, he turned to Emmett. ‘May I help you?' he asked.

Emmett stood and extended his hand. ‘Emmett Hopkins from the sheriff's department,' he said.

‘Right!' Grady said, shaking his hand vigorously. ‘About that asshole Darby Hunt, right?'

‘That's right—' Emmett started but Grady had grabbed his arm and was leading him toward the door he and the woman had just come through.

‘Yeah, I've been getting calls right and left. Come on in my office so we won't be disturbed. Jeez, what a nightmare, huh? First the asshole gets out, and then someone goes and shoots him? Well, I guess we should have seen this one coming, huh, Emmett?'

The room Grady McDaniel ushered Emmett into was an average-sized office with a desk, chair, sofa, bookcase and comfy chair. Emmett took the comfy chair while Grady sat at his desk chair. The walls were strewn with dreamcatchers and pithy slogans.

‘I mean, you and I should know better than the average lay person that something like that could happen, don't you think? He was
not
a well-liked man, needless to say. Generally hated and despised by one and all, wouldn't you say? I mean, my dad alone could have killed him with just his thoughts!' Grady said and laughed. Then sobered. ‘I by no means meant to imply that my father had anything to do with what happened to Darby Hunt. But the entire family was enraged that he got out without any warning. Something needs to be done about that, don't you think, Emmett? I mean, the next of kin of a victim or the victim themselves if they're alive needs to be notified that a felon is being released if it affects their very lives, and of course this did! The man threatened my entire family in court—'

‘Mr McDaniel—' Emmett blurted out.

‘Grady, please, you call me Mr McDaniel and I think—'

‘Grady!' Emmett all but shouted. He got some silence. ‘I take it in your line of work you don't get to talk much, huh?'

Grady McDaniel lowered his head and Emmett couldn't help but notice his shoulders shaking. Shit, he thought, I made the pinko-liberal cry!

When Grady looked up, there were tears all right, but the man was laughing. ‘Oh my God! I did it again! My wife tells me I do that at home. And you're right, Emmett, I don't get to talk much in my work life. I do a lot of listening. I'll try doing that now,' he said, and made the universal sign of locking his mouth and throwing away the key.

Emmett laughed back. ‘I can see how that can happen, Grady. OK, here's the thing. Where were you the night before last, around eight-thirty?'

‘Having sex with my wife,' he said. ‘Sorry to be overly familiar, but there you have it. We're trying to get pregnant, and the book said that that day and that time were optimum for the best results. Then she had to lie on the bed for fifteen minutes with her feet in the air.'

‘And while she was lying on her back with her feet in the air, where were you?'

‘Right there with her, rubbing her shoulders. We're in this as a team, my wife and I. I've ordered a “Prego-Dad” pack off the Internet.'

With Emmett's look of bewilderment, Grady said, ‘It looks sort of like a flak vest, but with inserts to add weights. It's supposed to simulate a woman's womb. It goes on like a corset, tying at the back, and as the mother gains weight, you add weights to the Prego-Dad so you have the same feelings she has. There's even an option you can get that simulates kicking when the time comes for the mother.' He beamed at Emmett. ‘I got that. It was extra but I think it'll be worth it.'