Charon's Landing (7 page)

As the morning wore into afternoon, Tiny’s Saturday crowd began shuffling in. To a man, they were all there for the races. Uniformly, they were older, late fifties and up, paunchy, and dressed in thirty-year-old suits. They were living proof that clichés were based on fact. Mercer was the youngest man in the room by fifteen years, but he felt right at home. There was a special camaraderie among bachelors that transcended age or status. It was refreshing to be involved in conversations that didn’t revolve exclusively around the other person’s problems.

The racing card at Belmont was short that day; the last race went off a little after four in the afternoon. After Tiny paid off the winners, he finally allowed himself a drink, his first since the morning Bloody Mary. Harry White had been drinking whiskey as if he’d just escaped a temperance meeting, but he seemed unaffected. Mercer had switched to club soda and was sober.

“What’s ya doin’ tonight, Mercer?” Tiny asked, running glasses through the three small cleaning sinks under the bar. The smell of liquor was removed from the glasses, but they weren’t actually clean.

“I’m throwing myself into the penguin suit tonight.”

“Formal dinner?”

“I’m blowing off the dinner, but there’s an open-bar reception afterward.”

“Open bar?” Harry breathed enviously.

“I knew that would get you.” Mercer smiled.

“What’s the occasion?” Tiny asked.

“The inauguration of a new think tank called the Johnston Group, sponsored by none other than Max Johnston, the owner of Petromax Oil. The group’s made up of scientists, economists, and environmentalists working on practical ways to implement the President’s Energy Direction Policy.”

“You going to be part of this group?” Harry asked as he unwrapped his second pack of cigarettes for the day.

“No, but I’ve known Max Johnston for a couple of years. The invitation to the party was in my box when I got home from Alaska.”

“Hobnobbing with the rich and famous again,” teased Harry. “What the hell is Johnston worth?”

“Christ.” Mercer combed his fingers through his thick hair. “He owns Petromax Oil outright, plus he has control of the Johnston Trust established by his father when he started Petromax. I’d say a couple billion dollars, maybe more.”

“Find out if he has an eligible daughter.” Harry paused and reconsidered. “Hell, for that kind of money find out if he has a toothless grandmother who wets herself. I’m not fussy.”

“For your sake,” Tiny added, “I hope he does so you can pay back some of your bar tab.”

Harry shot him an innocent look.

Mercer laughed. “I’ve got to go. The dinner’s at six and the reception starts at eight-thirty. I want to be the first in line at the bar.”

He walked home slowly. The day had turned out to be milder than expected, and the humidity seemed to be held in check by the angry clouds that were threatening in the east. Thoughts of Jerry and John Small had faded to their proper place. Mercer felt bad for them, but it was their own stupidity that got them killed. He felt worse for John’s mother, wherever she was. No parent can deal with outliving a child.

Both of Mercer’s parents had been killed in the Belgian Congo during the Katanga uprising. Being an orphan, raised by his paternal grandparents in Vermont, he had never experienced the difficult adolescent phase. Mercer’s desire to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a mining engineer precluded any thoughts of teenage rebellion. He couldn’t imagine what would bring a father and son to physical blows. But something had made them brawl, and the consequences had turned deadly. Like MacLaughlin had said, they had both been drinking.

Just as Mercer turned the key in the door of his house, he cocked his head slightly, as if hearing a voice. In fact, he was hearing John Small again, as if he was standing next to the teenager aboard his father’s boat. Mercer had just offered him a beer and the young man refused with a shake of his head. “No, thanks. I’m captain of the basketball team this year and there’s a good chance I’ll get a scholarship out of it.”

Jesus, John doesn’t drink.

Mercer raced through his house to his office, his fingers touching the piece of kimberlite like a mezuzah. He threw himself into his chair and quickly dialed information. A few moments later he was connected to the sheriff’s office in Homer.

“Dan MacLaughlin speaking.” He sounded better than he had earlier this morning, but exhaustion still dragged at his voice.

“Chief MacLaughlin, this is Philip Mercer. We spoke this morning about Jerry and John Small.”

“Of course, Dr. Mercer.” MacLaughlin sounded shocked by Mercer’s call. “Can I help you?”

“You said that both of them were drunk, right?”

“Preliminary autopsy showed a blood alcohol count of over point two in both of them. They were hammered.”

“Chief, John Small didn’t drink,” Mercer said triumphantly.

MacLaughlin was hoping for a big revelation, so his disappointment sounded especially bitter. “Dr. Mercer, just because he was a minor, don’t mean he didn’t drink. This is Alaska. We do things a little different up here. Hell, I buy my kids beer on the weekends.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. John mentioned his basketball team and not screwing up his chances of a scholarship. We had just found two corpses on a burned-up boat and the kid refused a beer. That sight would have made a ten-year A.A. veteran consider drinking again.”

MacLaughlin was silent for a minute, the static over the line the only indication that he hadn’t hung up. When he spoke, he did so softly, slowly, as the full implications of Mercer’s news sunk in. “My son’s best friend is on that team, and they all pledged not to drink until the season was over. It was a way to keep them focused and fired up. What the hell does this mean?”

“Either John broke his oath or something’s not right and I’m willing to bet it’s linked to the
Jenny IV
. Did you manage to reach Howard Small in Los Angeles?”

“No, not yet. But I left a couple of messages. He’ll get back to me by tonight I’m sure. Tomorrow at the latest.”

“Let me ask you, what happened to the hulk of the
Jenny IV
?”

MacLaughlin paused before answering. He didn’t like the answer he was about to give. “It was scuttled by the Coast Guard the day after Jerry found it. By law, he had salvage rights to the vessel. Since the owner had died in the fire, there was no one to buy her back. There was nothing worth keeping, so Jerry had the Coasties tow it back out and sink her.” He paused again and then added lamely, “Old boats make great artificial reefs for the fishermen.”

“Did anyone explore inside the ship?” asked Mercer hopefully.

“No, I’m afraid not. She went out the way she was found, flooded to the freeboards.”

“Shit.” Mercer knew he’d just hit a dead end. “Well, I’m sorry to have bothered you, Chief.”

“I appreciate the call, Dr. Mercer. And if it’s any consolation, folks die every day in some mighty stupid ways. No sense making more out of this than there is.”

As he hung up the phone, Mercer knew that MacLaughlin wouldn’t leave the case alone, and neither would he.

Up in his bar, the last of the coffee in the pot had burned down to half a cup of tarry residue that could have been used as industrial solvent. Mercer sipped it cautiously while his dinner liquefied in the microwave. Something linked the
Jenny IV
to Jerry and John Small. They didn’t just die; they were murdered. He was sure of it. All he needed was a culprit, a motive, and some evidence.

M
ercer’s Jaguar was a dark shadow as it crept along the wide driveway, its throaty V-12 harnessed to a purr, its Pirelli tires hissing against the damp asphalt. A fine mist silvered the night in the twin beams of the car’s headlights. His eyes strained to see the house he knew must be at the end of the lane. No one’s driveway could be this long.

He glanced at the odometer and saw that he’d come nearly a mile since leaving the main road. When he looked up, he finally saw the faint glow of Max Johnston’s home. The car rounded one more sweeping curve, and the house was laid out before him.

It was a massive Tudor with countless gables, oak crossbeams, and steeply pitched roofs that stretched for almost two hundred feet. While the house was enormous, its whimsical style gave it a less imposing feeling. Most of the numerous windows on the first two floors were lit, warming the damp evening with a pale radiance. Mercer counted eight chimneys before pulling his car up to the covered entrance.

A valet met him and swung open the long door of the XJS Jaguar. Mercer noticed several dozen limousines lined up at the side of the house in parade formation. He stepped from the car, allowing the young valet to slide into the leather bucket seat.

From within the home, Mercer heard the solemn vibrato of a cello accompanied by a violin and what sounded like a harpsichord. He could not name the piece, but he appreciated the beauty with which it was being played. Beneath the cuffs of his tuxedo, his beaten TAG Heuer was strapped firmly to his wrist. Nine-thirty. Perfect. The dinner, a boring affair he was sure, was over, and the real reception was just beginning.

He handed his invitation to a somewhat fuddled footman. Mercer was hours late, and the servant regarded him warily, his drooping eyes scanning the card and Mercer with equal suspicion.

“I fell into a bottle of vodka and couldn’t get up,” explained Mercer as he brushed past the doorman.

The entry hall was a story and a half high with wide plank floors and a plaster ceiling. A cherry wood table sat in the center of the foyer, its gleaming top nearly hidden by a beautiful arrangement of cut wildflowers. The room was scented by their subtle perfume. Above the table, a glittering crystal chandelier hung like a fragile stalactite.

In a room to Mercer’s right, servants were preparing the dining table to become a dessert buffet. Tortes, cakes, mousses, and numerous other sticky sweet creations covered the table that could easily seat thirty people. The classical strains of the trio grew louder as Mercer wandered through the dining room. The nine-foot doors at the far end led to a living room larger than most suburban houses.

The furniture was all nineteenth-century revival, Duncan Phyfe and John Henry Belter mostly. Four separate conversation areas quartered the huge space, couches, love seats, and chairs arranged around identical tables like defensive fortifications. The paintings were predominantly American primitives with the exception of a portrait by Sargent of a mother and daughter and a Grant Wood landscape. A bar had been set up along one wall, guests lined up and chatting away their wait for service.

The musicians were in the center of the room. Mercer watched them for a moment. There was something erotic about a female cellist, he thought. This one, not particularly pretty but eye-catching nevertheless, wore a deeply slit cream gown. Her stunning legs were wrapped around her instrument like a lover’s embrace. He felt like a voyeur as he watched her fingers working the strings and turned away before his expression got him into trouble.

Through the series of French doors at the far end of the room, Mercer saw a huge marquee tent and clusters of tables that the two hundred guests had used for dinner. He was just noticing that the bartender had lime juice to make a vodka gimlet when a hand grasped him on the shoulder.

“What’s a rogue like you doing at a place like this?”

Mercer turned, smiling as he recognized the distinctive voice. “Looking to ravage a Cabinet-ranking bureaucrat.”

Connie Van Buren stretched up to give him a kiss on the cheek. “God, you’re good-looking, and you smell nice too.”

“Ah, but Connie, you’re married.”

“My husband’s in New Mexico,” she teased.

“And my libido’s in storage.”

“Forever the bachelor,” she chided him mildly. “When are you ever going to get married?”

“I’ll marry the first woman who leaves the seat up for me.”

They had first met years before when Connie was working at the Interior Department and Mercer consulted for a German mining concern called Koenig Minerals. At the time, she was devoting a great deal of energy to blocking the company from opening a mine in Utah. They had one of the worst environmental records in the world. Mercer had stepped in at Koenig’s request and to Interior’s great relief, smoothly worked out a compromise that was acceptable to both parties. Connie and he had stayed in touch, keeping track of each other’s rise through their chosen professions.

“I noticed you were absent from dinner. You were supposed to be on my left side. Instead, I had to suffer through some mealymouthed lawyer who spoke in press releases.”

“I figured it would be bad, but I never imagined Max would invite the lawyers too.”

“Max invited everyone he knows in the city. It’s not every day you endow a forty-million-dollar think tank, and he wants to make sure no one forgets it.”

Mercer looked around as more guests filtered in from the tented patio. Connie was right. The room was filling with some heavy hitters. The Speaker of the House was deep in conversation with the President’s Chief of Staff, and behind them, several nationally recognized television journalists were hanging on the words of a very drunk senior senator. The Johnston Group was certainly getting a big endorsement from Washington’s elite.

“Where’s our host?” Mercer scanned the crowd, looking for Max Johnston.

“Oh, he’s here, basking in the glow. He and the President played golf this afternoon, and the Old Man gave his official endorsement. Max is throwing this party just to let everyone else kiss his ring.” Connie paused as she recognized a man tracking across the room toward her. “Damn. Robert Baird.”

“Who’s he?” Mercer noted the man striding through the crowd.

“He’s a lobbyist for the nuclear research division of Petromax Oil, one of Max’s lackeys trying to curry favor. Excuse me while I duck into the ladies’ room.”

Baird actually made an “aw shucks” arm gesture as he watched Connie’s ample bottom waddle from the living room. He looked at Mercer for a moment, deciding if he was someone worth presenting his case to since he had been talking to the Secretary of Energy. Mercer flashed a dull smile, and Baird went in search of more powerful prey.