Dark Waters (The Jeff Resnick Mysteries) (4 page)

Autumn had settled itself upon Western New York. The days were already getting a lot shorter. The lackluster sun came up at 7:18, but Richard found himself up hours before that. He’d slipped out of bed, leaving his sleeping wife, dressed, and tip-toed down to the kitchen where he’d read every section of the
Buffalo News
and was on his third cup of coffee when the phone rang. Everyone else in the house was still sound asleep, so he practically broke the Olympic long jump record to snatch the landline before it could ring again.

“Hello?”

“Richard Alpert?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Frank Murray, manager of Sundowner’s Marina. I’m sorry to disturb you so early, but I thought you should know that we’ve had some trouble here at the marina. Vandalism.”

“My boat’s been vandalized?”

“I’m afraid so. The lock on the sliding glass door was broken, and someone got inside and trashed the salon. The seats have been slashed — with all the stuffing taken out of them — likewise all the life jackets. Every cupboard was emptied, too, their contents smashed and scattered.”

Richard swallowed hard. “How many other boats were ransacked?” he asked, his voice tight.

“Just yours, sir. I’m terribly sorry. We do have a security guard, but he didn’t see anything or anyone unusual. We’ll check our video cameras to see if they captured anything suspicious and turn it over to the police. You did have insurance on the boat, right?”

“Yeah, it’s fully insured,” Richard said, feeling sick at heart.

“Will you be coming in to assess the damage?”

“Yeah. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

“We’ve called the police and they said they’d send someone over as soon as possible. I’m really sorry about this, sir. We haven’t had any vandalism in quite some time.”

“Yeah. Thanks for calling.”

Richard hung up the phone, stared into his cooling coffee, and wondered if Jeff would be up to going with him. He didn’t think he wanted to do it alone, and he sure as hell didn’t want Brenda to find out about it — at least not while Evelyn was in residence. He could almost hear her not-so-subtle rebuke. Brenda had too much on her mind to worry about his folly. And right now, that’s just what owning the boat looked like.

A dark silhouette blocked my path.

“Hey, dude, got some spare change?” The hefty teen stepped into the lamplight, grabbed my jacket, jolting me.

Another figure emerged from the darkened doorway of a closed deli. This one held a baseball bat. “Give us your money.”

The big guy grabbed my arm in a vise grip.

I handed over what I had.

It wasn’t enough.

The smaller one whacked the bat against his open palm. “Reggie wants to teach you a lesson.”

In one swift move, I kicked the little guy in the nuts. He went down hard.

His bigger friend snatched the bat, heading for me like a killing machine.

My arm went up to shield my head. The bat came down and cracked my ulna.

Before I could do more than wail in pain, the bat slammed into my shoulder, knocking me to my knees.

The bat arced high once more and crashed into my temple. I tried to raise myself as solid ash connected with my skull once more.

And then like an explosion, everything was obliterated by a blinding white light, and once again I felt myself spiraling upward into the cold dark sky, away from this life, away from everything I knew and loved … forever and ever and ever.

I’d been awake for a full seventy-six minutes, staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to come again and had been sorely disappointed. My cat, Herschel, grunted in his sleep and nestled closer to my chest. It was the same damn dream — nightmare — that haunted me. First the mugging — always in greater detail than the last time — then the vision of spiraling into scalding white light. It bothered me that the light wasn’t welcoming. That instead of salvation it offered obliteration. And how the hell did I know that?

I’d never been much of a churchgoer. I’d left that to my guilt-ridden alcoholic mother. She’d trudged off to mass three or four times a week, seeking peace but never finding it. I had no use for the institution. It was nothing more than a place of empty rituals. Sit, stand, kneel, reel off prayers in a monotone before I could get the hell out of there and back to my basketball or classic Trek reruns.

That said, it was the dreams that made me decide that it might be a good idea to talk to someone who might have insight on such things. For some reason I still can’t fathom, a part of me needed to hear a theologian’s assessment, if only to rule out that what I’d experienced was indeed a religious experience.

Before I could ponder much more, the phone rang.

Ten minutes later, a rather frantic Richard stood on my doorstep holding a large take-out coffee.

Twenty minutes after that, I’d drunk the last of Tim Horton’s best brew as we stood on the dock at Sundowner’s Marina and peered into the ruined salon of Richard’s beautiful boat.

“Who could have done this?” he asked, “and don’t you dare say Da-Marr. He was with us at the house last night — flipping channels until I thought Brenda would go insane.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling whoever did this is someone even more sinister than Da-Marr — and that’s saying something.”

Richard studied my face. “What do you mean?”

“Until you get the title, we have no idea who owned this boat, but we do know it was seized for criminal activity — be it tax evasion or some other unsavory act.”

“And you think someone believes there’s buried treasure on this boat?”

“I don’t, but somebody must. I mean, none of the other boats was vandalized. That means someone was targeting you — or at least your boat.”

Richard sighed. “Insurance will take care of the damage, but that’s not the point.”

“Do you think you can get a claims adjuster out here today? Otherwise this baby is going into mothballs without us getting a chance to see what she’s really got.”

“What she’s obviously got is a reputation. And not a good one at that.” He stared at the ruin, looking depressed. “Have you got any ideas?”

“I’d love to just jump inside and give it the old touch test — to see if I can pick up any residual vibes — but that’s not a good idea until after the cops take a look and test for fingerprints. My guess is they’ll find nothing.” The fact that they hadn’t already made it to the marina, meant they’d had other more important incidents to deal with.

Richard shook his head, looking heartsick.

“I take it you haven’t said anything to Brenda.”

“You’re damn right I haven’t. And don’t you say anything, either. I’m worried about her. This was not the time to have guests arrive, and she’s doing too much trying to make Evelyn happy. A lost cause, if you ask me,” he muttered.

I wasn’t about to offer an opinion on that subject.

I don’t know what story he’d fed Brenda to explain his absence, and I didn’t want to know in case she grilled me later — that way I could plead innocent.

I patted him on the shoulder. “Look, I’ll give my friend Sam a call. I spoke to him last night and it turns out he’s a boat aficionado and he’s got connections. He might have some ideas.”

Richard nodded. “Thanks.” He turned and headed back up the dock for the marina manager’s office.

I pulled out my cell phone and hit Sam’s number, which was on speed dial. Unfortunately, I got his voice mail, but I told him the short version of what had happened, and gave him the boat’s registration number. I may have stressed that the boat had previously belonged to a drug dealer. I asked him to call me, reminding him I was open to accompanying him on the interviews, and left my number, hoping our conversation the evening before might give him the incentive to dig a little for my — well, Richard’s — benefit.

After that, I caught up with Richard, who was waiting in the front parking lot for the cops to show up. He’d get a lot further with his insurance company if he had a police report to back him up. And knowing Richard, he’d probably already made a call to his insurance agent. The company appreciated his business and I was sure he would make it worth their while to send an adjustor out before the end of the day. Well-heeled clients had done the same for me when I worked in the insurance business. Knicks game tickets, restaurant vouchers — not that I’d asked for or expected them, but it had made them feel better, and keeping the customer satisfied — even ordinary Joes — had its own rewards.

I clapped Richard on the shoulder but didn’t say anything. He seemed grateful for even that small gesture. We’d get through this. But something niggled the back of my brain, telling me that whoever had vandalized the boat hadn’t found what he was looking for.

Not yet, at least.

Richard pulled up the driveway and found Da-Marr in front of the garage door, down on one knee beside the guts of the old lawnmower, which had been spread out across the asphalt.

Now what?

Richard switched off the engine, grabbed his keys, and got out of the car. “What’s going on?” he asked, trying to sound jovial.

Da-Marr looked up, disgusted. “This thing is a piece of shit. You know that?”

“We don’t use it. I have a lawn service come and cut the lawn every week.”

“Yeah, well tell that to Aunt Evelyn. She told me to get out here and cut the grass, but this thing hasn’t been started in years. I cleaned it up, but this spark plug needs to be replaced. It ain’t firing right and I know you don’t got no gap gauge.”

“A what?” Richard asked, puzzled.

“See?” Da-Marr challenged. He straightened. “If Brenda will loan me her car, I’ll go get a new one — and a gallon of gas — and get this grass in shape.”

“But I already told you — ”

“And I told
you
what Aunt Evelyn said.”

He certainly had. Richard was also glad the kid hadn’t asked to borrow the Mercedes. He didn’t even like Brenda driving it, and he knew she was careful. Well, most of the time.

Da-Marr went back to work, reassembling the engine, and Richard headed for the house. He hesitated before opening the door. He couldn’t pick up bad vibes like Jeff could, but it seemed like a cloud of tension had settled over his home. He wished he had an excuse to escape, but the hospital board wasn’t meeting for another two weeks, and he was caught up with the paperwork the volunteer job entailed.

Once inside, he hung up his jacket and entered the kitchen. Evelyn sat at the table with a hardcover book open before her. “Good morning,” she said with what sounded like disapproval.

“It’s getting close to noon now,” he answered with a nervous smile. “Is Brenda around?”

“She felt tired, so I made her go lie down.”

Like Brenda couldn’t have figured that out herself.

“I think I’ll just head on up and check on her.”

“Don’t wake her,” Evelyn ordered.

Richard forced a smile and made a hasty exit.

He trudged up the stairs and quietly opened the door to their bedroom. Brenda wasn’t in bed, but she sat by the window with her feet up on the hassock and her e-reader in hand. “Hi.”

“Hi, yourself,” she said and switched off the device.

“Evelyn said she told you to take a nap.”

“If I were to lie down without you here, I’d never get back up again,” she said tersely.

“It’s only a few more days.”

“It seems like an eternity right now.”

Richard moved closer and sat on the side of the bed. “Want to go to Ramon’s for lunch? They say spicy food can jumpstart labor.”

“If I believed that, I’d drive us there in a heartbeat.” Brenda frowned and shook her head. “I don’t want to move from this spot. I could happily stay here for the rest of the day, but if I don’t come to lunch when called, there’ll be consequences.”

“This visit isn’t turning out the way you thought it would.”

Brenda looked down at the reader in her hand. “No.”

He reached over to take her other hand. Her fingers clasped his, but then abruptly she disentangled them and sat up straighter. “The insurance company called while you were out.”

“Oh?” he asked, wary.

“When were you going to tell me about the boat?”

“Tell you what?”

She leveled an angry gaze at him.

“You mean … the little problem down at the marina?”

“Vandalism isn’t a
little
problem.”

“They weren’t supposed to call the landline. I asked them to call my cell phone.”

“Well, they didn’t.”

“How pissed off are you?” he asked, dreading the answer.

“Pretty pissed off,” she admitted, but then she sighed, the anger draining from her face. “How bad is it?”

“Mostly cosmetic,” he said. “I’d already thought about updating the carpets and upholstery, and now you can choose what you’d like.”

“I’m not setting foot on that boat.”

“Ever?”

She shrugged. “I never said that. But — ” she looked down at herself. “Not today. And not this week. And since you’ve already arranged to have it put into storage….” She let the sentence trail off, but then her expression hardened once again and, for a split second, she reminded him of her unforgiving older sister. “You
did
arrange to have it put into storage, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.”

“I assume you took Jeffy with you this morning?”

“He may have been there with me.”

“You didn’t have to go in separate cars; or did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

“He had somewhere else to go afterward.”

“He seems to have found a lot to do the past couple of days. Are we ever going to see him again?”

“You know he had to work a double shift yesterday.”

“So what’s he doing today?”

Richard shrugged. “I don’t know. Something with that reporter friend of his, I guess.”

“No good can come of that,” Brenda muttered.

Richard made no comment. Since Jeff was on the top of Brenda’s shit list, he decided to change the subject. “Da-Marr wants to borrow your car.”

“What for?”

“Evelyn wants him to cut the grass, but first he’s attempting to fix that old lawnmower in the garage.”

“The one we were going to throw out?”

He nodded.

Brenda shrugged. “I don’t care. My keys are hanging up on the rack in the kitchen. He’s welcome to them.” She looked over at him and scowled. “You don’t want him to drive my car?”

“Hey, it’s your car,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” she reaffirmed. “Why are you worried about it?”

“He doesn’t know the area. How’s he going to find a place that sells spark plugs?”

“Oh, I don’t know — the yellow pages perhaps?”

“Brenda!” It was unmistakably Evelyn. She pounded on the door. “It’s almost time for lunch.”

“I’ll be down in a few minutes,” Brenda called, and then sighed. “Maybe for dinner we could do take-out from Ramon’s.”

“And what if Evelyn doesn’t like hot spicy food?” Richard asked, and helped her to stand.

“I’ll broach the subject at lunch. Go on ahead, I’ll be right down,” she said, heading for the bathroom.

There hadn’t been a sign that lunch was in the offing when Richard had passed through the kitchen not ten minutes before, but when he returned the table was set and Evelyn had set out an assortment of cold cuts, bread, and condiments buffet style on the counter.

As Brenda had suggested, Da-Marr had his nose in the yellow pages. “Is Brenda gonna loan me her car?” he asked idly.

“Yeah. The keys are up on the rack.” He pointed.

Da-Marr looked up, and a sly, kind of creepy smile settled on his lips. “Does it got GPS?”

Richard nodded.

“Good.” He slammed the phone book shut and turned to grab a plate.

“No you don’t,” Evelyn chided. “Not until you wash those greasy hands. Do it now.”

“Yes, Aunt Evelyn,” Da-Marr muttered, and turned to the sink.

She turned her gaze on Richard. “You’re next.”

“Yes, Evelyn,” he said meekly, and waited his turn.

He would ask Ramón to use habanero or nagas chilies to spice up their dinner.

Betsy Ruth — get here fast and save us all!

After I left the marina, I had no intention of going back to Richard’s house where I might be forced to suffer through another meal with his houseguests. I had my own agenda to follow and drove right past LeBrun Road.

I’d never been inside this particular church some four blocks from Richard’s house, although I’d stood outside it for a time during Matt Sumner’s funeral some eighteen months before. This time there was no guard at the door, and I climbed the steps and walked right through the front entrance.

I gazed at the darkened, unfamiliar place, trying to get my bearings. Despite the empty pews, the space vibrated with a sense of sorrow. A funeral must have taken place earlier in the day.

Two confessional booths stood at the rear of the cavernous space. Not ornate, just brown boxes that reminded me of old telephone booths in seedy old hotels.

I pulled open the door, sat down on the slip of a bench. I didn’t see a silhouette on the other side of the screen.

I sat there for a long time, waiting, thinking — about the dreams, about the white light that wanted to suck me into the afterlife … something I didn’t even believe in. I thought about what I might say — how I’d phrase it — trying out different scenarios. At last, someone knocked on the door of my confessional.

“Do you need help, sir?”

I opened the door a crack wider and saw the dog collar of an elderly, white-haired priest. “Yeah, I came for confession.”

He laughed. “Son, you’re a decade or so too late for that.”

“How so?”

“We don’t do that anymore. Now we have what’s called the rite of reconciliation.”

“Isn’t that just my luck?” I asked. He stood there, expectantly, while I thought about it for a minute. “Father, could we pretend the church hasn’t moved on? I could use a little spiritual guidance.”

“It’s highly unusual — ” he started.

“Please, sir?”

The man frowned, the wrinkles on his face almost doubling. At last, he sighed. “Very well.” He closed the door of my cubicle and I heard him open the one next to me, sit down, and close the door.

The panel went up. It was show time.

“Bless me, father, for I have sinned.” My voice sounded rusty from lack of use. My mind scrambled for the words that were supposed to come next, but I drew a blank.

“How long has it been since your last confession?” prompted the disembodied voice from behind the screen.

I let out a breath. “Twenty-three years.”

Silence.

What the hell was I doing here? How could this priest help me? A man who’d lived a sheltered life away from the world’s temptations.

“Go on,” the voice said at last.

“I’m not sure why I came here. I’m not sure I believe. That I ever believed.”

“Perhaps you came to find your faith. In these troubled times, faith is tested on a daily basis.”

“I consider myself a good person, but bad things have happened to me.”

“Do you feel you’re being punished by God?”

“No.”
Yes.

“Something prompted you to come here. What was it?”

I closed my eyes, a swell of sorrow, fear, and revulsion that I’d been trying to keep at bay for days suddenly threatened to swamp me. “I nearly died a couple of days ago. The thought haunts me — scaring the — ” I’d been about to say shit. “Heck out of me.”

“I see,” the priest said in understanding. How often had he heard a tale like mine? “Something must weigh heavy on your soul.”

“I was mugged eighteen months ago. I almost died then, too. I don’t know who hurt me — I never will — but I can’t forgive, and I certainly will never forget what happened.”

“But forgiveness will lift the burden from your heart. Turn the other cheek, my son.”

“I can’t,” I said as the uncomfortable mix of emotions seemed to swell within my chest, “and I guess that’s the sin that weighs heavy on my soul.”

Suddenly there wasn’t enough air. The wooden panels seemed to be closing in on me.

“Thanks, Father,” I said, and opened the door of the confessional. I had to get the hell out of there.

“But we haven’t finished — ” he called after me.

Head bowed in shame, I stalked out of the church without taking in my surroundings, hurried down the concrete steps and down the walk before I turned the corner for the side street and got back in my car. I stuffed the key into the ignition, but didn’t start it. Instead, I stared at the dash.

It had been stupid to think a few Hail Marys could lift the burden from my soul.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

My cell phone rang. I yanked it out of my pocket and looked at the number on the small screen. Sam.

“Yeah?”

“Sorry to hear about Richard’s boat. I don’t have anything on the registration number yet, but I have set up an interview an hour from now. Are you available?”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah.” I’d already told Richard I’d be meeting Sam; now that statement was no longer a lie.

“Good.”

“Are you okay? You sound funny.”

“I’m fine.”

“Great. I’ll give you the address and you can meet me there. Bring your camera along. That way it’ll look like you’re a valued member of the team.”

“Are we a team?”

“We are for this.”

“Where are we going?”

“To Jack Morrow’s former residence. It’s on the foreclosure block, but I managed to sweet talk a lady at the bank into arranging a visit for me, and believe me, it wasn’t easy.”

“Will there be anything left for me to touch?”

“We’ll find out when we get there.”

He gave me the address. I knew the area, so I didn’t bother to write it down. “See you there in an hour,” I said and ended the call. I was glad Sam had contacted me. About then, I needed a major distraction. I didn’t want to dwell on how I’d made a fool of myself in the church. And I was still no closer to figuring out what it was I needed to get past the feeling of impending doom.

I sat, hands on the steering wheel, staring at nothing, thinking. What I should have done the night before was done a Google search on Jack Morrow, but by the time I’d gotten home from the bar, I’d been too wiped to do much more than check the fridge, find nothing of interest, and fall into bed.

I glanced at my watch. I still didn’t want to go home to my computer, but the library nearby did have computers for use by the public. It would only take me twenty minutes to get to Morrow’s house, which meant I had nearly forty minutes to do my research.

I plunked down at one of the computer carrels and logged into Google. Sure enough, most of the articles from the
Buffalo News
were retrievable at the click of a mouse. Even if Sam wasn’t interested in the murder, I was.

John Francis Morrow had been found shot to death in a leased late-model Lexus. The reporter, Alison Kiefer, had made of point of saying that his Jaguar had been repossessed and he was forced to drive a low-end luxury car to court. I was more surprised that his team of attorneys had let him loose without a leash.