Oil Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 4) (9 page)

“The bard?” asked Nina. “Did Shakespeare say that?”

Brewster Dale shook his head.

“My only true bard is Mr. Faulkner, Madame.”

Sandy smiled:

“Brewster is our scholar out here on Aquatica. He knows everything there is to know about William Faulkner.”

And Dale would have blushed, has his complexion not been so red as to render doing so impossible. Or at least undetectable.

“I flatter myself as being somewhat knowledgeable on the subject. At any rate though,
I’m sorry to have to bother both of you at what I realize must be an extremely difficult time. But we do have some rather tight security precautions on Aquatica.”

“What kind of precautions? Surely Edgar wasn’t stealing anything.”

“No, no, I’m absolutely certain that he wasn’t. A young man of sterling character, absolutely sterling.”

A shake of the head:

“But the problem is as follows:. we are using some very advanced techniques out here. I’m not sure whether you have ever heard of ‘industrial espionage?’”

“Only in books.”

“Well, the concept exists outside of books, too. There are a great many competing companies that would like to have a look inside what we’re doing out here. Companies in the oil industry. It has happened in the past that employees—especially engineers with advanced degrees—have downloaded advanced programs to personal computers, and sold the contents of those computers for a good deal of money. Not everyone has read Mr. Faulkner’s line: ‘
I say money has no value; it’s just the way you spend it.’ from
Intruder in the Dust
. So it is my job to make sure they have no way to spend it, and I accordingly
build in various mechanisms to protect us from this kind of thing, but even at that, we do not allow personal computers to leave Aquatica without some of our people checking them out first.”

“I see.”

“Once again, we should never wish to imply that young Edgar would do anything like I just described. But if he has a personal computer, I do need to check the files.”

“I understand.”

They entered the room.

There was a single, neatly made bed, and, bolted high against the wall, a television set.

Against one of the walls stood the six foot tall metal locker.

“When Edgar came home,” Nina said, “he left the key to his locker in his room. Hector gave it to me. I’ve got it here.”

“That’s good,” said Dale. “Otherwise we would have to break the lock and force the locker open. If you want to go ahead and open it…”

Nina stepped forward, taking the small, glistening key from her pocket.

Metal rasped against metal; there was a small ‘clang,’ and the door of the locker swung upon.

The locker was completely empty, except for two things: a small poster of a nude woman on an equally nude beach, and, lying on a shelf perhaps three feet off the floor, a black laptop computer.

“Well,” said Nina. “Edgar was a man.”

There were smiles throughout the room.

“Most lockers out here,” said Sandy, “have posters like that inside them. Except for the women’s lockers. We have pictures of naked men.”

More smiles.

Brewster Dale lifted the computer gently from the shelf, turned, took it to the writing desk that sat beneath a window, unwound a power cord, and plugged the prong into an outlet socket.

The screen lit up, flashing with a dozen or so icons.

“Can you get into Edgar’s files?” Nina asked.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“The young man was required to register his password.
 
I have it.”

His fingers rattled on the keys. Finally, he said:

“I want to change places here, so the light from the window comes in over my shoulder. There don’t seem to be too many files here. Maybe, if the rest of you want to pack the clothes and personal belongings, I can be done with my work in only a few minutes.”

He moved, then looked wistfully out of the window and quoted his favorite author again:

‘“Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar...” I do love the novel
Light in August.”

Nothing could follow that but some moments of silence.
Then the three of them set about packing.

It was, after a time, a kind of eerie scene. There was the purr of the computer, a barely audible scrabble of muffled voices from outside on the platform itself, and the hiss of various fabrics as they slid them out and folded them, then placed them neatly in the containers provided.

Nina was simultaneously a bit frightened, and a bit relieved.

What if Dale found something?

If anything truly incriminating to Louisiana Petroleum
were
on the computer, then surely the company would not allow the information off the rig.

They could simply wipe the files clean.

They could also accuse Edgar of—what had been the term?—industrial espionage.

And in so doing, they would have all the reason they needed to avoid paying the Ramirez family the thirty thousand dollars that had been promised them.

On the other hand, perhaps nothing was on the computer.

Then at least the matter would be over as far as she was concerned.

And over as far as her responsibility to the Ramirez family was concerned.

Hector had suspected something, had told her of his suspicions, and had asked for her help.

She was helping him.

If nothing was there…

…of course something might be there, for all she knew, and might be being erased even now.

This was all so far beyond her…

Dale, face intent, glowed in a combination of late morning sunlight and computer luminosity.

The screen was turned away, so that all she could see was the back of the computer.

And, looking up only occasionally, she kept on about her work.

All three of them did.

Hector’s face showed no emotion at all as he went about packing his dead brother’s belongings.

A white shirt here to be folded; a light blue shirt from a hanger on the other side of the closet; there, lying neatly folded in one of the drawers, a small stack of cloth handkerchiefs with the letters “ER” monogrammed in one of the corners.

Haunting work.

The fabric remains of young Edgar Ramirez, who, when he hung them here and folded them here and stacked them here and arranged them here…had no idea that within a matter of hours he would be dead.

The three of them and Dale finished, apparently, at the same time.

He closed the computer, looked up, and smiled:

“Nothing there out of the ordinary that I can see. Some video games. Nothing more. Are you finished with the packing?”

“Yes,” Nina said, nodding.

“Well. Do we need to call some people to help carry the boxes?”

Sandy answered:

“I think the four of us can get it all. So it’s all right for Nina and Hector to take the computer?”

Dale nodded:

“No problem at all as far as I can see. And I am sorry for having to do the check. It’s just that with technology this advanced…”

“We understand,” said Nina, quietly.

“And, madame—I must ask, although I believe I know the answer quite well…”

“Yes?”

“You are from Mississippi, are you not?”

“Yes, I am.”

He beamed:

‘“To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.’” I believe Mr. Faulkner wrote that in
The Mansion
.’ But at any rate, it has been a privilege.”

“A privilege for us, too, Mr. Dale.”

Sandy:

“Well. Are we ready?”

To which Hector replied:

“I must ask one thing.”

They all looked at him.

“What is it, Hector?” asked Sandy.

“It is the place of my brother. I would like to say a prayer for him. I and…his teacher. Ms. Bannister.”

“Would you like us to leave the two of you alone?”

He nodded:

“It would be better. If it could be done.”

“Certainly. We’ll just go down the hall. Take all the time you want.”

And they left.

Hector closed the door.

“You want to pray, Hector?” asked Nina.

But Hector merely shook his head.

“I have already prayed,” he said.

“Then what…”

“Look.”

He opened the locker door.

There was only the nude poster inside.

“You want to take the poster, Hector?”

He shook his head, while he carefully began to untape the poster.

“No. I want what is behind it.”

He pulled the poster carefully away from the wall behind it.

There, taped against the gray metal, was a flash disk.

“I want this.”

He peeled the clear tape off it, and handed it to Nina.

She put it in the pocket of her jump suit.

“You don’t get over on Ms. Bannister,” he said, quietly.

She shook her head:

“You don’t get over on Edgar, either,” she answered. “Or his brother.”

They left the room together.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
 
A LATE NIGHT PHONE CALL

Darkness came late to Bay St. Lucy in the summer months, there being no reason for it and no money to be earned by it.

The money lay in the glaring white and then golden-shadowed late afternoon hours, when vacationers gleefully romped on the beaches and sailed in the surf, eating ice cream cones and covering themselves with sand.

That was vacationers.

It was not Nina Bannister.

These particular golden hours, for her, consisted of a forty minute helicopter ride back from Aquatica, a meeting at the airport with Jackson Bennett and a van he had rented for the occasion, a half hour spent unloading Edgar Ramirez’ clothes and other possessions from the helicopter into the vehicle, and a ride across town to the Ramirez residence.

Hector was generally silent during this time.

So was the flash disc that felt like an overly thick fifty-cent piece in her pocket.

She wondered about what was on it.

She wondered also whether she should give it to Jackson, who was the wisest man she knew. But no. The arguments concerning the flash disk were exactly like those concerning the key to Edgar’s locker. Jackson, as an officer of the court, would have to turn any evidence—and this disk certainly would qualify as evidence—over to the police.

And that would constitute a problem, since the data on the disk had almost certainly been stolen from Louisiana Petroleum.

It was confidential.

And now she had it.

So she attempted to push these thoughts out of her mind, while she followed another theory.

Something was wrong, and it nagged at her.

It made her nag at Jackson during the drive across tow.

“Jackson, I assume no further progress has been made in this case.”

He shook his head and gripped the van’s steering wheel tighter.

“They don’t even think it is a ‘case.’ As far as anybody knows now, the kid just got drunk, fell into the coulee and drowned.”

“All right. You’ve talked to the police about this, haven’t you?”

“They’ve told me everything they’ve been able to learn.”

“All right; then let me ask you a question.”

“Fire away.”

“What did they find on the body?”

“What do you mean?”

“Personal effects. Things like that.”

“His wallet. Several keys. He had a wristwatch on.”

“Money in the wallet?”

“Yes, a little over fifty dollars. Nobody had touched it, which means robbery couldn’t have been the motive.”

“Credit cards in the wallet?”

“American Express. Visa.”

“And that’s all they found?”

“I think so.”

She nodded.

“Okay. Okay.”

She said nothing else.

But it didn’t make sense. And it nagged at her.

The nagging continued through the next hour, while they took Edgar’s things into the Ramirez home. There were a great many hugs during this procedure: Olivia Ramirez, Sonia, a few neighbors…

...what do you do with the clothes of your dead eldest son?

But Nina had a chance to do the one thing it seemed she had to do.

She had to look at Edgar’s room.

During all the coming and going, she asked Hector to show her the room, so that she could take into it a plastic crate filled with shirts and trousers.

It was much as she imagined it to be, and not much different from the room on Aquatica.

Spare, well kept.

With a bit of change sitting on the dresser, and a few pictures, a pair of nail clippers.

“Hector, tell me again: when did Edgar start making calls?”

“About nine o’clock, I think.”

“He didn’t complete any of the calls?”

“I don’t know. Maybe one or two. But he kept calling. He would kind of curse under his breath, and just whisper, ‘Be there.’ And then some bad words.”

“Right. And he left…”

“After midnight.”

“Having never gotten the person he was trying to call.”

“No.”

“Okay. Let me just look in here.”

The bathroom. Same story. A few clean towels, some toiletries.

Nothing else.

And nothing else on the body.

No. It didn’t make sense.

And she would have to make sense of it.

It was quite dark when she returned home.

She let herself in the front door, bent to pet Furl who was rubbing against her ankles, put her things away in the closet, went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of milk.

Then she returned to the living room, sat down in the chair facing her computer, slipped the disk into the side port, and turned the machine on.

It took some seconds to warm up.

Almost subconsciously she looked around, out the deck window, out the front window.

Nobody.

Come on, Nina, don’t be such a coward.

No one knows you have this thing.

At least, no one that you know of.

The icons on the glowing screen; that one. Scroll down. Click on ‘computer.’

Removable Disk (E);”

Click on it.

Wait.

Whirrr.

Then a screen full of data.

Incomprehensible charts, graphs, figures after figures after figures, a few of them highlighted in red, the rest inscrutable black against the white background of the screen. Occasional columns with equally inscrutable headings and apparent acronyms: LGTPR, HDS, CTPR, AMALOGUE, STPYS…

…and on, and on.

Finally she stood up.

What could she have expected?

If Edgar had found something, it was here. But it was in code. And no retired high school English teacher was about to unscramble it.

She turned off the computer, removed the disc, thought about putting it in the desk drawer, thought better of it, and slipped it back into her pants pocket.

Then she simply paced, while Furl watched her do so.

They found his wallet; they found his keys; they found his credit card; she saw his room…

It didn’t make sense.

And she had to make sense of it.

So she ferreted in her closet for raingear. And old tarpaulin of a slicker; thick yellow rubber boots that came up halfway to her knees.

She put these things on, went out the door, and down the stairs.

She unlocked her Vespa, started it, and chugged up the driveway toward Breakers Boulevard.

Two minutes driving.

Five minutes driving.

Tourists heading back to various motels and b&b’s, all of them wearing bathing suits or short-sleeved shirts.

While she looked like the ancient mariner.

There it was, up ahead, Girard Park.

She skirted it, then drove slowly past the apartment complex, turned once…

…and was now, once again, driving along the drainage canal..

There it was, fifty feet in front of her, now twenty.

And now she was there, where she had sighted the body.

She stopped the Vespa, took a flashlight from her raincoat pocket, flipped it on, and shined the beam down onto the murky stream of sewage that eddied below.

Nothing. Just small circles in the water that were the thick lips of feeding carp.

“Ok, Nina,” she told herself. “You’ve got to do this.”

And she did. There was no other explanation.

And so, inching backwards, on all fours, she made her way down the concrete sides of the canal.

Down, down…

Finally, she could feel as the surface of her vinyl boot entered the—water?

No, not water, but she had to pretend.

She straightened, then turned, and peered in the direction of the stream.

She could see it for approximately fifteen feet; then it entered a kind of tunnel, semicircular, impenetrable to her sight.

She made her way toward it.

Slosh. Slosh.

The smell had drifted up into her nostrils some time ago, but it was worsening now.

The thick gray fish moved away from her as she walked, but still nudged her ankles.

It was as though she was making her way through a herd of water cattle.

She had to bend to go into the tunnel, above which was a thick cement walkway.

The light of the flashlight bored its own tunnel into the blackness that stretched before her.

She scanned the stream, nothing.

And the sides of the rounded tunnel, nothing.

On and on.

Slosh. Slosh.

Far behind her, she could hear music coming from one of the apartments.

It had to be here.

There was no other explanation.

It might be useless.

And yet. And yet…

Think back, Nina. Think.

She had found the body at around six o’clock. But before that, around four o’clock, there had been a rain shower.

The coulee would have been up for a time, the stream of refuse running faster. It would possibly have…

There.

There!

Caught within a tangle of
 
bare tree limbs that had been washed down into the coulee and carried this far before sticking on something.

There, glowing incandescent blue in the yellow glow of the flashlight.

It was there, after all!

She reached down and wrapped her hand around it.

Smooth and glistening, it nestled into her palm.

It was a blob of inert plastic.

Having been here four days now, it might be useless.

But she had found it out of the water, which had carried it this far, and then had receded.

Also, this thing had been Edgar’s.

Edgar the engineer.

Who would have made it a point to own only the best of equipment.

Only the best computer.

And only the best cell phone.

The cell phone which he had been using all evening, trying to reach some unknown party.

The cell phone which he had—MUST have—carried with him when he left home, it being nowhere to be found in his room.

The cell phone which had not been found on his body.

And which, it must then follow as the night the day, have been jarred from his pockets during his fall…

…and carried away by the current.

So that the police did not find it.

But she had.

And she held it in her palm.

“Work,” she whispered.

“Work, damn you.”

She flipped it open.

The small window above the key pad lit up.

“Yes.”

There, just below the window, was a green button.