Starks' Reality (13 page)

~~**~~**~~

Heather placed a BLT on the bar.

Jake pulled the plate to him.
“Thank you.” The nervousness from earlier had faded. Maybe now he’d be able to focus.

Heather stood on the back side of the bar, eating her own sandwich. They spoke between bites.

He pushed a piece of tomato back between the toast slices. “Who else around here fishes oysters?”

She shrugged. “There are small operators in the bays north and south, but no one else in Port Boyer.”

“Anyone poised to move it?”

“Not that I know of.”

Jake ate, focusing on the polished bar surface. He couldn’t help feeling like he had missed something important.

“You still have that report on the oyster shells?”

Heather reached under the bar, pulled out the report, and handed it to him.

Jake read it again. “Ten percent of one-hundred and forty-five point four kilograms of mollusk shells were tested for the presence of—”

“Wait,” she said. “What was the weight?”

“One-hundred and forty-five point four kilograms.”

Heather frowned and stood on her toes to look at the report. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not?”

“Well, there’s about forty-five kilograms in a hundred pounds. That would be,” she narrowed her eyes, “a little over three-hundred and twenty pounds.”

“So?”

“Tran never had over a hundred pounds in a sack of oysters, and we only bought three sacks that day. Once you take out the oysters and juice, a sack of shells should way a lot less than a hundred pounds.”

Jake studied at the report again. “There were too many shells.”

Heather nodded.

“That means that someone added the tainted oysters here,” Jake said, “not out in the bay.” He looked up. “Do you
keep that storage room locked?”

“
Not when we’re open.”

“Come on.” He shoved the last bite of sandwich into his mouth and led the way out the back door. It had been too long to expect any real evidence, b
ut he had to look, just in case.

Unfinishe
d plywood walls lined the eight-by-twelve storage room. The right wall held the industrial-size upright cooler and a smaller freezer. Floor-to-ceiling shelves covered the left, neatly filled with cans, bottles, and dry goods. Against the back wall were several dozen burlap sacks, folded in half and stacked. The floor was spotless.

“You keep the place clean,” he said.

She stood behind him in the doorway. “That’s mostly Skeet.”

“What do you do with the burlap sacks?”

“We give them back to Tran.” She added quietly, “At least, we used to.”

Jake carefully checked the room, using the pocket flashlight on his key chain to look behind the cooler and in the corners. Nothing.

Slowly, he made his way outside, scanning the porch and then the steps. Still nothing out of the ordinary. A broom stood propped against the wall. In the yard, two chairs sat in front of an overturned washtub. The damp ground around the chairs held a few fish scales that had weathered the overnight storm, and no footprints.

Completing a circle, Jake walked along the edge of the porch. The building sat up high enough to provide a four-foot-high space under it, sheltering a ladder and two paint buckets. He found a half-empty bottle of bourbon behind one post.

He lifted the fifth with two fingers.

“That’s probably Coop’s,” Heather said. “I know he stashes bottles out here.”

Jake returned the bourbon to its hiding place.

Finally, he scan
ned the dark recesses under the building with his flashlight, and was about to give up when he saw something.

“What’s this?”

“What?” Heather crouched beside him.

Hoping he wouldn’t confront any spiders, Jake crawled the ten feet to a burlap sack and then backed out with it. He held it up by one corner.

“That’s not Tran’s,” Heather said. “He uses…used sacks with a blue star on them, not these black lines.”

The sack wasn’t old, either. It hadn’t had time to gather much dust.

“You have a plastic bag I can take?” he asked.

“Sure.”

Heather dashed up to the storage room, ran back down the steps with a garbage bag, and held it open while Jake lowered the sack into it. He took the plastic bag and twisted and knotted the top.

“I’ll run this into the lab this afternoon.”

“You’re going into Port O’Donald?” she asked.

He
nodded. “You want to tag along?”

“You think they’ll let me see Coop?”

“I’ll make sure they do.”

She smiled at him. “Thanks.”

Her smile turned him into a beached jellyfish.

Jake inhaled deeply as he started around the building. “I’ll pick you up in an hour. I’ve got a few things to do.”

After dropping the sack into the trunk, he drove to the station. Kenny, on duty, had just returned from making rounds, and Helen worked on the daily report. They both looked up when he walked in.

“Anything going on here?” Jake asked.

“Depends on what you call anything,” Helen said. “The coffee pot burned up after you left, and—”

She stopped to answer the phone.

Jake sat on the corner of Kenny’s desk. “Find out anything?”

“No, sir, no one noticed anything out of the ordinary.”

Jake nodded slowly. “You remember the accident call you took for Red Tuesday afternoon?”

“Yes, sir.” Kenny straightened in his chair. “I put a copy of the report on your desk.”

“Good report.” He tried to look nonchalant, but probably didn’t succeed. “Where was Red?”

“He was on the highway with the radar gun.”

“Why didn’t he take the call?”

“His radio wasn’t working.”

“You tried his phone?’

“Yes, sir.
It went straight to voicemail.”

Jake scrat
ched the back of his head. “Which car was he driving?”

“Number two.”

“Did he get the radio fixed?”

Kenny looked around, frowning slightly. “I don’t
know. He didn’t say anything about it.”

“You’re in number two. Have you had any radio problems today?”

“No, sir, not that I know of.”

Jake rose a
nd tried his best at a reassuring smile. “Okay, thanks.” He turned to Helen. “I’m going over to the sheriff’s office in a little while.”

“Okey dokey, Chief.” The woman swung her chair back to the computer terminal. “How’s the uniform fit?”

“Good.”

“Looks awfully spiffy,” she said.

Jake stared at the woman. Had she been talking to Tucker?

He
shook his head and stepped into his office.

~~**~~**~~

Jake showing up in his Trans Am surprised Heather, but didn’t disappoint her. She got in, closed the door, and looked at him. “Incognito?”

“More or less
.”

He pulled out slowly,
and picked up speed on the highway, definitely surpassing the limit.

Leather bucket seats offered luxurious comfort
compared to the front seat of the police car. She settled in and turned so she could study Jake without being obvious.

The uniform he wore included a
handgun, and dark sunglasses hid his eyes, giving him an aura of danger. He drove with his left hand at the bottom of the steering wheel and his right hand resting on the console between them. He had strong hands, but not overly rough or calloused, and he kept his nails neatly clipped.

She shuddered at the memory of the pleasure his hands had given her.

“Nice car,” she said.

He glanced at her. “Thanks.”

Heather looked out the passenger’s window, reminding herself that traveling to see her imprisoned father was not the right time to think about the man sitting beside her. Getting Coop out of jail was her first priority.

“Do you plan to tell the sheriff about the oysters?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“What about Coop? What happens next?”

“I don’t know, it depends. If they decide to charge him, he’ll be arraigned. Hopefully, bail won’t be too high so he can come home until the trial.”

“G
reat,” she said. “Another trial is just what he needs.”

“This is a lot more serious than simple assault, Heather.”

“I know.”

“But, if we’re lucky,
” he said, “we’ll have it all figured out before the trial starts.”

“Yeah.” Her spirits fell at the thought of depending on luck to keep her father from being locked away for life.

“Hey.” Jake reached over and squeezed her arm. “At least we’ve got brains on our side. That was great the way you caught the discrepancy with the oyster shells.”

She shrugged. “I have to do calculations like that all the time in engineering classes. It’s not a big deal.
I should have noticed it earlier.”

“You were the only one who
noticed it at all.”

Did he know how good it made her feel
when he complimented her?

T
hen the realization hit. “If I’d noticed it earlier, Tran wouldn’t have been accused of selling bad oysters and none of this would have happened.” Her chest tightened.

Ja
ke slid his hand down her arm, and held his hand open, palm up. Heather looked at him. His gaze moved back and forth between her and the road until she laced her fingers into his and he closed his hand around hers and smiled. The simple contact both exhilarated and reassured her.

“You have a nice bed,” he said.

His comment caught her off guard and her face warmed.

“I’d like to share it with you sometime when you’re awake.”

“
Jake
.”

“What?”

“Isn’t that a little…blunt?”

“I’m partial to
honest
.” He grinned wickedly. “And I
honestly
want to take you to bed.”

“Jake, please.”

“Hmm, no good? Maybe we should try the kitchen table first. Or I could just pull over here. There isn’t a lot of room,” he said, looking around, “but I’m sure we can figure something out.”

She slapped his shoulder with her free hand.

He chuckled. “All right, we’ll talk about it later.”

Heather shook her head as she turned to look out the window again. The most embarrassing part of the situation was that his teasing started her juices flowing. She knew that,
no matter where they were, he’d do things to her that had never been done before―lewd, forbidden things―and he’d make her feel great.

Oh, God, she was turning
into one of those slutty girls like the ones on campus who signed up for any class with a lot of guys in it.

Jake squeezed her hand gently.

Heather watched miles of marshy pastureland fly by as she squeezed back.

It seemed that every time she got too upset, he managed to pull her out of a tailspin.

A little voice in her head told her she was going to fall for Jake and end up paying for it. And the payment would be a lot higher than the one exacted for her involvement with Matt.

CHAPTER
10

H
eather couldn’t remember ever seeing Coop look so weak and helpless, not even in his worst drunken stupor. He sat in the chair across the table from her, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, his hair knotted and his eyes glassy. She wanted to hold his hand, but he kept his fingers laced together on the table. Even so, she could see the tremor.

“Can’t you remember anything?” she asked.
             

He shook his head slowly. “Sorry, Deuce, it’s all a blank.”

“Coop, please try.”

When he raised his gaze, the pain in his eyes shocked her
. She reached across the table and covered his hands with hers.

“I love you,” she said.

“Me, too,” he whispered.

Heather looked up at the pressure on her shoulder. Jake nodded toward the door. “Why don’t you wait for me outside?”

She stood, leaned over and kissed Coop’s bearded cheek. Then she hurried away from the table. As much as she didn’t want to, she looked back from the door. Jake had taken her seat and Coop wiped his eyes with his palms.

The air, artificially cooled, seemed too dry to get into her lungs, and it took the guard forever to open the door. Heather
rushed down the hall and to the front where she yanked off her visitor’s badge and dropped in on the desk as she ran past.

When she pushed open the outside door, humid heat swirled around her, allowing her to finally breathe. She stumbled several steps, gulping air, until she reached a wooden bench and dropped onto it.

The last time they’d been through this, Coop had been in the hospital. He’d looked horrendous with bruises on his face and bandages around his chest, but he’d been more controlled. Maybe the pain medication they’d given him had helped.

Now he looked vulnerable.

Would Jake really find a way to clear it all up? She hated the fact that she couldn’t do more.

~~**~~**~~

“Listen to me, Coop,” Jake said. “Relax. Close your eyes, and take a deep breath.”

He waited until Coop complied before continuing.

“Now, think back to Tuesday night. You were in the bar, and you decided to leave.”

Coop nodded slowly. “I got a beer out of the cooler and walked out the back door. I had a pint of Scotch with me.”

“Where did you go?”

“I walked to the beach and watched the moon for a while and drank the Scotch. I couldn’t stop thinking about Ed Taylor, and about how
Tran’s business would be ruined. Then I walked over to the dock to see what was going on.”

“Was there something going on?”

“I don’t think so, I don’t remember. There were lights out in the bay. From boats. I sat to watch them.”

“And?”

Coop shrugged.

“Had you taken your boat out?”

The man frowned, his eyes still closed. “I don’t think so. Maybe. I don’t know.”

Coop opened his eyes and dropped his head into his hands.

“Heather says you came in Wednesday morning with a cut on your head.”

“Yeah,” Coop said, straightening. He reached around to the back of his head and winced. “It still hurts.”

“May I look?”

Coop leaned forward and Jake examined the back of the man’s head until he found the wound. It wasn’t much of a cut. More of a bruise.

“Yep,” Jake said, “either you hit something hard, or someone hit you. Has anyone taken a look at it?”

“No.”

“I’ll talk to the sheriff. Just a few more questions. I found a burlap sack under the bar that’s marked with black stripes diagonally across the front. Do you know how it got there?”

“
It doesn’t sound familiar.”

“Is the bottle of bourbon under the back porch yours?”

Coop raised one shoulder. “Probably.”

“Do you know anyone besides the Johnsons who would want to take over Tran’s business?”

Coop shook his head.

It worried Jake that Coop seemed to have
so little concern for his own fate. Heather would be heartbroken if her father ended up locked away. Besides, Jake was fairly sure the man was innocent.

“Damn it, Coop, don’t give up. You have to try to remember what happened. You’re the only one who can.”

Coop pounded his fist on the table. “What if I did it? How the hell am I going to live with myself?”

The pain sliced through Jake as he remembered questioning himself the same way. “Look,” he said quietly, “whether you did it or not, you still have a daughter who needs you.”

“She’d be better off if I were gone. She’d be free to live her own life and not have to put up with her crazy old man.”

“No, Coop, she needs you because you’re her father. That’s more important than anything else.”

Coop sighed. “God, I hate being so screwed up.”

“
Do you hate it enough to do something about it?”

Coop’s gaze
rose to Jake’s.

Jake recognized the apprehension. “I’ll talk to you later. Hang in there.”

Then he got up and left Coop to consider the question for himself. It was a tough one to answer.

Jake stopped in to talk to Evans about sending the doctor over to examine the wound on Coop’s head. Down the hall at the Clerk’s office, he checked on the status of the case.

He was headed out to find Heather when a familiar voice stopped him.

“Starks! How’s it going?” Deputy Sagin shook his hand.
“You talk to Mr. Cooper this morning?”

Jake nodded.
“Yeah.”

“Told me he couldn’t remember a thing. Is any of it coming back to him?”

“No, and I’m not holding out a lot of hope.”

“Well, you never know.”

“True.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him as much as I can, and let you know if anything changes.”

Jake shook the deputy’s hand again. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

Continuing on his original path, he found Heather lying
on a bench in front of the sheriff’s office, her knees up, her hands crossed over her stomach, and her eyes closed. Jake sat at her feet.

She looked up at him.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Sure. Just
great
.”

“Yeah, I know.”

She sat up, close but not touching him. “What if we can’t find the real killer?”

“The evidence against Coop is circumstantial. If we go through it methodically, I think we’ll find enough to clear him.”

“You
think
?”

“Heather, I’m not going to lie to you and guarantee everything will work out like it should. Sometimes it doesn’t. But I promise to do my best to help. That’s all I can do.”

She studied his eyes intently, and then nodded. “Okay.”

“
I checked the calendar. Coop’s arraignment is scheduled for tomorrow at two.”

“
Will they let him out after that?”

“The DA
will request bail for something this serious.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“There’s a bail bondsman a block away. I have a little cash saved up. I can help you pay for it.”

She looked away, hiding her face from him. “Thank you.
”

Jake grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come on, we have work to do.”

~~**~~**~~

“Turn left here.” Heather pointed.

Jake steered the Trans Am along the winding dirt road that led to the Johnsons’ house. A faded sign declared the p
lace
Johnson and Sons Charter
. Two cars, the original colors of which were not discernible, helped litter the yard, along with assorted barrels, boxes, and boat parts.

“How do they get business?”

Heather shrugged. “I don’t know that they do.”

“It doesn’t look like anyone’s around.”

“As far as I know, they don’t have any relatives. And I can’t imagine they have many friends.”

Jake turned
off the car and opened his door. “Stay here,” he said. “If you see anyone coming, tap the horn once.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m just going to take a look around.”

“Don’t you need a warrant or something?”

He raised one eyebrow, then got out and closed the car door.

A fly buzzed against the inside of the windshield and birds chirped as Jake
walked toward the back of the house. He moved carefully, checking his surroundings like a cat on the prowl, and continued around behind the building.

Heather’s
heart sped up steadily while she waited for him to reappear. She leaned out the window, watching the last place she’d seen him and listening. Crickets added their songs to the birds, and cars hummed on the distant highway. Sunshine filled the air with the smell of warm grass and mud.

“You’re not much of a lookout.”

She jumped when Jake spoke from right behind her.

He walked around and climbed in the car, shaking his head.

“You scared me half to death,” she said, clutching her chest. “I wasn’t expecting you to come around the front.”

“First rule of police work: always expect the unexpected.”

“I have no desire to be a cop.”

He grinned. “It applies to other things, too.”

Heather took a deep breath as Jake turned the car around. She had a fairly good idea what
other things
he meant.

They drove past the bar without stopping.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“To the dock. The Johnsons must have a boat.”

“They do.”

“I was hoping you’d help me find it. Then I’ll drop you off.”

Heather wasn’t about to admit to Jake how much she liked being with him.

He parked the car at the public dock and they followed the catwalk around to the tiny marina. Three piers held a dozen boats, mostly the small outboard variety.

“That’s it,” she said, pointing.

The Johnsons had a retired shrimper—minus the nets—rigged for fishing and badly in need of paint.

Jake glanced around before he turned to her. “You don’t see this.”

She nodded.

He hopped into the boat and walked around the deck, checking under and around and behind everything. Just before he completed the search, he leaned over, lifted a burlap sack, and held it up. It sported diagonal black lines.

“
Yes
,” she whispered.

Jake returned the sack and vaulted onto the dock. He followed Heather back to the car.

“What I’m not sure of,” he said, as they climbed in, “is why they didn’t take the evidence away.”

She hadn’t thought about that. “Maybe they wanted to make sure they weren’t caught with it.”

“Maybe.”

Heather smiled to herself. She was beginning to understand the tone of Jake’s voice. He believed she was wrong.

~~**~~**~~

Jake followed Heather through the back door into Coop
’s Place where the heavenly aroma of simmering gumbo filled the main room.

“I’ll tell Skeet we’re here,” she said.

He followed her into the kitchen and walked around her when she stopped.

He’d only caught a glimpse of Skeet Trahan before; the ex-con did a good job of staying out of sight when the squad car appeared. Skeet looked up from the stove, and surprise registered in his eyes for a split second.

“Mr. Trahan,” Jake said, “we haven’t met. I’m Chief Starks.”

“Yeah, I know,” the man said, stirring the pot of bubbling stew.

“I’d like to ask you a question.”

When Skeet didn’t answer, Jake continued. “Friday night, when the Taylors got sick, you were here?”

Skeet glared. “Yeah.”

“Did you see anything or anyone out back any time after you arrived?”

Skeet Trahan stood defiantly in front of his gumbo, his dark eyes burning with intense hatred.

Jake turned to Heather. “Will you give us a minute?”

She frowned, looked at Skeet and back at Jake. Then she turned and left.

“Look, Trahan, I’ve seen your record. I know you’ve been inside, and I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned, you stay out of trouble and we won’t ha
ve to butt heads. And trust me I’ve got one hell of a hard head.”

Jake stepped closer, leaned back against the sink, and folded his arms.

“Not many people would give you a job around here, I imagine. You must be grateful to Coop.”

Skeet glanced up for a moment, his expression softening slightly.

Jake continued. “I don’t believe Coop killed Tran. Do you?”