Текст книги "Black River"

Автор книги: Tom Lowe

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

FORTY-FOUR

Dave Collins sat at the Tiki Bar, eating from two shrimp cocktails while sipping a Guinness and reading an article in Smithsonian Magazine. He wore a white Panama hat, Hawaiian floral print shirt outside his shorts. He glanced up as Kim walked behind the bar toward him. She said, “Must be a good story you’re reading. You’ve barely put a dent into your shrimp.”

Dave looked over the rims of his bifocals and nodded. “It’s an article about the pirate, Blackbeard. The man, more than any other, truly embodied what a real swashbuckling pirate was in that period.”

Kim laughed. “And now they’re lawyers and bankers.” Then she bit her lower lip, inhaled and folded her arms across her breasts. “And they’re stalkers.”

“Did he come to the Tiki Bar again?”

“No. But he left a second rose under my car windshield wipers, and he left another note. Typewritten, just like the first one.”

“What’d he write?”

Kim glanced around the bar, a family of four taking their seats at a far table, ceiling paddle fans circulating the warm air. “All he said was this: ‘Let us go home and cultivate our virtues.’ I can’t even get a restraining order against this guy because I can’t prove it’s him.”

“Have you told Sean?”

“Not yet. I just found the second rose this morning. Sean’s so wrapped up in his investigation that…” She blew out a deep breath.

“Kim, I have a feeling this is or will become part of his investigation.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not trying to frighten you, but what if the guy sending you these Confederate roses is the man who shot Jake Jordan on the movie set? And what if that painting Sean’s looking for is somehow a part of this puzzle?”

“I just got a chill and it’s eighty degrees at the marina.”

“Tell Sean immediately.” Dave opened his tablet. “Using the phrase and key words, Civil War, maybe we can find the original source of that last message that came with the rose.” He keyed in the words and grunted.

“What’s it say?”

Dave glanced up and then read from the screen. ‘Let us go home and cultivate our virtues’…it was quoted from Robert E. Lee speaking to some of his men after Lee surrendered to Grant in Appomattox, Virginia.”

Kim shook her head, pulling a strand of dark hair behind one ear. “What’s it mean? Why would some dysfunctional re-enactor write that and think I’d have any clue what it meant?

“Because he’s not speaking directly at you. He’s speaking to a fantasy of you.”

“Dave, that’s so crazy. Why me?”

“I think it’s because he’s the same guy, the same re-enactor, that Sean said had a fascination with the painting that was stolen from the historic plantation where they’re shooting the movie Black River. To some extent, you have a resemblance to the woman in the painting.”

Kim exhaled slowly. She reached under the bar and lifted up her purse. She glanced around the Tiki Bar, opened the purse and pulled out a .22 pistol. “I bought this. I’m taking shooting lessons at a gun range. I will use it if he comes near me.”

“Kim, put the gun away. You have every right to defend yourself. I’m hoping it won’t ever come to that.” Dave punched in numbers on his mobile phone. “It’s ringing.” He handed the phone to Kim. “Tell Sean what you told me. If you don’t I will.”

Kim reached for the phone and raised it to her ear.

* * *

A half hour later, Dave strolled down the perimeter dock, Panama hat just above his thick eyebrows, his copy of Smithsonian Magazine in one hand. He walked past a marine broker’s office, T-shirt shop, snow-cone stand, heading to the dock store to pay his boat slip rent. He watched a sixty-foot charter fishing boat, loaded with sunburned tourists, chug into the marina, seagulls squawking and following close behind. He saw two porpoises break the surface of Halifax River, a half mile upriver from Ponce Inlet and the ocean.

And he observed a man watching him.

A tad over forty. Dark hair. A Daytona Beach T-shirt tucked inside his khaki shorts. The man wore sunglasses, sat on a wooden bench, earbuds wedged in his ears, iPad on his lap. He wore boat shoes, an absence of hair near the area of legs where socks would cover, a suggestion he wore socks often.

Dave entered the marina store, paid his rent and exited. The man had moved from the bench. He was buying a snow cone. As Dave walked by the snow-cone stand, the man said, “Allister Hornsby sends his regards.”

Dave stopped, a shadow cast from the brim of his hat and darkening half of his face. “Raspberry is the flavor of the day. May I offer you one?”

“No thanks.”

The man nodded, paid for the snow cone, turned toward Dave and asked, “Mind if I stroll a bit with you?”

“Be my guest.”

“I’m Paul Wilson.”

“Well, you know who I am. Since Allister is an old friend of mine, let’s walk and talk.”

They headed back toward the Tiki Bar, a brown pelican sitting on a dock post, turning its head to watch them, the bird shifting weight from one webbed foot to the other. Dave said, “I detect no trace of an accent. Where were you educated?”

“In the states, Columbia. Back in the UK, Oxford. Allister sings your praises.”

“He’s a good man. Paul, I know why you are here. But why come to this marina?”

The man took a small bite from the snow-come, his eyes scanning the docked boats. “Because it appears to be the epicenter, if you will, to the situation facing the Prime Minister, and for that matter, the Royal Family.”

“What do you mean by epicenter?”

“The purported diamond was found near here. Our intel indicates the blackmailer is making his calls from the Central Florida area. And your friend, Sean O’Brien, a man with an interesting background, I might add – was seen on video throwing a reporter’s microphone across a car park lot when reporters got too close to the woman whose husband was killed on the movie set.”

“And you think all of that is related?”

“The widow’s husband mentioned the so-called Civil War contract on the video. We saw a close-up image of the diamond he and his crew discovered in the river. At this point, we believe the blackmailer has, or has access, to the diamond and the document. We’d like to recover both as quickly and as quietly as possible.”

“Do you have any indication who may be behind the threats?”

The man tossed his snow-cone into a trashcan, waited a moment while two bikers on custom Harley’s pulled into the Tiki Bar parking lot and turned off their engines. “No, not really. He’s smart. Knows encryption and hacking well. His accent, even though he speaks just above a whisper, is spot-on British. So it’s either a Brit or someone who really knows the nuances of the language.”

Dave leaned up against a dock railing. “How can I help you?”

“You can tell me what Sean O’Brien knows.”

“He’s walking down the dock. You can ask him yourself.”

FORTY-FIVE

Max scampered ahead of O’Brien, sniffing the dock posts, pausing to watch four white pelicans sail over the boats in the marina. She trotted to Dave. He leaned down, picking her up. “Miss Max, I saw ol’ Joe, the harbor cat stroll by here a half hour ago. So be on guard. Sean, I want you to meet Paul Wilson. Paul joins us from London and New York. He works for a former UK colleague of mine. Paul’s been assigned to seek out the person or persons responsible for the blackmail threat to Prime Minister Hannes and, ostensibly, the Royal Family.”

They shook hands and Wilson said, “The situation is escalating. The blackmailer has given Prime Minister Hannes a deadline. We believe the perpetrator is operating out of Central Florida. Please share with me anything you can. For example, the man who was killed on the movie set, Jack Jordan…I’d like to ask how you came to know the Jordan’s, or at least the widow?”

“There isn’t a lot to tell. I fell into this by default because I was trying to track down an old Civil War era painting for a client of mine.” O’Brien gave him a brief overview.

Wilson asked, “Did you find the painting?”

“Not yet.”

“If you find the diamond whilst you search for the painting, would you tell us?”

“Probably.”

Wilson said nothing for a moment, the sound of a sailboat halyard clanking against a mast in the breeze over the marina. “So at this moment, the document is still in Laura Jordan’s possession, correct?”

“Maybe not,” Dave said, scratching Max behind her ears. “A dear old friend of mine, a professor of America history at the University of Florida, is meeting with Laura to examine the document. I suspect he’ll probably borrow it for further study at the university’s lab. The Civil War is his specialty. He’s written many books on the subject. His name is Professor Ike Kirby. I’ll give you his contact information. As far as the document’s next destination, I suppose that will be up to Mrs. Jordan. Let’s hope she is benevolent and willing to part with it.”

Wilson smiled. “Indeed. Let us hope. In the meantime, I’d like to chat with the men on Jack Jordan’s documentary crew. Perhaps one of them has an insight.”

O’Brien reached in his wallet and removed a business card. “This is the contact information for Detective Dan Grant. He’s a friend of mine and is one of the lead investigators on the case. He has all the names, players and maybe suspects. He’s investigating a Civil War re-enactor named Silas Jackson. Tell Dan that I referred you to him, and he may be generous and share what he has thus far.”

Wilson took the card. “Thank you. However, since he’s a friend of yours, I can assume that he’s shared some, if not all, of this information with you. Is there anything more that you can tell me?”

“No.”

“All right. I’ll write my mobile number down. Should you or Dave think of something more, please ring me up.” Wilson looked around, spotting an all-weather plastic container mounted to the pier railing in front of a docked and tied-down charter fishing boat. He lifted one of the brochures from the box and wrote his number on the back of it, handing the brochure to Dave.

O’Brien said, “There is something I’d like to ask you.”

“Absolutely. Give it a go.”

“Is the diamond in the Crown Jewels the real one? I assume you’ve looked.”

Wilson said nothing for a moment, his eyes following a sailboat entering the pass. He glanced over to O’Brien. “Of course. The Koh-i-Noor has been in the same spot for one hundred and seventy years. It’s not going anywhere, especially back to India.”

“Then the only issue is the unproven Civil War contract. If the diamond Jack Jordan found in the river is a fake, not the legendary Koh-i-Noor, then the contract is presumably bogus as well. And if that’s the case, there’s nothing real and tangible the blackmailer has to use against the prime minister and the Royal Family.”

“Perhaps, however, it doesn’t work that way. Even a replica diamond, one so close in size and quality of the Koh-i-Noor, couldn’t have been proven, considering the Confederate resources during the time of the Civil War. So the unflattering contract may still have been written on that pretense. It’s my job to find it. The stone, even though it’s a replica, would simply be an added bonus.”

Dave set Max down and asked, “What’s your intel pointing toward?”

“The perpetrator may be a British agent who breached, and we haven’t discovered it yet. Or he could be an American who somehow managed to secure the prime minister’s private line and hack his phone too. Regardless, he’s fearless, devious and very dangerous. All of this is creating storm clouds over the UK and India, potentially causing a major rift and fallout between the two nations. The additional salt in a newly opened wound is that Civil War document. If it’s certified real, it means England provided financial support to the Confederate States of America during what was always believed to have been a uniquely American Civil War with no backing or funding from other nations.”

Dave said, “And all of this is happening while Prime Minister Hannes conducts a fierce campaign for reelection.”

“Indeed. Hence the added haste to make it all go away. Sean, you mentioned one name, the name of Silas Jackson. Contingent on what Detective Grant shares with me, perhaps this gent, Jackson, would be a good fellow to have a dialogue with as well.”

O’Brien said nothing for a few seconds. A sunburned fisherman, barefoot and in a baggy, wet swimsuit, scurried by carrying two large red snappers in either hand. He walked to a fish-cleaning station. O’Brien said, “You might want to speak with investigators before tracking down Jackson or any of the men in his group.”

“And why is that?”

“Because they’re more recidivists than re-enactors – meaning they still fight the Civil War and the War of Independence. They’re modern day militia with a grudge. If, by some very remote chance, the diamond is the real deal, and if Jackson has it, the money from a sale could help him finance a sizeable cache.”

“I doubt if he would have the means to orchestrate a blackmail essentially on the UK as a whole.”

Dave said, “But he could be working with someone who does.”

O’Brien nodded. “Find that person and you’ll most like find the blackmailer…and maybe the diamond. But I wouldn’t begin your hunt deep in the national forest.”

“In this job, Mr. O’Brien, I go wherever that hunt takes me. I follow the quarry. And I’ve done it all over the world.”

“Just make sure the quarry isn’t leading you into a world you can never leave.”

FORTY-SIX

Laura Jordan thought she heard the sound somewhere in her dreams. They were hostile dreams – nightmares. Images of her dead husband in the casket right before it was closed, his once handsome face vacant and gaunt, despite the black magic of the mortician. She could smell the flowers on both sides of the casket and hear the subdued sounds of weeping coming from behind her. Then there was the sound of someone scratching – a clawing noise – as if an animal was trapped inside her bedroom wall. Maybe Jack’s alive. Let him out!

“Jack!” she blurted in her sleep. Laura opened her eyes. She glanced at the red digital numbers on the bedside clock. 2:42 a.m. Her breathing was fast. Heart racing. She looked across the bedroom to the window. The full moon shown through the branches of a live oak tree in her back yard, shadows dancing from the moss-covered limbs moving behind the white drapes, like stick figure marionettes in the night breeze.

Laura heard her neighbor’s beagle bark three times. She sat up in bed, her sleep deprived mind feeling drugged from exhaustion. She stepped over to the drapes, slowly parted them less than two inches and looked out and across her back yard. The white moonlight turned her yard into a backdrop of grays and blacks, a moonscape devoid of colors lit by the sun. She saw a nighthawk dart over the tree line, and then a cloud rolled in front of the moon, casting the yard into black.

Laura crawled back into bed, pulling the blankets up to her chin. God, how I miss Jack, miss so many things I took for granted about him – the way he squeezed my hand before we fell asleep – times I’d reach over and touch him as he slept. I must get some rest.

She adjusted her pillow, turned away from the shadows pirouetting on the curtains, and closed her eyes. Laura felt lethargic from nights of sleep deprivation. The threats she had received, the feeling she was being followed, the questions Paula was asking – questions which had no rational answers that a child could understand. As her thoughts drifted like a boat without an anchor on a dark sea, the fog of sleep moved in on her perception. She thought she heard the neighbor’s beagle bark once more. A sharp, clipped bark. And then silence.

Somewhere in the darkness of a 4:00 a.m. morning, she felt the mattress move, slightly, as if Paula had crawled into bed. Laura reached for the opposite side of the bed, the side where Jack always slept. She touched the mattress, expecting to feel Paula’s small body. Nothing. Only the flat surface of her blanket and comforter. She slowly opened her eyes, her mind waterlogged in fatigue, unable to fully comprehend what she saw. Must be a bad dream.

No! Hell no!

A man stood in silhouette; the pale white curtains an eerie backdrop, shadows from oak limbs swaying behind him. He held a child in his arms. He whispered, “Do not scream if you want her to live. We mustn’t awaken your daughter, Laura.”

“Please…dear God. Please, don’t hurt her.” Laura sat up in bed, staring, her mind grasping for the right words. He cradled Paula, sleeping, in his arms. Her head rested her against his chest, her breathing slow and steady, a plush giraffe tucked under her chin. “Please, set Paula down.”

“All in good time,” the man’s voice was calm, a tone of irrelevance and absolute control. “You see, Laura, how easy it was for me to enter your home. Oh, the new alarm you had installed – it took me less than twenty-nine seconds to disarm it. How does it feel now knowing that you and little Paula are so unsafe, so unprotected? Rather unnerving, I would imagine.”

“What do you want?” Laura blinked back the horror in her eyes, the tears she wouldn’t allow to flow. “If you hurt my daughter—”

“What will you do, Laura? I have no intention of hurting Paula if you perform as I say. She will not have her throat slit like I had to do with the dog next door.”

“Dear God.” Laura held her hand to her mouth, nausea building in her stomach.

“Where is the Civil War contract? I know it’s here in your home. If you don’t want to bury your daughter like you did with your husband, show me the contract.”

“It’s not here! I swear. I don’t have it.”

“Where is it?”

“Gone. It’s being tested at the University of Florida.”

“Tested? Who is testing it?”

“A professor.”

“Don’t play games with me, Laura. I need a name, or I’m going to twist this little girl’s neck.”

“Kirby…Professor Ike Kirby. He’s in Gainesville.”

“Oh really? Gainesville, you say. Then why did I find a notepad in your kitchen that had Professor Kirby’s name and phone number on it and also a number for a hotel room at a place not far from here? I believe Kirby drives a ten-year-old Volvo…the same Volvo that was in your driveway a few hours earlier. And listening to your voice-mails on your mobile, I did hear the message from the good professor indicating he was staying at that hotel through tomorrow. So, just to clarify, Laura, you gave him the document, correct?”

Paula opened her eyes, the murkiness of sleep still in them. “Mommy…Mommy…”

“I’m here, baby, Mommy’s right here. Everything will be okay.”

“Answer me, Laura! I told you, it would take me just a split second to end this kid’s life.”

“Yes, that’s what he told me.”

The man set Paula on the bed and stepped back, his face and body still in deep silhouette. Laura reached for Paula, pulling her close, holding her head against her breasts, Laura’s hands covering Paula’s eyes.

“I’m leaving now, Laura. I hope what you told me is the truth – because, if you’re lying, I will return. And when I do, you can plan another funeral. The consolation is this: a smaller coffin is less expensive.” He stepped to the door and said, “Your mobile no longer functions. I see you do not have a landline. Don’t even try to run to the neighbors to make a call. They have a mess to clean up anyway. Remember how easy it was to visit you and Paula tonight. Think about that if you decide to call the police. So unsafe. So unprotected. Now, who are you going to call? No one, Laura. No one on earth can protect you.” He left, deftly closing the bedroom door.

Laura clutched Paula, the tears running down her cheeks spilling onto her daughter’s small shoulders…shoulders that now seemed as fragile as the wings of a sparrow.

FORTY-SEVEN

Jupiter rocked slightly in her slip when O’Brien’s phone vibrated on his nightstand. Even in his sleep, he heard it on the first buzz. He looked at the digital screen, not recognizing the number. O’Brien answered and sat up, moonlight spilling through the porthole in the master berth. Laura Jordan was crying so loud, he couldn’t make out all of her words. Between cries she blurted, “Sean! He was in my bedroom!”

“Laura…slow down. Take a breath. What happened?”

“A man broke into my home! He lifted Paula out of her bed. He laid her on my bed. Dear God.” She choked for a second. “He wanted the Civil War contract.”

“Are you hurt? Is Paula hurt?”

“No. But he slit the throat of the neighbor’s poor little dog. And he said he’d do the same to Paula if what I told him wasn’t true. I’m calling you from my neighbor’s phone because he smashed mine.”

“Have you called police?”

“I dialed nine-one-one before I called you. They’re on their way. Sean, I’m so scared…”

“Did you recognize this man?”

“No. It was too dark.”

“Could you recognize his voice if you heard it again?”

“I don’t know. He spoke in a whisper. Thank God Paula never really woke up through the entire thing. He said it took him less than twenty-nine seconds to disarm my alarm. And he said how does it feel now knowing that you and little Paula are so unsafe, so unprotected.”

“What’d he want? What did you tell him?”

“He wanted to know what I did with the Civil War contract. I gave it to Professor Kirby from the University of Florida.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“Yes. He was going to hurt Paula—”

“Does he know where the professor’s staying?”

“Yes. Professor Kirby is staying at a hotel. I’m afraid for him.”

“Which hotel, Laura?”

“The Hampton Inn on LaSalle. He said he was in room twenty-three. I have his card with his number.”

“Call him. Tell him to get out of the room. Tell him to go to a Waffle House or someplace well lighted. Then text his number to me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Tell the responding officers that you’re working with Detective Dan Grant in an on-going investigation. They’ll call him immediately. Hug Paula for me.” O’Brien disconnected, slipped on jeans, a dark shirt – untucked, and running shoes. He shoved his 9mm Glock under his belt in the small of his back.

Max lifted her head from beneath a small blanket in her oval dog bed on the floor. She stared at O’Brien, puzzled. He said, “Sit tight. Gotta run, literally. Dave or Nick will walk you.” He stepped out to the cockpit, locked the transom door and jogged quietly from Jupiter to Dave’s boat, Gibraltar. O’Brien used his palm to bang on Gibraltar’s sliding glass doors.

Nothing. No movement. O’Brien looked east across the dark marina, the horizon black, the smell of creosote seeping up from the dock pilings. He pulled out his phone and hit the speed dial button. Four rings and O’Brien whispered, “Dave pick up.”

“And good morning to you.” Dave’s voice was guttural, filtered through sleep-congested vocal cords.

“Open the door.”

“The door? What door? Where the hell are you at…at this hour in the morning?”

“I’m standing on your boat. Cockpit door. Ike Kirby’s in trouble.”

Dave disconnected and came up from the master berth like a hibernating bear awakened before spring, the left side of his face creased from sleep. He stood at the transom door in boxer shorts and a white T-shirt. He unlocked the door and snatched it open. “What that hell’s going on, Sean? Where’s Ike? What kind of trouble?”

“Maybe the worst. A man broke into Laura Jordan’s house. He threatened to kill her daughter if Laura didn’t give him the Civil War contract. She’d already given it to Ike.”

“And this perp knows where Ike’s staying, correct?”

“She had no choice but to tell him.”

“I understand.”

“See if you can reach Ike. I told Laura to call and warn him. Don’t know if she got through before the police arrived at her home. Call him, Dave. Tell him to get out of the room immediately. Walk Max for me, okay?” O’Brien turned to leave.

“Where are you going?”

“To the Hampton Inn. Room twenty-three. Ike’s room.” O’Brien jumped from Dave’s trawler onto the dock. He ran hard down the length of the pier toward the marina parking lot. His thoughts raced even faster. Could Laura or Dave reach Ike on the phone before the perp got there? Or was the man already there? Maybe he simply broke into the hotel room and stole the Civil War contract while Ike slept. No one hurt.

Maybe not.

O’Brien ran under the light of a full moon high above the Atlantic Ocean, a burst of lightning hanging for a second in the gut of dark clouds. Dawn would rise above the Atlantic in about two hours. But now there was more than enough time for a nocturnal predator to come from the cloak of darkness and slip away quietly like the whispered flight of a bat in the night sky.