"I find that hard to believe. Why not up in Maine? Portland would seem to be a logical choice.”
“True, but they’ve chosen this little stretch of seacoast to set up shop. Probably because you’re just a few minutes away from I-95. From here, you can be in Portland or Boston in an hour, in Hartford and New York City in a few hours more."
Looking down at the conference table, I could see what was depicted in the black-and-white photographs. "And this dead man, up at Samson Point, who was he working for?"
"A cartel out of Medellin, Colombia, where else. He was from Mexico City, was due to meet up with his local contact at the wildlife preserve. We were late in catching up, we thought they were meeting somewhere else. And damn it, we weren't even going to make an arrest. We were just going to observe their first meet."
"The first meet obviously didn't go too well, did it?"
She said, "And you accuse me of overusing understatements. Yeah, that was one royal screw-up, and we're not sure why. Best guess is that another cartel decided to move in on this little turf, and decided to eliminate a rival, before going up to the local people and offering a better deaL"
"And who's the local people?" I asked.
"Ah, that's where it gets tricky. From intelligence intercepts, all we know is that the local contact is someone associated with the Porter Naval Shipyard, someone nicknamed Whizzer."
"What do the shipyard folks tell you?"
"Not a thing," she said. "They have more than a thousand people working at the yard. What work we've been able to do there has been quite preliminary, by contacting some of the management at the yard. We've been hobbled by two things: First, if the word spreads throughout the shipyard that someone named Whizzer is being looked for, then that person will no doubt go to ground, never to be seen again. The second thing is that if word gets out that the DEA is looking into a drug ring involving workers who do maintenance work on nuclear-powered attack submarines, well, I'm sure your local papers would have a lot of fun with that kind of story."
"Without a doubt," I said. "And that's why you folks had the bright idea of bringing me aboard, right?”
“Maybe not a very bright idea, but the best we could do.” she said. "Like I said the other day, back at your house. You know the area. You can ask questions without people thinking you're part of law enforcement. You can go places we can't, because of your magazine job."
I looked at the table and the pile of materials, and I looked over at Doug, still leafing through his newspaper. Reeves leaned over. "What are you thinking?"
I Sighed. "I'm thinking that when I first came here, I was offered several positions as employment, besides the magazine job. One was running a grocery store. Day like today, I wished I had taken it."
Reeves said, "Lots of days like today, I wished I had never heard of the federal government. Here, a reminder of what we're up against."
She fanned across the black-and-white photographs of the dead man, and I looked at the photos, each freezing a point in time where the body of a dead man slowly cooled in his rented car in a state parking lot. Somehow, in the photographs he looked more real, as if the man I had seen the other night had been a fake. I went through each of them, looking at the closed eyes, the 'finely trimmed mustache, the bloodstream going down the front of his suit, the white shirt stained as well, no necktie. Each photograph was part of a series, and soon I got sick at looking at a dead man from a variety of angles.
"Name's Romero, correct?" I asked, putting the photos hack down on the table.
"Yes."
"When did he get to New Hampshire?"
She went to a legal pad, took another sip from her Diet Coke.
"Got into Manchester the same day he got killed. Arrived at three p.m. on a commuter flight from Boston. From Boston, we've traced him back to JFK in New York, and from there, back to Mexico City. Apparently traveled by himself, no checked luggage."
I pushed the photographs back to her. "When was the time of death?”
“Maybe an hour or so before he was discovered. No matter what the novels or TV shows say, it can be a hellish thing to set the time of death."
"All right," I said. "It takes about an hour, at the most, to get from Manchester to the seacoast. Any idea what he did or where he went during those extra hours?"
There was a soft rustle of the newspaper from Doug, and Reeves said, "No, though we've been quietly canvassing all of the bed-and-breakfasts, motels, and hotels in the area. You have any idea how many lodging establishments are in this part of the state?"
"Not a clue."
"Lots, believe me," she said. "So far, we've turned up nothing. Hell, for all we know, Romero might not have bothered with setting up a room reservation."
"And the rental car?"
"Under the assumed name of Smith, with a credit card issued by a Mexico City bank that's practically owned and operated by the narcos. We're also trying to backtrack his movements, to see if he communicated with anyone along the way. Still nothing."
One of the two side doors opened and Turner came in, his face looking excited. "Laura, we've got our hands on the Fehler debrief and --- "
Reeves turned and said, "Button it, Gus."
Gus stood still, now looking slightly humiliated. "You told me to come get you the minute it came in."
"Right," she said, "and I'm telling you I'm busy here. Look, I'll be there in a sec. Okay?"
He said nothing, his face red, almost matching the color of his hair, and he went back through the door. I caught a glimpse of another room, almost as large as this one, and also stuffed with tables, computer gear, and, in this case, two unmade beds. The door slammed shut --- a touch too hard, I thought --- and I looked back at Reeves. She said, "Gus is a bit eager, but then again, once we all were. Is there anything else?”
“Yeah,” I said. “This Whizzer character and whoever he represents. Are they local, or are they recent moves to the area?”
"Why do you ask?"
I thought about Felix and said, "I might have an ability to track him down if he's originally from Massachusetts, that's all."
She shook her head. "All we know is the name and the shipyard. I'd focus your attention on that, Lewis."
"Well, I'll also focus your attention on the fact this Romero character came to my home state and got killed for his troubles. That's the kind of thing that makes me sit up and take notice."
She played with the top of her Diet Coke can. "In our recent visit to your home, I was impressed with the number of firearms you possess."
"I'm an avid supporter of the Second Amendment."
"So it would seem. So I would think you'd have no problem defending yourself, if the need arose."
"Thanks for your confidence," I said. "I'd much rather have better intelligence on what I might be facing out there."
"Whatever we find out, we'll pass along to you. You can reach me right through the hotel's switchboard, or through the number on my business card. Either way, I'm eager to find out what you've learned."
I sensed I was being dismissed, so I got up. "Oh," she said.
"Three more things." She slid across a sheet of paper and tossed a pen after it. "Another non-disclosure form. I'm sure you'll understand."
"Oh, more than you'll know," I said, not even bothering to read the damn thing, just scrawling my signature on the bottom.
She reached over into her shoulder bag, pulled out something small and black and tossed it to me. I caught it with one hand. A pager.
"Just so that we can contact you when we need you."
I nodded, putted the pager in my coat pocket. Then an envelope came sliding over, bumping into the form I had just signed. 1 picked it up, peeked inside. Reeves said, "Like I promised A thousand dollars a day. There's your first check."
“Thanks," I said.
Making sure she was looking at me, I held the envelope in both hands, tore it in half, and then quarters, and I would have gone further except the scraps of paper were too thick. I let it all fall to the table, but a couple of torn pieces fluttered to the carpeted floor.
"Fair or foul," I said, "you've got me. Don't insult me by trying to make it better with something like this."
And when I walked out toward the door, I was sure that Doug, the burly man reading the
Wall Street Journal,
gave me a quick smile.
On the short walk back home, I stopped at the slight rise that marked the beginning of my driveway, and looked around. Behind me was the well-lit splendor of the Lafayette House, and I played a game for a few moments, trying to determine which lit window marked the suite of Laura Reeves and her merry band of pirates. I was pretty sure I had the right window fixed in my mind, and I spent another few moments thinking fun thoughts of what those burly young men back there would think if I came back to this place with my FN 8-mm rifle and started pumping rounds into those chosen windows.
A pleasant thought, though not very productive. I turned again and looked out to the dusk of the ocean swells. As the light faded, the ocean's color seemed to broaden and deepen. I shivered for a moment, then looked down to my house. There were lights on there as well. Reeves's word was at least good in this little respect.
I put my hands in my coat pocket, felt the foreign presence of the pager, and started trudging down the dirt driveway to the faint light from my home. On any other night, this picture would cheer me up and lighten my step, but not tonight. Not after I had been brutally shown how simple it would be to take everything away from me. I headed home, head down, just putting one step in front of another.
A couple of hours later I was sitting on my couch sipping a glass of red wine, looking into the dancing flames within my fireplace. Earlier I had eaten --- a ham-and-Comte-cheese omelet, nothing too fancy --- and for dessert I had cleaned and loaded my 9-mm Beretta. I thought about the dead man in the parking lot and Whizzer and Reeves and her crew, back there in the Lafayette House. Eating and cleaning up and working on my weapon had made my sour mood subside a bit, and the fact the power was on and there was a pile of cash in an envelope on my kitchen table --- exactly in the amount of $15,1l3.12 --- had helped as well. Plus, though I wouldn't admit it to Reeves or anyone else, a part of me that had enjoyed working in the shadows liked the sensation of being back on the job.
I took another sip of wine, leaned forward and tossed a dry piece of split maple onto the flames. The fire faded out for just a moment and then the flames roared up, fed by the new fuel. Still, something was bothering me. Something about the whole setup. Everything she had said and shown me had made sense, about who they were and what they were doing. Everything.
But what did she show you? a voice asked me. Any documents? Any supporting papers?
Nope. Just the photographs of the slain cartel rep, Romero.
Photographs.
I put the wineglass down on at side table and padded upstairs to my office in stocking-covered feet. In my office I switched on the overhead lights and tried not to blink at the neon-type glare coming from my new Apple computer. I rummaged around on my desk for a moment, until I located a certain notebook. I flipped back and reread the cryptic handwriting from a few days earlier, when I had left a crime scene.
There. I had described the driver (dark-skinned, middle thirties) and the wound (apparent entrance wound to the right temple) and what he was wearing (black suit coat, dress pants, white shirt, no tie and lapel button).
"Bingo," I whispered. I put the notebook down and slowly wont down to the first floor of my house. I remembered the lapel button, a yellow circle with a thick line down the middle. Partially obstructed by a streak of blood, I had noted it right away.
But it hadn't been in the photographs. Not at all.
So what happened to it? Fallen or moved? And if moved, was it moved because it was evidence, or because of something else?
Back to the couch I went, thankful for the warm fire and the taste and texture of the wine, for they would all help me sleep tonight, help me sleep when so many unanswered questions out there would try to keep me awake staring at the ceiling, listening to the steady boom of the waves coming in, one after another.
Chapter Seven
When spring had officially arrived to the New Hampshire seacoast a couple of weeks earlier, I had splurged and purchased a new gas grill for my outside deck. Now it was burning merrily along and I stood out in the cool early afternoon flipping two thick hamburgers, and then checked my watch. This grill was expensive but it was constant in the heat it produced, which meant making a perfect cheeseburger every time. I put a slice of cheddar cheese on each burger, and then closed the lid. There. In four minutes, lunch would be ready.
The door to the inside slid open, and Diane Woods poked her head out. "When are we eating?"
I looked at my watch. "In exactly three minutes and thirty seconds."
"How do you know?" she asked, smiling.
"Because this is a no-fail grill that produces perfect cheeseburgers, that's why."