The Whale's Footprints - Rick Boyer (27 page)

The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

"That's it! Joe, it fits perfectly. These labs
and the boats they use are the most respected things around here. You
know the Coast Guard wouldn't stop and search one of those vessels.
Never."

Joe swirled the beer around slowly in his glass and
smiled. He was pleased with himself.

"
Yeah, Doc. It does fit together nicely. Not bad
for a cop on vacation, eh?"

"But it still leaves the question of the
murderer."

"Okay, the mob wants Andy out, so they either
have Hartzell do it, or else find out from somebody like Hartzell how
to do it . . ."

I felt we were getting off base there, as if riding a
crosscurrent. I shook my head.

"One thing the mob connection could explain is
the break-ins," he continued. "If Andy held out on them,
you know, kept part of the shipment for himself to sell, then they'd
kill him and go looking for the stuff."

"That fits. That and the part about smuggling.
But the method employed . . . that does not fit."

"Let's go eat, and think about it some more."

"How's Keegan coming with Hartzell up in Boston?
You heard anything?"

"Not lately. But if Hartzell's a washout, we'll
tell Paul about this mob theory. Hey, let's go up to the Coonamessett
for dinner, huh?"
 

TWENTY

SEVERAL DAYS LATER, the last day of August and twenty
days after Andrew Cunningham was found dead in our cottage, Mary,
Joe, Moe, and the boys and I were all at sea. In more ways than one,
I suppose. We were aboard the MBL's collecting vessel the
Gemma
,
the forty-foot trawler skippered by Wayland Smith. We were collecting
all right, but sounds, not creatures. In the boat's high, broad bow
stood Smitty and Moe, leaning over the hydromike that had been
lowered into the sea to record the songs of the humpback whale.

Jack sat in the wheelhouse hunched over a console
filled with electronic gear. He peered intently at an oscilloscope as
the sounds picked up by the mike made sine curves and pairs of
snaking, wavy lines. Wearing earphones, he fiddled with knobs and
dials while his brother Tony minded the helm, keeping us at a steady
four knots.

PPHHEEEEEWWWWW!

"Thar she blows . . . ," said Tony softly.

Thirty feet off our port bow three whales surfaced,
spewing big clouds of vapor. Then they began their slow forward
somersault back into the deep. Farther off, another whale smacked its
tail down flat onto the surface; it sounded like a rifle shot. Sheets
of water shot out sideways from under the big flukes. We'd been out
three hours, and would shortly head for home. We had collected a lot
of whale songs, those curious clicks, grunts, squeaks, and low,
bass-fiddle groans that were so strange and haunting.

But Joe and Mary weren't talking about the whales;
they were discussing a subject more dear to their hearts.

"
And the part where she's sold as a slave girl
is great," said Joe. "I really hate that what's-his-name—"

"Raoul Estevez?"

"Yeah. That guy. Wow Mary! You've really got
some great characters going."

"Charlie says it's too shallow and sex-ridden."

"What does he know? Doc, what do you know?"

"Nothing, I guess. What's Moe's opinion?"

"He loves it, Charlie. Loves it."

I shrugged my shoulders and looked straight down.
Twenty feet below the boat were a mother whale and her calf. The calf
was swimming along her left flank, never leaving her side, exactly
like a heeling dog. The calf was small, perhaps twenty-some feet in
length. I called attention to them, and everybody looked over the
rail at the touching sight. Jack said the little tyke was growing,
though—gaining weight at the rate of a hundred pounds a day. When
they disappeared, diving down into the shimmering green, getting
smaller and smaller and smaller until at last they were out of sight,
Joe stepped back from the rail and lighted a cigarette, taking out
his ever-present notebook and flipping through the pages.

"
Can we talk?" he said in a low voice.
"I've got some stuff to tell you, and with all the rushing
around I haven't had a chance until now. Okay?" We went and sat
down on a bench next to the engine-room bulkhead.

"Got some more stuff on Slinky," he said.
"He's older than he looks. Twenty-eight. Divorced; no kids.
Lives in Pawtucket. Five priors, mostly stuff on the low end, and
nothing that stuck. Not employed . . . by anything straight, that is.
Claims he's in the construction business. In the organization he
might be what we'd call a junior vice president. What he's been
brought in for is strong-arm extortion, loan sharking, gambling,
bookmaking, small-time stuff. So far, there's nothing to indicate
he's into drug dealing. If he was, then the DEA could come down on
him."

"Seems to me you're going to have a hard time
getting anything on him."

"With connected guys like this, even the
low-level ones, it's damn hard. They can come up with witnesses, pay
off or threaten prosecutors, you name it. The only success we've had,
especially at the federal level, is making deals with stoolies."

"The Witness Protection Program?"

"Right. The feds wait till they've got a live
one in the net . . . a high-ranking mobster who's nailed dead to
rights and faces life without parole. They cut a deal with the guy:
we'll let you entirely off the hook if you testify against the mob.
In return, in addition to letting you walk, we'll set you up under
different cover and protect you for life."

"That really works, doesn't it?"

"Oh sure, if you've got the guy nailed. But I
don't think we're ever going to get enough on Falcone—a.k.a.
Slinky—to nail him to the barn door."

"So what you're saying is, chances are he'll
walk anyway."

"Unfortunately, yes. That's what it comes down
to."

"Well, too bad. Because I really think that
drug-running scenario of yours makes sense. It explains just about
everything."

"Yeah. I heard from Paul Keegan this morning,
too. He admitted that things up in Boston were looking bleak.
Hartzell remains a suspect, but Paul will come back here without an
indictment unless something dramatic unravels."

I said nothing, but my gaze fell. If Hartzell got out
of the hot seat, I knew Jack would be back in.

just then an enormous humpback, not more than twenty
yards off our beam, hunched its back up in a tight curl, rolled
forward, and sounded, leaving behind its curious "footprint"
of swirling water. I pointed at the whirlpool, the inverted cone of
swirling brine and foam.

"Know what that is?" I asked Joe. "That's
the whale's footprint."

He leaned over the rail skeptically. "The what?"

"The whale's footprint. It's the whale's calling
card he leaves when he sounds."

"Hmmmph!" he muttered, blowing smoke into
the sea breeze. There was a few seconds of silence while Joe smoked,
watching the footprint on the water's surface disperse and fade.

"
Some footprint, Doc," he said. "Now
you see it, now you don't.

That's what this Cunningham case reminds me of: the
friggin' whale's footprints. Leads keep appearing and then
disappearing. Driving us nuts. I'm going inside."

"Why?"

"To read the next chapter of
Hills
of Gold, Men of Bronze
. Why else?"

"You've gotta be kidding. You'd rather do that
than witness this spectacle?"

"Yep. That book's great. Can't put it down."

"Thanks, Joey," cooed Mary, who'd overheard
the tail end of the conversation. "By the way, I'm thinking of
changing the title. I'm thinking of calling it
The
Men
."

"The men what?"

"Just The Men. Whadduyuh think, Joey?"

"Great."

"Please," I said. "How about
Maria
Makes Matamoros
? You know, kinda like
Debbie
Does Dallas
?"

She told me my humor was not appreciated, and they
both went below to discuss the magnum opus—or is it magnus opus?
Isn't that second declension?
 

TWENTY-ONE

OUR VACATION was due to end with the arrival of
September, which rolled in with some surprising hot and muggy weather
down on the Cape. This unusual heat was another incentive to return
to chez Adams in Concord, where at least there was air conditioning.
So on Saturday, September 2, we called it quits and headed back
toward Boston after breakfast. Mary and I were in her car followed by
Joe in his cruiser. Moe, driving his twelve-year-old lime green
Dodge, brought up the rear. Moe had made a rather mysterious trip
down to Woods Hole and back early in the day, and it had me thinking.
I had a theory about why he'd gone down there. But what Joe had to
tell us when we stopped for coffee in Wareham drove it from my mind
completely.

Just before we left, I phoned Keegan at his office in
Hyannis," said Joe, lighting a cigarette and sipping from the
steaming cup. Mary, Moe, and I leaned forward intently. "The
D.A.'s letting Hartzell walk. Sorry, but that's it. No indictment,
mainly because there's no hard evidence. They admit he appears to be
unstable—that's the word they're using—but the fact that he was
away on a three-day conference with Art Hagstrom, the MBL director,
right when your cottage was burgled didn't help the case at all—"

"What?"

"Apparently, Hartzell was one of the people who
went with Hagstrom down to the jersey shore. Weren't you the one who
told me Art Hagstrom was down there?"

"Good God," whispered Mary. "He went
down there with Art."

I recalled Art mentioning his imminent departure in
our dormitory room. He said he was going down there with 'several
other scientists.' And now it turned out Hartzell was one of them,
which meant that Hartzell had not—couldn't have—ransacked the
Breakers. He was in the clear and could not be detained any longer.

"What's Keegan say about all this?" I said,
trying to hide my disappointment and fear.

"Not much, obviously. Now he's got his ass in a
sling with the brass for moving too fast; he should've checked
Hartzell's whereabouts more carefully before he collared him. And Art
Hagstrom's mad, too. This is off the record: Art's mad because he
wanted Hartzell removed from the MBL's roster of visiting fellows. He
can't stand him, and he told Keegan that everyone else in Woods Hole
is fed up with his temper tantrums and paranoia. It's ironic that it
was Art's own statement that let the air right out of the case."
 
"I must say it doesn't surprise me
much," I said. "What's the latest development on Slinky and
the Rhode Island police?"

"I'll find out more next week. I wouldn't be
surprised if we have a joint meeting with the state guys from Rhode
Island about Falcone. They want to use Andy's death as another means
of leverage against him and the families. They're thinking if they
throw enough stuff at him, maybe they can shake something loose."

"Eddie didn't kill anybody," said Mary.
"You guys are looking in the wrong direction there. Trust me."

Joe and I were not pleased to hear Mary defending
Slinky but we just eyed each other, neither of us in the mood to
cross swords with her on the subject. We arrived home at one-thirty.
Mary and I made a cold lobster salad, which we served in heated sub
rolls along with chilled white grapes and a hunk of Vermont Cheddar.
Before lunch, I noticed Moe slip away and walk back to the driveway.
The second time he excused himself, I went into the living room and
watched through the window. I saw him go to his car, lift the trunk
carefully, and peer inside. I had an ominous hunch what was in the
trunk. My suspicions  were heightened when I saw him take a
coiled electric cord and snake it from the trunk over to our outdoor
wall socket on the side of the house.

Sneaking out of the house and around the lawn, I
crept up behind him and peered over his shoulder. I spied three big
cardboard cartons resting in the trunk. Each was filled with a big
plastic bag. The tops of the bags were gathered with wound rubber
bands and plastic tubes snaked into each bag. I heard the purring of
an electric pump and the muted sounds of bubbling. Moe didn't know I
was behind him.

"We're almost home, kids," he whispered
lovingly to the cartons. "Then Daddy's gonna give you all a big
lunch. Yeah . . . "

You tell me this guy's not wacko? You wonder why he's
allowed to practice psychiatry? It's possibly crossed your mind?

"Okay Moe, what the hell's this?" I said.
 
He spun around fast, gulped, and tried to
close the trunk. But the extension cord was in the way and it
wouldn't shut. I stepped around him and raised the lid, then leaned
over the nearest carton and peered into the cloudy bag. A pair of
hideous beady eyes glared back. Fanning around the eyes were waving
fins and speckled, blotchy tendrils of undulating flesh. Spare me. I
turned and looked at him. He had on his bird-of-paradise outfit
again: Roman sandals, Day-Glo Hawaiian shirt, yellow shorts.
Unbelievable.