Two Down (12 page)

E
ven though the autumn days were growing shorter, Rosco believed dawn was now purposely arriving earlier each morning. Sunlight radiated through his bedroom blinds long before the clock radio produced its annoying and persistent buzz. Friday was no different; at six forty-five
A
.
M
., when the alarm finally sounded, Rosco was already awake, sitting up, staring at the blinds and wondering what kind of sick mind would create the puzzles Belle had received.

He reached over and tapped the clock’s Off button, causing the radio to switch to the
Imus in the Morning
program. The I-Man and his merry band of jesters were laughing so raucously at some lascivious witticism that Rosco could barely make out a word of conversation. On this particular day, Rosco found the gang a little too happy for his liking. He dispensed with Don, Charles, Fred, Bernard, and Company and walked grimly into the bathroom to shave and shower. He wasn’t looking forward to his
meeting with Tom Pepper. After perusing the inflatable tender the previous day, Rosco felt that he, and the world, had let Tom Pepper down.

At seven-thirty
A
.
M
., Anson opened the front door of the Pepper estate. “Ahh . . . Mr. Polycrates . . . It’s good to see you again. I trust you had no trouble forcing your way through our media encampment?”

“I think they recognize me as a nonplayer.”

Anson smiled in a formal fashion that made him look both uncomfortable and deceitful. Again, Rosco was struck by the way the man’s appearance belied his position. Whatever Anson had been before his arrival in the Pepper household, it hadn’t been a butler. “A nonplayer,” he echoed. “Yes, sir . . .” Then he added a hasty: “Please come in. Mr. Pepper is expecting you.”

“Okay, okay,” Tom barked from somewhere in the invisible interior. “Take the man’s jacket, Anson . . . Rosco, I want to see you in my office . . .” His voice disappeared, leaving Anson holding the offending jacket while Rosco found his way to the command center on his own.

The moment the detective entered the room, Tom’s forceful speech resumed: “I appreciate the hell out of you coming so early, Rosco. I’ve got a heavy workload today. Sit down.”

Rosco remained standing. “I’m all right.”

“Suit yourself. So . . . what have you got for me?”

“Well, nothing more than what you’ve heard from the Coast Guard . . . They’ve suspended their search. There’s an oil tanker—”

“I know all about the Japanese sailors. Cigar?” Tom opened a humidor and offered one to Rosco.

“No thanks.”

“The only way to start a day.” He lit up, inhaled, and
leaned back in his chair. “You know, Rosco, I can’t help but laugh at the irony of this situation. My old man was stationed at Pearl Harbor in December of forty-one. He was lucky to come away with his skin . . . Now our guys are ditching my wife in order to save a bunch of sailors from Yokohama.” Pepper pronounced the word “yoo-koo-haa-maa” with a long sarcastic emphasis on the final diphthong.

Rosco felt his temperature rising; he was well acquainted with prejudice, but he held his temper in check. “The Coast Guard has been examining all facets of the situation, Mr. Pepper. I realize it’s not a pleasant thought, but in reality no one could survive for ninety-six hours in Buzzards Bay. From a tactical standpoint—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know . . . My Genie’s gone. No doubt about it.” Tom took a long hard pull from his cigar. “End of chapter. End of story. . .” Pepper inhaled again. “My frankness probably astonishes you, doesn’t it? Look, I’ve had a night to sleep on this thing—or not sleep, as the case may be. I know a great deal about these past ninety-six hours. I’ve been personally involved with each one of those nasty buggers . . .

“But I’m a businessman, Rosco. The clock is either my biggest enemy, or my savior. This week it beat me—but good . . .However, I’ve had time to think things through . . . Think about what Genie would have wanted . . . What she would have
insisted
on. You didn’t know my wife, but she was one hell of a lady . . . a racing skipper . . . You know that? . . . A real gutsy gal and all-around class act . . . Jamaica, too—” Pepper’s voice broke. After a long, and icily quiet moment, he regained his eerie composure.

“I’m not a whiner, Rosco. I’m a self-made man, and I’ve never asked anyone for sympathy or help . . . and I’m not
one of those damn depression addicts—popping pills and feeling sorry for myself . . . Genie’s dead. Nothing I can do will bring her back—”

Rosco started to interrupt with words of consolation, but Pepper overrode him:

“However, I can make whoever was responsible pay.
Big time
.” His left fist slammed the desktop and remained clenched there while his right hand continued to grip the cigar. Rosco was surprised the hand-rolled cylinder didn’t snap in two. “So I’m asking myself . . . what’s the next step? Where do we go from here? What would
Genie
have asked me to do?”

Rosco recognized these as questions he wasn’t expected, or encouraged, to answer. He gave his shoulders a slight shrug while watching Tom suddenly stab the tip of his cigar into an etched crystal ashtray on the center of his desk. Although Pepper appeared cognizant, even resigned, to the loss of his wife, Rosco found his behavior alarming—the antithesis of the man ranting about the ineptness of the Coast Guard and the intrusiveness of the media two days earlier. Rosco began to wonder how long this pseudo calm would last; in his experience, grief always took its toll. Sooner or later Tom’s tough facade would crumble. What would replace it, the detective didn’t know.

Pepper continued. “So what we do is this: We take that SOB Ed Colberg to the cleaners. I don’t care what it costs or how much time it takes; he’s going to pay and pay big. I want him out of business. I want his inventory seized, and I want him in jail. And then I want the damn media crawling down his throat. I want him to burn . . . What have the police found?”

“Why don’t we discuss this later, Mr. Pepper? After you’ve had time to adjust—”

“Hell, no! We want this creep, we’ve got to strike while the iron is hot!”

“Well . . .” Rosco reluctantly began. “There’s a forensics team scheduled to go over the
Orion
this afternoon. They’ll also examine the fishing boat that towed her in . . . The department is pressed for personnel right now, so the detective working on the case is from homicide. You couldn’t ask for a better man—”

“I want you to stay on top of them.”

“I plan to be at Mystic Isle Yachts when they examine the boats.” Rosco caught himself about to add “sir” to his answer.

Pepper dragged on his cigar again. His chest swelled; he seemed to be holding everything inside: smoke, sorrow, rage, guilt, grief. “Good,” he finally said. His jaw looked tight enough to crack.

“They have the inflatable tender in the police lab for tests as well.”

“What?”

“The dinghy.”

“I know what a damn inflatable tender is, Polycrates! Why didn’t you give me that information the moment you walked through my door, dammit?”

Rosco was about to reply, but Pepper cut him off. Again, his demeanor had suddenly altered. The voice was now quiet to the point of exhaustion. “Why the hell are they wasting their time with that piece of junk? Genie’s gone . . . Studying her final last seconds on earth won’t bring her back . . .”

Rosco allowed a moment of silence to elapse before he answered. “Well, Mr. Pepper, for one thing, they’d like to determine what caused the gash in its side. It might give them an idea of how far your wife might have traveled from the wreck.”

“And what’s that going to prove? Listen, I don’t need to know all the gory details of how Genie died . . . I don’t want those media bloodsuckers speculating on half-truths. The whole situation’s ghoulish enough as it is.” Again, the determined stance showed serious signs of breaking. Rosco watched sorrow and frustrated rage etch themselves across Pepper’s face. “I’m not a religious man, Polycrates . . . never had much time for it . . . And now? Well, I don’t know . . . But the dead should be allowed to rest in peace. I don’t want to imagine my wife’s last breaths . . . terrified, alone on a huge, hostile ocean . . . sharks, whatever . . .” Pepper shut his eyes tight. When he opened them again, his expression had resumed its determined serenity. “Who’s this homicide detective? How well do you know him?”

“His name is Lever. We were partners when I was with the department.”

“Good. Then we can use this clown.”

Rosco squinted and said, “Clown’s not a word I would use for Lever.”

“Whatever . . . See if you can get him to concentrate on the
Orion
and the fishing boat . . . That’s how we get Colberg—and that’s the key to this situation . . . not wasting precious time on some dinky rubber boat . . . Genie died . . . my Genie died because of a maritime fire. We find the cause and affix blame.”

Rosco recognized the anguish Tom was experiencing. “I see your point,” he replied gently. “But if Colberg was negligent in providing proper safety equipment for the
Orion,
i.e., the tender, it could be an important factor in establishing blame—”

“Who’s paying you, Polycrates! I’m telling you I don’t want to know about the inflatable!” Pepper’s voice had risen ominously. “We go after the yacht—and that’s all . . .
If I have to see pictures of that damn rubber raft spread all over the tabloids, I think I’ll lose my mind . . . Now, do I have to call Lever myself?”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“Good. Make sure you do.” Pepper sagged in his chair.

Rosco cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose you know your wife’s blood type?”

Tom turned in his chair to face a desktop computer. “I have it here somewhere. What do you need it for?” He made an entry on the keyboard.

“There was some blood on the
Dixie-Jack
 . . . A positive.”

Tom studied the computer screen. “Nope . . . Genie was O negative.”

“Well, that’s—”

“Excuse me, sir,” Anson said as he tapped lightly on the mahogany door. Rosco had not closed it when he’d entered.

Pepper answered with an aggravated: “What is it?”

Anson stepped toward Tom’s desk. In his left hand he held a business-sized envelope. “This just arrived for you, sir. I was told it was most urgent.”

“Now what?” Tom groaned, then stared hard at the handwritten address. A spasm of pain shot across his face. This time he couldn’t conceal it. He pulled a long letter opener from the middle desk drawer and quickly slit the envelope open. His hand was clenched, his face gray. He stared at the butler. “You’re not needed here.”

After Anson left, Tom looked at Rosco. “Nosiest man in the whole damn world,” he said bitterly. “I hired a butler, what I got was a snoop. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to sell his story to those harpies outside . . .” Pepper slid a piece of paper from the envelope, unfolded it, studied it for fifteen seconds, then tossed it onto his desk toward Rosco.
It was a hand-drawn crossword puzzle, worked out on single-sided quarter-inch graph paper. Tom gritted his teeth. “There are too many sick people out there, Polycrates.”

“I’ll be right back.” Rosco sprinted from the den, then returned three minutes later.

“What was that all about?” Tom asked.

“I wanted to speak to whoever delivered it.”

“Well . . . ?”

“He was gone. I couldn’t catch sight of him. Anson said he’d never seen him before. A kid in a Red Sox hat driving a beat-up Honda. A Grateful Dead fan, judging by the amount of stickers.” Rosco picked up the puzzle and shook his head slowly.

“What is it?”

“Belle has already received two anonymous puzzles like this.”

Tom jabbed his cigar into the ashtray and lurched forward in his chair. His voice had become exhausted and gravelly. “Dammit, man! Why haven’t I been told about this?”

“Our assumption was that they’d come from a sicko . . . Someone to be wary of, yes, but better off ignored . . . What made
you
say that about sick people?”

“Look at it, it’s addressed to Genie.”

Rosco glanced at the envelope.

“And the graph paper has today’s date on it. Four days after her disappearance.”

Rosco watched Tom for a second or two. His hands were trembling, and his controlled demeanor definitely beginning to fail. “Do you ever do these puzzles?” Rosco asked.

“No.” A hard laugh accompanied the word. “But Genie did . . . She was a member of a crossword club or something. I don’t pay any attention to this stuff, but clearly,
whoever sent this must have the information . . . a mailing list . . . I don’t know. The person who did this is after something, Rosco. I sense it . . . I don’t like this. I don’t like it one bit.”

“What could they want?”

“Money? Notoriety? . . . A sadistic thrill? . . . Hell, I don’t know what these Looney Tunes want!” Pepper jumped to his feet and pointed at Rosco. “That’s what I’m hiring you for, dammit! To get me some answers!”

Again, Rosco could feel his own irritation escalating, but the sensation was mitigated by Pepper’s pain. Rosco picked up the puzzle and placed it in the envelope. “Do you mind if I take this? Belle can fill it in . . . Then I’ll compare it with the other two and return it.”