Blackwater Sound (12 page)

“Good evening, Ms. Collins. I'm Jamie Wingo.”

She swung away from his outstretched hand and marched into the dining room.

“Dan, what the hell's going on? Something's happened, hasn't it? Talk to me, goddamn it, talk to me.”

Romano plucked a bottle of Bacardi from the liquor cabinet, uncapped it, and poured himself a shot in an old-fashioned glass. He had a taste, then set the glass on the table before him.

“Take it easy, Alex. No, we didn't find him. He's still missing.”

“And who's this?” She slashed a hand at the tall man.

“Okay, okay, you're upset. I should've called first. But this thing came up, it's kind of weird, nothing I wanted to discuss on the phone, so I drove over.”

From next door the Morrisons' beagle began to howl. Probably picking up the jittery vibes radiating from Alexandra's house.

The slim man stepped into the doorway. Dan shrugged at him and waved his hand—take it away, it's all yours.

Wingo closed his eyes and opened them. He stood silently for a moment as if gathering his dignity.

“I apologize for the intrusion, Ms. Collins, especially at such a traumatic time. And I'm very sorry about your father's disappearance.”

Dan poured himself another sip of rum and took a seat at the head of the dining table. Lawton's place. He fumbled in the pocket of his yellow sports coat and drew out his pack of Marlboros and shook a cigarette loose.

“Not in here,” Alex said. “You want to suck on that poison, go outside.”

Dan studied her briefly, then replaced the cigarette and slid the pack into his jacket pocket.

Wingo said, “There are indications, Ms. Collins, that the case I'm investigating might overlap with your father's disappearance. So I have a few questions I need to ask you.”

Alex stared at the man. His black hair was thick and slicked back. He had a coppery complexion and a raven's inky, impenetrable eyes. His forehead was broad and high and his nose mildly hooked, the faintly aristocratic profile of a Cherokee brave.

“I'm listening,” she said.

“May I sit?”

She shrugged and Wingo took a seat on one side of the dining table. He rested his wrists on the edge of the table and gazed across at the far wall. There was a stillness about the man that was unnerving. Alex stayed on her feet, too wired to sit. The Morrisons' beagle continued to bay with delirious abandon.

“It's connected to those kids in the alley,” Romano said. “This afternoon, the newspaper guy.”

“Charlie Harrison?” Alex stared at Dan. “What does Dad have to do with Charlie Harrison?”

“There's a link,” Dan said.

She peered at Dan, then gripped the back of one of the chairs. She eased herself down and looked across at Wingo.

“I've seen you somewhere. What are you, FBI?”

“Ms. Collins,” he said, “vice chair for the NTSB, National Transportation Safety Board.”

“Airplane crashes,” Dan said, and gulped down the rest of his rum. “Railroads, buses, the whole gamut.”

She nodded. Feeling the fog begin to rise inside her head, a drifty sensation as if gravity had suddenly lost its hold on her. Blinking, trying to focus, keep it all clear.

“Airplane crashes,” she said. “Charlie Harrison's murder. What the hell is going on?”

“Ms. Collins, I'm working the American 570 crash.” Wingo shot her a quick look as if to appraise her reaction. Alex gave him nothing and finally he moved on. “You're familiar with it, of course.”

The haziness that had been clouding her thoughts vanished. She was suddenly flushed with anger, eyes clear, blood singing. She drew a long breath and counted to three before releasing it.

“Okay, so let me get this straight. My dad not only killed his closest friend this afternoon, he's also mixed up in this airline crash? What is he now, a saboteur?”

Wingo gave her a bruised smile and directed his eyes to the far wall.

“Hear him out, Alex,” Dan said. “Something weird's going down. If what Wingo thinks is true, Lawton may have stumbled into something.”

“Into what?”

Dan picked up his empty glass and stared into it.

“Right now it looks like he stepped into a major-league pile of shit.”

“Talk to me, goddamn it,” Alex said.

Wingo reset his wrists against the table. When he spoke, his voice was smooth and neutral, professionally aloof. A federal official taking charge.

“Perhaps the lieutenant should bring you up to date on his side of the investigation, Ms. Collins, then I'll fill in the rest.”

“I'm about two seconds from throwing both of you out of my house. So you better make this good, Dan, damn good.”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “Here's how it is, Alex. This afternoon right after we notified next of kin in the Harrison case, we get a call from the kid's editor at the
Miami Weekly
. He wants to help with the investigation, so I hear him out. Seems Charlie was working on a story about some kind of secret military gizmo that might've fallen into the wrong hands. Around noon today, he was supposed to meet his
contact at Neon Leon's on the river. You know that place, a bunch of scuzzballs. So I bop over to Leon's, pass the kid's picture around. And yeah, sure enough, they remembered him. Him and his hotty girlfriend. I get five solid IDs. They agreed it was Harrison sitting in a booth. Him and his girlfriend and two other guys. Two senior citizens. One of them turns out to be Peretti and the other one, well, you can figure that out.”

“Dad was at Neon Leon's?”

“I put him there roughly forty-five minutes to an hour before the shit hit the fan at the Rickenbacker, which is more or less the length of time it would take a boat like Peretti's to get from a little way up the river to the causeway.”

Dan lifted the bottle of rum, then thought better of it and set it down.

Wingo tilted his chin up and gazed at the molding that edged the ceiling.

“Look, Alex. It's pretty much speculation at this point, but here's the story I see taking shape. Somebody smacked Harrison and the girl right after they left their meeting at the bar with your dad and Peretti, and at about the same time they were being tapped, there was some serious havoc aboard Peretti's yacht. Seems to me these two events might just be intertwined. Like someone wanted to keep certain clandestine activities from appearing in the newspaper, say, and they wanted it real real bad. So they sent their people to put out the lights on everybody involved.”

“You're saying someone tried to kill my father because of some military secret Arnold was going to give to the newspapers? Arnold Peretti, the bookie?”

Dan nodded.

“And tell me, Dan. How the hell does a retired gambler get hold of military secrets?”

Romano stared down into his glass.

“This is nuts, Dan, horseshit. Complete and total horseshit.”

Romano shook his head, then cut a hard look at Wingo. “This is where you take over.”

Wingo took a leisurely look around the room as if running an inventory on Alexandra's taste and tendencies. There wasn't much in the dining room that revealed either, a little family silver displayed on the sideboard, an unexceptional painting of a mountain meadow that had been her mother's favorite. But when Wingo finally brought his eyes to hers, he looked at her with guarded approval.

“Again, I apologize for barging in at such an hour. And I certainly hesitate to involve you in these matters, Ms. Collins. This is a case in which the less you know, the safer you might be.”

“Involved! Christ, my father is wandering around in the dark right now, probably scared out of his mind. I
am
involved. I'm big-time involved! And I'm a police officer, so if you have some information concerning my father's whereabouts, then just cut the coy bullshit and tell me what's going on.”

“Ms. Collins, I'm sorry about your father's disappearance. If the results of my inquiries lead us to your father, then I will certainly be pleased. However, my focus is on another issue entirely, the deaths of dozens of innocent people.”

Alex glared at the man.

“This isn't protocol,” Alex said. “If you've got knowledge of criminal activity in an airplane crash, the FBI is supposed to take over. NTSB doesn't do criminal work. You're supposed to handle safety issues, investigate the causes of the crash. But that's all.”

“You're absolutely correct.”

“So where are they? The FBI.”

Wingo looked down at the table.

Dan said, “FBI took a pass. They don't share Wingo's suspicions. In fact, I think the word they used was
kook
. Isn't that right, Wingo?”

“Kook, yes. That was one of the milder terms, I believe.”

Dan poured another finger of rum into his glass, tossed it back, and pushed the glass aside.

“It's something called a HERF gun,” said Dan. “H-E-R-F. Stands for High Energy Radio Frequency. But the Feds don't believe the thing exists. After Wingo came around yesterday to brief Miami PD about the progress of the NTSB investigations, we started talking in the hall and he mentioned the HERF gun. After he left I was curious, so I got on the phone, talked to a couple of FBI computer nerds at the Miami field office. I even called Washington, spoke to some of their upper-echelon whiz kids. It's the same thing up and down the line. Wingo is full of shit. There is no HERF gun. It's some kind of urban myth. Been batting around the Internet for years, a sci-fi weapon you solder together from Radio Shack parts. Generates a ton of energy, electromagnetic radiation, like what a nuclear explosion puts out, only this thing costs only a few hundred dollars to construct, small enough to fit in a backpack, and blammo, you stand outside an office building, zap all their hard drives. Shut down Florida Power and Light, the whole world goes back to the Stone Age.

“So when this thing happened today with your dad, I thought of Wingo and his HERF gun thing and I gave him a call.”

“This is ridiculous, Dan. It's some kind of bad joke.”

“Well, yes, what Romano says is true,” said Wingo. “I don't have a great deal of support for my theory. Ridicule has been the most frequent response. Nevertheless, I believe there is substantial evidence on Flight 570's cockpit data recorder and in the preliminary investigation that is entirely consistent with the use of a device like the one Lieutenant Romano describes. However, so far, despite that evidence and my best efforts, my colleagues at NTSB seem determined to find some other explanation, an internal flaw in the onboard electronics that could account for the situation, or some kind of mega-short.

“You see, Ms. Collins, if the pilot's account is accurate, what happened on that jetliner was an electrical failure more cataclysmic than any we've ever encountered. The radio was destroyed. All backup systems were fried. Auxiliary batteries, redundant wiring, everything. Some of the silicon barriers on the computer chips were fused. Only
a small segment of the electrical system aboard that plane was unscathed. Fortunately, some of that was crucial wiring and gave the captain just enough power to regain control of the plane and set it down on the ocean and save some lives.

“But what I'm trying to tell you is that there are absolutely no precedents for an electrical malfunction of this magnitude in the history of aviation disasters. Not even multiple direct hits by lightning, not even the bombers exposed to nuclear explosions have shown such total and complete power failure. I hope I'm wrong, Ms. Collins. I hope it turns out that I am a crackpot and the meltdown on board that MD-11 has some other explanation. Because I would hate for it to be true. For a cheap, portable weapon of this sort to exist would be bad news. Everyone who depends on electrical power would be vulnerable. And by my reckoning, that's everyone in this society, Ms. Collins. Everyone.”

Alexandra sat back in her chair. The Morrisons' beagle had gone quiet. A few frogs chirped and warbled in her backyard goldfish pond. A motorcycle rumbled by on the adjacent street.

Romano said, “He gave me that same speech. So I brought him over.”

Alex took a careful breath. Her hands were trembling. There was a scream building in her chest.

“So what is it you want from me?”

Wingo brought his eyes to hers.

“For starters, how well did you know Arnold Peretti?”

“Not as well as I thought I did.”

“Do you have the names of any of Mr. Peretti's associates?”

She looked over at Dan. He was tapping his fingers on the tabletop, playing scales up and down a silent octave.

“I don't know any of Arnold's friends, no. We don't travel in the same circles. My dad might know one or two. When we find him, we'll ask.”

Wingo acknowledged her sarcasm with a small nod.

“Would you know where Mr. Peretti was on the first of March, last month?”

“And how the hell would I know that?”

“How about your father? Do you know his whereabouts on Wednesday, March the first?”

“He was in the same place he always is. At Harbor House adult care facility out in Kendall or at home, right here.”

“You mean he's there when he's not consorting with Mr. Peretti.”

“Consorting!” Alex looked back and forth between the two men, her fury coming back to a boil. “Look, my dad's been fishing with Arnold three or four times. Day trips, out and back. They caught fish, he came back happy, so I naturally assumed everything was all right. They're old buddies, but I assure you, Lawton Collins is not involved in any shady business deals with Arnold Peretti. My father is ill.”

Wingo nodded. “I understand that,” he said. “So you're absolutely certain your father was not on Mr. Peretti's boat on March first?”

Alexandra ran the dates in her head. It'd been only a week since their last fishing trip. Before that they'd gone out in February, the day before Valentine's. She remembered because Lawton spent the day at Harbor House cutting red hearts out of construction paper and gluing them onto white sheets of typing paper. Cards for all his sweethearts. He brought one home for Grace and was angry at Alex when she told him Grace was no longer alive. She'd been dead for years. Lawton didn't believe it. He threw a tantrum and cursed her and locked himself in his room. The next day he and Arnold went fishing and Lawton seemed to remember none of the previous night's hysterics, kissing her good-bye with the same warmth he usually did.

“I'm sure of it,” Alex said. “Now what's this about?”

Wingo looked across the table at Dan; a look passed between them that she couldn't read.

Alex came to her feet and pointed at Wingo.

“Listen. If my dad is mixed up in this, I want to know about it.
And I want to know right now. Do you hear me? Every detail, everything you know.”

Dan shrugged at Wingo.

“What difference does it make? She knows the rest already.”

“I don't want her mixed up in this.”

Dan shook his head.

“Yeah, well, looks to me like she already is.” He gave her a quick smile. “See, on March first, another plane crashed up in Palm Beach. Two people died, pilot survived. It was on the news, but no big deal. Small plane, Piper Cub flying out of Palm Beach International. Plane got out over the water and experienced electrical difficulties, circled back to the airport, crash-landed on the runway.”

Wingo gave her his profile and dusted his palms together.

“As long as we're confiding in you, Ms. Collins,” Wingo said, “you might be interested to know that some of the features of that crash are strikingly similar to the American 570 event over Florida Bay.”

She felt something tumble in her chest.

“This is preposterous. Tell him, Dan. My father's sick. His memory is failing. He's a retired cop, for Godsakes. He's not capable of committing a crime, even if he wanted to.”

Wingo turned his head and held her eyes calmly.

“Earlier this afternoon,” he said, “Lawton Collins was sitting in a booth with Arnold Peretti. We have eyewitnesses who are absolutely certain he was holding a large box in his lap.”

“A box. What box?”

“Your father was holding this box….”

Alex slashed a hand through the air.

“What's that supposed to mean? Because my dad's got a box sitting in his lap, that means he and Arnold are shooting down airplanes? That's outrageous. Get up right now, both of you, and get the hell out of my house!”

Dan stood up. His mouth was tight. In ten years working alongside him, she'd never seen him so bleak.

“Look, Alex, you have a right to be angry. We barge in, all these accusations flying around. But the fact is, something happened at Neon Leon's when Peretti and Lawton were there. We think it was a demonstration of this device.”

“What kind of demonstration?”

“The TV went off, Alex. TV, cash register. Three cell phones. Everything electrical in that room blew out. Power went out all up and down the street. A half a block away.”

“It was a power outage. It happens all the time.”

“No, Alex. It was cell phones, too. An old guy in a warehouse next door collapsed and almost died 'cause his pacemaker shut down for half a minute. We're not talking about a power outage. No, we're not.”

“And Dad?”

“Well, right after the lights blew, Lawton got up with that box and he and Peretti left in a big hurry.”

Wingo pushed back his chair and came slowly to his feet.

She said it quietly, not quite believing the words as they left her mouth.

“You're crazy, both of you. You're absolutely insane.”

 

Morgan was in Johnny's cabin drinking wine. Way past drunk.

Sitting in the leather chair, feeling the rumble of the big diesels, the vibration working into her bones, setting up some kind of harmonic resonance with the tremble that was already there. She lifted the glass for another sip and the Cabernet slopped over the brim, spattering on the lap of her white shorts. She looked down and touched the stain with her fingertip, smelling blood again, and felt a queasy wobble in her gut.