LCole 07 - Deadly Cove (23 page)

As I was driving down High Street, about ten minutes away from home, my cell phone rang. On the other end was a woman, and after a brief conversation, I made a U-turn and headed back into the center of town.

*   *   *

I parked at the rear of the Tyler
Chronicle
building and walked in past the circulation department—usually one overworked man assisted by young men or women hired on a temporary basis—and went up past the piles of newspapers to the newsroom, which is just a collection of battleship gray desks clustered in the center of an open office area. It was late afternoon, and Paula Quinn was at her desk, rapidly typing away on a computer terminal.

She glanced up at me as I approached and gave me a quick smile. Her skin was pale, and it looked like she had lost some weight, but I was encouraged by the smile. “Have a seat, if you'd like,” she said. “Thanks for stopping by to check in, and—Christ, what the hell happened to you?”

I sat down in the chair, stretching out my muddy feet. “Was in the middle of the demonstration, out in the salt marsh. Not high up with dry feet and free coffee like some journalists I know.”

Paula resumed her typing. She had on a dark green turtleneck shirt and a gray sweater over it, and her fingers looked cracked and dry. “Yeah, lucky me and the others. Hold on—I just want to finish the story and find out what the hell happened to you.”

“Deal,” I said.

I took in the newsroom while Paula typed. There had been a time when the newspaper had several full-time reporters and photographers, but that time had gone away some time ago. Besides Paula, there were two other full-time reporters now, plus a number of stringers, usually bored housewives or recent college grads, all trying their hand at journalism, and usually failing.

“There,” Paula said, slapping one more key. “Done and sent. How were things from your side of the fence?”

“Muddy. Rough. Lots of tear gas, lots of pushing around. Number of hurt people. You?”

“Some quiet. Like those northern congressmen and families gathering to watch the Battle of Bull Run from a distance. Looked pretty messy.”

“It was.”

She said, “I thought you were going to be on the plant property for today's demo.”

“Me, too, but I got exiled by Ron Shelton. Seems like his corporate masters didn't like my last filing.”

Paula started going through some papers on her desk. “Dropping the F-bomb about our Russian friends and blaming them for the protests from local residents—not really a good plan for developing community relations.”

I looked at her working diligently to pile the papers into some sense of order, and I said, “How are you doing?”

“Better,” she said, her voice flat.

“Really?”

“No, not really,” she said, “but I want to stop feeling this way, I want to stop whining about it, and I want just to move on. You know? If I peed standing up, I'd say that I wanted to man up and get on with it. Womaning it up doesn't have the same ring to it. Whatever it is, I want to do it. I don't want to be afraid anymore.”

“Paula—”

She held up a hand. “Enough about me. Please. What happened to you?”

“Police line was standing there, holding still, when the antinukers marched up to meet them. I was in the middle when both sides collided. Tear gas, batons, lots of pushing around—a real mess.”

She said, “One of our better stringers was there, filed a report. I did the main story—and it looks like it's over, on their part at least. Word I hear is that the bulk of the regular demonstrators are heading home, but there's still a hard core out there, ready to take the stage.”

“The Nuclear Freedom Front, right?”

Another pile of papers was set to rights. “You are correct, sir. The Front says it's their turn, either tomorrow or the day after—and that they don't intend to stop.”

“Oh, that's wonderful,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “Hold on, I want to drop something off on Rollie's desk.”

Paula got up and walked away, and I looked at my muddy boots. As she came back from the front of the newsroom she said, “Christ, Lewis, what happened to your back?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, turning my head.

She reached out and touched the rear of my jacket. “It's all torn up back here … and … Lewis, there's blood. What happened?”

What to say? The truth, I guess. “Somebody among the demonstrators took offense at your humble correspondent and took a swing at me.”

Her fingers were still playing with the rear of my coat. “With what?”

“A length of wood. With a spike at the end.”

Paula's hands were on the collar of my coat. “Off. Right now.”

“Paula—”

“I see blood back there, bud, and you're not leaving here until I take a look. Now. Up and off.”

I stood up and shrugged off my coat, wincing some, and then undid my Bianchi shoulder holster with my Beretta automatic pistol, and Paula's eyes widened at seeing my weapon, but she didn't say a word. I took off a pullover sweater and a long-sleeve sport shirt, and Paula said, “All right. Walk this way.”

She went off to the side of the room, where there was a unisex bathroom, and she said, “Come on. Let me give you a bit of a wash.”

“What's it look like back there?”

“Heavy scratch,” she said. “Could be worse.”

I stood still and looked at myself in the mirror, saw the tired eyes, the damp short hair, and I winced again as Paula wet a paper towel with some warm water. She gently washed at my back and did it again and again. “There,” she said softly. “Looks better. Let me put some antibacterial cream on it.”

Underneath the mirror was a plastic first aid kit, and she opened it up and took out a tube and then spread the cool cream on my back. “All right,” she said. “One big Band-Aid later and you're all set.”

“Thanks, Paula. You've got great hands.”

She laughed. “So I've been told.”

Paula closed up the first aid kit and replaced it on the wall. Then, in the small confines of the brightly lit room, I looked at her and she looked at me. We stared at each other, and there I was, standing shirtless before a woman I had once been intimate with, a woman who had now performed first aid on me.

She stepped closer, put a hand on my shoulder. “Good to see you.”

“Always good to see you.”

Paula came closer and I let her, and then the phone rang. And rang. And rang. She smiled, lowered her eyes, and brushed past me back out to the main office. I followed her and got dressed, looking at the rear of my jacket, knowing it was going in the trash when I got home.

On the phone, Paula said, “Okay. Okay. When was it found? Really? Okay … thanks, you're doing a good job. What else can you tell me? Unh-hunh, unh-hunh, okay … I'll meet you at the police station as soon as I can. Depending on what's left of the demonstrators. Thanks.”

She hung up the phone and gathered her purse, reporter's notebook, and coat. I said, “What's up?”

“As if we don't have enough going on—there's been a murder in Falconer. Lucky for me, my stringer was at the police station when the news broke.”

“What happened?”

She put on her coat, got her keys. “Body found floating in one of the streams in the salt marsh. Bullet wound to the back of the head. A couple of antinukers got lost trying to get out of the salt marsh and found the body. Looks like it's been out there for a couple of days.”

“Male or female?”

“Male, guy in his early twenties—and he was wearing some pins for the NFF.”

Even though I was dressed, I now felt colder than I had in a long time. I recalled my time the other night in the marsh, when I had escaped from the shooter, the man called Henry. After he tried to nail me, and after I escaped, I'd heard one more gunshot, at a distance.

Yeah. Made sense. The man called Henry had shot the man called Todd, to eliminate a witness and—

“Lewis?”

“Yes?”

“I really need to go—and … will you walk me to my car?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

*   *   *

Outside I walked Paula to her red Toyota Camry and watched as she got in and started the engine. As she backed out, she blew me a kiss, which I cheerfully returned. I kept watching as she merged into Route 1 traffic, and then I got in my own vehicle and headed home.

*   *   *

At home, it was time for a clothes dump and a shower and turning up the thermostat for the furnace, and I heated up a can of corned beef hash in a big black iron skillet, sprinkled some grated cheese and some ketchup on the top, and ate the hot and greasy food and enjoyed every bit of it. Then I made a call to Annie Wynn and got her voice mail, and then called somebody else and left a message on his voice mail, and then I went upstairs to my office and wrote my daily contribution to
Shoreline
magazine.

With this all squared away, I went downstairs and switched on the television and surfed through the news channels, looking at the coverage of the protests, and I had a little shock of recognition when I saw myself standing with the demonstrators. How about that. I had a quirky moment of humor, too, thinking that if Denise Pichette-Volk had been watching this particular newscast, she would have seen me at work.

Then I watched a bit more, and saw the coverage from the station over in Manchester, which had a breaking news segment from Falconer about the discovery of the murdered young man in the marshland. Not much to report—Paula had more information than they did back in her office—and I lay still on the couch, thinking. I had a good idea that the man who had shot Bronson Toles was either the same man who had tried to do me harm or someone connected to him. Either way, there was a dead young man that I was connected to.

So I was thinking,
Contact the Falconer cops or not?

I got cold, drew the comforter around me, and remembered my talk with Annie. Too much going on with her and her senator for me to stir things up.

So no, no police contact. Not now.

Snug in the comforter, the low drone of the oil furnace heating up my cold beachfront house, I fell asleep.

*   *   *

During the night the sharp ring of the phone woke me up, and I stumbled around in the dark until I retrieved the receiver. A male voice was on the other end, the same that had called when Annie was visiting. He started up with a threat, and I wearily said, “I've been threatened by better, jerk,” and hung up the phone, unplugged it, and then went upstairs and to bed.

Next to me, underneath a pillow that still had the scent of Annie, I placed my loaded pistol.

*   *   *

In the morning I went to Blythe's Breakfast Nook, up on Atlantic Avenue in the town of North Tyler. It was situated on an outcropping of granite that had good views of the Isles of Shoals out on the ocean and the nearby waves coming into a part of North Tyler that didn't have any beaches at all, though on some warm days, fortunate viewers could see harbor seals sunning themselves on the rocks. This day, however, most of what we saw was the gray Atlantic Ocean rolling into some wet boulders, the sky and the distance obscured by low clouds.

I sat with a window view across from my breakfast guest for the morning, Felix Tinios, resident of said North Tyler, security consultant, former inhabitant of Boston's North End, and current employee of Joe Manzi, head of the New England Trade Union Council.

Felix had on pressed jeans, black shoes, and a black turtleneck sweater, and as usual, he looked well showered and coiffed. He looked at me oddly as he sat down and said, “Carrying, aren't you.”

I had on a Harris tweed jacket over a blue oxford shirt and khaki slacks, and I said, “Yes, I am. Guess I need a new tailor.”

He laughed and picked up a menu. “No, you need a new attitude, Lewis.”

“What do you mean?”

Felix opened the menu and said, “You have a look about you, of being uncomfortable. Like you're at some high-society dinner, sitting next to the hostess, a beautiful Brazilian model with stunning cleavage, trying desperately not to loudly pass gas.”

“Thanks for the image.”

“You're welcome,” he said. “Still, I wouldn't worry too much. You only have to worry about cops with sharp eyes and others with … a professional background.”

“Lucky me.”

We ordered, and it took only a few minutes for our meals to come out: eggs Benedict for Felix, pancakes with sausage links for me. When we finished eating he dabbed at his lips with a cloth napkin and said, “What's up?”

“Number of things.”

“I've got some time, so go on.”

I folded my hands on the white linen tablecloth. “The shooting the other day of Bronson Toles. In Falconer. You hear anything that's not been made public?”

One of his eyebrows rose. “Lewis … the type of way these things were settled in my circles—back in the day—was either a one-way trip out to Boston Harbor or two taps to the back of the head. A sniper shot like that … sorry, out of my area.”

I said, “Sure. Your circles. What about the circles you're currently traveling in?”

He picked up a tall glass of orange juice and champagne, took a healthy sip. “The union boys? Please. That's a bit too direct, even for them.”

“Like the other day, at the rally at the fishing co-op, when some of those fine union brothers beat the crap out of some college students?”

He shrugged. “You're a student of history. You know how unions and union members respond when they feel their livelihoods are threatened. Not condoning it, not explaining it, just telling you as a fact.”

“Sure,” I said. “Here's another fact. The local economy is rotten, and will remain rotten for the foreseeable future. Then a winning lottery ticket arrives in the form of the federal government and the owners of Falconer Station. Thousands of good-paying union jobs, ready to start, except for some antinukers raising a fuss. Those antinukers are led by a local charismatic leader. They're pretty much united, pretty much know what they want to do. Then the leader gets his head blown off.”