Misery Bay: A Mystery

Misery Bay: A Mystery

Chris Angus

Yucca Publishing (2016)

Rating: ★★★★★

Tags: Fiction, Thrillers, Crime

Fictionttt Thrillersttt Crimettt

“Misery Bay” is more than just a fitting name for this outwardly innocent fishing village.

Misery Bay is a picturesque fishing village on the Eastern shore of Nova Scotia, a seemingly idyllic location. But the islands and hidden coves hide something more sinister. Illegal immigrants and drugs are being smuggled in for the escort services in Halifax. Special Constable Garrett Barkhouse has spent twenty years fighting these twin scourges, but now he’s burned out and planning to retire. However, his boss, Deputy Commissioner Alton Tuttle, has other plans. He entices Garrett to return to his old home town and establish a police presence on the Eastern shore. What he expects will be light duty—Garrett quickly discovers—is anything but. An unexpected murder of four young girls leads him into a thick web of interconnecting drug pushers, illegal immigrants, and prostitution.

While he tries to get a handle on events, Garrett is sucked back into many of the relationships from his childhood. The cast of colorful characters includes Roland Cribby, a scallop fisherman and all around unpleasant character, old man Publicover who has just married his fifth wife, beautiful reporter Kitty Wells, and Garrett’s cousin, a giant of a man who is an enforcer for the Longshoremen on the waterfront in Halifax.

An offshore oil rig, conveniently outside Canadian territorial waters, becomes the focus of the investigation. Global Resources CEO Anthony DeMaio has developed a nice sideline to the oil business. When Kitty Wells—the beautiful reporter—tries to investigate, she is swept up by the machinations and kidnapped into sex slavery. As a series of hurricanes push in from the North Atlantic, Garrett and Lonnie find themselves fighting not only drug lords and CEOs but also the elements that threaten to topple the oil rig and kill everyone on board.

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bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

**

Copyright © 2016 by Chris Angus

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Yucca Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Jacket design by Karis Drake
Jacket photo by Tomasz Zajda and Dollar Photo Club

Print ISBN: 978–1-63158–083-3
Ebook ISBN: 978–1-63158–090-1

Printed in the United States of America

For Jim

1

G
ARRETT STAMPED HIS FEET IN
a vain attempt to create some warmth in his toes. The last time he’d been in Point Pleasant Park, it had been a sweltering ninety-five degrees and he’d been tossing back bottles of Keith’s Ale with Lonnie following a Saturday afternoon baseball game. That was the first time it had struck him that the park swelled out into Halifax harbor like a woman’s breast, the point a perfect nipple. Of course, it could have been the beer.

He could see the breakwater through the steady rain pelting his jacket and dripping off the brim of his Calgary Stampeders cap. During working hours, the area was a busy port. Behind a chain-link fence, hundreds of railcar-sized containers rose five and six high against a backdrop of enormous orange and white cranes that towered a hundred feet into the sky, their tops disappearing into the fog. They stood like mute, alien sentinels, something out of H. G. Wells.

A freighter, engines pounding, moved stolidly through the gloom, past George’s Island, heading for the North Atlantic. He could just make out the name on her bow,
Ward of the North,
cribbed from a famous book about the city of Halifax.

The fog-softened lights of Dartmouth, Halifax’s poor twin city, floated on the opposite shore like army helicopters preparing to land and take on the cranes. Streaks of rain emerged from a stainless-steel sky, as devoid of depth as the inside of an aluminum pot. The pockmarked surface of the bay gave the entire scene the look of a pointillist painting crafted by an artist with just a single color on his palette.

Alvin, all five foot seven inches of him, stood hunched against the rain, a cigarette glowing in his mouth. “Shit for weather,” he said. “Whole summer’s been nothing but one hurricane after another. Never seen anything like it.” He took the smoke out of his mouth, hocked up an enormous green gob, and spat it on the ground. “Shouldn’t be long now,” he said.

“Provided your tip was accurate,” said Garrett. He had his doubts. Alvin was enthusiastic for a rookie barely two years on the force, almost gullible, though no one would say that to his face. He had a fuse as short as his stature and, for a little guy, threw a wallop of a punch.

Instead of answering, Alvin grabbed his forearm. A black sedan was entering the park. They watched it pull up to the breakwater a hundred feet away and flash its lights twice.

“That’s it,” said Alvin. He spoke softly into his radio. “All units move in.”

Garrett started forward, but Alvin grabbed his arm again. “No one’s responding. Christ! The radio won’t work. It’s too damn wet.”

They stood uncertainly, staring at the car. Out on the water, the engines of a fishing boat started to rumble. Then the vessel appeared out of the gloom, moving toward shore.

“Guess it’s just you and me.” Garrett sensed Alvin’s tension in the dark. He was wired like a radio tower. “Take it easy, okay?”

“No problem,” Alvin replied.

“Wait till the boat makes contact. We want to establish the rendezvous.”

Crouching low, they began to duck-walk across the open lot. There was no cover except for the gloom, but it was enough. The boat continued to angle in, its engines starting to churn, reversing to slow down. A line flew out to one of the men on shore and a moment later, the second man opened the car door.

They were halfway to the black sedan. Suddenly, the entire parking lot was bathed in brilliant light from several high-powered floodlights on the boat, catching them frozen, like Br’er Rabbit stuck in Tar Baby.

In an instant, pandemonium split the night. A man cried out, the craft’s powerful engines roared, and the water began to roil fiercely. The man who had opened the car door had hold of a child. He hesitated in indecision, then picked the girl up and threw her onto the deck of the boat like a sack of potatoes before leaping back into the sedan. The car’s tires screeched as it reversed away from the water.

“They’re getting away!” Garrett yelled. He crouched on one knee and fired at the vehicle’s tires. One shot, a second, then Alvin was in his line of fire, racing toward the car.

“Damn it, Alvin. I can’t shoot! Get out of the way!”

But the young Mountie was already near the car as it spun in the gravel. The driver shifted into forward, then hit the gas hard. The vehicle spun 360 degrees, coughed once, and the engine died.

They were on it in an instant. As the driver struggled to restart the engine, Garrett fired two precise shots into the rear tires, deflating them instantly. A moment later, he and Alvin stood on either side of the car, pistols pointed at the driver.

“Get out, now!” Alvin yelled.

Garrett could see the driver looking at them. He was a heavyset, sallow-faced fellow. He said something to the man sitting in the passenger seat. Garrett couldn’t tell if anyone else was in the car, because the windows were tinted.

Alvin yelled again and brought his pistol right up against the car’s window, which was a mistake. If he fired, the glass would shatter and likely injure him. Fortunately, the fellow raised his hands and Alvin opened the door, grabbed him by the arm, and yanked him out. He sprawled onto the ground.

Garrett did the same to the other man. Three police cars roared into the park, screeching to a halt around the vehicle. Officers swarmed over the men, the entire scene lit up again, this time by police car headlights and floods.

Garrett poked his head into the car and looked in the back. Five girls in their early teens stared at him with wide eyes. They were dressed as though planning a midnight beach party in the Caribbean, with lacy, see-through tops over short shorts and high heels. He held up his police badge.

Instantly, the girls started to chatter. They piled out of the back of the car, all jabbering at once in a language he’d never heard, holding onto him for dear life.

“Alvin, help me out here.”

His partner put his gun away and came forward, still puffed up and excited at the biggest arrest of his career. He listened to the girls for a moment, then held up his hand and shouted, “SHUT UP!” at the top of his voice.

The girls went instantly silent, staring at this new menace with open fear on their faces.

“Take it easy,” said Garrett. “They’re spooked enough. Any of you speak English?”

The girl who looked to be the oldest, maybe fourteen, raised her hand like a schoolgirl. “I speak,” she said.

“Where were they taking you?’

She shrugged. “We do not know. We go where they send us and do what they say. There was party on private boat in harbor.”

Garrett wiped his forehead and stared sadly at the girls. Alvin’s tip had suggested a transfer of illegal immigrants coming into the country. But these young women had clearly been employed for some time already, probably by the escort service they’d had under surveillance.