The Whale's Footprints - Rick Boyer (33 page)

TWENTY-FIVE

TWO DAYS ELAPSED before Joe showed up in Concord for
supper and flipped an envelope marked PHOTOS—DO NOT BEND! onto the
kitchen table.

"
You wouldn't believe the rigmarole bullshit we
had to go through to get those," he said wearily, shuffling over
to the sideboard. He uncorked the square bottle of Bombay gin and
held it, gurgling, over a huge art-deco-style martini glass. The
bottle gurgled long and hard, reminding me of the travelogue film I'd
seen of Murchison Falls. He threw in an ice cube and, almost as an
afterthought, a twist of lemon peel.

"Let's not forget the vitamin C, eh Doc?"

I opened the manila envelope and withdrew the photos.
There were six of them, ten-by-fourteen full-color glossies of aerial
views of Tuckernuck Island and watery environs. Excellent resolution;
you could see footprints on the beaches.

"So what took so long? People didn't buy our
hunch?"

"Partly that. But we had to go through the
attorney general's office to get to the Coast Guard. Then we had to
get special clearance. They had to wait till a plane was free and
they could get a staff photographer. And so on. Hell, next time we
need something fast, let's just go do it on our own. Whadduyuh say?"

"I agree. When the chips are down, circumvent
the bureaucracy. That's what Roantis says. Now I assume this bit of
shoreline off to the right here is Nantucket?"

"Yep," he said, leaning over me, "that's
Nantucket's western shoreline, right around Eel Point. That's what
they told me, anyway. Take a look at the next one."

I was looking at a direct view of Tuckernuck Island,
taken overhead from the south, showing North and East ponds on the
top. The shot was exactly the way the island appeared on the nautical
charts. Joe rapped his finger on a clump of trees between the ponds,
near the northern shore.

"There's where Whitesides's house is. See the
little brown speck? That's his house, stuck away all by itself, maybe
a quarter mile from the nearest neighbor. See the road?"

"Barely. It's hard to see anything with all
those trees. And I sure don't see any preparations for sinking an oil
well."

"Right. So the pilot was smart enough to do a
low-level flyby so he could get his lens under the trees. Look at the
next two."

These were oblique shots made with a very long lens.
In these pictures, Hunter Whitesides's rambling frame house was
clearly visible in the left side of the frame, with tall pine trees
looming over it. On the far right side was a lattice steel tower. On
the tower's tip was a large three-bladed propeller.

"Wind machine for a generator. Whitesides has
installed a windmill."

"
Look again. A windmill, or a drilling derrick?"

I studied the photo closely. But the more I looked at
it, the more the tower resembled a windmill. I know windmills; I grew
up with them in the Midwest in the 1940s, before they were replaced
with electric pumps.

"Yeah, it could be a drilling rig, but is it?"
I said, squinting at the photo.

"Frank1y, there's no way to tell from a
distance. Take a look at this last shot. It was snapped from low
level off the north side of the island."

This shot, from the opposite side of the island,
showed the rear of the Whitesides mansion. It was impressive any way
you looked at it. The steel structure was partially hidden by scrub
oak and pine trees. But what was interesting was the low,
tarpaulin-covered bundle that sat behind the house. It looked,
judging from the scale of the rest of the things in the pix, about
thirty or forty feet long. It made me think of similar bundles I'd
seen in the yard at OEI, and I told Joe so.

He went back to the first high-altitude shot of
Tuckernuck and pointed at the ocean north of the island. The water
was gray-brown, fading to light tan.

"Shallow. Very shallow, Joe."

"That's what the C.G. says, too. And your
charts, they'd say the same thing. This is called Tuckernuck Bank,
and it's shallow as all hell. Sometimes just a couple of feet deep.
Shit, you could wade it. And we now think this is why OEI needs
financial help from an oil company before they can realize any gain."

"You mean to dredge some kind of channel into
the shore?"

"Either that, or construct a retractable
floating boom to pump the oil out to ships. Look here, see that
darker area? That's been dredged already, probably so the
Oceanic
could get in there and unload the pipe."

"
Oceanic
is the name of that work boat I saw in New Bedford?"

"The very same. So you called this one right on
the money, Doc. How would you write the script, judging from what
we've got in hand at this point?"

"The script? Well, as I was saying the other
night, it starts maybe a couple months ago. The guys at OEI,
realizing their firm is going down the tubes, recollect the well they
dug earlier on Nantucket, and the rich cores it yielded. They figure
the crude can be exploited without an ocean drilling platform by
simply setting up a small operation on their partner's property. But
wouldn't it be great to get the core samples and those seismic
reflection profiles as hard evidence so they can rope in a wildcatter
for money and equipment?"

"And Bill Henderson, skipper of the
Highlander
,
with connections at Woods Hole through his kids, volunteers to sneak
the evidence out of the warehouse, using his daughter's boyfriend,
Andy Cunningham, as the conduit."

"Bingo. And Andy was to get a small cut for
taking the risk. But once he's got the cores and realizes what he's
sitting on, Andy gets greedy and tries to hold out for more money.
Maybe a lot more money, to pay off Slinky, among others," I
said.

"Uh-huh. But the three partners refuse, and when
the kids are gone for the weekend, they break into their house in a
frantic effort to recover the stuff. They come up empty-handed, and
figure he's taken the core samples up to the cottage with Jack."

"Right," I continued. "But even before
this happens, they have realized that Andy Cunningham is a thorn in
their side and has to be dealt out. Earlier in the week, they doctor
Andy's meds with the knowledge that he'll die over the weekend away
from Woods Hole, leaving them free of suspicion, and free to keep
searching for the cores. Which they don't find in the cottage because
Andy hid them so cleverly."

"That's good, Doc. That's real good. You oughta
be a cop."

"I am, remember?" I said, going to the
refrigerator and returning with a bottle of Bud and a bottle of
Guinness Stout. I mixed these together in a big English dimpled glass
tankard, in approximation of a pint of "bitter," and
sipped. Finally, I shook my head. I

"Whatzamatter?"
 
"It
doesn't seem quite right, Joe. I just keep thinking that what Andy
did wasn't bad enough to get him murdered."

"Not bad enough? Listen: extortion and blackmail
tend to piss people off. Especially people as tough as Bill
Henderson, who could be facing bankruptcy and a jail term because of
this greedy kid. I just got the feeling, Doc, watching him stomp
around his trawler, that he doesn't put up with any shit. Know whudda
mean? And it just so happens, to support my point, that we just
uncovered a prior on Henderson: aggravated assault. It happened in a
bar in Fall River a few years ago. Henderson got off on a plea of
self-defense. But it wasn't pretty; the other guy was hospitalized
for ten days."

"Well then, cleared or not, he's certainly
capable of violence. I keep thinking about Andy's phone call to that
isolated booth on Sippiwissett Road, just before he took his strange
walk outside in the storm. If it was to meet somebody, then who was
it?"

More than a minute went by in silence while we
sipped.

"Hunter Whitesides," said Joe finally. "And
I'll tell you why. After Andy realizes he's being chased, that
Henderson and company won't go along with his raised ante, he makes a
last-ditch effort to cut a deal directly with Whitesides, leaving out
the other two partners. Get it?"

"Because Whitesides owns the land—

"Sure! The mineral rights go with the land. So
if any money is to be made, it's Whitesides's, by law. The derrick's
in place, ready to go. Who needs the other guys? It would mean more
money for both of them. So Andy calls Whitesides, who's staying
somewhere on the Cape, and arranges to meet him on your beach. Maybe
Whitesides promises to come, but he doesn't keep the promise because
he knows Andy will be dead in a matter of hours. So Andy spends two
hours waiting in vain to make his secret deal. Disappointed and
angry, he returns to the Breakers, takes the fatal dose, dies in his
sleep.
Finito
."

"It's fitting together, Joe. just like a Swiss
watch. So what happens now?"

"What happens now is, we get all the evidence in
hand. We get all our witnesses lined up, which includes the two of
us, Mary, Jack, and Paul Keegan. And there'll be others, too, like
the Isaacsons, and that Henshaw kid who works in the warehouse. We
get all our paperwork done beforehand so everything will go without a
hitch. Then we collar everybody at once: Henderson and his kids,
Whitesides, and this guy Chisholm. We get them all in the net and
tell them they're looking good for murder one."

He dabbed his mouth lightly with a napkin, a hint of
a grin forming on his lips.

"Then, you watch. The shit's gonna fly, with
everyone scared, and trying to clear himself by blaming the others.
We'll interview them separately, so they won't have time to make up a
story, and see how each person's version fits with the others. I
promise you, Doc, when we get finished, at least a couple of them are
going down. Count on it. And Keegan and I are gonna owe you. Because
we're gonna be heroes, nailing Slinky and the OEI outfit both at the
same time."

"Sounds great. But there's just one thing still
unresolved," I said, tapping the photograph on the table with my
finger. Joe's face clouded over.

"Yeah . . . ," he said wearily, "I
know: the damn tower. Is it a drilling rig, or a windmill? We just
don't know."

"And if you get your master plan in motion, Joe,
with you and Paul nabbing all these suspects, and it turns out to be
just a windmill . . ."

"
Yeah, right. We're gonna look dumb. And Paul's
already in trouble with the brass for his 'premature' arrest and
detention of Hartzell."

"But we need to know, Joe, and soon. Jack's
officially out on bail for murder one. Know how that feels? To have
your son out on bail on a murder charge, for Chrissakes?"

"I guess I'll work on getting a warrant. But
Christ, it'll take days to actually—"

"I know a short cut," I said softly, moving
toward the phone.

"It's got to be legal. If it's not strictly in
accordance with—"

"
Cover your ears, pal," I instructed,
punching in the number to the Boston Young Men's Christian Union. The
phone rang twice before a male voice answered.

"I want to speak to Laitis Roantis," I
said. "It's urgent."

"Roantis!" said Joe, jumping up from the
table. "Look, I said legal, Doc, and that lunatic—

"You're not covering your ears, Dumbo. Naughty,
naughty."
 

TWENTY-SIX

"
LAITIS IS BUSY NOW," said the voice. "He's
giving a demonstration in kick-fighting."

I heard a man scream in the background. Some unlucky
sparring partner was getting a dose of Roantis's uncanny skill at the
lethal arts. The scream was followed by wailing and moaning. Whoever
it was, it wasn't Laitis Roantis. You could bet your virginity on
that.

"
I assume he'll be finished sometime tonight.
Please tell him Doc Adams wants to talk to him."

"What's it about? Can I tell him?"

"Uh . . .just tell him Doc says the Daisy Ducks
are taking wing. He'll know."

"Daisy Ducks? Are you one of the Daisy Ducks?"

"
Right, and it's important he return my call,
okay?"

There was silence. Maybe three or four heartbeats
worth, and then the voice came back.

"Uh . . . I'll get Mr. Roantis right away for
you, sir. Sorry you had to wait."

I was impressed with the rep the Daisy Ducks enjoyed
at the BYMCU. Of course, I'd failed to mention that I was only an
honorary Daisy Duck. I wasn't one of the original eight—the guys 
who fought deep behind enemy lines in Southeast Asia. Who dove out of
planes in the dead of night and strangled armies with piano wire in
swamps. But I was with the Ducks in North Carolina. Oh yeah . . .

The moaning offstage diminished. Were they toting the
guy away to the dying room, or what?

"Yeah."

"Laitis, it's Doc."

"Hey, Doc boy. How is everyt'ing with you?"

"Everything is iffy right now. I need help on a
little midnight prowl. Amphibious. Can you come along?"