5 - Choker: Ike Schwartz Mystery 5 (16 page)

Chapter 30

Except for a parishioner with a hacking cough at the eight o’clock and a crying baby at ten-thirty, the Sunday services had proceeded without a hitch. Blake had noticed the Starkey family, without the boyfriend in tow, remained in their pew during Communion and left during the recessional, thus sparing him another confrontation. How much longer he would be able to avoid one was another matter. Ashley’s problem had to be addressed, but he felt unsure as to what he should or could do. Mary had no advice for him at dinner Saturday night. Now, on a rainy Monday afternoon, he sat at his desk looking across the parking lot and watched as gallons of water cascaded from the Rectory’s eaves. The downspouts emptied on asphalt and formed freshets that separated fallen leaves into microcanyons. He half expected to see salmon swimming upstream to spawn.

At noon, Gloria had poked her head in the door to announce she was off to lunch and asked if he wanted her to bring him anything back. He’d refused and thanked her, saying he had some work to do and he’d grab something later. In point of fact, he had nothing much to do: some paper work, update the books and attendance statistics, read the accumulated mail from the weekend. No one had been hospitalized, and there’d been no requests for a visit. He worried a little about Esther Peeper’s cat and thought he ought to call her, but decided it could wait. Who knew, maybe it would turn up after all. Tomcats were not known for their stay-at-home qualities. The rain streamed across the windowpanes and filled the areaway below. It depressed him. It never stopped, never slackened. He felt damp just looking at it through the window, and he most certainly did not want to go out in it, even to dash across the parking lot to the rectory to eat.

After Gloria left, he’d raided the church refrigerator. He found some leftover veggies and fruit, a gesture by a parishioner toward healthy snacking and an alternative to the cookies and donut holes that usually weighed down the refreshment table during post-service coffee hour. He ate some limp celery, found a jar of peanut butter in the Sunday school’s cupboard, which he opened and spread on the rest of the stalks. Only way to eat celery, as any six-year-old could tell you. He finished off his lunch with a cold, week-old slice of pizza and cup of coffee, reheated in the microwave. He treated himself to a handful of oatmeal and raisin cookies for dessert. He felt fed but not cheered.

On dreary rainy days, the sun did not set. Things just got darker and then it was night. As soon as the rain eased, he thought, he’d make a run for the rectory, heat a couple of hotdogs, and find a good movie on the TV. Maybe two movies. Better yet, he’d invite Mary over and they’d have a film festival. The phone rang. He checked the clock on the wall. It read four-fifty. The office officially closed at five. He debated whether to answer. On the fourth ring, the answering machine picked up and he listened as Frank Sutherlin started to leave a message.

“Reverend Fisher, um, Father Blake, I had a deputy search the Internet, and she found some things you should probably see. Give me a call.”

Blake hesitated. His idea of a film festival with Mary, had grown in his mind from a fantasy to a plan. Images of a crackling fire, a flickering television, and an appropriate film to set the mood had displaced any thoughts of earnest work. Why couldn’t Frank have called earlier? He had frittered away the entire day with mindless busy work, he had his evening planned, and now a call to duty. He exhaled in frustration. Christmas Eve notwithstanding, Mary would have probably begged off anyway. She had funny ideas about spending time alone with him in his house—or hers, either, for that matter.

He picked up and called Frank Sutherlin back.

“Frank. Sorry, I was on my way out the door and didn’t pick up in time. What have you found?”

“Can you come to the office? I have some things you need to see.”

***

Ike stowed his equipment back into their duffels and slogged to his car. His shoes squished as he walked, and he wondered if there had ever been a time when he’d been wetter. Once, in Paris, years ago, he’d spent an uncomfortable night in their famous sewers, but that was another time, another life. At least this soaking didn’t smell bad. As he passed Bunky’s shed he noticed the pile of miscellaneous items, including the presumptive tail piece, were missing.

“What happened to all that junk you had piled up next to your shed?”

“Aw, there wasn’t nothing there to see. Once a month I collect all the trash that floats up on my little beach and haul it over to the landfill. You won’t believe what washes up here.”

“Anything in particular?” Ike would probe a bit. He felt sure he could trust Bunky, well almost, but the bit of missing airplane needed an explanation.

“Shoot, bottles, condoms, Styrofoam cups—I tell you, I got me a list of people who I’m nominating for a quick trip to Hades, and the inventor of the dinged Styrofoam cup is near the top of my list, along with the morons who run the government, of course. Who’s on your list?”

Ike had never thought about a list of people he’d happily condemn to the fiery furnace. “I haven’t thought about it, but I think the guy who came up with blister packaging would be right up there. I asked about the trash, because I thought I saw a piece of aluminum in there that could have been a piece of our airplane.”

“You think?” Bunky studied the mud puddle at his feet. “Well, now, maybe it coulda’ been, now that you mention it. Now, a piece off a boat I’d right away know, but airplanes is not something I know a lot about.” He kept his eyes down. Ike pushed.

“It’s in the landfill?”

“Yup.” Ike could usually tell if someone was stretching the truth, and his instincts said Bunky had something to hide. He squished his way to the shed.

“Okay if I store my gear here overnight?”

“Golly, I think she’s full up. Maybe up on the porch’d be better.”

Ike pulled the shed door open and peered inside. The shed seemed cluttered but not full. The piece of tail section leaned against the far wall. He turned to see Bunky’s reaction. He, in turn, had the decency to look embarrassed.

“Look, lemme explain,” he said. “It didn’t seem likely to me you’d be out here looking for an airplane that just had somebody’s nephew, or whoever, in it. I mean you must have ten or fifteen thousand dollars worth of equipment in them bags. That’s not counting the camera and cable you let slip overboard. Seems to me like somebody’s mighty interested in that airplane, that’s for sure. I figured there musta’ been a pretty important person in that wreck. Come on, who’s out there? A movie star, or a government big shot, or a gangster maybe? I’m figuring it has to be somebody big to get all that attention. I just reckoned when the story about it hit the papers and TV, I’d put that piece of whatsis on E-Bay and collect me some money.”

“Bunky, I promise you, the person in that plane is most definitely not famous or important, and the story will never—I repeat, never—appear on the TV, in the papers, or anywhere else. But you can keep it if you want. However, in the unlikely event the FAA or NTSB needs it, you may have to give it up.”

Bunky looked crestfallen. “It ain’t worth nothing?”

“It’s worth something as scrap. But, if you want to post something on the Internet, you ought to consider that old Ferguson tractor in your front yard. What year is it, anyway?”

“Forty-eight or ’49, I think. Why?”

“Does it run?”

“Last time I tried her, she did.”

“How are you at restoring machinery?”

“Not me, but my boy can. He’s down to the Vo-Tech learning auto mechanics, body work, you know, all that mechanical stuff. He could do it.”

“Put him to work on it. You should lop down the weeds in front, take some decent pictures, and post it for sale on Craig’s List. If you can get that thing running and fixed up, you’re looking at a couple of thousand, at least.”

“No. Really?”

“Wouldn’t be surprised. Help me put these bags away. I don’t know about tomorrow. I hope to have some divers with me, but I can’t be sure when.”

“You paid for a week. You get a week. If you ain’t here, I’ll have a look at working on that tractor. It’s really worth some money?”

Chapter 31

Ike drove east toward the beach through the rain which, by this time, had slacked off. He took that as a mercy. Still, every time he switched his foot from accelerator to brake, his sodden socks reminded him of his afternoon on the water, as if he needed a reminder. Hungry, wet, and squinting through the glare of a seemingly endless stream of approaching headlights, he took a stab at summarizing his day. Wet and weary? Close. Successful but suggestive? Better, a neater précis, but still not quite right. Beyond surmising that the Cessna had been shot down, a stretch at best, he still didn’t know how Nick Reynolds ended up in the reedy bottom of Eastern Bay. Who packs a surface-to-air missile on their person or their boat? But more important, who would have the temerity to fire one on the Fourth of July, even if they did have one?

Now, if a malfunction had developed in the fuel line, an explosion could explain the plane in two pieces and Nick in the drink. But what had he seen that prompted him to call and ask for Charlie? Frustrated and still hungry, Ike pulled into a restaurant that advertised it served breakfast twenty-four hours. At least one thing remained certain in an uncertain world—Denny’s did breakfast.

Settled in a booth and warmed by a cup of coffee, Ike dragged out his cell phone and punched in Charlie’s number. He answered on the first ring.

“Where have you been? I expected a call hours ago.”

“Sorry, Dad, I lost track of the time. Am I grounded?”

“Cut the crap, Ike, I thought you’d have something sooner and I started to wonder—”

“Aw, were you worried about me? I’m touched, Charlie. No worries. We, that is Bunky Crispins and I, have found your airplane.”

“I guess I’m happy about that.”

“You guess? Charlie that’s the whole point of this exercise, or did I miss something?”

“Yes, yes, of course. But now I have to tell my niece and…What can you tell me?”

“I understand, closure can be painful, even though everyone involved knew the worst all along. It’s the finality of the thing. Anyway, the plane is in two pieces, separated by at least fifty yards. I think you can safely scratch death spiral off your list of probables. I will need those divers if I’m to tell you more than that. Have you requisitioned some for me?”

“We have contacted a SEAL team, number four, I think, and their commanding officer is okay with the idea of releasing some personnel from the group’s dive locker but needs authorization from higher up. We’re working on that now. I can’t have them much before Wednesday. Tell me, was there—”

“A body? Yes. The water out there is murky, and the camera ended up tangled in the aircraft’s wing struts, so I couldn’t maneuver around and have a better look after that. You will need to supply the divers with a body bag, I guess.”

“Yes, will do. What did you do about the camera?”

“I left it in the drink. The divers can retrieve it later. That reminds me, I lost your fancy GPU overboard.”

“What, when, how?”

“I think it will slip overboard sometime later in the week.”

“What—later in the week?”

“Or maybe next week, I can’t be sure just yet. Consider it an insurance policy or a performance bonus for Captain Bunky. I want him on the job and steady and, equally important, silent when we finish.”

“How will a GPU do that? I don’t begrudge you the unit. We lose stuff all the time, money, weapons, watches, and…you know.”

“It has
Property of the United States Government
stamped on it, a traceable serial number. If Bunky decides to be indiscreet, we’ll have him arrested for possession of stolen goods. He’ll dummy up. Besides he seems pretty straight.”

“Why would he say anything? It’s okay to gift it to him, I guess but…what did you say his name was?”

“Bunky. He’s a waterman and he hates the government, you see?”

“See what? Everybody hates the government. It’s an American tradition. We call it democracy—the inherent right to despise the government at any and all levels. Only we despise everyone else’s government even more than we do ours. That keeps us secure when we elect a really bad President.”

“Charlie, you’ve become a cynic. Shame on you.”

“Go to hell. What else have you found?”

“Precious little. Some niggling thoughts, some maybes, some what-ifs, that’s all. What have your satellite guys turned up?”

“Nothing yet. They don’t know what they’re looking for. And nothing has jumped out as odd or suspicious. I’ll call you when the divers are approved.”

Ike snapped the phone shut and greeted his waitress who laid out an American Slam. Ike tucked in. He felt better already.

***

Charlie Garland closed his phone and turned to Tony Fugarelli. “You heard?”

“What are you two, old fraternity buddies? Yeah, I heard. How much do you think he knows?”

“Ike is no fool. He knows it’s something big and sooner or later he’ll figure it out.”

“That can’t happen, Garland. He’s not with the Company anymore.”

“Actually, he is. The director made it clear. We treat him like one of us. Besides, he agrees with you; he would rather not be. But for the purposes of working out this puzzle we need—”

“All right, already, but I’m still not convinced what the guys in Counterterrorism are freaking out about, and your missing airplane may not have anything more in common with it than a coincidence of timing.”

“I hope you’re right. Frankly I can’t see how they mesh either. But the boss says look and so we look. What do we know for sure?”

“Since the last time we talked, nothing new. We can trace the hardware, years back, from Russia to China. That was easy. All the old Soviet apparatchiks faced some hard choices when the wall came down. Go to work for the Russian mafia or sell out-of-date intelligence to the West. Once the goods were in China, they lingered until the Chinese ramped up their own manufacturing capacity and started making newer, better copies. Then they dumped the old junk on the Arab arms market. We can trace them to Iran and then,
Bupkis, bupkis mit kuduchas
even.”

“Very colorful. That would be Sicilian Yiddish?”

“What can I tell you; I grew up in Yonkers. How do you want to handle the plane?”

“For now, I think we should leave it. We’ll put divers in the water, pull the body out, grab what we can, then wait and see. If we haul a crane and a tug down there, every TV station in the area will be on it. If we have to, we’ll pull it up later. Right now I want to get the body out and go through Nick’s things.”

“What do you think you’re going to find? Come on—he makes a call and then, pow, he’s gone. And he’ll have been in the water for nearly three months. Autopsy won’t be worth anything.”

“As you say,
bupkis
, I know. Maybe we’ll find trace explosives.”

“You don’t buy Schwartz’s idea of a SAM, do you?”

“I’ll buy anything right now. I’ve two problems to solve, yours and my niece’s. I’m working on both at the moment.”

“Right, but for the record, I remember Schwartz from the old days. That was then, this is now, and I don’t care about him beyond what he can do for us in the short run, and, in the unlikely event we tie this all together, I’d have no problem terminating him if it seemed necessary. I want you to know that, Garland. We need to be clear on it. The director may have a soft spot in his heart, if indeed he actually has a heart, for this guy, but I can’t. If the protocol calls for it, he’ll have an accident on his way home to whatever that burg he lives in down there in Hicksville.”

Charlie measured Fugarelli like an undertaker would a corpse. “Fugarelli, as I said before, Ike is no fool. You will have to get up early in the morning to do anything to him. When he first walked away, couple of years back, some idiot, your predecessor I think, tried to arrange something like that.”

“What happened?”

“Nobody knows. The guy went out and never came back. No trace. So, good luck with your moronic protocol. My advice? Walk away.”