Daddy's Little Killer (18 page)

Briscoe chuckled.  "Puppy was but a
rookie back in the day.  Oh, pardon me, we had a new class of
rookies by then, Puppy.  Don't get riled on me now, or I'll
have to smack your nose with Johnny's newspaper.

"Come on in here, Eriksson.  May as
well get this over with," the old warhorse-detective beckoned with
one hand.

"You know why I'm here?"

"You ought to be asking Johnny these
questions.  It was his case after all," Briscoe said.

"Yes, a case he was so invested in that I
suspect he's never given up trying to close it," I observed. 
"Sit.  Both of you.  Unless of course you can't
comprehend why I would prefer questioning someone with more
objectivity in this matter than Orion has."

"I think we just got insulted, Puppy. 
Did we?"

"Hmm.  A little bit."  Conall's
mouth turned downward in a ridiculous pout of disapproval. 
"What can we tell you about the Bennett case?"

"Right now?  Nothing.  I'm more
interested in the history of Darkwater Bay at the moment."

Briscoe scratched his goatee and
grunted.  "Well if that don't beat all.  You got a knack
for throwin' curve balls, Eriksson.  Where do you want to
start?"

"The beginning would be nice."  I sat
in one of the chairs and stared at the sofa, waiting for Briscoe
and Conall to sit. 

"The beginning of Darkwater Bay?" 
Conall looked as perplexed as Briscoe.  "How can ancient
history possibly help you solve a murder, Dr. Eriksson?"

"I doubt the current city meets the
archeological standard of ancient, detective.  And I'll be the
judge of what helps me understand the dynamic that led to Gwen
Foster's murder and what didn't."

Briscoe's chocolate eyes gleamed.  "I
see where you're goin' with this, Eriksson.  All right. 
You wanna know how Darkwater Bay from the beginning resulted in the
era we currently enjoy."

"Very astute of you, Detective
Briscoe.  Something in this town turned into a magnet for the
wrong kinds of people, and I need to understand what that was."

"Darkwater Bay was founded in the late 1850s
by settlers who failed to strike it rich in the '49 gold rush in
California," Conall said.  "They migrated north along the
coast and happened upon Darkwater Bay."

"The weather, so say the history books, was
the major drawback for folks wanting to stay," Briscoe said. 
"On account of our eerie fog from sundown to mid-morning, and the
fact that the cloud rises but seldom disappears.  But the
fishing in the bay was unbelievable back then, and still is to this
day.  Have you noticed the bay, Eriksson?"

I had noticed it, an unusual phenomenon that
I initially thought was caused by light refraction off the water's
surface until I saw the same shimmering light, like black diamonds
gleaming on the water's surface, at sunset when I was returning to
my hotel to meet Maya for dinner.  "It's very unique," I
said.

"Like a shimmery oil slick," Conall
said.

"I thought black diamonds," I replied. 
"It was breathtaking.  When I noticed it while we drove from
the airport to Nightingale last night, I thought it was merely the
lights on the bay refracting against the water.  It wasn't
completely dark when I saw it this evening."

"She's good," Briscoe said.

"Part of what makes this so visible is the
soil that the Elegiac River dumps into the bay," Conall
explained.  "It's probably the blackest, richest soil you've
ever seen.  Not only that, it is rich enough to grow just
about anything we plant in it without much fuss."

"The settlers here didn't know that after a
few nights camped along the bay," Briscoe said.  "They were
more enamored with the fact that they could practically wade out
and catch a feast with their bare hands.  We have a tremendous
population of shellfish, and other varieties of fish like salmon
and trout in the bay."

"Trout.  In a bay?"

"They go where the food is," Briscoe
grinned.

"Bioluminescent plankton?"

"See?" Briscoe turned to Conall again. 
"Did I not say she's good?"

"It's a very unusual variety, Dr. Eriksson,"
Crevan said.  "Our bay has a unique composition, you see."

"Hmm, I do," I nodded.  Of
course.  It was so simple.  "The osmolality of the water
is a mix of fresh and salt water.  Combined with whatever
minerals are in the soil, it created an environment where the
bioluminescent plankton not only evolved differently than we see in
other areas, but thrived.  It resulted in an ecosystem that
became self sustaining and bountiful."

"Exactly," Briscoe's index finger stabbed
the air in my direction.  "So they might not've struck gold
down south, but they hit a jackpot of another kind.  They
settled, and initially, fishing was the primary trade."

"Until springtime rolled around and the
farmers started working the soil," Conall said.  "And they
discovered that they could plant just about anything and it would
grow.  It wasn't long before somebody figured out that the bay
was rich with life because of the Elegiac."

"Interesting name for a river that brought
life to the bay, wasn't it?" 

"I reckon that's one way of lookin' at it,"
Briscoe's tone was agreeable, but his eyes took offense to even a
minor criticism of his city and its resources.  "On the other
hand, when you consider our overall climate out here, the rains
that feed the river, it's like she's dumping her mournful tears
into the bay, and that was what sustained the settlers."

"Very poetic, Briscoe."

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you that
people get prone to depression when the sun don't shine much," he
continued, "so that too gives our river her name.  This place
was considered a place of sadness, solemn ground by the native
population who regularly conducted their funeral rites in the area
prior to the white man's settlement.  It was sacred to
them."

"Perhaps Dr. Eriksson isn't aware that the
rain and fog in this area are unique, Tony.  You can drive
fifty miles away from the city and enjoy sunny, clear skies."

"Good to know.  I believe you were
telling me about someone realizing that the bay's unique properties
resulted from the river …"

Briscoe unruffled.  "Right.  So
they ventured along the river up to the Scabbard."

"A specific mountain, I presume."

"Uh-huh," Briscoe nodded.  "They found
the third source of bounty the Elegiac fed.  Timber. 
Over a century and a half later, we're still living in an economy
largely supported by those three forms of commerce – fishing,
farming and lumber."

"Fascinating.  And there hasn't been an
issue with depletion of the natural resources?"

Conall grinned.  "We've got our own
ecosystem out here, Helen.  Can you imagine for a minute that
there aren't as many scientists as we have trees and fish
monitoring to make sure that it remains healthy?"

"They got departments at both universities
here in Darkwater Bay," Briscoe concurred.  "They're out
testing soil and counting trees in the reforestation project and
makin' sure the water isn't getting polluted by commercial ships or
the stock in the river and bay aren't depleted.  We can't
throw a speck of gravel out here without hittin' some form of
environmentalist or another."

"But something brought them here." 
Bits of the puzzle were starting to mesh in my mind.  Briscoe
and Conall's shared look confirmed what I suspected.

"About twenty years ago, the majority stock
holder in the biggest logging company in the state shifted hands,"
Conall said.  "And the logging industry started taking more
than the land could regrow."

"Which attracted environmentalists."

"Right," Briscoe nodded.  "And leading
the way was a guy out here who employed organic farming practices
just like his daddy and granddaddy had before organic farming was
the cool thing to do."

"Who was he?" I asked.

"The man who organized the environmentalists
to protect the forests up on Scabbard Mountain," Briscoe
said.  "Fellow by the name of Frank Bennett."

"Bennett.  As in Brighton Bennett?"

"He was her uncle," Conall said.  He
stared at the hands folded loosely in his lap.  "Frank butted
heads pretty hard with the guy who had the majority share in the
logging company.  For awhile, it looked like industry would
win the fight."

"You haven't told me who that major
stockholder was, Tony."

"I think you already suspect who he
was.  Mr. Fancy Pants Ivy League corporate lawyer, who breezed
into town lookin' to cut a fat hog in the ass and make a fortune on
his own terms."

"Daniel Datello."

"She is good," Conall murmured.

"It's hardly rocket science.  What
happened in the environmentalist's battle?"

"Frank used his influence with the governor
and some state senators who didn't want the economy to fizzle and
die in a decade or two and got reforestation laws mandated by the
legislature.  'Course ol' Danny-boy weren't none too pleased
–"

"Until he discovered that what they planted
grew faster than anyone expected it would," Conall said.  "So
he realized that what Frank did to save the forest guaranteed the
success of his logging interest beyond the foreseeable future."

"Fabulous.  I take it he became a
corporate poster child for environmentalism."

"He and Frank became good friends," Briscoe
said, "so when Datello expanded his interests into the fishing
business, right off the bat he hired a team of scientists who would
monitor their impact on the river and the bay –"

"And Datello is a hero once more."

"Right," Tony said.  "So a year later
when Danny decided that he'd like to turn our fair city into
something a bit more attractive to tourism, nobody put up much of a
fight, not even the state legislature who legalized gambling and
ultimately put our quaint little island on par with Vegas and
Atlantic City."

"Enter the Island Hotel Resort and Casino,
and Salvatore Masconi.  How many years were the casinos open
before Brighton's murder?"

"Two.  Barely," Conall said.  "The
city thought that by restricting the zoning for casinos to
Hennessey Island, it would curb crime in the rest of the
city.  We'd have this isolated pocket where crime was more
likely to occur.  They built a station run by Bay View
Division on the island.  And their estimation of criminal
activity missed the mark by about a thousand percent."

"Hennessey Island has the lowest crime rate
in all the divisions of Darkwater Bay, doesn't it?"

"Yep," Briscoe nodded.  "Bay View
Division, which includes Hennessey Island, Beach Cliffs, Bay View
and a couple of other small suburbs is by far the safest place to
live in Darkwater Bay.  After that, Fielding Division and
Downey are about neck and neck for crime.  Darkwater proper
has the city, Nightingale, Elegiac Bend and a couple others. 
It's the festering wound known as Central Division's
jurisdiction."

"Which is interesting," Conall interjected,
"because some of the oldest names in Darkwater Bay and wealthiest
families live in Nightingale."

"Like Gwen Bennett Foster."

Their eyes widened.

"Apparently Flynn Myre lied to me when he
said her parentage was common knowledge."

"If anybody knew, they never mentioned it
that I'm aware of."  Conall's eyes seemed to burn through the
wooden slats covering the windows in Orion's den. 

Good.  He put it together as quickly as
I did.  Orion withheld information.

"Did you know Ms. Foster through your mutual
friend, Detective Conall?"

"Crevan," he corrected me.  "And I met
her a couple of times.  Johnny never mentioned that she was a
Bennett."

"After what happened to Brighton, the whole
family opted for low profile, 'cept for her mama," Briscoe
explained.  "And I can't blame 'em.  There comes a time
when folks gotta leave the past and move on."

"Move on," I rasped.  How I hated that
phrase. 

Briscoe perched his elbows on his knees and
leaned heavily.  "I ain't sayin' they gave up, Helen."

I noticed the seamless transition to
addressing me informally and frowned.  It was too comfortable,
too familiar.  Too natural.

"For a fact, I know Johnny
never gave up on bringin' Masconi to justice.  You said it
yourself not more'n half hour ago.  You don't think Orion gave
up on the case either.  He and Gwen were thick as thieves
since she was just a little kid, picked on by others at the Sisters
of Mercy Academy, and Johnny, who was quite a bit older, took her
under his wing and put a stop to it. 
That's
the kind of guy Johnny's been
his whole life."

"So she wasn't merely another of his
infamous conquests?"

Briscoe chuckled while Conall squirmed and
blushed. 

"I ain't sayin' Johnny's no angel with the
fairer sex.  But he takes care of his friends, got even more
that way after his parents died.  It's like he grew his own
family after his folks were gone."

"Great," I muttered.  "And what
signifies the difference between conquest and friend?"

Briscoe leaned back in his chair, smug
expression etched into his fifty-something face.  "I reckon I
could tell you till the stars fall and the fog leaves Darkwater Bay
forever, Helen.  But there's some things a person's gotta
figure out alone."

"If the person in question has any interest
in that particular mystery, which I doubt exists."  I paused
and stared hard at both men.  "So tell me.  If Danny
Datello owns Darkwater Bay lock, stock and barrel, is that
ownership inclusive of the police department, specifically its
detectives?"

Their eyes widened.

Chapter 17