Harsens Island (14 page)

Rowland, his left hand on a knee and his right on his desk, stared out the window. Sam remained by his office door. From both their perspectives, they could see the parking lot, their cruisers and her Bronco. Haberski had parked directly behind her truck, blocking her in, explaining, as he stepped from his car for the last time, that he didn’t want any monkey business.

“Haberski was a friend?” she asked.

“I’d say so, yeah. About the only one he had. Hell, besides Clayton and me you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who liked him.”

“That’s too bad,” she said.

“He wasn’t a likeable guy, but you always knew where he was coming from and knew what he stood for.”

“Family?”

“His wife passed two years back. No children. He never remarried.”

“Is that why he didn’t retire?”

“Partly. But then, you know, he’s like everybody else, broke or near to it. Over the last three, four years, he developed a habit of wandering in here close to lunchtime. I’d buy him lunch now and again, and then it became a daily thing. You see what I mean? I think there were days when lunch was his only meal.”

She waited a beat.

“What was his relationship with Hannibal?”

Rowland considered his answer before speaking.

“Large ships are always rat-infested.”

“An appropriate metaphor.”

“Is that what that is?”

“What do you think he meant by ‘fireworks’? And that crack about women giving orders?”

“Ah, he liked being cryptic, like he knew more than you – and sometimes he did – but, top of my head, the obvious. Hannibal’s annual fireworks show. He was always their security person. He liked to yell at the teenage boys and ogle the middle-age ladies. And Lauren, of course. He never liked her.”

“Or women in general, right?”

He looked at Sam.

“And women in general…”

Sam offered a wan smile.

“No wonder he didn’t remarry.”

Rowland produced an equally weak smile.

“There had to have been one last dinosaur, right?”

“Yeah...”

A moment drifted by.

“Tell me why Lauren’s so rattled,” he said. “What did you say to her?”

“Ask her,” she said. “She called you.”

“I did, but she’s as dodgy as you when she wants to be.”

“What did she say?”

“I’m asking you what happened out there.”

Sam went down another path.

“Who do you think killed Hunter?”

“I think she drowned.”

“Who’s the coroner?”

“Benoit. James Benoit.”

“What did Benoit find in her besides water?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s always a preliminary toxicology report. If she drowned it doesn’t matter what he found in her, right?”

Rowland rolled his fingers on his desk, thinking.

“Traces of cocaine, Ambien, and morphine. But drowning was the primary cause. He said that by the time he got to her she was bloated beyond recognition. He said it reminded him of a balloon animal.”

She whistled one low note.

“Huh. Anything else?”

“As a matter of fact, there’s something he can’t pinpoint.”

Rowland’s office phone rang. He muted it.

“What are you driving at, Sam?”

The phone rang again on a new line.

“
Jesus
,” he said, muting it again. “Just two seconds…”

The woman who sat at the main desk knocked on and opened his office door.

“Sorry, Mark. It’s Chief Redsky. She says it’s life or death.”

“When isn’t it? Thanks, Marcie.”

He picked up the handset.

“Rowland.”

His hands automatically reached for a pen and a yellow pad of paper. His brow wrinkled. His eyes narrowed down to the paper.

He glanced at Sam.

“I understand. How many times?”

He made a series of horizontal lines on the pad.

“No, it’s not a problem.”

He drew vertical lines over the first set of lines.

“Let me know the details. Have James Earl give me a shout.”

Sam detected movement in her peripheral vision, and glancing right saw the trooper Vicky Shorts, red lips parted slightly, her left arm pulling back from Sam’s Bronco.

Rowland rose as he placed the handset in its cradle, and following Sam’s gaze saw Shorts holding Snake’s gun. His eyes shifted back to Sam.

Sam held Haberski’s coat. With a quick shake, the keys to the dead detective’s cruiser fell to her open left palm and placed them in her pocket.

“Redsky said Snake’s dead.”

“He was alive the last time I saw him,” she said, and stepping back, leaned against the door, deftly pushing the handle’s lock button.

“She said they found him dead in a field. He’d been shot.”

“How many times?”

“Did you shoot him, Sam?”

“How many times?” she said.

There was another knock on the door. Sam looked over her shoulder and saw the trooper staring at her with a gap-toothed, what-me-worry smile, the Glock in her left hand, held by a pencil stuck in its barrel.

“That’s Snake’s gun. I took it from him. It’s missing one round. I don’t know why, and if Snake is actually dead, we may never know. It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t used on him. And it wasn’t used on Bill. Haberski shot Bill.”

“Bullshit.”

“His gun was recently fired. I smelled the cordite when I stripped him.”

Sam tilted her head to the door.

“I’m letting her in. She’ll think we’ve had a lover’s quarrel if you play it down the middle.”

Shorts thumped harder. Sam opened the door.

“Sorry about that, trooper,” Sam said. “My big butt must’ve backed into the lock. You know what that’s like.”

The trooper was breathless.

“Look what I took from her car, sheriff. I bet this is what she used to shoot that, uh, Bill guy. I bet you run this through ballistics and you’ll see I’m right. It’s missing a round.”

Rowland sat.

“Where’d you find it?”

She tilted her head toward Sam with confident satisfaction.

“In
this one’s
glove compartment.”

Rowland crossed his arms, fingers under his pits, thumbs on his chest.

“And you were looking in her glove compartment for…?”

Shorts blinked. Her mouth gaped a fraction.

She looked at Sam.

Sam shrugged.

“Gum?” Rowland said. “Tic-tac’s?”

“Uh, this, sheriff.”

“And why were you looking for a gun in Ms. Melillo’s glove compartment?”

“Like I said, that, uh, Bill fella.”

“And why aren’t you on your circuit?”

Shorts retrenched.

“Sheriff Rowland, sir, I had a hunch, and if it’s one thing I’ve learned these last six months is that a woman should follow through on her hunches. There’s this crime show on FX? And there’s this woman deputy, Molly Tolman I think her name is, and…”

He raised his palms.

Shorts stopped talking, looking puzzled.

“So you think I shot that, uh, Bill fella or, uh, Bill guy?”

“Excuse me, sheriff?” Shorts said.

“That’s my gun.”

Short’s natural blandness was now accentuated by the blood rushing from her face.

“Your gun?”

“My gun. I gave it to her after the incident at her house. I instructed her to fire a round, to get a feel for the kick.”

“I…” Shorts said.

“…You...” Rowland said, motioning with his right hand.

“…I’m so sorry, I…”

“…Trooper? I’ve got an easier question.”

“Yes sir,” she said, stepping toward him, removing the pencil from the gun. She offered it to him, handle first, and he rolled backward in his chair.

“What?” she said.

“Is the safety off?”

“Um…”

“Alright,” he said. “Now, ever so gently, please place the gun on my desk, the barrel pointed away from us, to the wall, not the window, and return to your circuit. I don’t want to hear another word.”

Shorts did exactly that.

Rowland picked up the gun, clicked the safety on, and popped the clip. He examined it. He cursed once.

He gave Sam a long, flat look.

“Twice.”

“Pardon me?” Sam said.

“She said Snake was shot twice. This is missing one round.”

Rowland gestured to her to come closer.

“This better be good.”

Sam placed Haberski’s coat on the desk, opened the jacket, and exposed the holstered gun. Rowland gave the gun a brief examination, turning it in a semi-circle. He lifted it and immediately inhaled a trace of burnt powder.

“I’ll be damned.”

Rowland opened a drawer, removed a box of latex gloves, and put one on each hand. He removed the weapon from its holster; he flicked the chamber open and let its remaining bullets fall to his desk. He sniffed a second time, and side-peered down the barrel. 

“One fired, recently, like you said.”

Sam said, “Did they find anything when they worked on Bill?”

“No, not that I know of – but Steve was handling this so – good God, what was he doing?”

“I’ve got a theory that needs proof – but I need Bill to confirm it.”

Rowland shook his head, removing the gloves.

Sam continued talking.

“I’ll bet the bullet is still in Bill. You’d better call Ann Arbor – they probably know about the bullet already, but we don’t want Hannibal, Houle, or Redsky to find out about it. What about Snake?”

“Not my jurisdiction. I’ll keep in contact with Redsky.”

“Who’s the sheriff?”

“Redsky’s brother, James Earl.”

Rowland picked up the phone, punched a button, got an outside line, and looking at a list of contacts on his computer, found and rapidly dialed the number for U of M. He went through a series of connections before he reached someone who knew about Bill Catanzaro.

Sam caught the gist of the conversation.

“He’ll live?” she asked when he hung up.

“He’s in ICU, induced coma, but his vitals are stable. They don’t know if he can use his left hand or arm again. Adele’s given them permission to do whatever they can to save his life, even at the risk of losing the arm.”

“And the bullet?”

“It ricocheted through his rib cage and ended a fraction from his left lung. They can’t get to it until he’s stabilized.”

“But he’ll live?”

“He’ll live.” 

“Good. Now you need to call whatever hospital Haberski went to and tell them to keep mum about his death. We can’t allow Hannibal to know he’s dead.”

Rowland’s blue eyes locked onto her eyes.

Sam held her hands up in mock surrender.

“Okay, sorry. You decide what’s next.”

“Why should I do that?”

“It’s a tactical move. Did you catch Hannibal’s reaction when Haberski said Bill had been shot?”

“Yeah, I did. He folded pretty quickly, didn’t he?”

“It struck me that Haberski wanted to tell him in a public setting.”

“Maybe,” Rowland said. “He did seem bashful right after he said it.”

“Here’s my point. We want Hannibal to think Haberski is still running interference. It’ll buy us time if he thinks he’s alive.”

Rowland inhaled and exhaled slowly, a long deliberate breath.

“What does your father do for a living?”

She wasn’t expecting the question, but she answered as her father would have, reciting a script he had shared and that she had memorized.

“He was a relationship manager.”

“Relationship manager?”

“He utilized mechanical and non-mechanical methods of persuasion to arbitrate disputes between divergent parties, with the goal of circumventing future disagreements by establishing mutually inclusive standards, trust points, and realistic, achievable goals.”

Rowland stared at her.

“As clear as mud.”

“You wouldn’t like the short answer.”

“I’ll make the call,” he said.

“There’s one more thing.”

Rowland rested his hand on the phone.

“Ask Benoit to check Hunter for kaolin.”
“ Excuse me?”

“He’s not looking for another drug. He’s looking for this stuff. Kaolin.”

She scribbled the word on his pad.

“It’s powdered clay. It’s a cure for diarrhea and vomiting. It should’ve settled throughout her G.I. tract. If he finds kaolin it’ll confirm she was murdered.”

“Clay. She was killed with clay.”

“Not exactly, no. The kaolin made her drowning swifter. Whoever placed her in the river gambled Benoit would settle for the obvious – water in her lungs and stomach. It’s the kaolin that made her swell.” Sam nodded to his desk. “It’s about seven, right?”

Rowland looked down at the watch on his desk.

“Seven-ten.”

“Meet me at the lighthouse at nine-thirty.…”

“…What?...”

“…and we’ll go in together.”

Rowland placed his right hand horizontally over his vertical left hand.

“Hold on, hold on, time out.”

He stepped away from the desk, motioning again with his palms, fingers spread.

      “Before you say another word, I need to be clear on what you’re thinking. So slow down and let me get a word in edgewise. I don’t want to sound like an idiot when I call Benoit. I don’t want him to think I pulled this from thin air.”

“Okay,” she said.

Rowland kept his palms up for another second and then leaned against his desk.

“Good,” he said. “Now. Go ahead. Tell me.”

Sam paused to align the words.

“You’re telling Benoit that kaolin mixed with a potable liquid and morphine is a Vietnamese cure for diarrhea. Morphine is used for pain, and kaolin absorbs water.”

“Potable? What’s that mean again?”

“Anything you can drink. Water, lemonade, booze – anything a man can drink that doesn’t kill him.”

“Alright, got it…”

“The morphine was probably a low dosage, enough to slow her respiration but not stop it and enough to make any traces appear recreational…”

“…Alright…”

“…You agree with him Hunter
did
drown, but kaolin was a contributing factor. He’ll need to check her stomach and G.I. tract. If he finds kaolin it’ll prove she was murdered.”

“Alright,” he said. “I got it. Now tell me why I need to meet you at the lighthouse.”

“Moon is Vietnamese.”

His lips drew a thin line and his eyes narrowed.

“You’re saying Moon killed Hunter? Why the hell would she do that?”

“Make the call,” she said, reaching for the door handle.

“It’s a holiday,” Rowland said. “He won’t be working.”

She opened the door.

“Leave a message. Nine-thirty.”