Waiting... On You (Force Recon Marines) (6 page)

“So, who wants to go first?” he
prompted.

Misunderstanding what his Uncle was
asking for, Christopher exuberantly responded. “Me, me! My PlayStation at
Grandma’s. We can play Tank Fighter. I get the black tank.”

Nick laughed. “We’ll play that later,
sport, but right now I need to talk to the ladies.” He turned to Colleen at the
far end of the table. “Can Christopher watch a little television in the other
room? Looks like he’s finished with his dinner.”

Colleen smiled and got up. “He sure
can.” She helped the boy carry his dishes to the kitchen, then took him into
the den to help him find a program that was suitable.

Nick smiled, seeing the plate of
cookies and glass of chocolate milk Colleen carried for his nephew. He
remembered her doing the same thing for Lance and himself when they’d come to
visit Dylan and Hanna as children.

While they waited for Colleen to
return, Christine took the baby upstairs for a nap, and Nick helped Hanna clear
the table of dishes. Once that was completed and Christine came back down, Jessie
brought out a warm peach pie that she cut into large slices, then topped with
vanilla ice cream. It was Nick’s favorite dessert. Along with the pie, Jessie
poured everyone fresh cups of coffee.

Nick attacked his pie in big bites.
“Geez, Mom, I haven’t had anything like this in three years! You haven’t lost
your touch.”

“Thank you, son. I love to spoil you.”

“I’m too old to be spoiled,” he chided
her.

“You’re never too old to be spoiled.”

Nick grinned lovingly at his mother,
swallowed the last of his pie, then turned to Christine. “Do you want to go
first, while Katie’s asleep?”

They all knew that they were supposed
to fill Nick in on what each one knew, so the young widow nodded and smiled ruefully.
“I’ll piece together what we learned from everyone in the first few hours after
Dylan’s death. The sheriff’s dispatcher sent Dylan out to Nat Simm’s place around
six thirty in the evening. Nat had called in another complaint that someone in
a cabin cruiser was messing with his crab pots again. Nat lives at the south
end of Discovery Bay, near Discovery Junction. He keeps his traps in the bay,
south of the spit. He’d been making complaints about poachers messing with his
equipment. His neighbors had been complaining about it as well in recent
months. Nat says Dylan stopped by, took the report, saw the cabin cruiser that
was anchored near the pots, then headed out in his patrol boat to talk to the
boater. Dylan radioed the dispatcher that he was going to check the guy’s boat
registration and fishing license. Nat says it was getting dark, and Dylan was
concerned the cabin cruiser didn’t have his running lights on. From the shore,
he saw Dylan reach the cabin cruiser and board it. About ten minutes later,
Dylan drove off in his patrol boat, then the cabin cruiser left.”

Nick listened without interruption, and
then asked, “Did Nat give a description of the boat? Make or model? Any
description of the guy onboard? Did Dylan radio anything back in after boarding
the cabin cruiser?”

“Not that I’ve heard,” Christine
replied. “The dispatcher said that Dylan didn’t get back to her. Nat said it
was getting too dark to get a good description of the boat and the driver. The
only thing he could tell the deputies was that the boat was a cabin cruiser,
about thirty feet long, not too old, probably a Bayliner.”

“After Dylan drove off, did the other
boat follow him?”

“Nat said they both headed north, out
of bay.” Christine frowned. “It’s not much, is it?”

“At least we have a witness who saw
something,” Nick said, trying to sound encouraging.

“We need to talk to Nat Simms again,”
Hanna interjected. “Lance was going out to talk to him the day he disappeared.”

“I definitely need to talk to him
again. I think I remember him. He’s been in that old trailer on the shoreline
forever, hasn’t he?” Nick asked, looking around the table for an answer.

“Yes, he has,” his mother told him.

“I want to go with you when you talk
to him,” Hanna said. “Nat’s a bit of a cantankerous old character, but he likes
me.

“Isn’t he an ex-Marine?” Nick asked
again. When Hanna nodded, he added, “We’ll go see him together.”

“You know, I’ve been staying over here
with the baby since... well, you know....” Christine spoke up again, avoiding
stating the painful reason why. “But not too long afterward, I went home to get
some things, and the back door was open. I know I didn’t leave it open. In
fact, I locked everything up when I moved over here. When I went back, nothing
seemed missing or damaged, not even the door lock, but I sensed someone had
been inside. I could just feel it, you know. Why would someone come in and not
steal something?”

“I don’t know, but you and I will go
back Monday and do another search. Could be someone was looking for something
they didn’t find, so they decided not to raise any suspicions, although leaving
the door open wasn’t smart.”

“I’ve been afraid to go back,”
Christine admitted.

“I don’t blame you, but this time I’ll
be with you.”

“What would someone be looking for?”
Christine wanted to know.

Nick shook his head, perplexed. “Maybe
something Dylan was working on?”

“I don’t know.” The young mother was
at a loss.

“We’ll brainstorm when we go over
there. Your memory might get jogged once you’re inside looking with me.”

Jessie got up again to clear the
dessert dishes from the table and pour more coffee. When she returned, Colleen
turned to Hanna.

“You better tell Nicholas what
happened to you last week.”

Hanna had to smile at her
grandmother’s use of Nick’s full first name. No one but Colleen called him
Nicholas. “I think Nick has heard about it from his mother.” She took a sip of
her coffee, reluctant to make too big a deal out of her late night incidents.
“Nick has enough to worry about.”

His gaze sharpened on her, his gray
eyes narrowing. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that? Worrying about each
one of you is my job right now.”

The intensity of his gaze made her
shift a little on her chair. “I think I should tell you what I know about Dylan
and Lance first.”

“Fine, but that won’t get you off the
hook from telling me what happened to you.”

Hanna knew he wouldn’t let her forget,
but she began by telling him what she knew about her brother’s death.

“Dylan was supposed to pick me up from
work the night he died.” She glanced at Christine’s pale taut expression, and reached
out to squeeze her hand compassionately. “I waited at the hospital a long time,
then called Christine. She hadn’t heard from him, either. Then I called the
sheriff’s office. The dispatcher told me that she’d sent him out to Nat Simms.
She hadn’t heard from since. They tried to contact him and got no response. The
next morning, they finally sent a patrol boat and helicopter out. They found
his boat in the middle of Discovery Bay, drifting into shore on the current.
There was an empty bottle of whiskey on board, but no Dylan. The next day,
divers went out to search. Deputies from the sheriff’s office and the police
department interviewed everyone who lived along the shore, near Nat’s place. A
couple of older people had seen the cabin cruiser out by their crab pots, but
hadn’t been able to give any better description of it than Simms had. No one
had seen what might have happened to Dylan. Like Nat, they just saw his patrol
boat go by on its way back into Port George. Four days after he disappeared,
Dylan’s body was found floating in the bay by a passing boater.”

Christine caught back a sob and shot
up from the table, tears spilling down her cheeks. Colleen immediately went
after her. When Hanna looked across the table at Nick, tears were pouring down
her cheeks, too.

“I’m sorry to make you dredge all this
up again,” Nick said, his voice low and husky with compassion.

“It has to be done.” Hanna took the
tissue Jessie handed her. “It’s infuriating how the police chief and the
sheriff have handled the case. That idiot Port George has for a coroner
examined Dylan’s body and did a quick test for drugs and alcohol. He determined
after only the most minimal of exams that Dylan fell off his patrol boat,
drunk, and subsequently drowned. Death by accidental drowning due to alcohol
intoxication was his official report. We were all outraged. Dylan would not
drink on the job. The coroner also determined that Dylan’s head wound was
caused by his fall off his boat.

“That head injury really bothered me,
so I had a Seattle medical examiner, who’s a friend of mine, come over to take
a look. They wouldn’t let him do another autopsy. He only got to look at the
body and exam the final report. But even with that little bit of information,
he concluded that the alcohol in Dylan’s blood was too small to have caused him
to pass out and fall off his boat. In fact it was so minimal, he considered it
negligible. After examining the head wound, he said it appeared to have been
caused by a hard object, swung with enough force, probably from behind, to
either knock Dylan unconscious or kill him. The damage and location suggested
something the size and shape of a baseball bat. Without further examination, Dr.
Newell, the medical examiner from Seattle, couldn’t provide conclusive proof,
and the presence of alcohol in the blood remains a mystery. But he thinks it is
highly likely that Dylan died from blunt force trauma and was thrown overboard
afterwards.”

Hanna couldn’t go on. Being clinical
didn’t ease the anguish of knowing her brother had suffered such a traumatic
injury. More than likely, he’d never had a chance to defend himself because he
was struck from behind. Tears brimmed in her eyes again and trickled down her
face. She tried to wipe them away, but they kept coming.

Nick got up from the table, pulled her
chair out, and took her by her elbow into the living room. He gave his mother a
glance over his shoulder. “Do you think Colleen has some brandy you could put
in Hanna’s coffee?”

“I believe so.” Jessie got up to get
the brandy and more coffee. “I think we could all use some,” she said quietly
on the way into the kitchen.

In the living room, Nick sat next to
Hanna on the sofa and slid an arm around her, then pulled her completely into
his arms when she began to cry harder. Several moments passed before she could
compose herself enough to accept the tissue he handed her.

“It’s going to hurt for a long time.
It’s so damned unfair!”

“You don’t need to tell me anything
else right now, Hanna.”

Nick had her head tucked under his
chin and was gently stroking her back when Jessie returned with a tray of
brandy-laced coffees. He took two from her and gave Hanna one. He didn’t see
his mother closely watching him.

Hanna took a couple of sips of her
drink, then straightened. “You need to know this stuff if you’re going to help me
investigate Dylan’s death.” Another long drink helped. “The medical examiner
from Seattle told me that he’d seen a similar case two years ago. It turned out
to be a homicide made to look like an accidental drowning. Lord, Nick, who
would have done that to Dylan?!”

He shook his head. “Did you tell Lance
all this?”

“He read both the coroner’s report and
the Dr. Newell’s report. He was with me when the sheriff and police chief told
us they didn’t have any evidence of homicide. As far as they were concerned,
Dylan died the way the local coroner said he did. Lance and I were furious with
them both, especially with the sheriff. He was Dylan’s boss. Dylan had been
with the department for years. He had an exemplary record. And why didn’t the
coroner let Dr. Newell do another full autopsy?”

“Probably because he had something to
hide.” Nick shook his head, as disgusted as Hanna. “I don’t know the sheriff.
He was just elected last year, according to Mom, but we went to high school
with Phillip Douglas, the police chief. I played football with him. Do you
remember him? He was one of the guys who liked to tease you all the time.”

“I never liked him.”

“He was an obnoxious jerk most of the
time.”

“Well, he still is. He’s just a more
diplomatic, obnoxious jerk now.” Hanna drank more of her brandy-laced coffee.
“He doesn’t tease me anymore, though. Guess he’s afraid I might have to patch
him up someday in ER.”

Jessie was seated in a chair, across
from Nick and Hanna. “Lance was helping Hanna investigate Dylan’s death,” she
told Nick. “He was getting frustrated with the lack of cooperation from the
sheriff and the police chief. He was thinking about hiring a private
investigator. But first, he wanted to dive around Discovery Junction to see if the
sheriff’s divers had overlooked anything. He may have dived farther out to see
if he could find anything. The sheriff didn’t drag the whole bay.”

“Lance was interested in checking out
those crab pots.” Hanna sighed in frustration. “I don’t know, Nick. We really
need more information, more clues. I’ve gone over and over all the things we
know so far, and I just have no idea who might have killed Dylan. All I know is
that he did not fall off his patrol boat in a drunken stupor and drown. No one
will ever make me believe that of my brother.”